Four days later, Kyle met with team Sandstorm again.
Everyone had advanced to the Mid Second Realm by now.
"I need time to recreate my golems," Lily said.
"I would like to study some new Spells," Michael said.
"I want to learn new techniques," Falk said.
"I also have stuff to do," Selene said.
"Alright, I also have stuff to do," Kyle said. "Let's take a break to work on our individual abilities. How do three weeks sound?"
Everyone agreed, and moments later, they dispersed.
Lily went back to mining in the now Earth Elemental-free mine.
Since Kyle didn't have the time to refine the ore, he asked a different company to do it.
His profits took a heavy hit, but he was still making a profit without doing anything.
Then, he went back to reading the dry encyclopedia again.
Eventually, he managed to finish the last edition.
"Okay, I'm done," Kyle said. "What now?"
"Now, you think," Theodor said. "You have seen how economics has evolved over the past 800 years in great detail. How will commerce change in the future? What trends will most likely occur? What will the future prices of goods be like?"
Kyle became silent as he thought back to everything he had read.
There was a definitive trend in a couple of things, and these trends were actually counterintuitive.
For example, the Forthing Family was harvesting more and more ore, increasing the supply of ore drastically.
Because of that, the prices of ores were falling.
Yet, throughout history, people who held their wealth in ore actually tended to profit more than people who sold their ore.
Logically, the increasing supply of ore would make the prices drop.
The demand was rising as well, but not as quickly as the supply.
However, for some reason, all kinds of coincidences happened that increased the price of ore drastically.
If one only looked at the past 20 years, one would see a downward trend in ore prices.
Kyle had already felt that drop himself.
His ore was slowly losing value.
"The ore price is a mass hallucination," Kyle said.
"That is an interesting way of putting it, but not inaccurate," Theodor said.
"People look at the current development and believe that it will fall. That motivates them to sell their ore, further increasing supply, which drops the price even more."
"The current ore prices are inaccurate. Ore is highly undervalued."
"Correct," Theodor said. "Any other trends you can see?"
"Services are overvalued," Kyle said.
"Why? " Theodor asked.
"Because they are trendy," Kyle said. "Everyone is all about services. It is easy to make money by providing a service, but the prices of services are too high. Everyone thinks that services are the future, which is why everyone is offering more and more services."
"Services are valuable, but their current exaggerated value only exists because people believe services are the future."
"It is hype."
"Possible," Theodor said. "Now, what should you ask for and what should you offer in the negotiations in three weeks?"
"Best case," Kyle said, "we will be offering the services, and they should pay us in ore, but that won't be possible. After all, they are the ones offering us services. We should keep the services to a minimum."
Kyle looked with uncertainty forward.
"In fact, it feels like we shouldn't work with them at all. At least, not in a big business agreement."
Theodor asked Kyle several more questions, and Kyle did his best to answer them.
These questions were not simple, but they made Kyle think about everything he had read over the past week.
"Go to the next set of books," Theodor said.
Kyle did just that.
Luckily, there were not as many editions of this set of books.
"Riskiest and Rewardiest," Kyle read with a raised brow.
"The name is horrible, but it's a good book," Theodor said.
"The newest edition is almost 300 years old," Kyle said. "Are you sure this still applies?"
"This book talks about fundamentals. Fundamentals don't change within a couple of centuries," Theodor said.
"Alright," Kyle said as he started to read.
Reading this book was a bit more difficult than reading the Encyclopedia of Trade.
The reason was that it mostly dealt with abstract concepts related to human thought.
"Stop reading," Theodor suddenly said.
"Huh?" Kyle asked. "But I still have like 40 pages to go."
"Everything up to this point was valuable, but in the remaining pages, the author will come to wrong conclusions. He is essentially inverting cause and effect."
"The last pages are the reason why there is no new edition. Many people followed his thoughts and got bad results. The people the author angered were powerful, and he went into hiding."
"One of these people was me. These last pages cost me a couple of Ether Crystals."
"If you say so," Kyle said as he put the book back.
"Next book," Theodor said.
This time, Theodor directed Kyle to a single book.
"Goodwill and its potential, " Kyle said as he read the book title.
When he saw the author, Kyle blinked a couple of times.
"You wrote this?" Kyle asked.
"Yes," Theodor said. "Read it."
Kyle did just that.
When he was done reading, he felt like he had learned a lot.
Performing a gesture of goodwill could do a lot for negotiations.
The book talked about how beneficial it was to be forthcoming, honest, and forgiving in negotiations in favor of building rapport with the trade partner.
"You read the book?" Theodor asked.
"Yes," Kyle said with a small chuckle. "If your name weren't on it, I wouldn't believe that you wrote this. You don't seem like someone who would do these things."
"It's good that you read it," Theodor said.
"Now, do not do anything of what you have learned from this book."
Kyle blinked a couple of times.
"What? Then, why did I read it?" he asked.
"It's a negative example. It shows perfectly what you should never do. I wrote this book to make people give me free concessions for my goodwill."
"People would read this book and believe me to be someone who values honesty and friendliness. Because of that, they will hand me free things."
"Some people will try these things on you. You can make use of that."
"Never do what this book tells you to do. At least, nothing in the latter 80% of the book. I had to fill the first 20% with truths so that they would believe the remaining 80% filled with falsities."
Kyle blinked a couple of times.
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