Tang Jie’s words silenced Yuan Tianzhong.
Although Tang Jie had evaluated the Flame Yang Formation as being simple and crude, it was still a formation that covered the entire mountain and affected the entire domain, essentially requiring all the resources of the domain.
To resist the Nether Domain invasion, the major sects had emptied their pockets to set up this formation. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been able to hold out against the ghost fog for so long.
And setting up a formation that could send the ghost fog into the void would cost just as much as, if not more than, the Flame Yang Formation, which was basically impossible in their current situation.
“A large formation isn’t possible, but a small one is doable,” someone said.
“That would probably be a cup of water on a burning cart, of little use.”
“Even if it did work, it wouldn’t pan out. If we rely on small formations to guide the fog, we would have to distribute them all over the place. Those ghost generals aren’t dumb, and some of them will take notice and work to destroy those formations.”
“Precisely. Unless we’re building on the same scale as the Flame Yang Formation, we’re just wasting resources.”
“Is there really no way?”
As they argued, some people shook their heads and sighed. There were even those who blamed Elder Yi. If he hadn’t laid down the Flame Yang Formation, there still might be enough resources to lay down a flow-altering formation to guide away the ghost fog. As for the efforts Elder Yi had expended and the important role the Flame Yang Formation had played in this time, they ignored it. Fortunately, these people were few in number, but their mere existence was very annoying.
In the end, Yuan Tianzhong coughed a few times to quiet the crowd before saying, “Since that’s the case, what does Young Master Tang recommend?”
After some thought, Tang Jie answered, “It’s not like there’s no solution. We can take it step by step. First of all, I will strengthen the Flame Yang Formation. 30% is better than nothing, and it will buy us more time. Secondly, we will lay down a teleportation formation to the Rosecloud Domain. Although the Flame Yang Domain doesn’t have the resources to lay down a flow-altering formation, the Rosecloud Domain does. Even if it can only contribute a part of it, it will be of immense help to the Flame Yang Domain.”
Everyone was delighted.
This was a solution. Unlike the Flame Yang Formation or a flow-altering formation, which needed to cover the entire domain and thus required quantity, a teleportation formation required quality, primarily extremely rare resources. The type of resource required by the types were different, so while they didn’t have the resources for a flow-altering formation, they did have resources for a teleportation formation. Moreover, if it was only transporting resources, the requirements on the formation were lower, with only the lowest level of teleportation formation being needed.
“Of course, these resources have to be returned, and it will probably be with interest, or else I won’t be able to explain myself before my seniors,” Tang Jie said with a smile.
He was currently a Spirit Ring True Person, so such words made complete sense, so they all said in unison, “It’s fine. Interest is necessary.”
If they had known that he had an Immortal Platform avatar, they would have cursed him for being shameless. Who would demand an explanation from someone with that sort of status?
But it was also the case that returning what was borrowed was much easier on the mind. If the other side was too generous, they would suspect some sort of conspiracy.
In their current situation, the teleportation formation was necessary, and Tang Jie had promised that the level of the teleportation formation would not be too high, which was a sign of sincerity, limiting the potential for aggression from the Rosecloud Domain. Thus, everyone relaxed and began to discuss the prices of the resources and the interest rate.
Tang Jie truly had no plans on invading the Flame Yang Domain. After all, Rosecloud had yet to completely merge with Blood River, so there was hardly time for it. In addition, this place was simply too far from the Rosecloud Domain. Relying on a single teleportation formation to invade was too unrealistic. Simply moving the domain over would take numerous years. As for assembling a force of high-level cultivators and invading, they wouldn’t be able to effectively use the resources, which made the war meaningless.
But no military invasion didn’t mean no invasion at all.
The experience from his past life gave Tang Jie a much more open mind, so he knew of other ways to invade. Economic exploitation was one of these ways—using war to make the Flame Yang Domain run up a high debt with high interest, forcing it to repay the debt by selling its resources at a cheap price. This was one of the common means of modern warfare.
But in the Great Stellar Chiliocosm, it was extremely rare, perhaps nonexistent.
Those elders and sect masters, even with their cumulative eons of experience and understanding of the Daos, would never be able to understand something they had never even seen before. It wasn’t because they weren’t smart enough. They simply lacked experience.
The greatest intelligence meant nothing without that experience.
This was why none of the bigshots of the Flame Yang Domain saw through Tang Jie’s ploy. The pressure from the Nether Domain invasion and their lack of understanding of the Rosecloud Domain meant that they didn’t even feel confident when negotiating with Tang Jie.
Tang Jie could basically demand whatever price he wanted.
For an Ethereal Spirit Grass that would sell in the Rosecloud Domain for fifteen spirit coins, he wanted a spirit jade. A ton of Violet Sand would normally cost three hundred coins, but Tang Jie sold by the gram, thirty spirit coins per gram. The Flame Yang Domain didn’t have such resources, so Tang Jie sold them at a hundred times their going price. As for resources that the Flame Yang Domain did have, Tang Jie sold them at fifteen to twenty times the ordinary price, because of the resource shortage. He also claimed that some resources weren’t naturally produced in the Rosecloud Domain to raise prices, since the Flame Yang Domain had no way of verifying the truth and could only take him at his word. Even if they did sense that Tang Jie was raising the price, what could they do? It wasn’t like they could ask him to work for free.
With their entire world at risk, they really didn’t have the privilege to quibble over these details.
Besides the price, Tang Jie also controlled the quantity.
He had already proved his formation prowess, so he was naturally the one who would lay down the flow-altering formation, and he naturally possessed the right to request resources. Since it was a formation that would cover the entire domain, it was a matter of course that they wanted as many resources as they could get. Those spirit plants that were normally sold by the stalk or gram were all being purchased by the ton. Whether or not they could use it all, it was best to make the purchase order first—Tang Jie had introduced the term “purchase order” to them.
Besides that, the cultivators who would come to assist in combat also needed to be paid. Celestial Heart had one price, Violet Palace another, and likewise for all the other realms and tiers. Tang Jie didn’t ask for too high of a price on this, but he required that the price had to be paid upfront rather than repaid over time. This was because there was a general value assigned to a person of a certain level, so there was little room to ask for any higher. Asking for too much might simply give the impression that he was a black-hearted merchant… though he was already giving this impression. Secondly, he had to make some concessions. Since he was asking for such a high price on resources, he had to give them a deal on manpower… In any case, he wasn’t the one being paid for the labor.
Interestingly, from the perspective of the Flame Yang Domain, they hoped to pay for labor. This was because once things were stabilized, if the Rosecloud Domain was sending too many cultivators, they could refuse with the excuse that they didn’t have the money to pay for it—they were still worried about a potential invasion from the Rosecloud Domain.
All this added up to an astronomical price.
Of course, to avoid everyone getting too much sticker shock, Tang Jie chose to sell in phases, and they could reassess their needs once they were halfway done. In any case, they couldn’t just give up on the formation after it was partially finished. This was also one of the stratagems of the modern era, unheard of in the Great Stellar Chiliocosm.
Still, the price to pay for the first phase alarmed the bigshots of the Flame Yang Domain. The flow-altering formation was already costly enough to bankrupt the entire domain, and Tang Jie had multiplied that price by several dozen times. Just the first phase alone dizzied everyone.
No money? It was fine. They could take a loan, with interest.
Three percent per month.
When it came to high-interest loans, three percent per month wasn’t too high, with modern era high-interest loans charging ten percent, which was paying back ten percent of the loan each month. And the Great Stellar Chiliocosm had “send nine and receive thirteen”, which was essentially thirteen percent monthly interest.
Thus, three percent a month really wasn’t high.
But when the loan was large, things were different.
One person could multiply their wealth by a hundred times or a thousand times in a year, but a country growing ten percent in a year was a miracle.
Three percent monthly interest for the massive loan the Flame Yang Domain was taking made for a terrifying amount of interest.
It was a debt that could topple the world!
Alas, few of the leaders of the Flame Yang Domain were good at mathematics, and even if they could calculate how much they had to pay each month, they wouldn’t understand what it meant. This was because they first had to understand how much their domain could repay and the effects taking this loan would have on it.
Such Titans were always clueless when it came to internal economics. The cultivators who specialized in internal affairs within their sects might understand a little, but alas, they didn’t possess high enough cultivation levels to participate in this sort of conference.
Tang Jie had made the value of the goods high and made the price of manpower and the interest rate extremely low, making the cultivators feel like the Rosecloud Domain was trying to make some profit from their excess resources. Although the prices were all higher than usual, since the interest wasn’t too bad, they still had a chance to repay it, which made them feel much better.
They came into these talks ready to be butchered, and since they lacked knowledge of economics, they had been thoroughly butchered indeed.
Thus, after Tang Jie made a few concessions in the negotiations, everything went smoothly.
Of course, after the negotiations, there was still one other task to be done: laying down the teleportation formation.
This wasn’t too difficult, for the four major sects represented the ultimate power of the Flame Yang Domain, and at times like this, they could get whatever they asked for. If they had it in their own reserves, they would hand it over, and if they didn’t, if they could find it, they would dispatch people to retrieve it. Even treacherous areas were no problem, for the Violet Palace Titans would go personally to gather resources for Tang Jie.
Yuan Tianzhong even personally entered the areas controlled by the Nether Domain three times to gather rare resources for Tang Jie. On the third time, he was even surrounded by eighteen elite high-tier Ghost Kings and killed his way out of a sea of ghosts.
Thus, on the eighteenth day after Tang Jie’s arrival at the Great Sun Sect, all the materials for the teleportation formation had been gathered.