Douluo Continent, Huo Yuhao who returned from Sekiro

Chapter 491 Speculators and Hoarding (Daily 10,000 words)

Reopening the Tang Sect in Shrek City has both advantages and disadvantages. At least for newbies like Beibei, it can help them avoid a lot of trouble, both overt and covert.

When Huo Yuhao was nine years old, he was already incredibly popular with his cute but unreasonable face and sweet talk, and his barbecue restaurant, which was generating amazing profits, was running smoothly. How much more so would Bei Bei, the grandson and great-grandson of the Crown Prince of Shrek City?

To reiterate, when it comes to doing business in Shrek City, Shrek Academy is the biggest hub. Other local bigwigs are nothing more than small fry. But precisely because of this, the once-thriving Tang Clan has ended up like this, which is incredibly frustrating.

Despite his gentle demeanor, Beibei still possesses an innate pride that makes ordinary people unappealing.

Add to that Tang Ya, who requires others to kowtow to her upon entering the sect.

Well, giving away one of the land deeds himself can be considered settling the debt he owed Bei Bei and Tang Ya when they first entered the sect. As for what the Tang Sect will become in the future, Huo Yuhao has no interest in paying attention to it.

Huo Yuhao is now more focused on how the Soul Palace, which he has firmly in control, should develop. This is the force that can truly become his right-hand man and stand with him against any formidable opponent.

Even Shrek Academy might not be able to accompany Huo Yuhao to go crazy and unconditionally wage war against the gods, but the Soul Palace can.

As for the Tang Sect, if it develops well, it can be one of the partners for some simple cooperation. After all, it is also a connection for Huo Yuhao, so why not make use of it?

If things don't develop well, Huo Yuhao has nothing to say; he has already done everything he could.

Uniting all forces that can be united does not mean absorbing all forces to one's own side. Mercenaries have their uses. Even Huo Yuhao was once used as a "foot-wiping cloth." A force has more than one way of being used.

This incident involving the Tang Sect also served as a reminder to Huo Yuhao that the Soul Palace must never make the same mistake as the Tang Sect and repeat the same error.

Although Huo Yuhao had Qian Daoliu, the last king of the Spirit Hall who excelled in diplomacy, domestic affairs, strength, vision, and theory, guiding him, the fall Tang Sect suffered still held great instructive significance for Huo Yuhao.

Huo Yuhao now has a group of liches who make soul tools as a pastime, so there are almost no labor costs involved. It wouldn't be difficult for him to do some soul tool manufacturing and selling business. If he wanted to lower the price, he could even drive several nearby soul tool shops out of business.

Even so, the profits from this were still not enough for Huo Yuhao. Huo Yuhao had genuine experience in highly profitable industries. He sold kebabs in Shrek City for three years, which allowed him to accumulate wealth that ordinary Soul Saints or even Soul Douluos might not be able to accumulate in their entire lives.

It was precisely because of his involvement in this highly profitable business that Huo Yuhao knew very well that if he wanted to restore the Soul Hall to its former scale as the Spirit Hall, focusing on small businesses like soul tool manufacturing was completely insufficient.

Unless Huo Yuhao has a lich army of hundreds of thousands or even millions, who can endlessly produce cheap soul tools on an assembly line 24/7, the profits earned from his small workshop will be far from enough.

The annual profit of hundreds of thousands or even millions of gold soul coins is not small, but it is not enough compared to the share of his spice business.

How terrifying are the business channels of the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile School, and how fast is their execution speed?

Just six months ago, delicacies made with various spices appeared in Mingdu. Next month is the agreed time for the profit sharing between Huo Yuhao and the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile School. According to the estimate in Ning Ge's letter, Huo Yuhao's profit sharing from the spice business this year is likely to exceed 60 million!

Huo Yuhao only takes 30% of the profits from the spice business; the remaining 20% ​​goes to Shrek Academy. As for the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile School, which takes the lion's share, the profits it extracts from the spice market in just one year exceed 100 million gold soul coins.

And this is only the first year that the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile School has been expanding its channels. In the next few years, the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile School will be able to reap even more profits through this business.

Since the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile School only sells spice packets, even if other forces want to take advantage of the situation and figure out what the various spices are, and cultivate spices systematically and on a large scale, it will probably take several years.

By that time, the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile School had probably already established its own moat around the spice market. Even if profits declined, the spice market would still likely still have a market size of hundreds of millions.

Huo Yuhao truly made money effortlessly, which is why he looked down on such petty gains.

Now, Huo Yuhao has set his sights on a new, highly profitable business, one that only he can do: becoming a middleman.

Many rare metals sold within the Sun and Moon Empire are strictly prohibited from being exported, so the price of rare metals within the Sun and Moon Empire is completely different from that of the same rare metal within the Three Kingdoms.

Such a huge market naturally attracted attention, and many smugglers emerged to buy rare metals from the Sun and Moon Empire and then cross the border into the Three Kingdoms to sell them for profit.

However, given the still significant price difference in rare metals between the two sides today, it indicates that being a speculator is extremely risky.

Crossing the imperial border is extremely difficult; a slight misstep could lead to being caught by soldiers. There are also many gold diggers who watch these traders from behind the border between the three kingdoms, ready to rob them. Once they manage to rob someone, they can become rich without any risk.

This is why powerful Soul Masters look down on this business, fearing that if things go wrong, they'll be ruined for life. While weaker Soul Masters may be tempted by the business, the various dangers make it difficult for them to succeed as middlemen.

The existence of speculators has reduced the prices of rare metals among the four countries to some extent, but a huge gap still exists.

Of course, the kind of reseller Huo Yuhao wants to be is different from those small-time resellers who are actually jokingly called "mule" (a derogatory term for someone who makes money through illegal means). If Huo Yuhao wants to make money, he wants to make big profits, to do business that is extremely profitable, or even profitable without any investment.

The so-called highly profitable business naturally involves using the fact that the undead demiplane can lock the location of the contracting party and open the gates of the dead to resell rare metals. A single resale can involve at least several tons, tens of tons, or even hundreds of tons of rare metals.

If you dump it into Shrek Academy or the Three Empires and resell it, you can make hundreds of millions in profit. The risk is minimal and the profit is enormous. You can also hoard it to avoid causing a price collapse in rare metals and make a steady stream of profits.

Yes, hoarding land and holding back sales—this is something Huo Yuhao learned from Ning Ge, or rather, from the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile School. The land in Shrek City was driven up by these bastards.

(End of this chapter)