They had hired a prospector to examine the territory surrounding each of their new villages. It was a profession he’d never studied back at the Holy Flame Sect and it had served them well so far. The problem was that as soon as the Cloudmetal Charcoal was found, the prospector immediately severed all ties with them, reporting the news to his superiors and then immediately going on the run. If he just disappeared without a trace then the organization he worked for, The Gold Ether Group, would think he found something valuable and chase after him. Instead, by informing them what he found he passed the blame. Then the prospector immediately ran. Sage’s men didn’t stop him, he was just a hired hand and not part of their organization.

The prospector was fearful of the same things that Sage was now fearful of. The Cloudmetal Consortium was a large and powerful group in the Dou Kingdom. All Cloudmetal Charcoal was under their control. It was only a matter of time before they would come to visit. The Gold Ether Group would most likely pass the information along to them. If someone tried to break their monopoly on Cloudmetal Charcoal, the Consortium would do everything short of openly declaring war. There was already a half-dozen instances of it making crazy actions with ridiculous reasons, wiping out whole clans or massacring villages to maintain their monopoly. They used the wealth of that monopoly to reach their powerful position.

Cloudmetal is a 4 star material, and far more common than most other high ranking materials. The problem is that Cloudmetal Charcoal is a requirement for smelting Cloudmetal. Most Cloudmetal Charcoal mines are huge and if used exclusively for Cloudmetal could easily supply enough for two or three Cloudmetal mines. Since there’s just as many Cloudmetal Charcoal mines as there are Cloudmetal mines, the charcoal should be worth far less. The Consortium instead created an artificial supply shortage and raised the prices to a higher level. As long as they can maintain control of every Cloudmetal Charcoal source, they can remain rich and powerful. Since Cloudmetal is only a 4 star material, it is not quite at the level where the Kingdom’s government will step in to take control. They personally control every mine or farm of 6 star materials, and the groups that control the provinces control the 5 star materials, giving a yearly tribute to the Kingdom.

Sage called for King and the two of them took off towards the new village. By the time they had entered the 10,000 Wave Province only a few hours had passed. Even so, as they descended to the location of the new village there was already a small army surrounding it. Each of the troops were wearing a sky blue uniform, and there was a badge on their chests depicting a cloud with a sword stabbed through it. The Cloudmetal Consortium.

They sure work fast!

King maintained his beast body, since they’d seen him on approach, he could only act as a contracted beast. A treasure that could carry people was far too rare, so it would be too eye-catching to send King into the Universe Ring as a Hawk and then bring out a human. Instead King landed behind him and stared down at the many soldiers with his huge body and piercing gaze. Sage walked over towards what seemed to be the man in charge. He was currently in a face off with Whitestaff. There was a large crater in the ground next to her where the tip of her staff was resting. The commander of the Cloudmetal Consortium troops was staring at her with his hand on his saber hilt.

Sage walked over and cleared his throat, “Forgive me for not welcoming our guests from the Cloudmetal Consortium. It seems we’ve been lacking in our duty as hosts.”

It wasn’t as if Sage couldn’t guess what sorts of overbearing or terrible things that commander was saying or threatening Whitestaff with, but it was better to try and defuse the situation for a moment. They probably sent the soldiers here to try and take the mine by force before Sage’s side was entrenched enough to protect it. Now that Sage had arrived with a Hawk in the 5th rank it was a big backer for their side. The commander wasn’t a fool and while he was confident in beating Whitestaff, Sage seemed almost as strong as her, and that wasn’t even mentioning the Hawk that was a full rank higher. The man stepped back and took his hand away from his saber, “Ling Sheng, leader of the Jade Horde. You’re just as young and talented as the rumors say. You should train your subordinates better.”

Sage ignored the goading, if he struck back the man would use it as an excuse to escalate things. Not that the Cloudmetal Consortium was against such things, they had used many flimsy excuses in the past to seize Cloudmetal Charcoal mines. Property rights in this world were extremely loose. You could only own whatever territory you could protect and secure. The only people selling property were City Masters. With big walls and arrays to protect a city along with guards patrolling through it, they were the only ones qualified to control the territory and sell it to others. Outside of the cities, whatever you could hold onto and protect would be yours. That said, if you had any valuable land, if you didn’t offer some of the profits to a local leader, said leader might come and take it from you.

With a bit more flattery, and after ignoring a dozen more insults, Sage got the commander to back off. Almost immediately, he then threw out a dozen Formation Plates and set up a temporary layer of protection. While that lasted he carefully examined the extent of the mine and the local terrain features. He pulled out a Memory Sphere and checked all his array cheat sheets and began building a protection formation. He ordered some of the Hoplites to fetch huge rocks and boulders, quickly carving them into huge stone panels and engraving array symbols onto them with the Anima Print technique. He used spirit power to shape and control a portion of Qi into a perfect array symbol floating in mid-air. Then the Anima Print technique smashed it into the stone like a giant stamp.

The commander from the Cloudmetal Consortium was not pleased by this turn of events, but there was nothing much he could do about it. With the Hawk and the Formation Plates, even if he were to send his troops to their deaths they still weren’t assured of being victorious. An hour later, the first real Array Formation was complete and the Formation Plates melted into a pile of scrap metal. The Hoplites stayed on guard while Sage had the human cultivators assist him in constructing fortifications around the mine. They cut stone into cubes while Sage printed array symbols on them, refining them into very crude magical items. Stacking them up they slowly built a wall around the area.

Before they could get the wall more for a few feet high, another group from the Cloudmetal Consortium arrived. It was a second troop of soldiers just as large as the first as well as six others wearing the clothing of merchants. A very handsome man and woman led the group of six and they were all smiles as they approached the mine. Sage wiped a bit of sweat off his forehead and walked over with an equally large and flattering smile.

“Greetings, illustrious ones from the Cloudmetal Consortium. Might this humble one know the names of such impressive people like yourselves?”

Then he waved his hand, bringing forth chairs, a table, and a tea set.

The man and woman exchanged a look and then smiled back, the male bowed his head and started introductions, “My name is Li Song, and this is Li Zhen. We heard a new Cloudmetal Charcoal mine was discovered. You should know that this is the business of our Cloudmetal Consortium, we are the foremost experts in the mining, extraction, and refining of Cloudmetal Charcoal. You see, it’s a very difficult process so instead of suffering through trying to learn it and wasting many resources and man hours, you should sell it to us. We will definitely pay you an excellent price and save you from all that trouble.”

Right to the point, huh? Are they worried I’ll have time to do more research or call for more help?

Sage waved over one of the Hoplite villagers to serve tea to his ‘guests’, and slowly sat down. He had a big smile on his face, “Truly? You would save us the trouble? How nice of you! I’ve been working so hard to secure the mine. You can compensate me for the extra work, right? The Cloudmetal Consortium is very wealthy, surely they can afford the expenditure.”

Li Song nodded his head, “Of course, we are happy to pay extra for the great work you’ve done.”

The man pulled out a scroll and quickly changed a few places, then laid it out on the table in front of Sage. He pointed at the spots he changed, “Here you go, I added that clause to the contract we already prepared. What do you think? It’s an amazing amount of wealth.”

Sage scanned the document and nodded his head, “It truly is! A million Spirit Stones… such an astounding fortune!”

Inwardly, Sage was cursing the shameless nature of the Cloudmetal Consortium. According to what he’d seen, the Cloudmetal Consortium made ten million Spirit Stones every year by selling Cloudmetal Charcoal. While it was true that the price was quite high, and probably more than what it was worth, that was only in a world where the Cloudmetal Consortium didn’t have a monopoly. They didn’t even work their current mines to capacity, let alone needing another one. It was more a matter of preventing any other Cloudmetal Charcoal from entering the market to undercut them.

Sage smiled at Li Song, “Brother Li, the problem is that I don’t like to leave a job unfinished. I couldn’t possibly sell it to you now without having completed the protective wall and array formations. It would just leave me with an uneasy feeling, it might even affect my mind or leave a heart demon to do such shoddy work.”

Time to fleece them for all they’re worth!