The next day, before dawn had even broken, Jiang Qi forced himself out of bed to the sound of the alarm he had set.
Without waiting for Old Homa to come pick him up at the workshop, Jiang Qi headed out on his own and made straight for the scavengers' residential area.
Following his memory, he soon found a shack roofed with mismatched red and blue sheet metal and knocked on the door.
"Who is it?"
A response came from inside not long after.
"Ruoke, it's me—Jiang Qi," Jiang Qi said in a low voice.
"Jiang Qi? What are you doing here?"
The voice inside sounded surprised. A moment later, the door opened, revealing a tall, thin young man.
At over 1.8 meters tall, he stood out noticeably among the wasteland natives. He was dark-skinned and wiry, not exactly bulky, but clearly strong. His short dark-brown hair gave him a sharp, energetic look.
The moment he saw Jiang Qi, a bright smile spread across his face, and he opened his arms for a hug.
Jiang Qi didn't hesitate. He stepped forward and hugged him back, then lowered his voice and said, "Come on, let's talk inside. This is big."
"Big?" Ruoke's expression immediately turned serious. "All right, get in here."
Jiang Qi glanced around, making sure no one else was nearby, then slipped inside at once and shut the door behind him.
"Ruoke, listen carefully. After breakfast, bring a few people to Old Homa's workshop. I've got a big business deal to discuss with you all," Jiang Qi said, then rattled off a string of names and nicknames.
They were all local scavengers—people Jiang Qi knew, and whose character he found reasonably reliable.
More importantly, none of them were idiots.
Jiang Qi wasn't especially close to all of them, but cooperating with them would be no problem.
"All right. Do we need to bring anything?" Ruoke asked.
"No. Just bring the people," Jiang Qi said. "And if anyone doesn't want to come, don't force them. Remember, I'm not begging them."
"Got it," Ruoke nodded. "Then you go on back. I'll start rounding people up."
"Good. I'm counting on you, brother." Jiang Qi clapped him on the shoulder, then headed straight back to the workshop.
Ruoke didn't waste any time either. He got dressed immediately, locked his door, then started going from shack to shack, knocking on doors according to the list Jiang Qi had given him.
—
—
Not long after Jiang Qi returned from breakfast, Ruoke arrived with the others.
Including Ruoke, seven people had come in total. Every single person Jiang Qi had named had shown up, which honestly surprised him.
After exchanging greetings, Jiang Qi quickly learned why. They had all heard by now that he had become Homa's apprentice, that he had killed Natuba, and most importantly, that even after White Claw Wu found out, Jiang Qi had come away completely unharmed.
Put all of that together, and Jiang Qi had practically turned into a legend in their eyes.
The moment they heard Jiang Qi had business to offer them, their first reaction was that some chance to make money had arrived. Why would they refuse? If Ruoke hadn't told them Jiang Qi wanted them there after breakfast, some of them probably wouldn't even have bothered eating first.
At that moment, Jiang Qi gained an even clearer understanding of how much his status in town had changed.
And because of that, he suddenly felt a lot more confident about what he was about to do today.
He led them into the workshop and shut the door behind them, then began discussing the details of their cooperation.
Whether it was further repairs on Glaxia or the construction of his second mech fighter, Jiang Qi needed a huge amount of supplies.
But if he started openly buying materials in large quantities, it would be far too conspicuous. On top of that, he had no easy way to explain where his money was coming from.
If he had a group of scavengers acting as a trading buffer for him, though, everything would become much easier.
That was exactly why Jiang Qi needed to work with them.
After thinking it over, he settled on three main lines of cooperation.
The first was an energy-core repair business. Jiang Qi would offer to repair their damaged energy cores at the same rate Old Homa had offered him: five damaged ones in exchange for one working one.
In order to gather more supplies, Jiang Qi needed more sources of income. Old Homa already provided him with a large number of damaged cores every day, but Jiang Qi certainly wouldn't mind adding even more to that stream.
At first glance, the price Jiang Qi was offering seemed ordinary enough.
In reality, though, it was twice the market rate.
That was right—the Flying Crows Gang only bought damaged cores at around one-tenth the price of an intact one.
The pricing wasn't hard to understand. There was a technical barrier to repairing energy cores. Since scavengers couldn't fix damaged cores themselves, those things were permanent junk in their hands. Other than selling them off, they had no use for them.
By contrast, intact energy cores had practical value. If scavengers felt the price wasn't good enough, they might just keep them—either for their own use, or to trade them with scavengers from other towns.
What Jiang Qi was really earning was technical service money. The reason it looked so lucrative was only because his synthesis ability gave him an absurdly high repair rate.
What was more, Jiang Qi actually intended to let this first business exist half out in the open.
The reason was simple: it couldn't be hidden anyway.
Once he opened a "five-for-one" exchange channel for these people, they would inevitably start buying damaged energy cores from other scavengers to profit from the spread. In the end, that would definitely lead to a large flow of damaged cores converging on Jiang Qi.
That kind of obvious resource abnormality was impossible to conceal, so Jiang Qi decided he might as well put it in plain sight.
Yes, that carried the risk of looking like he was poaching the Flying Crows Gang's business.
But it had three advantages.
First, it would make a name for him. Everyone would know that Jiang Qi had an exceptional talent for efficiently repairing energy cores.
Second, the repaired cores would ultimately still circulate within Withered Tree Town. That meant they would increase the total number of energy cores available to the Flying Crows Gang. And with Old Homa backing him, Jiang Qi believed White Claw Wu would be able to see that clearly.
Third—and most importantly—it gave Jiang Qi a legitimate reason to possess large quantities of energy cores.
It was easy to predict that low-grade energy cores would become the standard equivalent value unit Jiang Qi used most often in the future. If he didn't establish a plausible source for them, he would always have to move with his hands tied.
Of the three businesses Jiang Qi planned, this was the only one he intended to put partially in the open.
The second business, however, he intended to keep private.
That one was a special purchasing service—specifically for valuable items.
As a former scavenger himself, Jiang Qi knew exactly what kind of scum the Flying Crows Gang's recovery people were. Cheating people on payment was everyday behavior, and they were always inventing absurd reasons to slash prices.
Getting squeezed on ordinary days was one thing. But when a scavenger finally found something truly valuable, those bastards would often force the price down even harder.
As a result, selling valuable finds had become a real sore spot for many scavengers.
Their lives were already hard enough. When luck finally smiled on them and they found something worth real money, only to be denied a fair price when they tried to sell it, anyone would be furious.
That was exactly the frustration Jiang Qi intended to exploit.
A lot of the valuable items commonly found in the garbage mountain could be used directly in mech construction. Naturally, Jiang Qi wanted as many of those as possible.
But the Flying Crows Gang generally wouldn't sell those items off. And even when they did, the prices were always outrageously high—completely not worth it for Jiang Qi.
Since that was the case, the only thing left to do was to strike directly at the source.
By offering these few scavengers a purchasing guarantee, Jiang Qi was effectively opening a channel into the wider scavenger community.
As long as there was money to be made from the spread, these people would naturally help him buy valuable items from other scavengers.
When that happened, Jiang Qi would only need to prepare enough energy cores and wait for the good stuff to be delivered right to his door.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 150)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 110)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter69)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter95)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 55
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 40
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 45
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 32
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 31
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 31
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