Chapter 58: Current State of Affairs

Three days later, Jiang Qiao checked the financial reports of the game and its current situation at the Astrology Tower.

The System Tome showed Jiang Qiao the data of the server through holograms.

From the System Tome, the income that the game brought Jiang Qiao was zero.

That being said, this game’s commercial value had completely shown itself as the players continued to enter the game. The value of one gold coin had already increased to 372 dollars a piece, which was double the price that it was back at the start.

This was all according to Jiang Qiao’s predictions, but what was truly expensive in this game was the special equipment.

“Aren’t you going to put these to be sold on the trading site?” Ocean Blue asked as she ordered takeout using the Tiangong web browser. Because this browser was the one that Jiang Qiao used too, there were a few websites that he had bookmarked.

Ocean Blue had been learning how to surf the internet rapidly, and today she found a website for trading in-game items called the 4396 Gamer Trading Site.

This website was the largest of its kind in Hua Nation, and when she browsed through it she was surprised to find a division specifically for Sacred Souls.

In the Sacred Souls division, it showed the trading rate of gold coins, and recently the price had increased by ninety percent with the potential of increasing even further.

This was much more profitable than buying shares.

Jiang Qiao would get pleasantly surprised every time he saw the rates go up himself.

What attracted Ocean Blue’s gaze was in the equipment trading division, and one of the most expensive pieces of equipment called Garona’s Piggy Bank.

This was a special piece of equipment that didn’t grant any stat bonuses, but it had the unique effect of increasing the gold earned by twenty-five percent when the player that equipped it beat a boss or an elite monster.

This special equipment didn’t have a level requirement, but it took up a space in the player’s equipment slot nonetheless.

The equipment that a player could equip on themselves in Sacred Souls were helmets, upper body armor, belts, leg armor, shoes, capes, gloves, two rings, two accessories, an extra Blessing Totem and weapon spaces for both hands.

Some classes like Hunters and Gunslingers even had a special slot for their ammo.

In total, there were around fourteen equipment slots, and if the special equipment that a player obtained were a ring, then this special equipment would have to take up a slot for a ring.

In Jiang Qiao’s design, many of these special equipment had comedic effects with the cons greater than the pros. Therefore, an item like Garona’s Piggy Bank that could be used by all classes and that didn’t have any detrimental effects naturally had an extremely high price.

Garona’s Piggy Bank was sold at the price of four hundred and thirty thousand Hua Nation currency, and with this price Jiang Qiao could already get enough to buy a decently priced car.

Sacred Souls had basically eliminated the possibility of people using workshops or bots to earn gold coins, so the price of gold coins would undoubtedly increase further. As the piggy bank was an accessory item, so if someone bought two and equipped them, they would be able to obtain fifty percent more the gold coins they would have originally gotten. If they were hardworking enough, they could probably be able to get back their money’s worth.

“I have around ten of these things! Like the Fire Elves’ Rage, Light Elves’ Memory, Water Elves’ Mercy…” As Ocean Blue said so, she took out a pile of Garona’s Piggy Banks and three sparkling Light Elves’ Memories, three small fireballs, and a water droplet.

The price of the elemental elf series of equipment was still sky high at this point, and they took the place of the Blessing Totem equipment slot with the effect of having a certain rate of Level 35 skills and below to be released twice in a row.

Even the cheapest of these pieces of equipment were more than thirty thousand dollars.

“What kind of game developer are you, to think of selling your own equipment?”

Jiang Qiao closed the System Tome and knocked it onto Ocean Blue’s head, and the piggy banks in the latter’s arms clattered onto the ground.

“Can’t I…?” Ocean Blue muttered as she rubbed her forehead. This was already the second time she had been rebuked by Jiang Qiao for suggesting an idea.

“If you want to become broke. These equipment are only so expensive because they’re limited in supply.”

Jiang Qiao knew that the special equipment sold on the website were all from the first Abyssal Hunt, and they couldn’t be obtained from any dungeon currently available.

As for epic equipment, players could obtain those in high difficulty dungeons, and while the difficulty was still quite high, but there was still a stable source. If a player had a skilled enough party, they could probably be able to get a whole set within a month.

“They wouldn’t be able to tell it was us, would they?’ Ocean Blue didn’t have any knowledge on finance and management.

“You’ve only been eating takeout, so there’s no need for so much money. Don’t worry about the profit, it’s going to come in the future as long as we manage the game well and increase the maximum players allowed on the server.”

Jiang Qiao didn’t really value money all that much. It wasn’t that he didn’t have any needs or wants, but he could control himself from earning money that he wasn’t supposed to, like the way Ocean Blue suggested.

“Fine…” Ocean Blue nodded with a pout, before continuing to order her takeout.

She was quite obedient in some ways, and Jiang Qiao had the feeling he was keeping a pet, and not a goddess.

After analyzing the current financial situation of Sacred Souls, Jiang Qiao reopened the System Tome and checked on the current growth and development of the server.

Jiang Qiao’s schemes… Ahem, development plans were quite successful, and the newly released main quest by Vigilist Floria gave all the players motivation to raise their levels as quickly as they could.

The MVP system in Sacred Souls gave the large guilds motivation to compete and brawl for the dungeon records, and the rate at which they partied up for the Tower of Trials and other dungeons was a few times more than before.

Jiang Qiao knew that the large guilds had already started to become serious, and not only did they start exploring and strategizing seriously, they also seemed to have started to seek help from outside the game.

These three days, Zhao Mingwei and Jiang Qiao had both been invited endlessly to challenge dungeons. Zhao Mingwei was their main objective, while Jiang Qiao was seen as an added perk.

As a result of this severe competition, the maximum number of players allowed on the server practically doubled, and when compared to how it increased by around three hundred daily in the past, it quickly increased to a steady rate of more than seven hundred a day.

The number of players in the game had finally broken the threshold of six thousand people, with a total of 6700 players.

Jiang Qiao was so elated by this that he wanted to celebrate with a cake, but he knew that this bit of players were still not enough when compared to the many successful games on the market.

This server limit was achieved through the efforts of the players in the Tower of Trials.

“Now we only have to wait for the Maker Energy to increase, huh?” Jiang Qiao glanced at the Maker Energy he had, and the amount had increased from fourteen thousand from nineteen thousand, with a rate of three to four points every day and the occasional fifty to sixty.

This Maker Energy was all from the players that killed the monsters in the Tower of Trials, as well as the sacred relics that they obtained.

“Hm? Well if it isn’t the ‘whale’ 1 Segman?”

Jiang Qiao saw the number of Maker Energy jump from three and four to +700 all of a sudden, and he knew that the prince had appeared.

Footnotes:

Ch 58 Footnote 1

Whales are players who spend a great deal on in-app purchases. Well in this case he’s not a player but you’d get the gist after the next chapter.