Chapter 121: 4 Digits Rewards and Exploration Rights

[Task Reward:

1500 silver coins, 1000 contribution points, 4 free weapon upgrade opportunities.

]

[Warm Reminder:

Due to the workbench you recovered, the Weapon Modification option has now been unlocked in the Weapon Shop. Do you wish to announce the reward to all players on the server? Yes/No

]

The next morning.

The four players who logged into the game confirmed their dungeon profits through their leader, Old White's VM.

"Holy shit! Four figures?!"

"Brother Light is awesome!"

"We are rich, we are rich!"

After deducting the 225 silver coins for Irene, there were still 1275 silver coins left; everyone could get 318 silver coins if the reward was divided evenly!

Compared to less the amount they stored in their bank accounts, they would be able to get a lot of money!

Looking at the excited expression on Night Ten's face, Old White gave him a stern look.

"Don't go to the forum to flaunt your wealth! I'm warning you right now..." He said, poking at the "No" option.

Night Ten said with a cheeky grin. "Am I that kind of person? I'm just trying to share the joy in my heart with the old brothers in the forum!"

As soon as he said these words, he immediately received three scornful gazes.

Joke aside, Night Ten understood that they couldn’t share how much they actually gained because of the dungeon expedition.

No one would care if he made a fortune in silence. However, things would be different if he caused public outrage. No matter how much the developers liked him, they would have to take care of the emotions of the masses.

1500 silver coins!

At present, the most expensive weapon in the weapon store, the 9mm iron barrel rifle from Boulder Town, was only 150 silver coins. And that was even after the price increased due to the 7mm iron-barreled rifles were sold out.

It was as though others had labored diligently for days, gathering enough funds to purchase their very first gun. Yet, just as they savored a sense of achievement, those individuals abruptly emerged from nowhere and dashed their sense of achievement with a four-digit dungeon reward.

The action seemed to serve no purpose other than making those hard working players, who dedicated their days and willingly acted as mere tools, feel like their minds had been forcefully manipulated, leaving them feeling as foolish like stubborn donkeys.

Was there any meaning or value to such an approach?

Games were not reality. From the standpoint of game companies, the gaming experience of all players was the most important factor.

Not mentioning how Light was just their online friend... Even if he was their biological father, the other players would probably feel like killing them to vent their anger if they found out how much they gained from a single raid.

After all, objectively speaking, the dungeon reward the Bull and Horse Squad received this time would definitely affect the balance of the game. It was much higher than the regular task rewards the players of the same level received.

During their lengthy online chat session last night, they extensively deliberated the matter. Ultimately, they collectively agreed to disseminate the information that the dungeon reward they received numbered in the 800s.

In contrast to the harrowing meat-grinder battle at the entrance of the greenhouse ruins, the challenges they faced seemed considerably more manageable. Hundreds of Crunchers had dispersed throughout the underground parking lot's two floors, and while dealing with Creepers posed a slightly higher difficulty, that was a hurdle that existed only several versions ago.

With the availability of equipment, higher levels, strategically placed traps, and refined tactics that had been arranged before the battle started, the actual difficulty paled in comparison to Night Ten's exaggerated accounts.

If Lightning Professor knew that they had made four figures from one single dungeon, they would probably protest to the game company again.

"Let's think about how to spend it..." Ample Time stroked his chin and said, "200 silver coins should be enough to make a set of steel armor for Old White. And 100 silver-"

"Alright, alright. Stop calculating," Old White waved his hand, interrupting Ample Time, "let's set aside 200 silver coins as our guild fund. Once we save up enough money, we can use it to build our guild headquarters. The rest can be divided among everyone; use your share to individually purchase whatever equipment you deem suitable."

"I agree." Gale nodded, "But 200 may not be enough, and we still need to bid for the exploration right of the dungeon of the greenhouse ruins at eight o'clock later."

Old White muttered, "Hmm... Is 500 enough?"

"It's definitely enough," Ample Time said with a smile, "Think about how much money other players have right now. I bet no one has more than 200 silver coins. If someone bids less than 200, we can throw in the top bid to win the exploration rights.”

Old White nodded. Ample Time was right.

Other players were not able to compete with them at all unless several players grouped together to pool their money. But even if that was the case, they would not be able to come up with more silver coins.

"How about contribution points? There is also an opportunity to upgrade weapons, right?" Night Ten suddenly asked.

"Contribution points can be split evenly, and we’ll allocate Irene 200 points. Anyway, we are all citizens now, and there's no need for us to save too many contribution points. We can only wait for the new version to release higher status levels. In terms of weapon upgrade... I guess we can install a grip, a sight on the gun, or something like that. I am not very imaginative, so I don't really know what the game will offer." Old White stroked his chin and analyzed.

Gale added, "I'm planning to make a cocking winch for my crossbow, and replace the front stirrup with a bayonet."

Night Ten frowned in response. "You're just wasting your time and money."

"You don't understand. It will feel more like a post-apocalyptic weapon that way." Gale grinned

"Whatever, I'll give Elaina my chance." Ample Time loved his Daybreak. He didn't want the anyone to ruin it.

Night Ten couldn’t help but burst out laughing, "Pfft, what the hell is Elaina?"

Ample Time grinned at the side. "Oh, I mean Irena, hehe."

The three of them were speechless at his cold joke.

...

Around seven in the morning, wasteland time.

The distant sun gradually rose, its faint rays piercing through the gaps in the trees, casting light upon the pristine white snow.

The nomads in the camp went to the lake to fetch water with large and small plastic buckets. The players also came out of the nursing home elevator one after another and began to relax after getting off work in real life.

A large group had already gathered at the entrance of the nursing home.

Standing in the center of the crowd, Chu Guang, who was wearing heavy armor and carrying a giant hammer on his back, spoke in a solemn and stern voice. "What is being auctioned now, is the exploration right of the first floor of the Greenhouse Ruins."

Everyone started whispering among themselves after processing what he said, "Why only auction the rights to explore the first floor?"

"You are so dumb. You can only conquer the second floor and the first underground floor after you clear the first floor!"

"I remember that there are 5 floors above ground and 10 floors underground?"

"I know. The controllable fusion generator seems to be on the 9th basement floor. The 10th basement floor is probably connected to the urban drainage system, and that should be where the Devil Moth's hive is."

Looking at the players who were talking excitedly, Chu Guang didn't pause for too long. He briefly described the difficulty of the dungeon, the expected number of monsters, and some other stuff, which was an introduction to the auction item.

Finally, he announced the start of the auction.

"... The guaranteed minimum reward for the completion of the task is 200 silver coins, the starting price is 100 silver coins, and each increase shall not be less than 1 silver coin."

Mosquito instantly raised his hand. "150..."

But he was interrupted before he finished speaking, "200 silver coins!"

Looking at Ample Time, who raised his hand, the surrounding players gasped. "Holy shit, the dungeon clearance reward is only 200 silver coins, but they offered 200 silver coins just for the exploration right?! How the hell are they going to make any profit from it?"

"This is ridiculous!"

"Are you stupid? The 200 silver coin is a guaranteed minimum reward. If they clear the cocoons inside, you think they will only earn 200 silver coins?"

"That's not necessarily true. You may not know, but Devil Moth's cocoons have already piled up into several small hills next to the warehouse, and its purchase price has plummeted several times. If there are no other new loot drops, the remaining Devil Moth cocoons may not even be sold for 200 silver coins."

Wasteland Online currently had two markets, one was the NPC Warehouse, and the other was the market at the north gate.

There were too few players in the alpha testing stage, and the consumption ability of people in the outpost was not high. At present, if players wanted to make money, they mainly had to rely on the orders of the NPC Warehouse.

The economy system in Wasteland Online was much more interesting than other games.

In order to prevent the excess of having one specific type of resource and serious inventory backlog, the NPC Warehouse had preset a blue line and a red line for every single type.

The blue line represented the reserve upper limit, and the red line represented the stock warning line. They maintained the leverage of supply and demand balance and were mainly determined according to the needs of the industrial zone.

If the resource reserve exceeded the blue line, which was the upper limit of the reserve, for every 10% in excess, the purchase price and sale price would reduced by 10% on the current price, which was equivalent to reducing production and promoting consumption.

If it went lower than the inventory warning line, for every 10% it dropped, the purchase price and selling price would increase by 10%. That would stimulate production while tightening consumption.

There was also a small detail that had to be taken into account and that was most players didn't not have private warehouses.

Small quantities of supplies could be stuffed into lockers, while larger quantities were either sold to factories in industrial areas or piled up on their private land.

Randomly stacked items were considered abandoned and could be picked up by other players and NPCs.

And not to mention the NPC warehouse, even Teng Teng's Hut was also full of those cocoons. After several days of dumping, the purchase price of Devil Moth's cocoon had already dropped to one silver coin, and the selling price had also been all-time low.

It was said that if the inventory exceeded the blue line by five times, a circuit breaker would be triggered, and the administrator would set a white line to lock the selling price, and stopall purchases.

At present, this situation has not happened, but if it continued to develop at this speed, Chu Guang was probably going to have to stop buying cocoons.

The same was true of Devil Moth's corpse and psychoid leaves. The blue line for those was already very low to begin with, and the warehouse's willingness to stock them wasn’t strong. Since the prices of those had fallen continuously, apart from newbies, no one would bring them back to the outpost.

"Why are you worried about them?" Seeing those idiots worrying about others not making money, Escaping Mole looked up at the sky and sighed.

Then he shook his head and continued, "You guys don't understand the rules of the mechanism at all. Do you really think that they care about 200 silver coins? So what if they don't make any money?"

"What do you mean?" Elf Wang was confused.

If raiding a dungeon would not make money, then what was the point?

Not to mention bullets, even if their axe was broken, they had to spend money to buy a new one!

Escaping Mole gave this idiot a meaningful look. "After clearing the first floor, the second floor above and the first floor below the ground will be unlocked, right?"

Elf Wang frowned. "Uh, yeah?"

"The priority to explore can last up to 7 days," after a moment of pause, Escaping Mole continued indifferently, "If it were me, I would just sell the priority exploration right of the second floor to other teams... I’ll just sell it for 200 silver coins, and then concentrate on raiding the basement floor."

"Holy shit!" Elf Wang finally understood the implications and his eyes widened in shock. "Doesn't this mean that they will be able to snowball the profits?!"

"As long as they can clear the level within the time limit of the priority exploration right, they will definitely be able to snowball their money.”

Mole sighed enviously. "Even the first level is guaranteed to earn 200 silver... Don’t forget, there are 9 more floors to go.”

Had he not known that they had just cleared a large dungeon, and he definitely wouldn't be able to compete with them, he would've also joined the bid.

After all, the profit here was huge.

Fuck!

If only I could spend real money in this game!

Escaping Mole had a hunch that if those few people continued to snowball their profits, Wasteland Online would roll out the guild system before the close alpha ended.

Or perhaps, the game company would release an even more expensive gameplay system than the guild system.

After all, the price of the most expensive gear in the store was currently only in the triple digits.

He really couldn't think of where else they could spend their silver coins if they made more than three digit profits.

...

After getting the right to explore the Greenhouse Ruins, the Bull and Horse Squad did not start the raid immediately, but recruited 5 veteran players who tried to clear this dungeon before, grouping them together into a 10 person team.

Everyone was above LV4, and they were made up of strength and agility type players.

Of course, a certain mole was among them.

Old White, the leader, walked up to the five new recruits and said. "The first floor has been almost cleared. I estimate that it will be difficult to make 200 silver coins from the remaining resources. If there's no accident, we will only get the final guaranteed clearance reward."

Elf Wang nodded. "Indeed... Those who came after us were really wild...."

Old White sighed, "You can't blame them. After all, there were some problems with the previous gameplay mechanism. You can even have dozens of people in the same dungeon. That was why I didn't dare to say anything on the forum. It’s different now, so we don't need to worry about other players."

After a pause, Old White continued. "If the final income of the first floor is 200 silver coins, the five of you can split the money. For anything that exceeds 200 silver coins, we will take 40%, and the rest will still be split among you guys."

Midnight Pubg was dazed. "Isn't this a terrible deal for you?"

"You don't have to worry about it," Ample Time smiled and said frankly, "Our goal is the right to explore on the first underground floor and the second floor above ground."

Old White shook the VM on his arm. "If there is no problem, I will start drawing the team contract here."

The team contract could be drawn up through the teaming function of VM. In addition to several templates provided by the official website, players could also draw the contract themselves.

In the event of a dispute, the outpost would arbitrate based on the content of the contract to determine the ownership of the loot and rewards.

After the five players received the team invite, they confirmed it again, and exchanged glances with each other. No one had any opinions about it.

Especially Escaping Mole and Elf Wang. They had communicated before and already knew what the Bull and Horse Squad's goal was.

They knew those monsters weren’t interested in picking up other people's leftovers. Their real goal was the next floor and the floors after that.

However, what Mole didn't expect was that they weren't interested in the remaining 200 silver coins and simply gave them away.

Just how rich are those people?!

Clicking the confirm button on the VM's screen, Mole clenched his fists. "Thank you, brother."

Ample Time said with a smile, "Don't mention it. We are still counting on you to teach us how to farm the nest of mutant insects. Don't worry, if there is such a good opportunity next time, we definitely won't take it from you!"

As if!

𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Escaping Mole sighed inwardly.

Sure enough.

If I want to get rich, I still have to find a way to explore some high-value resource points. There is no future to just follow other people to raid dungeons.

Looking at Mole, Old White said with a smile. "Brother, how about joining our group? We plan to build a guild soon, so everyone can play together when we have time."

Night Ten smiled and said, "Do you want to be a deputy leader? Once our guild is established, you can be our deputy leader."

Escaping Mole looked at the sky and shook his head. "Thank you, but I have other plans. I didn't have the money or time to become elite players in other games in the past, but now that I have encountered such an awesome game... I want to give it a shot."

The deputy leader of most MMORPG guilds was just a nominal title. It was really useless.

After all, he was also an alpha tester, so it would be too wasteful if he didn't have a guild himself.

Ample Time and Old White looked at him and smiled. They expressed their understanding and didn’t mention it again.

"Okay, that's enough talk. It's time to make money now."

"Go! Go! Go!"

"Let's do it!"