A Mechanism Wooden Crane had a market price of ten thousand Talisman Coins, making the commission worth a billion in total. A pair of crane wings cost around twelve hundred, so three hundred thousand pairs were worth another three hundred and sixty million.
By an ordinary Puppet Master's methods, these two orders alone would yield over three hundred million in gross profit. But Li Chen employed intelligent automated machinery on a massive scale, and his own Blessed Land produced spirit materials. He could compress labor and material costs to an extremely low level, earning at least another hundred million.
Even so, the procurement needs and subcontracted commissions that spilled out were still enough to support many underworld aristocratic clans and rogue cultivator craftsmen.
When Li Chen announced the details of the commission internally and had everyone seek out their own channels to prepare for production, the entire area within a thousand li of Guangyun felt its effects.
The reason was simple: a commission contract worth a billion, with all the materials to purchase and workers to recruit, could affect far too many people's livelihoods.
Ordinary craftsmen generally had savings in the tens of thousands, while the wealthy had hundreds of thousands. Apprentices and laborers needed only a few thousand to make a living. The impact of this money was plain to see.
When Li Chen learned of this, however, he sighed and said regretfully, "Broad Cloud Peak still has to take commissions to sustain production."
Mei Xuan asked in confusion, "Isn't that only natural? Without orders from Golden Light City, there would be no incentive or cultivation provisions for production. Without those, we wouldn't craft these things for no reason."
Li Chen said, "But where does Golden Light City's demand come from? And where do the cultivation provisions it possesses