At first, Li Chen had found the whole affair rather bewildering.
But after thinking it through more deeply, he realized it was the result of the various factions trying to reshape Suyang's order.
Crouching Tiger Hill had indeed caught a favorable moment. With the turmoil in Suyang only just quelled, the various factions were willing to yield ground to balance the situation and foster rising powers. The Feng Household had also just weathered a major war and needed to recuperate. Together, these circumstances had made it happen.
So Li Chen decisively entered the contest. For a mere sum of less than a million talisman coins, little of which was even paid in hard cash, he acquired the Red Owl mecha, making up the rest through loans and affiliation agreements.
These loans and affiliation agreements were not onerous either. On the contrary, they offered considerable benefits.
When Li Chen brought the battered-looking secondhand mecha back to Crouching Tiger Hill, the entire hill was thrown into a stir.
Those with ready access to information already understood that, shabby as the mecha looked, its internal furnace and structural frame were completely intact, and repairing it would not be difficult.
That meant Crouching Tiger Hill could truly possess a combat-ready mecha by spending just a few hundred thousand more, or even less.
It was a symbol of the entire Market District's military strength, and it held an overwhelming advantage over conventional armaments at the Qi Refining Realm.
"This isn't something you can buy just because you have a few filthy coins."
"Exactly. Across the entire Eastern Victory Continent, exchanges between spirit stones and talisman coins are strictly controlled, and arms-sale bans routinely suppress the development of Market Districts everywhere. If we didn't have Artisan Li here holding the fort, we'd never have gotten our