Chapter 1485 The Logic Behind High Prices
“Of course. The black market price of the dragon elephant bone-strengthening injection isn’t too high. After all, there are subst.i.tutes made from the venom of ordinary snake-type monsters and the spinal fluid of the Demonic Halberd Pig King. No matter what, the effects of the subst.i.tutes are better than nothing. Besides, they won’t kill you, right?”
Ai Lei said, “If there are a few more, there’s no way to synthesize them artificially. There’s also no subst.i.tute for the advanced gene reagent. That’s why the price is going up so much. It’s more than ten times the official retail price. It’s going to be a bloodbath!” “Why?”
Meng Chao frowned so much that he could almost wring out a gene reagent. “The pricing is upside down. How can it be that drastic?”
“There’s no other way. The official retail price is just a theoretical price. After all, the Supernatural Tower has to serve all the superhumans and then serve all the citizens. It’s impossible to set the price so high that it’s unattainable, causing the poor to lose hope of cultivating.” Ai Lei curled her lips and said, “But there are people who do ‘head-butchering’ business. There’s no one who does a money-losing business. They either don’t earn or earn ten times the profit on the black market. How can the factories be the Supernatural Tower’s supplier?”
“How can there be no money to be made?”
Meng Chao said, “Didn’t we win the Monster War, control the entire Monster Mountain Range, and inherit the legacy of the monster civilization?
“Logically speaking, the raw materials and the modulation technology shouldn’t be a problem. “I see that the Demonic Halberd Pig meat and Iron Armored Rhinoceros meat on the first floor, as well as the flesh and blood of various ordinary monsters that are supplied to the general public, are not all very cheap. But, the supply is stable and abundant.”
“How can the Demonic Halberd Pig and Tyrant Mammoth be compared? The former can be tamed manually and raised on a large scale, while the latter is a wild, ferocious h.e.l.l Beast. It has a brutal temperament, is unruly, and would rather die than submit. It’s very difficult to refine it into poultry and livestock!”
Ai Lei told Meng Chao that it was precisely because Dragon City had won the Monster War that many training resources involving high-level and middle-level wild beasts were so scarce.
Meng Chao had not taken the wrong turn at the beginning.
However, Ai Lei counted her fingers and explained things to him in a reasonable manner.
First of all, during the Monster War, Dragon City had been surrounded by an overwhelming beast horde. Needless to say, aside from the ferocious Nightmarish Beasts such as the Demonic Halberd Pigs and Iron Armored Rhinoceroses, even the Golden-crowned Giant Lizard and Tyrant Mammoth, which were ferocious h.e.l.l Beasts, had mated in large numbers and grew freely. No matter how the humans’ flood of iron and steel crushed them, it was difficult to kill them all.
The existence of the ferocious h.e.l.l Beasts and the Apocalyptic Beasts, of course, posed a serious threat to Dragon City.
On the other hand, they also provided an endless stream of cultivation resources for the superhumans of Dragon City, especially the ultimate warriors who were determined to surpa.s.s their limits.
As long as their fists were tough enough, their guts were big enough, and their luck was good enough, they did not need to spend any money at all. Each person with one blade would stand proudly in the wilderness. All the hearts, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys of the ferocious h.e.l.l Beasts were waiting for the warriors to harvest them to their heart’s content!
At that time, there was only the problem of the ferocious h.e.l.l Beasts and Apocalyptic Beasts that could not be completely killed.
There was absolutely no problem in finding those beasts.
The present was different from the past.
With the humans completely occupying the Hidden Mist Domain, the former ultimate lair of the monster civilization had been transformed into humanity’s Ruins No. 2 research base.
The monster mastermind had at least turned into ashes on the surface and died completely.
Without the monster mastermind’s remote control, even the Apocalyptic Beasts that could destroy the world were quickly defeated by the humans’ ten thousand cannons and battle on wheels.
The same happened to the Tyrant Mammoths and other ferocious h.e.l.l Beasts.
In the end, the people of Dragon City, who were in the mood to kill, only realized a very serious problem when they cleared out all the surrounding areas of Dragon City.
The people of Earth were too ferocious.
Almost all the wild monsters had been killed by the people of Earth.
Well, that was not accurate.
There were many wild mutated c.o.c.kroaches, mutated rats, mutated mosquitoes, and more.
But they were useless!
Wild Golden-crowned Lizards, Tyrant Mammoths, and ApocalypticBeasts like the Crystalline Nine-headed Dragon had all escaped. There were less than 10% of them left.
Even if they were lucky enough to escape the humans’ blade, the habitat of these high-level monsters had been occupied by the Earthlings. The food chain that kept them alive had been cut off by the Earthlings.
Even if they could escape to the corners of Monster Mountain Range, they would not be able to survive for long.
There were no wild h.e.l.l Beasts anymore.
Many gene reagents could not be concocted.
Unlike the Demonic Halberd Pig and other Nightmarish Beasts, humans had yet to grasp the method to breed large-scale h.e.l.l Beasts or even Apocalyptic Beasts.
The h.e.l.l Beasts that were artificially bred in iron cages connected to high-voltage electricity did not experience the cruel compet.i.tion in the depths of the wilderness. They did not crawl around in the blessed land that was rich in spirit energy. They did not have the kind of aggressiveness and dominance that could sweep everything away, tear everything apart, and devour everything.
The quality of the raw materials extracted from the bodies of such domesticated monsters was far inferior to that of the real ferocious h.e.l.l Beasts.
It should be known that human beings could not directly train with crystals.
Even someone as strong as Meng Chao could not simply pick up a piece of raw crystal ore, chew it up in two or three mouthfuls, and swallow it. The spirit energy contained in the crystal ore could not be perfectly integrated into his own vitality magnetic field just like that.
Raw crystal ore could only be absorbed by the cells of the human body if it was combined with the gene drugs refined from the materials of the monsters.
The higher the level of the crystal ore, the higher the level of the gene drugs needed to be combined. The balance between yin and yang was very important, and the emperor and the minister had to be in charge of the process step by step.
Without high-level gene drugs, even if one owned hundreds or thousands of crystal ore veins, they would be of no use at all.
The rarer the item, the more valuable it would be.
Since wild monsters had become non-renewable and scarce resources, the price of raw materials rose, and the price of finished products also rose. What was strange about that?
That was the problem on the supply side.
Next, there was the problem on the demand side.
Actually, one should not say that it was a problem. Rather, one should call it a good thing
Thanks to the benefits of the Monster War and the legacy of the monster civilization, Dragon City’s cultivation technology had advanced by leaps and bounds in the past year.
Various major forces had introduced many entry-level cultivation methods, cultivation facilities, and various supplements required for cultivation. Basically, it was widely understood that “one could awaken extraordinary strength without tiresome or troublesome methods.”
As Meng Chao had seen on the first floor, the Demonic Halberd Pig and Iron Armored Rhinoceros could even be raised manually. The price of their meat was not much more expensive than the canned monster luncheon meat in the past. Ordinary people would grit their teeth and cook two rhinoceros tendons for their growing children to eat every day. The probability of teenagers awakening their superpowers was 30% higher than in the past. Was that not too much?
Also, people tended to die in war.
The war between the Dragon City civilization and the monster civilization had been dominated by the cruelest street battles or bayonets in the jungle.
In street battles and jungle fights, the ones with the highest death rate were neither ordinary citizens nor those who had the ability to fly and could retreat in time when the situation turned bad.
Instead, they were the most numerous Earth Realm warriors who had acted as basic commanders and front line commandos.
As everyone knew, when a person died, there would be no need to consume resources.
Those words were unpleasant to hear, but they were also very honest.
During the Monster War, it was precisely because of the high mortality rate of low-level superhumans that they were able to form a delicate balance between the training needs of superhumans and the supply of monster raw materials.
Now, more low-level monsters could be tamed by humans.
The probability of ordinary people awakening their superpowers had increased.
Low-level superhumans did not face such a huge risk anymore. In the depths of the ruins and forests, the death rate of those who fought ferocious monsters had been greatly reduced.
There was naturally a huge increase in the number of low-level superhumans.
Soldiers who did not want to be generals were not good soldiers.
Earth Realm powerhouses who did not want to attack Heaven Realm or even Deity Realm warriors were also not qualified superhumans.
If one wanted to attempt to break through to a higher realm, they would need more abundant and high-grade monster materials.
Even if one ate eight to ten tons of ingredients like Demonic Halberd Pig and Iron Armored Rhinoceros meat, it would at most help an ordinary person cultivate into an Earth Realm warrior.
For an Earth Realm warrior to attempt to break through to the Heaven Realm, he would have to eat Tyrant Mammoth meat.
The supply had been greatly reduced, and the demand had greatly increased. It would be strange if the price of this meat did not increase!
There was another point.
In the past, Dragon City had been surrounded by ownerless land.
The Survival Committee and the Supernatural Tower did not encourage citizens to privately organize exploration teams, reaping teams, and hunting teams to explore crystal ore veins in the wilderness, search for monster nests, and establish an advanced base.
However, there was no strict prohibition either.
As long as one had the ability, anyone could call their friends or even go into the wilderness alone to hunt Tyrant Mammoths.
Naturally, one person would not be able to finish such a huge Tyrant Mammoth.
After harvesting the materials and sending them to the black workshops in the Lair, one would be able to refine a gene reagent that might not have a stable effect but was definitely cheap. The descendants of wealthy families that were born in cultivation families did not care about the products of such small workshops.
The descendants of poor families that paid attention to the price-performance ratio, however, very much welcomed such a good-quality, low-cost subst.i.tute.
Regardless of whether it was formal or not, the existence of numerous small workshops had objectively played an important role in stabilizing the price of the entire gene reagent market.
But now, the war had been won.
The originally ownerless land had become the development zones and reserves of the major forces.
Fences, high-voltage power grids, and drones had been set up to patrol the area day and night.
Wandering soldiers without power and influence could no longer rely on their courage and two iron fists to run to the development zones of the major factions and steal monsters.
Moreover, even if they killed the monsters, it would be useless.
The old Lair had been completely demolished.
The rebuilt version of the Lair no longer had room for the underground black workshops to survive.
It was free from the vicious compet.i.tion of small workshops.
The pharmaceutical groups backed by the mega corporations gradually formed a virtual monopoly. The quality of the products also improved greatly.
Despite that, whether the price went up, or the official retail price remained the same, there was a daily shortage. It was understandable and very consistent with economic common sense.
Last but not least was h.o.a.rding and exaggerating the price.
One had to admit that the superhuman who first h.o.a.rded the raw materials of the h.e.l.l Beast or even the Apocalyptic Beast never planned on profiting from them.
It was just that he realized the scarcity of these non-renewable resources. For his future cultivation, he had no choice but to plan ahead.
Nevertheless, it boiled down to the same thing.
As long as people could earn ten times the profit…
There would always be those who dared to charge toward an Apocalyptic Beast and those who dared to trample over all the morals and laws in the world.