Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed the World

Ignatius was the owner of the secret fur shop. He was the old man Nie Yan had previously entrusted with the information of the demon beast invasion. He held an extremely esteemed position in the Hilton Stronghold. Based on the events of the previous timeline, almost all the NPCs lost their lives during the invasion. However, in this timeline, roughly 10 percent survived. Thanks to the timely reinforcements of the capital, several powerful Generals and Great Generals also got out alive. This was all Nie Yan’s contribution. The leadership of the stronghold would surely want to reward him, or else they would be seen as ungrateful.

Ignatius searching for Nie Yan was likely for the purpose of rewarding him.

The Faulkner Warhorse was on cooldown for a day after being killed. Nie Yan could only head to the Hilton Stronghold on foot. He activated Gale Step and pressed on ahead.

Before long, Nie Yan arrived at the Hilton Stronghold. Bladelight and the others had already set to hunt their first demon beast. Their target was the Crusoe Demon Beast, a Level 90 Lord which resided in the dark caves on the outskirts of the stronghold. It was a giant beetle that came from the Underworld.

One Strike Vow had gone ahead to scout out the exact location of the Crusoe Demon Beast. Only then did Bladelight and the others set out with the expedition team.

Nie Yan had complete faith in the leadership of Bladelight and Smoke Stub. He left them to their own devices and continued on toward the Ignatius Fur Shop.

The gem market slowly turned lively again over the past several days. The players finally realized they had been swindled. That so-called secret gem shop never existed in the first place. A rumour was going around that it was all a scheme by the Century Financial Group. They had started the fake rumours, so that they could gobble up all the gems after their prices plummeted. Then when the prices recovered, they would sell back everything for a profit.

Originally, the Century Financial Group had some evidence to prove their innocence. However, public perception of their guilt solidified after word came out that they did in fact acquire gems en masse. Cao Xu never thought it would play out this way. He had only treated the shift in the market as an easy investment opportunity. He didn’t expect to be actively plotted against and have dirty water dumped on him. Sadly, his enemies were too numerous. Finding out the culprit was impossible. He only had himself to blame for not being covert enough. All he could do was swallow his anger.

The Century Financial Group, Alliance of Mages, Divine Protectors, God Executioner Sword, Penumbra Empire, all of them had the foresight to take advantage of the shift in the market. Some invested more while others invested less. As for who was the main culprit, it was already too late to find out. Those who had sold their gems in a panic were filled with endless regret. Those who had kept onto their gems were inwardly celebrating.

After experiencing the huge dip, the gem market rebounded right back up. The prices rose to more than double their original price.

“God dammit. I should’ve bought gems when the prices were still low. Look at the prices now! Some of the gems are even tens of times higher than before!” a Thief player lamented.

“It’s a pity I didn’t have any gold a few days ago. I would’ve spent all my spare change to buy some myself. Now it’s too late…”

“We need Fire Resistance Gems to run Nightmare Gorge. What do we do?”

“We buy. What else can we do? The prices will only keep getting higher.”

“Shit, it’s all the fault of those bastards from the Century Financial Group!”

The players were dumping all their resentment on the Century Financial Group. It was the largest financial group in the virtual reality industry. Its reputation was already stained. This sort of accusation levelled against them meant nothing to them.

The demand which had been suppressed for so many days suddenly erupted out all at once. All the gems listed up in the market were swept clean as prices started skyrocketing to unreasonable levels. Dungeon teams took the biggest hit. If their resistances were too low and didn’t meet a dungeon’s requirements, they would almost certainly wipe. The easiest way to make up for this deficiency was with potions or gems. The former wasn’t that cost effective since they were single-use consumables. On the other hand, the stat increases from gems were permanent, and the socketed equipment could be sold for gold later on.

「Nie Yan, should we start selling now?」Guo Huai asked. The gem market was quite heated right now.

Nie Yan checked the price of gems. It had already doubled from what it was originally at. Any higher and it would exceed the threshold players could tolerate.「Alright, start selling. Be careful. Make sure no one finds out.」

「No worries. Just leave it to me!」Guo Huai said. The gems they had amassed would soon be converted into gold. Asskickers United had heavily strained their finances for the sake of this undertaking, even resorting to borrowing a large amount of capital from high interest loan companies. Now all these matters could be resolved. After paying off the lenders, the remainder was enough to settle their money problems for at least a year.

「Don’t sell everything off at once. List up 5% every day. After you’ve sold off 70%, save the remaining 30% for our guild members to use,」Nie Yan said. The lesser the amount of gems circulating in the market, the higher they would fetch for.

Guo Huai immediately notified the trusted subordinates he had in every city to begin selling the gems!

They listed up the gems in the auction houses around the Viridian Empire in small batches. Since the supply was so low and the demand was too high, the players immediately started fighting over them.

The liveliness of the gem market exceeded Nie Yan’s wildest expectations. The Century Financial Group, Alliance of Mages, and other powers also started selling their gems. Since Asskickers United was the mastermind behind this whole matter, all the high quality gems were snatched up by them first. The other guilds were left to eat up the remaining scraps. So, no one else would even come close to profiting as much as them.

Guo Huai had the players below him gather information.

Excluding the 30% Asskickers United was keeping for themselves, they would make at least 20,000,000 gold from the remainder. If luck was on their side, even 25,000,000 gold wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities. Of the remaining guilds, Holy Empire, Sapphire Shrine, Radiant Sacred Flame, the War God Tribe, and Battle Crazed Alliance stood to make 3,000,000 gold each. The Century Financial Group and Alliance of Mages would obtain an estimated return of 2,000,000 gold each. Meanwhile, Divine Protectors, God Executioner Sword, and the other guilds were set to make about 1,000,000 gold. As for the remaining dozen or so smaller guilds, they would be lucky to make 100,000–200,000 gold.

Asskickers United was a juicy slab of meat while everyone else was left to slurp on rice gruel. Although powers like the Century Financial Group and Angel Corps would also profit, this couldn’t be helped.

Nevertheless, Asskickers United had definitely come out of this the biggest winner!

40,000,000 gold might seem like a lot, but compared to the whole Viridian and Satreen Empires, it was a drop in the bucket.

Nie Yan wasn’t worried that sucking up so much gold would have any impact on the greater whole.

Guo Huai was monitoring the situation in every city. As soon as the gems were listed up, they would be sold instantly. The gold was flowing into their pockets.

After selling 3% of the gems, Asskickers United had earned roughly 1,600,000 gold. At this rate. after selling a bit more tomorrow, they could pay off the last of the lenders.

「Amazing! Now this is what you call buying low and selling high!」Guo Huai sighed with emotion. The gems they had sold today had been initially acquired for only 200,000 gold. This was a profit of 800%!

「Send me a screenshot of all the gems in the treasury,」Nie Yan said. He wanted to look at their stock.

「Alright.」

Nie Yan opened the image and saw rows upon rows of sparkling gems organized neatly together, spanning across more than 30 pages. It was truly a magnificent and dazzling sight.

「We’ve secured almost all the quality rating 5 and higher Fire Resistance Gems and Poison Resistance Gems, same with the quality 6 and higher Physical Resistance Gems. We also have a monopoly on Attack Boost Gems and 15 other different types of gems. These will definitely go for a good price. As for the rest, they’re a bit lower quality,」Guo Huai explained.

「Just keep slowly selling everything. Don’t rush. Haste makes waste,」Nie Yan said. It wasn’t every day they got a money-making opportunity like this. They definitely had to maximize their profit. After all, the players weren’t fools. Once bitten, twice shy. This sort of move could only be used once.

「The elites in our guild have also made quite a bit, several thousand gold on the lower side and tens of thousands of gold on the higher side. Adding everything up together, they’ve also made a few million gold in total,」Guo Huai said. It appeared the top members from Asskickers United also got a nice taste of the pie.

「Not bad.」Nie Yan faintly smiled. Just Asskickers United getting rich wouldn’t allow the guild to grow truly powerful. At the same time, each member individually should be well-off too. Besides the equipment in the treasury, when these guild members encountered something that caught their eye on the outside, they would have the gold to purchase it. Only when every member was doing well would the guild grow stronger as a whole.

Nie Yan had no intention of letting this gold rot in the treasury. Besides upgrading the Starry Night Potion Shop, he would recruit a large amount of artisans to expand their market share in every industry. He also planned to purchase more land, establish new shops, and expand all their businesses to every city, town, and village.

Nie Yan had a far better understanding of the maps than any other player. He could easily predict which places would flourish and which would wither out and die. Of the Level 80–100+ maps, he knew which were good for levelling, which were good for treasure hunting, which were good for collecting materials… he knew everything.

This was the benefit of foresight. 20,000,000 gold of capital would allow Nie Yan to expand his business by more than fivefold. In the future, he would be able to earn several up to tens of times more gold. Besides this, he could also keep purchasing items that had high appreciation potential. In any case, the gold definitely wouldn’t go to waste in his hands.