"Fellow Daoist Li, you should allow our Hecheng Merchants' Association to establish itself in Guangyun and Heavenly Dragon Second Peak free of charge, grant us the same trading privileges as the Universal Profits Merchants' Association, Sea Dragon Merchants' Association, and Everflow Merchants' Association, and open your conductive stone core-refining techniques to me, sharing your research results."
Ma Wanbao laid out his terms for reconciliation to Li Chen.
After weighing the gains and losses, Li Chen could accept the first condition, but the second came close to crossing his bottom line.
Trade with the merchants' associations only involved economic interests, after all. For a spirit peak blessed land to develop, dealings with the various powers were indispensable.
This was actually quite advantageous to Li Chen. The force under his command was newly established, without deep connections or entanglements of interest, so he could establish contact with all sides directly.
Using merchants' associations as intermediaries and promising them certain benefits was unavoidable.
The latter condition, however, touched upon the deeper secret of how he replaced spirit materials with ordinary substances, then employed the mechanical intelligence architecture on that foundation.
Ma Wanbao was clearly an observant man. He had noticed that Li Chen produced Puppet Cores at low cost and in enormous quantities, and concluded that he could use conductive stone, as cheap as common rock, to replace expensive spirit crystals, mass-producing various low-grade cores and endowing them with a degree of intelligence.
If he followed this thread and dug deeper, he would discover that the mechanical intelligence architecture was being employed-the very essence of Li Chen's primary Dao Path.
"Grand Artisan Ma, that hardly shows any sincerity." Li Chen shook his head, leaving no room for negotiation in his refusal.
"Establishing a merchants' association here comes with conditions of exchange. A certain