Di Feiwen complained to Li Yao half truthfully, but he did ask Li Yao to listen to the business experience of the "peddlers" within the Imperium of True Human Beings.
According to Di Feiwen, the business of reselling precious training resources among the various Sectors within the Imperium was theoretically a very profitable one.
However, because 99% of the people were "hominoids", who were no better than slaves, it was difficult for them to generate an effective demand. As a result, the market had been stagnant for a long time.
Even though part of the "hominoids" were free citizens of the Imperium, they were often physically attached to the experts and the noble families. In such a way, the training resources they needed were all purchased and sold by the experts and the noble families. Most of the goods they needed were cheap and mediocre. It was barely possible for them to earn a high profit, and it was even more difficult for them to develop the colorful upstream and downstream chains and new frontier fields such as the Federation.
The 1% of "true human beings", on the other hand, naturally had a very high demand for training resources. They were willing to pay a high price for magical equipment, Crystal Suit, pills, and starships.
However, they often had a complicated business network and long-term partners. Many fields were monopolized by the noble families with a long history such as the "four Kurfürst families". The new business groups that slowly emerged in the recent hundreds of years could not compete with the traditional nobles or even the "royal merchants" at all.
"99% of the bottom-level people have no demand for training. 1% of the nobles have demand for training, but the whole market has been monopolized by them a long time ago. The latecomers cannot squeeze in even if they try their best. It will be good enough if they are not exploited by them!"
Di Feiwen said rather angrily.
Li Yao listened for a while and finally understood what was going on. The Imperium might be a tray of loose sand, but two major interest groups vaguely existed.
First of all, the "ministers of the Emperor" who helped Blackstar the Great usurp the throne when the Imperium of True Human Beings was established, namely the royal family and the traditional nobles such as the "four Kurfürst families".
In the first two hundred years after the Imperium was established, they had almost occupied the prosperous areas at the center of the cosmos and monopolized all the profitable fields. They became the creators and maintainers of the game.
Then, there were the new worlds that the Imperium discovered during its expansion.
Some of those new worlds were governed by the local experts who had submitted to the Imperium; some were governed by the outcasts who had failed in the power game at the center of the cosmos, like the Black Wind Fleet.
Although they were relatively weak, they had the advantage in numbers. After a thousand years, they had accumulated a certain amount of strength and were bold enough to express their dissatisfaction with the rules of the game that the center of the cosmos had made.
The so-called 'merchants' that Di Feiwen mentioned, on the other hand, were even more miserable. Most of them were stray dogs who had failed in the conflicts in the past thousand years, lost their homes, and failed to conquer the new worlds. They had to wander in space.
The so-called "Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors" was exactly an organization where the losers licked each other's wounds — at least that was the case a hundred years ago.
With their keen senses as merchants, they vaguely sensed a series of rigidity and corruption in the current system of the Imperium.
However, they did not have the courage, interest, or capability to 'rise up', overthrow the old system, and establish a new world.
What they could do was to wander in the worlds at the edge of the Imperium where the emperor and the grand nobles were not very powerful, looking for experts that they could cooperate with or even join, hoping to be protected and expand their cooperation so that they could slowly establish something like a "free market".
The Black Wind Sector had been a very good partner of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors in the beginning.
Because the Black Wind Sector was a place of war, they were very interested in training resources and almost never refused any of them.
The "hominoids" of the Black Wind Sector, under the pressure of the survival crisis, had more training opportunities than the "hominoids" in the heartland of the Imperium, too.
After all, even if they were insignificant "slave soldiers", it would be a good thing if they were slightly stronger.
Furthermore, the Cultivators of the Black Wind Sector were best known for their disobedience. Neither the emperor nor the four Kurfürst families were fond of the lawless barbarians, which gave the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors another opportunity.
The Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors had begun the infiltration work in the Black Wind Sector a long time ago. The cooperation between the two parties was quite pleasant. Even Di Feiwen, the leader of the "Di family", a renowned family in the Black Wind Sector, became a senior manager of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors.
It was a pity that the five worlds including the Black Wind Sector were conquered by the Holy League before the cooperation between the two parties was further developed. After the series of accidents that followed, Di Feiwen had hibernated for almost a hundred years in confusion before he came to the edge of the cosmos.
It had never occurred to Di Feiwen that there would be such a country at the edge of the cosmos where all the people were training, such as the Star Glory Federation, a country where the whole population was training, would exist!
Di Feiwen's heart had long been filled by the glittering crystal coins of the Imperium. He could not care less about the groundless philosophies such as the Immortal Cultivators or the Cultivators. However, the effective stimulation of the Federation's current business system on people's "demand for training" and the scale of the "training market and the upstream and downstream chains" that were formed after the stimulation made his heart pound crazily. He could not have been more excited.
A couple of barren worlds at the edge of the cosmos boasted such a market. What would it be like if the model could be copied to the center of the cosmos?
It was the most important reason why Di Feiwen was willing to restrain the remaining soldiers of the Black Wind Fleet and the "battlefield uprising".
After the "battlefield uprising", he spent another three years observing and studying in silence and figured out the operation model of the "training industry" of the Federation. It was not until he was confident that he finally revealed the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors unhurriedly.
"I didn't know that such an organization existed within the Imperium!"
Li Yao was rather happy, too. "So to speak, it is possible for the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors and the Xing Yao Federation to cooperate, right?"
"It is possible, but the risks can be very high, too."
As a senior manager of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors, he had grasped a few confidential intelligence channels and had a say in many aspects. He also knew the dozens of vulnerable points at the peripheral worlds of the Imperium that could be easily infiltrated.
However, the "Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors" was just a loose business organization after all, not a well-organized, lofty "revolutionary party". For businessmen, whoever fed them was their mother. Betrayal, hypocrisy, and double-dealing were all compulsory courses.
For interests today, they could recruit Di Feiwen, the No. 2 person of the Black Wind Sector, as a senior manager, and for interests tomorrow, they could all join the four Kurfürst families.
It was true that the people of the Federation could sneak into a certain secret bureau of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors within the Imperium with his secret letter and retrieve tremendous intelligence. But as for exactly how valuable the intelligence was, and whether or not they would sell out the guests of the Federation right away, nobody could tell!
"As long as the price is right, even your parents can get one for free," Di Feiwen said.
Di Feiwen said, "How much is a senior manager who has disappeared for a hundred years worth?"
Therefore, in the "Heavenly Eye Plan", the few secret bureaus of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors that Di Feiwen provided, as well as the contact information of some famous businessmen, had all been kept as backup.
Unless it was absolutely necessary, it would be more reliable and safe for the people of the Federation to collect intelligence on their own first.
"If you want to collect intelligence on your own, I suggest that you set the first jump point near the 'Devilish Scorpion Nebula'."
Di Feiwen threw out another piece of ambiguous but significant news.
The so-called "Devilish Scorpion Nebula" was located at the periphery of the Imperium, far away from the Holy League and relatively close to the Federation. It included almost ten Sectors and got its name because of the glittering scorpion-shaped nebula at the center.
The reason why the "first jump point" was set in this place was because … Cultivators were very likely to exist in this place!
Seeing that Li Yao was raising his eyebrow with great interest, Di Feiwen hurried to explain, "It is just a groundless legend. I only heard it mentioned more than a hundred years ago. It is said that an organization of Cultivators named 'Starlight' exists deep inside the Devilish Scorpion Nebula. There is also an ancient Cultivator who has persisted in resisting the Imperium since the last years of the Star Ocean Republic. His Cultivation is immeasurable, and so on."
"He has persisted in resisting the Imperium since the last years of the Star Ocean Republic to this day?"
Li Yao couldn't help but be stunned. If that was the case, the "ancient Cultivator" would be more than a thousand years old at the very least. Wouldn't he have lived longer than "Gui Suishou", the most famous longevity guy in the Federation?
Gui Suishou had lived for almost a thousand years by hibernation. But if it was a resistance organization of Cultivators deep inside the Imperium, they would certainly have been faced with the cruel siege of the Imperium. It was barely possible for them to hibernate for a long time. How could they have lived for more than a thousand years while fighting fiercely every day?
"The so-called 'ancient Cultivators of the Star Ocean Republic' are probably just hearsay."
Jin Xinyue said, "It is perfectly normal for the ordinary people who are oppressed in the Imperium to place their hope on a 'savior'. But this resistance organization named 'Starlight' might be real, or at least it used to be.
"If such a resistance organization does exist, even if we can only find one or two 'Cultivators of the Imperium' who have persisted in resistance, it will be of great significance for us."
Li Yao nodded his head heavily. But then he asked suspiciously, "Is it possible that a resistance organization of Cultivators has been lurking deep inside the Imperium for a thousand years without being annihilated?"
"The possibility is not high, but it is an interesting rumor nonetheless. It is worth spending some time to figure it out. If it is true, we will have made a fortune."
Jin Xinyue said, "The astronomical environment of the Devilish Scorpion Nebula is very complicated. There are cosmic storms and desolate worlds everywhere. It is indeed an excellent place for hiding and guerilla warfare.
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