God of Technology: Creating the Internet in Another World-Chapter 447: Price Collapse and Desperate Nobles

Watching the price drop slowly—barely down 20%—Viscount Roster showed no emotional response whatsoever.

He just pulled out his money and placed an order for about 10,000 gold coins, then immediately listed it at an even lower price.

Sure, letting them fall gradually would work. The price would eventually drop.

But that would take way too long.

Viscount Roster didn’t need to wait, and he didn’t want to watch some slow decline either.

His main goal here was to break through people’s psychological defenses.

Right now, even though prices were dropping, a lot of people still couldn’t accept that reality. They kept consoling themselves.

After all, they’d been hearing for ages—from everyone except Viscount Roster—that this thing would just keep going up and up.

And in reality, it had been going up constantly.

The sudden drop caught them completely off guard.

Even though they were listing at lower prices, they still hadn’t accepted what was happening.

But now they could see it clear as day—that price actually went through for 10,000 gold coins.

When that order first appeared, tons of people couldn’t help but gasp.

"Selling at that price? Isn’t that just throwing money away?"

"Are they crazy? Why would anyone price it that low?"

"This is absolutely ridiculous."

"It’s just a technical correction. The price’ll bounce right back up. Selling now is basically spitting on your ancestors’ graves."

Even the people who’d already sold some had to explain themselves when they heard this talk:

"Well yeah, the magic-powered vehicles just officially launched, right? Everyone’s using them—even regular merchants are using them. How’s it gonna look if I, as a noble, don’t have one? I needed cash fast, so I sold a little bit. As long as it sold, that’s fine. I’ve still got most of mine!"

When he said that, everyone else nodded in agreement.

But before they could maintain that narrative for long, the futures Viscount Roster had bought appeared back on the steel futures market at an even lower price.

That’s when things really blew up!

That’s just how people are. When prices were going up, no matter how high they climbed or how ridiculous it got, everyone acted like maniacs, buying nonstop.

But when prices started crashing—even if they only dropped a little—nobody wanted to buy. Everyone hesitated.

And Viscount Roster wasn’t about to wait for them to figure it out. He just kept lowering the price.

10,000 gold coins in steel futures wasn’t much in today’s market. If you wanted to prop up prices, it wouldn’t even make a ripple.

But right now? It was like a signal.

The constant price drops put everyone in a state of anxiety.

Watching prices keep falling, people got more and more anxious!

The head of the Clarkson family watched it all unfold, his whole body trembling.

His mind kept racing through all sorts of information.

Gradually, he started to realize something wasn’t right!

He’d seen stuff like this before, but prices crashing this hard definitely couldn’t be because of magic-powered vehicles...

No matter how many people wanted to buy those vehicles, there’s no way steel futures should be falling like this!

Vaguely, he seemed to remember something.

Back when Viscount Roster kept explaining in the World Economic News Agency that steel futures weren’t worth anywhere near this price.

That it was all just crazy speculation...

In just about half an hour, prices had already crashed about 25%.

Now, 25% might not sound like much, but remember—these things had gone up by multiples. Going from one silver coin to ten silver coins is ten times up, but dropping 25% means it’s now down to 7.5 silver coins—a full quarter gone!

And this was just the beginning.

On Magic Space, Magic Net videos, everywhere—people suddenly seemed to panic all at once. Everyone was shouting, everyone was scared, like everyone wanted to dump their futures.

The steel futures that had been so precious before, that nobody wanted to sell, suddenly changed completely.

At the Clarkson family estate: 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Something’s fishy here. How could it suddenly crash this much? It’s gotta be because everyone needs cash right now, so... just think about stocks—don’t stocks fluctuate all the time? This should be... should be a sign of a maturing market..."

One of the family elders stared at the steel futures market with a trembling voice, his whole body going numb.

The Clarkson family hadn’t just thrown in all their liquid assets—they’d also mortgaged countless properties, including land passed down through generations all over the place, shops and trading houses they’d accumulated over the years. Everything was mortgaged out.

Suddenly seeing the market collapse, their vision went dark and they nearly passed out.

But the Clarkson family was actually in pretty good shape compared to others.

Take the Duke of Dawn’s Western territories, for instance.

He’d mortgaged about two-thirds of his domain—farmland, mineral deposits, everything.

Everyone was so anxious they were practically delirious.

They were all frantically trying to console themselves.

They were all trying to explain away what was happening.

But deep down, every single one of them felt absolutely desperate.

Soon enough, some people’s psychology shifted.

They all turned their attention to Foster Mining Company, demanding to know exactly how much steel they could produce.

How much steel had they actually sold on the market?

Why didn’t they care about the steel futures price—as long as someone placed an order, they’d just keep accepting orders?

The biggest families naturally wouldn’t stoop to this level. They still had some dignity.

But for people who’d bet their entire fortunes? Saying shameless stuff like this seemed pretty normal.

They even posted it on the Magic Net, attracting a whole crowd of followers.

When Viscount Roster heard about this from the Foster Mining Company manager, he was stunned.

He knew that nobles and merchants who’d bet everything on steel futures would go crazy, but he never expected them to be this... ridiculous!

You couldn’t even call it crazy anymore.

It was just absurd.

He immediately posted on the Magic Net: "At this point, you people still have these bullshit ideas?"

"Where in the world does anything just keep going up forever? Supply and demand always spiral upward together. I said this a long time ago. You people went crazy on your own, throwing money around like maniacs, hoarding and cornering the market!"

"Now the steel futures are stuck in your own hands, and you’re actually questioning Foster Mining Company? They’re just an iron mine. You want to buy however much, they sell however much!"

"They produce that much, you come to buy, they sell. What’s wrong with that? Now you’re coming after them. Have you no shame? Do you really think everyone else in the world is stupid and only you’re smart, that everything has to revolve around you?"

After Viscount Roster issued his statement, Foster Mining Company quickly sprang into action, following his lead and publishing an announcement.