Chapter 177: High Price
In his previous life, the rumor that went around was that the Guild master of the Crimson Rage was a very rich person possessing a high profit earning cosmetic company. The company happened to have the name 'Crimson', founded by Snow Seeker herself.
In his previous life, Snow Seeker might not have made it into the list of top 10 players in the China region, but she was definitely one of the top 10 when it comes to fame! On the official website of the game company, there were always special interviews with One Sword Stroke, Snow Seeker, and other superstar players that were widely-known in the China region!
The current in-game gold piece had dropped to the ratio of 1:3, but 1,000,000 pieces of gold was also the equivalent to 3,000,000 dollars. Snow Seeker must have been a big-budget player, that was a total gamble at a very high stake!
The biggest difference between Crimson Rage and the other guilds such as The Dominators and the Imperial Sky was that their guild master is the direct sponsor of their guild's capital. With Snow Seeker taking the lead and directing the guild, the whole guild will obey unanimously! Moreover, a guild purely consisted of only female players had a specialized recruitment drive, once a lady player joins Crimson Rage, she will never jump to another guild ever again.
That was also the main reason the Crimson Rage will dominate the other guilds like Imperial Sky, The Dominators, in becoming the Number 1 guild in the White Jade City!
Seeing her risk a million gold for a bet just like that, could Sky Shaman and Humbly Gentleman possibly follow? Investment that involves millions would require them to consult their sponsors, the decision must not lie on them alone!
Zhang Yang brought up the voice communication device with Snow Seeker, before saying with a smile, "Guild master snow is really something, to show such a big hand, gambling at such high stakes without even a slightest flinch!"
Snow Seeker gave a light smile and said, "You have not seen me yet, how would you know that I did not flinch at all when I did it? I'm putting everything I have on the line, including my pension and funeral funds, and you believe that I didn't lose a drop of sweat doing it?"
If he did not know about the background of Snow Seeker from his past life, Zhang Yang would have difficulty imagining a beauty who soaks herself in the game everyday would possess assets that's worth billions! 300 million dollars may be an amount that is impossible to earn for a person's whole life, but for a rich player like Snow Seeker, it was like a hair pulled off a bull's back to her! The question lay on whether they were willing to pay so much for a virtual guild upgrade order!"
Other rich players like Han Ying Xue and Wei Yan Er simply play to enjoy the fun of playing the game, even casually relinquishing their positions as guild masters. To let them pay a large sum of money for a piece of guild upgrade order... absolutely impossible!
Zhang Yang smiled and said, "Alright, if guild master Snow says so, I shall finalize the deal, and when I make the announcement, I will definitely speed it up a little by half a second!"
1,100,000!
15 seconds later, a new price immediately popped up on the the display screen, and the player who placed the bid was from the Falling Maple who were standing at the front of the entrance of the shop not long ago!
So many rich players! Zhang Yang could not help himself but to sigh for Snow Seeker, and he said, "Guild master Snow, it's not that I don't want to help you, it's just that there are too many rich people!"
Snow Seeker smiled lightly and said, "It's alright then, I guess I shall wait for the 3rd or the 4th piece of guild upgrade order then!"
Even though she was rich, she was not an idiot. If this is the 1st piece of the guild upgrade order, there would still be higher bids to come, but the 2nd piece... It's how it went for winners, every players will remember the party that took down the First Clear Title of the dungeon, but no one will even bother about the party who gets the 2nd clear, or the 3rd clear of the dungeon!
20 seconds later, the price of 1,100,000 pieces of gold remained. So Zhang Yang said, "The current bid is fixed at 1,100,000 pieces of gold, no one is willing to bid higher? 1,100,000 going once... 1,100,000 going twice... 1,100,000 going thrice! Sold!"
Pak! He pressed on the button to confirm the transaction, instantly concluding the deal.
"Wow, 1,100,000! That is actually 3,300,000 dollars, and 8 persons... each person can get 300,000!" Endless Starlight got too excited that he counted it wrongly!
Wei Yan Er giggled and said, "Silly Star-Star is stupid! 3,300,000 divided by 8, that should be 500,000!"
Oh my god... another mathematics idiot had self-destructed!
Zhang Yang burst into laughter, and he said, "Actually little silly is the brightest of all! Even thought she also counted it wrongly, she was overselling it, not only she did not suffer any loss, she had something to gain!"
The words were out and the gang were all laughing.
The auction of the [Guild Upgrade Order] had been a success, so the auction activity this time around had came to an end. But since they were already there, they casually continued looking at the other goods in the shop. Many did not rush to leave the shop with the intention to check for any good stuff left in the shop.
That was the effect Zhang Yang was hoping for. Even if a piece of guild upgrade order can be auctioned out for a price of 1,100,000 gold, but it will only be tens of thousands after dividing among themselves, and that amount is only enough to be equivalent to the Little Merchandize shop's one day profit. Therefore, he did not value it much. However, the popularity of the Little Merchandize shop had been increased thanks to the auction this time around. Although the profit of the shop still could not be compared to the system's auction house, the daily profit is definitely going to hit a new high!
The gold coins had reached the accounts, that was a solid 1,100,000 pieces of gold, without any deduction from the system! Zhang Yang immediately divided the gold coins and sent each share to the accounts of Han Ying Xue and the others, each of them received 137500 pieces of gold. He mailed over Sun Xing Yu's share.
"Everyone, hurry and trade the gold coins for cash, because the gold coins are depreciating as we speak, the longer we wait, the more we lose!" Zhang Yang told the gang.
Fatty Han and the others immediately ran out from the Little Merchandize shop as the bank is located not far away from the auction site, they could reach it by taking just a few steps out. On contrary, Han Ying Xue and Wei Yan Er were lazily hanging around with no intention to move their asses, that had provoked the curiosity of Zhang Yang on whether the both of them were really that obsessed with money, or if they were just in for the thrill of making money?
For the next 2 days, the gang continued to rely on the great opportunity offered by the addition of 100% additional experience points to grind and level up. However, the creeps and monsters in the 1st floor of the Centaur Palace are all level 40. When players reach level 48, they will no longer acquire experience points from these monsters.
Even so, within those 2 days, all of them had reached level 48, claiming the number 1 to number 8 places of the top level list of the White Jade City and the China region! It was a most dramatic, hostile takeover, because most of the players were level 42 at most. With the advantage of leading ahead by 6 or 7 levels, Zhang Yang and the gang were were a full month ahead in the game!
Now they just have to wait until they reach level 50 and open up the quest door, where they will clear the Poison Fireland and head for a new region to uncover an even more intense contest ahead!
Without the addition of 100% additional experience points, and also not able to grind by killing elite monsters, Zhang Yang and the gang had found themselves instantly slowed down. So they switched their focus to the level 40 monsters in the Canyon of Scattered Feathers, with each of them leveling up by themselves.
They continued leveling up day by day by clearing the dungeons in the castle interior once every 2 days. The Yellow-Gold boss Zac and all of the bosses in the centaur palace have been aligned to respawn once in every 7 days! The boss would not be respawning until the 11th of September already.
Even with higher levels and vastly improved equipment, Zhang Yang and the gang still spent 2 days to clear the whole Centaur Palace! Looking at the bright side, the rewards were Quite abundant, and putting them in Zhang Yang's shop could earn them quite a handsome amount of income!
Zhang Yang had also harvested two [Chaos Gem]s and upgraded his backpack to increase his space by 80 slots!
This time around, Zac had dropped a whole bunch of items and equipment that were not as good as the first time around, but the loots still included 2 pieces of Yellow-Gold equipment and 4 pieces of Gray-Silver equipment, all of which were the highest quality level 50 equipment! Zhang Yang received a pair of boots, and he spent 100 gold coins to identify it. The attribute of the items had made him drooled for a bit.
[Lion's Blood Battle Boots] (Yellow-Gold, heavy armor)
Defense: +40
Vitality: +120
Strength: +48
Agility: +48
<Level 2 socket>
Equip: Absorb 200 damage every you are attacked.
Level required: 50
Daffodil Daydream had also successfully crafted the [Limitless Cape], and Zhang Yang and Endless Starlight both received a free one respectively. She crafted 8 pieces of the capes, with the remaining 6 being placed in the Little Merchandize shop for sale. They turned out to be hot sales, priced at 1000 gold for each cape. The capes were sold out within half a day, leaving Daffodil Daydream staring speechless as she viewed the results on her screen.
However, [Limitless Cape] was actually a level 50 Gray-Silver equipment, and also the first batch of the game's exclusive defense equipment! What is the most important thing for a party? Tank, obviously! No matter how poor a player is, the equipment of the tank must be complete, and this is the basic knowledge for all!
That was why Zhang Yang felt that Daffodil Daydream had priced the item too lowly! Daffodil Daydream simply did not have the business acuity. She felt that she only spent 500 gold as the cost to craft it, so selling it at 1000 gold was just enough, for a man cannot be too greedy!
What that was even more pitiful was that one of the materials for crafting the [Limitless Cape] was extremely rare, that was why Daffodil Daydream had enough to craft only 8 sets of the cape, with no possibility to mass produce.
Fatty Han and Endless Starlight were placed into the second party by Zhang Yang, having both of them fully responsible for the selection of party members. Members who registered for the selection were extremely enthusiastic, and in a short period of time, both of them had picked out 8 good players. There, the new party began their challenge of the death mode of the castle interior to reclaim the land, as a training ground for the new party members.
Zhang Yang was very impatient with the on the trivia matters on the management, so he usually handed over those trivial matters over to Fatty Han and the others to manage, to ease any conflict among the members, to regularly organize activities, and to also invigorate the atmosphere of the guild.
Over time, Zhang Yang found out that Hundred Shots and Daffodil Daydream were both very suitable to be in the management level!
Let's talk about Hundred Shots. He was loyal to the guild, and was viewed rather highly by all people. Every member would kindly call him uncle, even though he was actually only 30 years old! Everyone had great confidence in him.
On the other hand, Daffodil Daydream is a careful and detailed representative. The guild's only funding for guild activities is to be taken care by her, to manage equipment of tanks, oversee the treatment of the occasional equipment repair, and to buy red and blue potions. Every time she carried out a task, she would make a detailed account that which can be viewed clearly at just a glance!
Therefore, Zhang Yang had made a decision, to turn these two into professional players, so that they would have more time and energy to spend on the guild management.
He is the type of person who gets right on the job, the moment he thinks of something, he will immediately implement it!
"Hundred Shots, Daffodil Daydream, come over here and have a seat!" Zhang Yang had not opened up the 4th floor of the Little Merchandize shop, which was kept as a private spot for meeting purposes or other personal matters. Although players can communicate with each other through the voice communication device, it was best to meet face-to-face as it's more formal that way.
Zhang Yang smiled softly, then he said, "I hope both of you can help me by becoming Appointed Managers for the Lone Desert Smoke!"