Chapter 36: Business

It took less than a second for them to teleport from the space station to the concrete pavement that they were currently standing on, and the surrounding scene had completely changed.

The sky was filled with hot air balloons and airships. Horizontal banners were attached to the airships, and the hot air balloons were also riddled with advertisements of all types of products such as daily necessities, various beverages, and different brands of sports shoes.

The surrounding area was also extremely lively and bustling. Some people were quickly walking by, while others were selling various items. These items were also very diverse, with things like game entry tickets, props, and equipment, and there were also people selling information.

"This is the largest market on Earth. Your pawn shop owns some land here as well," Hook explained in a casual voice.

However, Adam wasn't looking at all of that. Instead, his attention was drawn to the people around him.

This market was also filled with countless people, but most of them were workers, ones that were no different from the people role-playing as zombies and laborers in the game world. Many of the people here were wearing advertisement tags around their necks, and they were performing strange dances or yelling loudly, doing everything they could to attract the attention of the people at the market.

There were more workers than traders present, and even the tourists here were outnumbered by the workers.

Not only were the majority of people in this world poor people, the number of deceased individuals was also gradually overtaking the living population.

For the majority of people who passed away, once their personas were uploaded to the Metaverse, they would have to find a job to support themselves and pay for the memory that they were consuming.

Whenever Adam thought about the fact that these cyberliches were only puppets who thought they were still alive but were actually missing most of the core matter that made up who they were, he would be overcome by a sense of pity.

In a sense, these cyberliches were just as pitiful as blank slates. One of them was missing their body and was living on as a broken soul while serving as a laborer for others, while the other was missing their soul and their body was being used as a vessel for someone else.

"Fuck!"

"What's wrong? Why are you suddenly so worked up?" Nie Yiyi asked as she turned to Adam with an inquisitive expression. "Did you see something?"

She looked around to find that everything appeared to be quite normal.

"I didn't see anything?"

Adam shook his head in response. This so-called scene of normality around them was no different from hell in his eyes.

"What the hell's wrong with you then? Get a grip!"

Nie Yiyi was as pragmatic as ever as she opened up the interface and began to search for shops that matched her requirements.

She typed a few key terms into the interface hovering before her to narrow down the scope of her search.

"Let's see, our business will be based in Sandrise City... Psychotherapy... Adapters... Low-end service..."

Based on those key terms, her search yielded a certain area.

"Should we go and take a look?"

"Sure."

The three of them tapped the teleportation button one after another, vanishing as bursts of white light again, and by the time they reappeared, they had already arrived on Cosmos Street, Trade Planet, Metaverse.

In contrast with the street that they had just been on, this one was far less lively, and the nearby shops were designed in a way that made them very private and understated, giving them an aura of mystery.

After inspecting his surroundings, Adam discovered that the shops here mainly offered two types of services, the first of which was psychotherapy, while the other one was astrological divination. Adam had no idea how these two seemingly completely unrelated services had ended up finding a home together on this street, but after accepting this setup, he found it to be quite intriguing.

Isn't this supposed to be a low-end service? It seems like the land here is rather expensive,?Adam thought to himself as he calculated his budget.

He was well and truly broke.

"It may be a low-end service, but it's still one that's provided by adapters. You think this is equivalent to running a streetside food stall?"

While Adam was still hesitating about how to proceed, someone approached him.

In contrast with the average worker, this man's face and eyes were clearly more expressive, so it was quite apparent that this was a "living person" with more complete personality data.

"Are you here for astrological divination or psychotherapy? I am the universal guide for this area, and I'm responsible for all of the real estate deals here." This was a young man with an Asian face, and he wore a warm smile as he provided everyone with a self-introduction. "Rest assured, we are a legitimate company, and it's entirely within the rules and regulations for us to take over all of the real estate services in this area."

He opened his electronic business card and a certificate that had been signed by the main consciousness of the Metaverse as he spoke.

Upon verifying that the man had all of the required electronic documents, Adam and the others were feeling a lot more reassured.

"We're here to look at storefronts."

"Ah, so you're here for real estate services. That's within the scope of the services that we provide."

The business card revealed the young man's name to be Kim Hee-cho, and the smile on his face widened even further when he heard that the trio was here to look for a storefront.

Real estate deals were the most lucrative service that he could provide.

"Would you like to purchase or rent a storefront?"

"How much will it cost to rent a storefront in this area?"

"The monthly rental fees will range somewhere between 120,000 and 180,000."

"Hah?" Hook's face immediately fell upon hearing this number. Even though he was a regular here in the Metaverse, he had never paid much attention to information related to property rentals. "Why are the properties here so damn expensive?"

"Nowadays, everyone is searching for the services they want in the Metaverse. Not only can face-to-face meetings be facilitated here, travel is also much more convenient than it is in the real world. On top of that, due to the fact that different types of businesses have their own areas, not only is there a higher turnover rate for people running businesses here, they'll also get more customers..."

"Even then, you can't charge over 100,000 a month!"

For the average laborer in the real world, their income was only several thousand a month, so this was an astronomical sum to be charging.

"Every single property here has a market value in excess of 10,000,000, so a monthly rental fee of over 100,000 isn't all that unreasonable. In addition to that, adapters earn far higher incomes than other people. Perhaps a single psychotherapy job could earn you three months' worth of rent."

"Do divinators also earn such high incomes?"

"You may not be aware of this, but in the eastern region, there are many wealthy individuals who are devout believers in feng shui. Do you know what feng shui is? A master can charge hundreds of thousands, even over 1,000,000 for a feng shui inspection. There are only two types of divinators here, one of which are renowned masters in wealthy circles, while the second category consists of divination masters who have many fans on social media platforms. These young cyberstars can earn tens of millions per live stream, and they can also get sponsored on top of that."

"It's too expensive. Let's go," Adam said with a shake of his head. He already had monthly repayments of 100,000 that he had to make on his loan, so a further monthly rental fee of over 100,000 would be completely unfeasible for him.

"Hold on a second." Kim Hee-cho had already been toiling away in the Metaverse real estate market for seven or eight years, and when it came to judging people, his eyes were as sharp as a hawk's. As the person responsible for all business in this area, he wasn't going to pass up any opportunity to secure a deal.

"Judging from how little the three of you know about divination, I'm assuming you're looking to provide psychotherapy services, which means that you must be adapters, right? It's quite common for young adapters like yourselves to have immense potential, but no money to kickstart your business. I propose..."

"I'm not taking out any loans."

"That's fine. What I was going to propose is that we collaborate with one another. I've purchased a shop here that I can provide to you free of charge, but as the landlord, I want 30% of your profits. Does that sound reasonable to you?"

"Very much so."

"However, in addition to that, I'll be stipulating a minimum monthly performance quota on the contract, and if you can't fulfill that quota within three months, then I'll have to evict you. That also sounds reasonable, right?" Kim Hee-cho asked with a cunning smile.

This was a commonly employed tactic of his.

He knew that adapter psychotherapists were never short on work, but the death rate in the industry was very high for adapters who didn't have the skills to look after themselves.

However, whether they lived or died had nothing to do with him. All he cared about was whether he could profit from this.

Additionally, regardless of what the outcome turned out to be, this was their choice, was it not?