The same was true for the Animal Bones, though their margins were even lower since I could buy them for a bit less than Animal Skin, but they would also sell for a lot less. As I looked down the list at the next candidate though, I knew I had found the perfect product for my test.
Name : Greater Haste Potion
Type : Consumable - Potion
Durability : 50/50
Grade : E Grade
Weight : 4st.
Description : A magic potion, which—upon consumption—will increase Speed by 33. The effect of the potion lasts 30 minutes.
The cheapest one I could find at the moment cost a whopping $750, though considering my 126 Speed, perhaps the bonus would be worth it. I could have put on a buying order for less than that, but I didn’t want to have to wait before setting up shop. I went ahead and purchased the potion and a new prompt appeared asking me if I wanted the item to be delivered to my address or if it should be transferred to a DEM warehousing facility. For a moment, I was excited by the idea of drinking the potion myself and running around Brooklyn like an Olympic sprinter. But, with my mind on the money, I quickly brushed off the idea and decided that the Olympus feta cheese in my fridge would have to suffice for my taste of all things Olympic for now.
I selected the option to store the potion in a DEM facility after making sure its small size and weight incurred no additional costs. The only downside to this option was that my item would not be available for sale until it was picked up and cataloged, but this didn’t stop me from preparing my sale entry. I quickly created a seller profile, leaving most of the information at their default, and selected the potion from a list that hosted the items I had available for sale in DEM warehouses—a list that only included this one item for now. The next step was setting a price for it.
According to my research, the prices would start hiking on Friday, reaching a peak of around one and a half grand at midnight on Saturday. I didn’t really want to wait all that time, so I decided to put a rather conservative reserve price of $1,000 on it. It still seemed completely crazy to me that something like this might work, but having seen prices of billions of dollars for single listings, I hoped that enough people would be willing to pay this much more reasonable price for the potion. I pressed the virtual button to set up shop and navigated back to the list of available Greater Haste Potions in the state of New York.
There were quite a few listings that were cheaper than mine but flipping items for profit was always a waiting game. I lay back on the couch, voice-commanded my lights to dim to their minimum brightness, and continued watching the other listings sell while my item was still grayed out in the queue. In no more than ten minutes, my potion became available, and soon after that, I fell asleep, the tablet still on my chest.
The device vibrated softly but this was enough to pull me out of my slumber. I rubbed my eyes and looked at my phone. It was two in the morning. I had no idea how to turn off sounds and vibrations on the tablet, but I needed to find out. I tapped on the screen and the first thing I saw was the notification that had caused it to wake me up.
Your item (Greater Haste Potion) has been sold to Andrea DiMazzio. Icon015
Your listing is now inactive.
Your selling price was $1,000.00.
The Dark Energy Marketplace’s fee of $150.00 has been automatically deducted.
A grand total of $850.00 has been added to your account.
Your new account balance is: $1,100.00
That was insane. I had just made one hundred dollars in about three hours. While sleeping! The thrill of the easy money quickly made my head spin with anticipation and excitement over the possibilities. If I did this systematically and if I could find better margins, I’d be able to pay back the hospital soon. Hell, I might even be able to pay back my student loan before my hair went gray.
I launched myself off the sofa and picked up my keys as a sleepy Louie barely raised his head to see what all the commotion was about. I knelt down and kissed him gently on his snout before rushing out of the apartment, down the stairs, and across the road to the liquor store.
“That’s gonna be twenty-four dollars,” said the stoner good-for-nothing cashier as I put the six-pack of Red Bulls on the counter.
“Keep the change,” I said as I handed him five five-dollar bills and immediately turned my back to leave so I wouldn’t have to watch the painful process of him trying to do simple multiplication and subtraction again.
It’s going to be a long night!
5
I will build you a Rome
Time blurred over the next couple of days. I set reminders so that I wouldn’t forget to walk Louie, but most of my time was spent in front of the tablet downing energy drinks. I think I slept a few hours. Or did I? If I was being honest with myself, it didn’t matter to me at all, since I had made more than two thousand dollars in profit in that time. Working through just one small device was creating a bit of a bottleneck, but ultimately I decided to continue running my tests before I pulled the trigger on a bigger trading setup.
Having a greater cash flow meant that I could ramp up the quality of items I’d purchase so that I could achieve larger margins. I also planned to start doing longer transactions, since I wouldn’t be able to be as active
