Chapter 1572: 401: The Maritime Landscape, Momentum of Two Powers

The news that the Shell Clan had won a huge fortune in the Destiny Casino sparked heated discussion among all races in the Trading Market of Dream Island. Toward this Destiny Casino that had suddenly risen to prominence, the vast majority of trade teams landing on the island maintained a cautious attitude.

The path of games of chance is fraught with unfathomable risks.

They place more trust in tangible, concrete channels such as the Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce.

Rather than in a gambling format like the Destiny Casino, which might be subject to unknown backstage interference.

They could not even see the win rate.

Yet the news of the Shell Clan’s sudden wealth was highly credible.

The feud between the Shell Clan and the Bitter Demon Clan, this pair of hereditary enemies, had already attracted the attention of many powers during the decades-long war that predated the arrival of the Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce on Dream Island.

After the Trading Market opened, the two clans became frequent patrons, and many trade teams personally witnessed the scenes of them vying to purchase war resources.

Their war posture was, to some extent, transparent in the eyes of other races.

One only needed to observe their resource procurement to roughly infer which side held the upper hand in the trend of war.

Yet recently, the Shell Clan abruptly changed its usual behavior, sweeping up goods in the Trading Market in massive quantities, with purchase volumes far exceeding its previous limits, even beginning to order "Gold Coin Potions" that it had never dared to touch in the past; this abnormal move provided irrefutable corroboration for the rumor of sudden wealth.

Behind all of this, it was Life Throat fanning the flames.

In terms of development strategy, Life Throat’s thinking was completely opposite to that of the Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce.

One could even say they ran counter to each other.

The core credibility of the Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce was built upon absolute neutrality and a confidentiality system.

While providing resource-conversion channels to the trade teams landing on the island, it also offered anonymous trading services; as long as clients paid an additional commission, the Chamber could act as an intermediary and fully broker the trade.

It could even provide paid delivery services after the transaction was completed.

The two sides of a transaction could go through the entire process without ever seeing each other.

This system catered to the desire of all kinds of forces not to expose their true strength and weakness, as well as to the need of many small powers to keep their wealth hidden.

The Destiny Casino crafted by Life Throat followed a different development model.

He did not need anonymous clients; what he needed were legendary stories.

Cases like the Shell Clan’s overnight fortune were the best advertisements.

Thus, far from helping them conceal it, he instead stirred the waters, allowing this news to spread in the most exaggerated way possible.

He wished nothing more than for every corner of the Bright Star Sea Area to know: in the Destiny Casino, miracles truly can happen.

As for whether participants, after winning vast sums and leaving the casino, could hold on to that windfall from the heavens, and whether it would draw in more powerful coveters and disasters—this had never been within the scope of Life Throat’s concern.

Desire is the best soil in which to nourish a casino.

It will push the defeated who have fallen into despair, or the ambitious, back onto his gambling table once more.

Life Throat viewed the positioning of the casino with great clarity.

Only those clans driven by reality into a corner, with no retreat, would regard the Destiny Casino as their last straw, willing to stake everything to gamble for an ethereal miracle.

The reference case was the Mingwu Clan’s General of those years: Ye Ming.

The Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce, however, followed a different development model, pursuing a stable ecology in which the strong grow stronger and the weak seek supplies.

Its clientele encompassed all needs from top Strong Clans down to tiny minor clans; its scale was destined to grow infinitely along with the expansion of its trade network.

The Destiny Casino, in contrast, dealt in extreme emotions outside the norm.

Its core target clients were crystal clear from the outset: those who saw no hope within the established order and longed to ascend in a single step, or those who had already lost everything and had only a worthless life left—desperadoes and gamblers.

In this world, those who truly become addicted to games of probability are not those forces with abundant resources and orderly, step-by-step development.

For such forces, the stable development of the clan is the core demand.

Thus in terms of publicity, what Life Throat sought was sensation, not privacy protection.

He wanted those forces in desperate straits to see the hope brought by the Destiny Casino, down to concrete cases.

The need for a bit of entertainment exists among all races; it is just that the scale of their stakes is destined not to be large.

Only desperation can bet everything.

...

Primordial Altar.

Qi Sheng withdrew his gaze from Dream Island.

Qi Sheng quite appreciated the Destiny Casino model that Life Throat had crafted.

Besides the fact that it added an extra channel for taxation.

The casino model touched upon a Domain that the Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce found difficult to pry open: the acquisition of top-tier resources and Rule System resources.

For the vast majority of clans in the Monster World, ordinary resources and Rule Power were two entirely different concepts.

The Monster World nurtured endless Spiritual Ore, Spirit Plants, and even living beings themselves; all of these could be regarded as renewable Spiritual Resources.

So long as a clan’s Strength was great enough, with the Sword cutting a path forward, it could continually open up new resource points.

Using force to obtain the nourishment needed for development.

Yet this was a mode of horizontal expansion.

Rule System power, on the other hand, represented a vertical leap for a civilization.

Many descending forces carried Rules that were the Ultimate embodiment of a clan’s wisdom, technology, and heritage, and also the cornerstone for constructing a unique Strength system and stepping toward higher dimensions.

To forge a Rule required the投入 of a terrifying total volume of resources, as well as a long accumulation of technology and trial-and-error over the ages.

This process could be regarded as a civilization’s "ascension plan."

Therefore, any clan with even a modicum of foresight would never place Rule System power into the Trading Market to exchange for those ordinary development resources or war materials that could be obtained through war or time.