As soon as the Human Emperor Banner came out, I became the Lord of the Old Ones

Chapter 139: Cheap is the Hard Truth

Of course, the market for reputable brand-name sealed cards is different from the "shady street" in Rolling Stones. While the prices are high, the quality and after-sales service are absolutely guaranteed.

For the past half-century, the Heroic Spirit Alliance has been in a period of rapid expansion and development. Spirit Masters are willing to risk their lives and take out loans to buy five or six high-end brand cards that store powerful remnant souls, as they have a real chance to get rich and soar to great heights.

In border regions like Dawn City, Dawn Heavy Industries continues to discover new mineral veins.

The mining and smelting of each vein of ore means the rise of a brand-new satellite town and the creation of countless high-paying jobs.

Those who are audacious have every opportunity to become powerful figures like "Big Boss" John Carter.

Even if you're unwilling to take risks and just want to live a stable and peaceful life, you still have the opportunity to become a senior engineer at Liming Heavy Industry. Not only can you receive a high salary, but you can also enjoy stock dividends and retirement allowances. You can pay off your credit card debt in three to five years and achieve financial freedom.

The alliance's booming success has filled everyone's pockets, giving them hope of making big money.

This is the mainstream concept in the spirit summoning community: the "single card system," where one person, one card, one soul, one life, and one spirit summoner and one guardian spirit sign an exclusive contract of life and death, forging an unbreakable bond.

The biggest reason for the gradual development of the "multi-card style" is that it has become more commercialized, ignoring the bond between the spirit master and the guardian spirit, and focusing only on terms and conditions without considering emotions.

However, now that the alliance has been established for a full century, the driving force behind its development has been gradually exhausted.

The economy has passed through a period of rapid growth and entered a period of stability or even decline.

It will be difficult for any industry to offer as many high-paying jobs as it did in the past.

All sorts of stories of "a loser turning their life around" and "a poor person's rise to success" have become distant legends.

More and more people are falling into layers of exploitative credit card loans, becoming credit card slaves who cannot save themselves.

Even if one manages to become a high-level Spirit Master by relying on powerful cards, it is still difficult to sell one's abilities for the desired value.

This is especially true for border mining towns like Dawn City, which rely on a single source of income.

The repeated failures of Liming Heavy Industry's transformation have burdened this pillar enterprise with a heavy load, forcing it to choose large-scale salary reductions and even layoffs, casting a pall of gloom over the entire city.

The senior employees who originally received generous salaries from Liming Heavy Industry were mostly loyal members of the three major spiritual card clubs. They looked down on the sealing cards produced by small and medium-sized companies and insisted on buying brand-name cards from the four major card manufacturing companies in order to show their status and defeat many competitors on the fierce track of promotion, salary increase and reaching the pinnacle of life.

But now, for these employees who are over thirty-five or even forty years old, it's good enough if they can keep their jobs. It's common for their salaries to be reduced by half or even two-thirds.

So what if you have a lot of experience in controlling spirits? So what if you can activate four or five powerful guardian spirits at the same time? The entire mine has been completely mined out. What's the point of having that experience and combat power?
Of course, if one is willing to give up everything that one has worked hard for half a lifetime and run to the depths of the wilderness to join a gang or even the Black Dream organization, one might be able to earn more money than one has now.

But how many law-abiding citizens are willing to make this choice?

Faced with a severe market situation, most people choose to tighten their belts, downgrade their consumption, and live a hard life.

No matter how much you try to save on food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, you can't save a pittance.

Only by downgrading the sealed cards from the brand-name cards produced by the four major companies to ordinary cards produced by small and medium-sized companies can a clear path be taken.

The four card-making companies of the Heroic Spirit Alliance each own several Echoing Lands with a 100% exploration rate and produce tens of thousands of patents every year. They are all veritable super-enterprises, controlling the lifeline of the entire alliance.

Regardless of the magic cards introduced by "Ether Energy".

It's still the combat card released by "Zhendan Life".

Or it could be the Beast Taming Card launched by "Titan Gene".

And the smart card launched by DeepBlue Technology.

They are all irreplaceable gems on their respective tracks.

Cards from small and medium-sized companies of the same type not only have difficulty reaching 70% of the functionality of brand-name cards, but also have other problems such as slow response speed, guardian spirits being prone to going out of control, causing greater impact on the life magnetic field of the spirit master, making the spirit master mentally unstable, and increasing the risk of suffering from spirit erosion disease, etc.

Also storing fire-type remnants like the "Flame Chariot," the brand-name card can be used in most extreme conditions. Whether it's a desert at 50 or 60 degrees Celsius or an icy wasteland at minus 30 or 50 degrees Celsius, even if the spiritual energy reaches its limit, the card's temperature remains constant and forms a protective layer around the spirit master, so there's no need to worry about being burned when using core skills.

Ordinary cards have the potential for spiritual energy to overflow, and before they can even reach their target, the flames may backfire on the Spirit Master.

Special remnants of the past, such as the "Corrupted Wild Dog," can only be perfectly sealed by a brand-name card.

If you switch to a regular card, or even if it's not activated, a faint stench of decay will emanate from the depths of the rune array. How can you use it on important occasions like that?
Therefore, during periods of rapid economic growth, even though the prices of the "Big Four" branded cards were two to three times higher than ordinary cards, they still firmly occupied the mainstream market and never worried about sales. They could easily acquire cards with a few tricks like "co-branded cards" or "limited edition cards," often commanding a premium of three to five times. Things are different now.

Spirit Masters with limited funds can only afford ordinary cards produced by small and medium-sized companies.

To solve the various problems caused by the unstable quality of ordinary cards, we have no choice but to work on ourselves.

They cultivate themselves to be as strong as steel, using their robust physique to withstand the various hidden dangers of ordinary cards.

This is the most cost-effective solution.

Xu Yan hadn't done any detailed market research, but chatting with the old members of the Kuang Tie Club these days, he found that there were very few die-hard believers of the Absolute God Path who were as disdainful of the Sealing Cards as Xiong Tieshan.

Even the most frequent members, such as Wang Dali who just unleashed a punch with nearly a thousand kilograms of force, do not shy away from using the sealing card in their daily lives, work, and battles.

This is especially true for new members who have only started training at the Kuangtie Club in the last year or two.

They used to be loyal supporters of brand-name credit cards, refusing to buy or use cards that weren't from the "Big Four" (Big Four accounting firms).

Forced to downgrade my spending, I find it inconvenient to use regular credit cards no matter how I use them.

I went to consult with the coaches and sales staff of the three major card clubs. They were also under pressure to meet their sales targets, so they exaggerated the shortcomings of ordinary cards and didn't try to solve their problems. They just kept pushing expensive brand-name cards.

They came to the Kuangtie Club out of desperation, with only one goal: to build up their physique so they could withstand the "torture" of regular cards.

If I could learn even one or two moves so that I could solve small problems with my fists, that would be even better—at least fists don't cost money!

While the poaching of players and the uproar over negative news surrounding Kuangtie Club certainly had a significant impact, they failed to shake the club's fundamental structure.

Ultimately, the biggest advantage of cardless data transfer is that it can save the cost of using sealed cards to the greatest extent possible, and in extreme cases, it can even reduce the cost to "zero".

Even if Shattered Star Club goes to great lengths to try and stop Crazy Iron Club's rise.

However, as long as the Shattered Star Club cannot reverse Dawn City's economic crisis and solve the problem of depleted mineral veins.

Ordinary citizens whose income has dropped significantly will always have a need to downgrade their consumption.

Demand is the mother of the market, and from this perspective, Kuangtie Club has long been invincible.

Xu Yan's words made Xiong Ruyue forget to chew the meat pie in her mouth, and she puffed out her cheeks and thought for a full minute.

"You mean-"

She mumbled, "The reason why the number of members in the Kuangtie Club has increased so much in the past two years is not because I changed the business strategy, but simply because the economy is bad and everyone is broke?"

"Yes."

Xu Yan nodded, "I've talked to many members and found that their demand for various additional services and high-end facilities isn't that high, at least not high enough to warrant paying for these things."

"The vast majority of members' requirements are actually very simple: affordable prices, more basic training, and a more solid grasp of the 'Wheel of Life Guiding Technique' and the 'Mind Palace Meditation Method,' as well as less pushy services and products. Many people canceled their memberships in the three major clubs because the sales pitches there were too aggressive, and the instructors would give members a hard time if they didn't buy the expensive cards there."

"It's much simpler here. Apart from some nutritional supplements and enhancement potions, you can't buy any high-priced cards, right?"

Xiong Ruyue grinned, her smile looking more like a grimace.

"So, I don't have any real skills at all, I'm just a pig that happened to be standing in the right place at the right time and was blown away by the wind?"

"Isn't this a good thing? At least the economic downturn and the trend of consumption downgrading in Dawn City show no signs of abating, and are even getting stronger!"

Xu Yan said, "I even think that it might not be a bad thing for those senior coaches and star players like Chu Zhifeng to be poached by the Shattered Star Club."

"It's true that the senior coaches and ace players are very capable, but their salaries and the expenses of the Kuangtie team are very high. Ultimately, these costs will be borne by the members."

"In reality, the vast majority of members do not intend to become masters of the no-card flow, and do not need senior coaches to teach them. It is enough for ordinary coaches to help them improve their physical fitness."

"So, apart from those 'premium members' who were obviously pre-arranged by the other party yesterday, I don't think there will be a large-scale wave of membership refunds. As for the club's grassroots staff, it's impossible for them all to be poached by Shattered Star Club. Maintaining the most basic operations shouldn't be a big problem."

(End of this chapter)