Volume 7 Chapter 69: Competition For Mineral Resources

Two months later, a Frestech Chamber of Commerce reinforcement fleet that was much bigger than the previous fleets slowly left the Frestech Harbour.

Other than the large number of personnel and resources that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce sent, this fleet also included people and resources from the Candra Empire, the Marlow Empire, the Lampuri Kingdom, the Rudson Kingdom, the Drake Duchy, as well as other countries for a total of eleven countries.

After the discussion last time, there were only these eleven countries that had decided to work with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce on developing the new continent. It was less than one fourth of the total number of representatives that had come last time.

This was very normal. After all, other than the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the other people all knew very little about this new continent, so it was impossible for them to invest a large amount of resources.

These eleven countries had only sent a simple investigation squad, as well as some resources to support the Frestech Chamber of Commerce in name, they didn't send anything significant.

So in fact, the reason for this bigger fleet was mainly because of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce themselves.

Xu Yi wasn't as hesitant as those countries. Through the efforts over the last year by the advance scouting party, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had some understanding of the situation on the Magic Cloud Continent, so Xu Yi had already come up with a plan to develop this new continent.

Among this fleet, not only was there a large number of personnel and resources, there were also three thousand Frestech Chamber of Commerce guards, as well as two large transport Magic Ships that were filled with military magic machines. It was all to smoothly build the outpost on the new continent.

Of course, to take root on the new continent, this task that this outpost had to undertake was very arduous.

Because the two continents were separated by over ten thousand kilometers, it would take at least a month for a fleet to complete a trip. So the base on the Magic Cloud Continent couldn't rely on supplies sent by the Sines Continent, they had to achieve self sustainability as much as they could.

So according to Xu Yi's plan, this base must be built like a small industrial base, which could satisfy the various demands of the base.

The most basic demand was daily necessities, as well as materials for military magic machines.

To satisfy these two demands, it meant that the base had to be able to obtain enough local resources from the Magic Cloud Continent.

Of course, it was impossible for these resources to fall down from the sky.

According to the agreement that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce reached with the Sansa Elf Tribe and the Chrome Halfling Tribe, the two tribes would help the Frestech Chamber of Commerce obtain resources in the beginning that would satisfy their early needs.

But the power of these two tribes were limited, it was impossible to satisfy the increasing demand of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

So in the end, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had to get it themselves.

But to obtain resources, they had to face the expected and unexpected dangers of the Magic Cloud Continent, which meant that they had to have enough military force. To put it simply, they needed enough guards and military magic machines.

It was impossible for them to depend on the Frestech Chamber of Commerce's headquarters on the Sines Continent to solve this, so they had to solve this problem themselves.

So to put it bluntly, to build a complete base that was ten thousand kilometers away from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce's main base was a very hard matter. Xu Yi wasn't 100% optimistic about their future at all.

But he had no other choice because if the Frestech Chamber of Commerce wanted space to develop, this new continent was much more suitable than the Sines Continent.

The deeper reason was that the Sines Continent was already an established continent, so the land and resources had already been divided by the other countries.

If the Frestech Chamber of Commerce wanted them, it would be very hard, especially with the development of the magic machine industry. The other countries were starting to place more and more importance on these resources.

A month after the fleet departed, including the Chimera Chamber of Commerce, forty six companies that managed mineral resources on the Sines Continent announced that they would form a Mineral Resource Business Union. It would manage the mineral resources under them while allowing them all to work together.

It was the first time this kind of organization had appeared on the Sines Continent. When this Jino Mineral Resource Business Union, or simplified to Jino Union was announced, many people didn't understand what they were trying to do.

However, the series of matters in the following half a month gave everyone the answer to this question.

The Jino Union announced that they would integrate all the management of the mineral resources under them into one entity. This was to guarantee the stability of mineral resource availability, while also unifying the price of all the companies under the Jino Union.

After some market research, the Jino Union announced their price.

Everyone realized that compared to the prices from before, the Jino Union had increased the price of every mineral. The iron ore that had the biggest demand had experienced a 15% increase in price!

The Magic Crystal that also had a high demand and had a low price before because no one cared about them also experienced a price increase of 10%. It had finally broken through to one gold coin per ton.

With this price increase, the ones that were affected the most was naturally the Frestech Chamber of Commerce that was the leading magic machine company and had the highest demand for these mineral resources.

Although there were only increases of around 10%, this was a large increase in production cost for the magic machine companies and had weakened their profits.

The Frestech Chamber of Commerce's profit margins had always been high and this wasn't fatal to them, but for the smaller companies, their profit margins that weren't high to begin with had dropped even more, which directly affected the survivability of many smaller companies.

In order to maintain low costs, many small companies had started buying mineral resources from outside the Jino Union.

However, the Jino Union controlled almost all the mineral resources in the Candra Empire and the countries in the southern and middle parts of the continent. Most of the small magic machine companies were situated in the countries of the southeast corner, so it was hard for them to obtain mineral resources from other channels.

So the establishment of the Jino Union was announcing the death of many small magic machine companies.

Xu Yi was very unhappy with this.

February of year 3781, which was three months after the Jino Union was formed and had announced their new price, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce announced that because of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce's own demand, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce would be forming another new company under them named the Frestech Mineral Chamber of Commerce.

As the name suggested, the main business of this new company was mineral resources.

When the Frestech Chamber of Commerce announced this, they stated that the goal of creating this company was because as the Frestech Chamber of Commerce's scale increased, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had more and more demand for mineral resources. It wasn't suitable for them to purchase these mineral resources from other channels, so they've decided to solve this problem themselves.

But as long as it wasn't a fool looking at this, they could understand that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce creating the Frestech Mineral Chamber of Commerce was to deal with the Jino Union.

Before this, although the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had some mineral resources under them, most of their mineral resources were purchased from other companies.

In the beginning, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce mainly purchased from the Lampuri Kingdom's Falcao Chamber of Commerce.

Then as they grew and had more demand for mineral resources, adding in the fact that the Lampuri Kingdom's own magic machine industry grew, which increased their own demand for mineral resources, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had to look for other channels.

Among these channels, most of them were companies that were now under the current Jino Union.

Now that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was suddenly announcing that they were forming this Frestech Mineral Chamber of Commerce, it was clear that they wanted to go against the Jino Union. Didn't this mean that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce wanted to break off from the companies under the Jino Union?

However, the Jino Union controlled a large portion of the mineral resources in the south and middle of the continent. If the Frestech Chamber of Commerce didn't cooperate with them, where would they get enough mineral resources?

In the middle of February, the Frestech Mineral Chamber of Commerce announced their formation, while also announcing that they currently had seventeen mines producing ores under them. They stated that the Frestech Mineral Chamber of Commerce had more than enough mineral resources and welcomed all orders.

When this was announced, the outside world was in an uproar.

Everyone knew that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce tried to control their own mineral resources, but it really was surprising that they had this much under them.

What surprised everyone even more was when the Frestech Chamber of Commerce announced their prices for each mineral.

Take iron ore for instance. The Frestech Chamber of Commerce's price was seven gold coins and forty silver coins per ton. This price was the same as the other companies from before, which was also the same price that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had always purchased iron ores from these companies.

But when compared to the price of the Jino Union's iron ores, the price was close to 20% lower!

If it was said that people thought that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce forming this Frestech Mineral Chamber of Commerce was to go against the Jino Union, it was mainly the guesses that people had.

Now that the Frestech Mineral Chamber of Commerce had announced their prices, it was clearly telling everyone that they were going against the Jino Union!

Everyone was very surprised by this.

Why would the Frestech Chamber of Commerce do this?

If it was in the magic machine industry, no one doubted that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was the strongest company.

However, in the mineral resource industry, where did the Frestech Chamber of Commerce get this confidence?

It had to be known, the Jino Chamber of Commerce not only included the forty six companies which included the Chimera Chamber of Commerce, behind them might even be a bunch of countries that included the Candra Empire.