Upon hearing my words, his face turns unsightly.

I continue, ignoring his expression, “I’m no merchant, but I’ve done some research into the market. It seems that most of the famed merchant families have stopped expanding once they reach a certain extent?”

The Beelze family head leans forward at this, frowning at the brows.

“I wouldn’t know, but what if there was some agreement between the families to not allow for a market leader? What if someone wanted to break that agreement without having to suffer the repercussions and retaliation from the other families?”

He holds the armrests on his side, almost as if he wanted to pounce on me.

“That person would have to instantly obtain a large amount of shops, instantly setting himself as the market leader, wouldn’t he? After that, simply setting the price of certain goods higher and certain goods lower could influence the market greatly and gain him great profits… ignoring the repercussions easily.”

“Wouldn’t that be an interesting thought?”, I lift up my chin in confidence, with a smug smile.

He stares angrily at me, seemingly wanting to swallow me whole.

I remain smiling, fishing out a jade pendant with the ‘Qiu’ family name on it. I lift it up slightly so he notices it. It’s an ordinary jade pendant, but my meaning is clear here: “You can offend whoever you want, but can you afford to offend the Qiu Duke House?”

Upon seeing this, his eyeballs enlarge more, almost as if wanting to take action.

He clenches hard on his armrest.

However, he ends up relaxing all his muscles after this, slumping back at his chair in defeat.

Letting out a sigh, he starts, “You… win, young lord. 100,000 gold it is…”

“BUT, no news of this must get out about what you just said for this deal to happen. This is my bottomline.”, he states firmly.

“Of course. I swear by my family name.”, I agree quickly.

“Alright, let’s do the transfer now then. I expect you’ve brought the title deeds for the shops along?”

I nod.

“Let’s make it simple, the title deeds for the gold. Withdraw your servants immediately tonight after the deal, I want the account books as well.”

“No problem. That’s a deal.”

We exchange goods, and finalise the specifics.

An hour later, I walk out of the luxurious mansion with a heavy bag of gold.

Walking by the luxurious pavillion, I think to myself, “I guess now I can build one too. I’m not going to though, Ha ha.”

It feels better when you can afford something and choose not to buy it versus not being able to afford it. People always want what they can’t have.

With this amount, I still have 95,000 gold after I pay Ming Que. It's a large amount of money, but it's all going into raising my forces in this Kingdom. It'll just be a drop in a bucket.

While my recruitment failed, it made me realise that having just a private force isn’t enough. You are still liable to get betrayed, no matter how many people you recruit. You won't be allowed to possess enough strength to rival the Kingdom's forces, you can get crushed as easily as you rose with a single imperial edict.

Since that’s the case, I might as well settle for quantity over quality. I don’t need to have men pledging their allegiance to me. Their pledges means nothing in the face of true danger. I just need a force that is motivated by the benefits of belonging to an organisation.

Different people have differing goals.

They inevitably pursue different things in life.

There’s no need to tie people together forcefully.

However, if these solitary people seek to have their own sense of security... to have protection while remaining different... then...

I will provide them exactly that.

All I desire is to be one of those solitary people.

I will not build a private army.

I will build a new force that can contend with the Kingdom itself.

An threatening but untouchable existance.

This shall be my foundation in this foreign world.