Genshin Impact: Towards Godhood

Smuggling is not an easy business.

But as long as a business offers enough profit, someone will undertake it.

In Caravan Ribat, it's not just passing smugglers involved in this trade.

In fact, Sumeru's current regular army, the "Corps of Thirty," might be the real big players in this business.

They maintain the peace of the entire trading environment, attracting merchants to and from this place.

But Sumeru does not belong to them.

The foundation of the "Corps of Thirty" is also desert people. They early on threw their lot in with the Akademiya. The contemporary sages saw a way to use desert people to balance desert people and gladly accepted them.

Even so, the Akademiya's opinion of the "Corps of Thirty" is relatively mediocre.

In the future, this mistreatment... at least what the managers of the "Corps of Thirty" consider mistreatment, will lead to the deserved betrayal.

The Great Sage was captured in his own domain, the Palace of Wisdom, by his own Vahumana officers. Honestly, it sounds quite ridiculous.

The story is clear enough: the management of the "Corps of Thirty" betrayed the sages' interests due to the sages' reluctance to offer better treatment, choosing to play dumb, thus providing an opportunity for a group of desert mercenaries to strike directly.

This is the Akademiya's attitude.

Sumeru is not the "Corps of Thirty's" territory, and smuggling harms Sumeru's official interests, or rather, the Akademiya's interests.

But for the "Corps of Thirty," running the smuggling business, it only means filling their pockets.

The Akademiya's losses? 

What does that have to do with me?

It is precisely because of the "Corps of Thirty's" escort that the business in Caravan Ribat can thrive.

Tadhla skillfully led Rama to a concealed location.

Not all transactions can be conducted openly; these underground deals are also the core business of Caravan Ribat.

Rama observed the surrounding merchants.

Objectively speaking, none of these people looked like merchants.

Their exposed arms were muscular and robust, their right hands always kept under their white robes, gripping the scimitars at their waists.

Compared to merchants, they were obviously more passionate about their primary jobs.

Rama didn't observe too much. He quickly found a very familiar figure—though he had never seen her since crossing over.

Dori.

"Oh my, have the guests taken a liking to any goods? Feel free to look around; I have only the best here."

As a merchant, she practically had "wealth" written all over her face.

Her clothes were adorned with numerous sparkling gems, clearly indicating that such a big merchant shouldn't be in a place like this.

But Dori was just that kind of merchant.

Her business spanned all of Sumeru, and she possessed enormous wealth. Even so, she still liked to personally promote her treasures all over Sumeru.

She loved Mora and the process of earning it.

"Rama," Tadhla's expression tightened, "this is..."

"A stranger, Little Falcon," Rama said with a smile. "We have never been here before, so of course, we cannot know anyone here, right?"

"The guest makes a good point, but only if you pay all the Mora here," Dori also smiled.

Some businesses can be done, but once outside, it's best to pretend you've never met.

Of course, the prerequisite is to settle accounts.

If you haven't cleared the payment, don't even think about clearing the slate.

Tadhla's expression returned to calm.

This was another small discrepancy between the game and reality.

Dori's caravans were all over Sumeru, and desert people always faced two problems.

How to make money and how to spend it.

Making money doesn't need to be mentioned. For these desert people, the way to earn money is nothing more than hunting.

Hunting sandworms to make high-end essential oils, traveling to other places to hunt caravans and directly acquire goods to use or resell...

These activities could make money, but spending it was a big problem.

In the depths of the desert, there were very few caravans.

Generally speaking, the farthest normal caravans could go was Aaru Village.

Further into the desert, no merchant would consider venturing.

Everyone knew the deeper areas were infested with more robbers, not a place for business.

You couldn't talk about peaceful trade with robbers who lived by hunting and looting.

So here comes the problem: you get Mora, but how do you spend it?

You need things to buy in order to spend money, right?

Typically, Caravan Ribat was the place where desert people's wealth was harvested.

Desert people brought their accumulated wealth and goods to Caravan Ribat, exchanged them for other goods, and finally took them back to the tribe to sustain its development and survival.

But there were also some caravans that would arrive at the tribe first, taking away their goods.

Dori's caravan was such a group of merchants who placed profit above risk.

It was hard for desert people not to respect such merchants—she had both the fists to trade without fear and the ability to offer relatively fair prices.

So naturally, you should respect such a merchant.

In a different setting, Rama would have many ideas for trading with this merchant.

She was a big merchant who did business and had enough capital to influence the world in many places.

That was her value.

But today, he said nothing, just selecting some contraband and special alchemical creations from the stall.

Because Rama was not qualified to influence this big merchant's will, he could only offer suggestions, which were far from enough.

The core of business is equality. You either have technology or funds. Of course, just having a silver tongue isn't impossible either.

Business is about painting a big picture.

As long as your picture can attract investors, it's viable.

Rama was confident he could persuade Dori, but not today.

Without a stable foundation and strong enough power, his cooperation with her would always be at a disadvantage.

This was not the best situation.

"If you want to acquire some knowledge, I suggest the guest buy this canned knowledge."

Dori offered advice, "This way, the guest can master these things more quickly."

Her advice had no goodwill, purely for Mora.

Paper books might be expensive, but they would never be more expensive than canned knowledge.

And Dori was well aware of the long-term consequences of using canned knowledge—but what did that have to do with her?

She wouldn't use it.

She was just a merchant. Ensuring the quality of her goods was her bottom line; she didn't need to care about her customers' situations.

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Chapter End