Then William Carter searched around the lumber market and, as hoped, found agarwood. William Carter, unable to suppress his trembling, asked, how much does this kind of wood cost?

The reply was that although this wood sometimes has a slight fragrance and can barely be considered aromatic wood, its appearance is poor and the material is rather coarse, so it’s quite cheap—one gold coin for ten tons, and even then, few people buy it!

This answer completely broke William Carter!

One gold coin for ten tons! Converted, that’s eighty jin for one yuan, or forty thousand grams for one yuan!

How could those people in his previous life, who had to spend tens of thousands of yuan just to buy a single gram, possibly accept this?

At this moment, William Carter was utterly bewildered.

At the same time, he also gained a new understanding of the forty gold coins Owen Smith and the others spent to save him.

In this kind of price environment, forty gold coins are undoubtedly much more significant than he had originally imagined. It turns out that a magic apprentice, even when their life or death is uncertain, is worth being treated this way!

Chapter 6: Understanding and Planning

When you owe someone a favor, you must always think about repaying it. All the more so when it’s a life-saving grace, which is no ordinary favor.

Besides, William Carter currently has nowhere else to go; at least for a long time, he will have to spend his days in this mercenary group. Whether he will spend his whole life here, he does not know.

In fact, from talking with some people in the group, William Carter learned that when they saved him, they really didn’t expect him to join their group, let alone repay them.

—For them, being able to rescue a magic apprentice and maintain a relationship with one is already a great honor. If this magic apprentice could one day advance to level nine, then a single word from him could benefit the entire mercenary group endlessly!

Advancing to level nine is far too distant a prospect for William Carter.

Now that he has decided to stay, to remain in this mercenary group, it has become necessary for him to get familiar with and deeply understand every aspect of the group and find his own place.

Actually, this isn’t complicated at all—so simple, in fact, that William Carter was a little surprised.

After chatting with some of the uncles and older brothers in the group, it only took William Carter two or three days to get a pretty thorough understanding of the mercenary group. And as he learned, William Carter analyzed the group’s operations using knowledge from his previous life.

The mercenary group can be divided into several main parts:

The first part is the core members like Captain Owen Smith. They make money by taking on common demand tasks in the mid- and low-end markets.

For example, in this small town called Redstone Town—named after the red rocky mountain range outside the town—there is a constant flow of fur traders stationed here. So, hunting various wild animals in the mountain forests outside the town has become their most frequent activity.

They can sell the whole animal, or separate the fur and meat to sell individually.

This makes up a large part of their income.

When this topic came up, the short guy in the group, Richard Carter, couldn’t help but show an indignant expression, saying those fur traders are too exploitative and offer prices that are way too low.

Hearing this, William Carter smiled slightly.

This is actually perfectly normal. Not just in this world, but even back on Earth in the 1980s and 90s, ginseng farmers in Northeast China would pack ginseng into sacks and sell it by the sack, ending up selling ginseng at the price of radishes!

No matter how much demand there is for fur elsewhere, at least in this fur-producing town, the price of fur is absolutely rock-bottom, so being taken advantage of is only natural.

If they didn’t take advantage, how would they make money?

Therefore, unless the mercenary group changes professions and specializes in marketing—buying low and selling high—they’ll just keep getting exploited.

But after casually asking around, William Carter found that the marketing business here is very tricky, with a highly complex market. For a small- to medium-sized mercenary group like theirs, with only thirty or forty core members, they simply can’t handle it. Or rather, even if they barely could, the risk would be huge. If anything went wrong, it would all be over.

With elders and children to care for, they can’t afford that risk.

They sell all the fur, but only part of the meat. Their mercenary group owns an inn in town, which can take in some of the meat. Some of the elderly and women in the group manage all aspects of the inn.

This is the second type of group member—support and operations.

In addition, there are some people in the group who are specifically responsible for gathering information. For example, finding out when certain types of wood are in demand, which fur traders offer fair prices, or which goods are temporarily needed for certain tasks, and so on.

Through these operations, the mercenary group isn’t exactly wealthy, but they’re not particularly hard up either. Of course, there’s still room for improvement.

After learning all this, William Carter couldn’t help but give a small nod of approval in his heart.

As the saying goes, “A sparrow may be small, but it has all its vital organs.” Although this small mercenary group hasn’t quite achieved a fully integrated production and sales chain, they’re not far off.

However, for William Carter, who comes from an era of cutthroat economics, there’s still a lot of profit potential to be tapped here—and not just a little. Now, what William Carter wants to know is—

What is this mercenary group’s status in this town?