Everyone knew that the gel would appreciate in value in the future. Many also understood that once foreign merchants entered the market, they would inevitably shake up the existing order.
So Sherlock's plan was to stockpile gel now and, when the foreign merchants arrived, gather them together, unify the pricing, and sell only limited quantities.
Andrew, however, had a different idea.
President Andrew's plan was to drive up the value of the gel rapidly by having Sherlock purchase it at artificially high prices.
For example, suppose Sherlock hired three shills. Shill One buys a batch of gel from Shill Two for 1,000 gold coins. Then Shill Three purchases the same batch from Shill Two for 1,500 gold coins. When Shill One buys it back from Shill Three, he can easily push the price up to 2,000 gold coins.
In just one round, the price of the gel would double.
And since all three were Andrew's plants, no real gold needed to change hands.
But the uninformed onlookers would see only one thing: the gel's price skyrocketing.
Once they witnessed people around them becoming rich overnight through trading gel, reason would vanish. Everyone would go mad, pouring all their savings into it.
And then…
They would become the harvest in this grand feast of capital—reaped clean by him and President Andrew.
Every time Sherlock thought of it, a chill ran down his spine.
As expected—age and cunning truly made a difference.
When the foreign merchants finally entered the market, it would coincide perfectly with a sharp crash in Savant's gel prices.
By then, they could use the profits they had earned to buy up massive quantities of gel from those merchants.
And once they completely monopolized the supply, the price of gel would be whatever they said it was.
With that thought, Sherlock felt fortunate that he stood on President Andrew's side.
It also made him even more attentive to the matter.
He had not even returned to his own chamber of commerce before he began dispatching people to set things in motion. To make the scheme appear more convincing, he secretly contacted several smaller merchant associations under his patronage and had them carry out operations through Savant's Merchants' Guild.
Savant, as a vassal state of the Ymir Empire, possessed a relatively developed commercial system.
Within its Merchants' Guild, traders could post their inventories on a public board, seek out suitable shops to distribute their goods, or even issue bounties to purchase specific items.
All transactions were supervised by the guild, ensuring that no one could violate contractual terms without consequence.
To facilitate trade, guild officials periodically updated market prices for various goods on the notice board.
At present, Softwind Slime Gel was written in bold at the most prominent position. Its price had risen to an astonishing 915 gold coins per barrel—and was still trending upward.
Compared to a few days earlier, however, the rate of increase had slowed.
Clearly, the price was nearing its limit.
The merchants present were not fools. Seeing the growth stall, some began looking to sell while the price remained high.
Yet many others shared Sherlock's ambitions.
They recognized the gel's potential and wanted to push its price even higher. Whenever someone posted a sale notice, it would be snapped up almost immediately, sometimes before it had been displayed for long.
As a result, the market always appeared short on supply, and the price continued its upward climb.
But when Sherlock entered the guild hall, he frowned.
After learning of Andrew's audacious plan, he had grown dissatisfied with such sluggish, incremental growth.
Relying on natural market momentum would yield only a few percentage points at a time.
What if several days passed, foreign merchants arrived—and the gel still hadn't exceeded 1,000 gold coins?
Charlotte grumbled inwardly as his gaze swept across the hall.
Count Norris. Duchess Sutton. Representatives from the Gordon Merchant Association.
It seemed that the goblin resurrection potion affair had drawn nearly every major merchant in the city.
However, when his eyes landed on a blonde figure in the corner of the hall, his expression darkened.
Tina Gam.
A countess from a minor principality subordinate to the Knight Empire.
Ordinarily, a provincial noble from a rural offshoot of the Knight Empire would amount to nothing in the eyes of Savant's great merchants.
The problem was that besides her modest noble title, she was also the manager of the Heim Industrial Zone outside Savant.
Over the past few months, she had established a vast industrial park at an astonishing pace. Worse, she had flagrantly ignored local conventions, offering highly favorable working conditions to recruit labor throughout Savant.
In recent days, several skilled workers from Sherlock's alchemy workshops had already left. If this continued, his factories might be forced to shut down within days.
Fortunately, he had managed to retain older workers with families by spreading rumors that the Heim Industrial Zone was an outside enterprise destined to be purged by Savant's royal court.
Only then had he barely maintained normal operations.
When he first learned of Tina's factory construction, Sherlock had considered various underhanded tactics to drive her out.
For instance, sending thugs to cause trouble at the factories. Or fabricating charges to eliminate the operation through official channels.
What he had never anticipated was that every thug he sent—whether common street ruffians or even supernaturals hired from the black market—had vanished after entering the Heim Industrial Zone.
None had ever been seen again.
It was as though the industrial zone were a devouring beast.
And when Sherlock attempted to frame the Heim Industrial Zone through his political connections, Madam Viola, a sixth-tier powerhouse from Skoll Academy, publicly voiced her support for them.
He had also heard that the mysterious Duke Heim—the true power behind the industrial zone—was not only an honorary count of the Knight Empire but also possessed deep ties within the Church.
After receiving that information, Sherlock extinguished all his covert schemes.
He even had no choice but to improve worker treatment in order to compete.
But in doing so, he had developed a deep resentment toward the public face of the Heim Industrial Zone—
Tina.