Chapter 200: Clever Trade

New Hope Space Station, Port Area, Main Street.

Ran Ge, who had been investigating all day, walked into a roadside restaurant and happened to see Loulan.

“What a coincidence, Big Lou! Come! This one’s on me!”

After ordering, the two sat down and, while waiting for their food, “compared notes” on their mission results.

Ran Ge took out his pad.

“I’ve visited all the willing merchants these past few days. Guess what?”

Loulan: “Found a business opportunity?”

Ran Ge: “You got it! The most in-demand resource is indeed carbon! The Star Alliance has almost no oil or coal left. Over 95% of carbon comes from natural methane ice or liquid methane.

“But as you know, planets that produce this methane are those extremely cold, oxygen-deprived planets, making development costs very high. Currently, carbon fluctuates around 1000 credit points per ton, much more expensive than metal ores.”

Ran Ge still maintained his “Liver Emperor” attribute.

While others needed to frequently change their work content to avoid boredom, he could repeat the same high-intensity task for twelve hours a day, for two consecutive weeks.

As long as he saw the experience bar rapidly rising, no amount of hardship or fatigue mattered!

For online games, this was an extremely valuable talent, unmatched by any character stat allocation.

“Hmm—not bad.”

Loulan had recently crammed a lot of aerospace and astronomy knowledge. He knew that Saturn’s moon, Titan, had methane seas, but the average temperature there was -180 degrees Celsius, making development costs very high.

“Not just not bad, we’re totally awesome now! I asked Li Star, and the large oil field can produce 200,000 tons of carbon per day under extreme conditions. The cost of extracting from a self-flowing well is negligible. So, that’s 200 million worth of goods, every day!”

Now, Ran Ge could finally understand how satisfying it was to be an oil-producing nation.

“You have to transport the goods first; you can’t exclude shipping costs.”

“Of course, I know that. Anyway, it’s a big business! How about your side, any luck with arms?”

“That depends,” Loulan said with a bitter smile.

According to his investigation, New Hope had no shortage of weapon shops, and among them, guns, especially gunpowder firearms, were the easiest to sell.

These light weapons were affordable for everyone, but the profit was correspondingly lower, with an average gross profit of 300 credit points per gun. Selling a million guns would only yield a profit of 300 million.

On the other hand, heavy weapons were extremely profitable, a world apart from light weapons, with profit margins almost comparable to illicit drugs.

Fighter jets sold for 30 million to 100 million, and warships were even more exaggerated. Even a 100-meter-long light frigate, if its performance met the Star Alliance’s second-tier faction standards, would definitely sell for over 1.5 billion.

Although Cang Yuan had only been in space for two months, thanks to its industrial ship and black technology, it was one of the few factions capable of independently building space warships according to first-tier standards.

This was something no one in the Star Alliance currently knew.

“It’s a pity we urgently need warships ourselves, and we don’t know how many we need to build to ensure our own safety, so we can’t finalize a warship arms sales plan for now.”

Ran Ge sighed.

“As long as your reputation is strong enough, you don’t need many,” Loulan said.

“Otherwise, even if we manage to field a considerable fleet, I estimate some people will still arrogantly view us as weak and launch an invasion.”

As they chatted, the dishes were served.

Both took a few bites, and their expressions were equally pained, almost dropping their chopsticks on the spot.

It was so damn unpalatable!

Ran Ge had specifically paid double the price for the “golden age flavor set meal,” but the first bite told him it was pure nonsense.

This waxy texture, it might as well be called a plastic set meal.

The main dish, fried noodles, was definitely not made from wheat flour, and the so-called “eggs” were clearly just artificial protein blocks or insect protein cakes trying to fool people.

As for the meat, it was clearly artificial meat.

Such things appearing brazenly on the dining table were simply an insult to meat dishes!

Before, they thought Lao Yu and the others were just being polite when they praised the delicious food in the industrial ship’s cafeteria. Now it seemed it was truly from the bottom of their hearts.

“Is exporting agricultural products here also a viable idea?”

Ran Ge had this idea for a while.

“Look, all the menus here have ‘eggs,’ but as far as I know, there isn’t a single chicken on the entire space station!”

“Who said it isn’t? It’s said that during the golden age, humans used machines to synthesize food, and the taste could be mimicked very well. But after the apocalypse, civilization regressed, and they were dumbfounded. Quality livestock weren’t preserved, but cockroaches and rats are everywhere, and there are other pests from who knows what unfortunate planet. It’s truly frustrating.”

“So, I estimate that even regular beef and lamb would be considered a luxury here!”

Recalling real food in their minds, the two finally managed to fill their stomachs.

They walked out of the restaurant and took the municipal conveyor belt to the storage area.

Xian Yu spent one-third of his 1.4 million starting capital to rent a warehouse here. The warehouse wasn’t large, with a floor area of only 800 square meters, but it was enough for Cang Yuan to establish a secret stronghold.

After renting it, the players moved the 3D printer from the “tianwen” into it. In two weeks, by purchasing raw materials from the local market, they secretly produced 25 hibernation pods.

In other words, a total of 25 new players were born in this space city, completely unbeknownst to anyone.

They weren’t the type who particularly pursued combat and leveling. Although their professions were the same as before, they were interested in trade and intelligence gathering in the new map from the very beginning, aspiring to become professional merchants and spies.

This autonomous choice, in turn, reminded Lu Yuan.

The Investigator profession indeed objectively had three major branches: Explorer, Merchant, and Agent, which could be reflected in the leveling process after level 20.

Lu Yuan planned to have the “tianwen” make another round trip in a couple of days, transporting another printer to allow new players to “smuggle” in double numbers.

Now, in the player community, some people were already calling Cang Yuan’s New Hope forward operating base the “Sneaky Branch.”

According to their estimates, before the New Hope authorities reacted, this branch hoped to grow to several hundred people, becoming an undeniable and difficult-to-suppress “underground force.”

Loulan and Ran Ge entered the warehouse and handed their latest results to Qun Qing, who was working.

“Good! Thank you for your hard work.”

The career-loving Qun Qing narrowed her eyes, stared at the screen carefully for a while, then nodded.

“We have collected enough data. I believe we can now fully accept New Hope’s 1:1 exchange rate. At this rate, our comprehensive oil cost is still slightly lower than the market average!

“At the same time, the industrial finished products sold by New Hope are 20% to 80% cheaper than what we produce ourselves. They still have some tricks up their sleeves in terms of production efficiency. Cang Yuan temporarily has no cost advantage.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Xian Yu said from the side.

“However, if I understand correctly, you mean we can both dump raw materials to the Star Alliance in large quantities and ‘plunder’ their industrial finished products at low prices?”

The prospect was so good, he could hardly believe it.

What kind of reverse imperialism is this—

He had never heard of such an overbearing and unreasonable trade!

In reality, relatively backward countries had to use hundreds of millions of foreign trade garments to exchange for one civilian airliner!

Alright—since you proposed it first, don’t blame us for being underhanded later. Buy what we need!

Xian Yu personally favored cargo ships and mining ships produced by New Hope’s various shipyards.

They had a strong post-apocalyptic style, with most raw materials recycled from scrapped space vehicles. Their appearance was rugged, and the cockpit configuration was mediocre, even somewhat rudimentary, but precisely because of this, they were particularly cheap and could help Cang Yuan quickly get its asteroid mining operations going.

“At least for the first two or three days, it will be like this; the exchange rate will be very favorable to us.”

Qun Qing shrugged with a smile.

“Afterward, we need to find a way to prevent the cangyuan coin from depreciating too much; also, the amount of Star Alliance credit points we can exchange depends on the trade volume. If we want to enjoy shopping, we need to first cooperate with larger space merchant fleets to have them transport crude oil.”

“I don’t think this will be a big problem,” Ran Ge said.

“I’ve approached a few merchant fleets, and after showing them our video, they all expressed willingness to do this business. They’re very enthusiastic!”

“The problem is, they don’t know we’re on bad terms with Apollo,” Xian Yu reminded him. “It’s hard to say if they’ll still dare to take the route to Li Star after knowing that.”

“You’re right! Sigh, we need to quickly curb Apollo’s arrogance. Omar’s previous claim of being a first-tier faction doesn’t seem to be bragging; their recruitment ads are everywhere on this space station.”

Just then, the warehouse door opened, and a new player rushed in, looking distressed.

“Families, it’s bad! Something big is about to happen!”

“What is it?”

“The punitive fleet heading to Li Star is likely much larger than we estimated!”