Before he knew it, the end of the year had come again.
Li Chen had come to Xiling and settled there temporarily to track down the Mystic Ice Python. His demon hunt had made little progress, but he had instead made a thriving business of opening mines, extracting ore, and smelting and processing it across several thousand li of the surrounding region, taking the opportunity to earn a wealth of spirit materials and treasure ore.
No one but him knew his exact returns, but the minerals he had sold in the Market Districts of Xiling, the Long Capital, and several other cities alone had brought in a full three million in Talisman Coins.
This rather astonished the well-informed local powers.
Since when had ordinary minerals become so profitable?
In truth, however, Li Chen's gains were even greater than they imagined. Converted into Talisman Coins, his accumulated wealth had already surpassed ten million.
The main reason was that Li Chen had kept adding Worker Bee Puppets to increase production, while also opening several additional mines along the way. He had mined relentlessly, almost entirely disregarding the sustainability of the local spiritual essence.
He had only stopped selling because he was close to saturating the market within ten thousand li. If he continued dumping everything onto it in one go, he would inevitably lose out.
Besides, he needed metal materials himself. Crimson fire copper was a spirit material, and refined gold never lacked buyers, so why rush?
At that moment, Li Chen was in the Magic Cube Maze, his Minor Grotto-Heaven lair, communicating with a fellow Master Artisan from a local Aristocratic Clan surnamed Lan.
"Fellow Daoist Lan, what did you need me for?"
"Fellow Daoist Li, I wanted to ask whether you could sell that batch of crimson fire copper you