[Quest Rewards: 1,500 silver coins, 1,000 contribution points, 4 free weapon upgrade opportunities.]
[Friendly Reminder: Because the workbench you salvaged has unlocked the "weapon modification" option at Outpost 404's weapon shop, would you like to announce your squad's information server-wide? Yes / No]
Early the next morning.
The four players logged into the game and checked their dungeon haul on squad leader Lao Bai's VM.
"Holy shit! Four digits?!"
"Brother Guang is awesome!"
"We're rich! We're rich!"
Deducting the 225 silver coins for Elaina left 1,275 silver coins. Split evenly, each of them would get 318 silver coins!
Compared to the bank accounts of most players, which held less than three digits in savings, this was undeniably a massive fortune!
Seeing Ye Shi grinning like a fool, Lao Bai glared at him fiercely.
"Don't you fucking go flexing on the forums! I'm warning you!"
As he spoke, he tapped the "No" option.
Ye Shi replied with a cheeky grin, "Am I really that kind of person? That's called sharing the joy in our hearts with our forum bros!"
The moment those words left his mouth, he instantly earned three pairs of eye rolls.
Joking aside, Ye Shi knew where the line was. This wasn't the kind of flex you could pull casually.
Keeping quiet and making a fortune might not bother anyone, but if you stirred up public outrage, no matter how much the dev wanted to protect you, he'd still have to consider the feelings of the player majority.
Fifteen hundred silver coins!
At present, the most expensive weapon in the weapon shop—the 9mm pipe rifle manufactured in Boulder City—cost a mere 150 silver coins. And that was after rifle prices had been slightly bumped up across the board once the 7mm pipe rifles sold out!
It would be like someone grinding hard on daily quests, sweating for days, and finally saving up enough money to happily buy the first iron pipe gun of their life. Just when they were brimming with accomplishment, you pop out and slap a four-digit dungeon payout right across their face.
Aside from making those players who grinded dailies and willingly played the role of worker bees feel like absolute chumps who'd been mind-fucked, what purpose would it serve?
A game wasn't reality. From the game company's standpoint, the gameplay experience of the entire player base was always paramount.
Never mind that dev Ah Guang was just a group chat buddy—even if Brother Guang were his biological father, he'd probably want to slaughter him as a sacrifice to the heavens.
After all, objectively speaking, their dungeon reward was indeed a bit balance-breaking, two full orders of magnitude higher than standard quest earnings for players of the same level.
Last night, they had debated in the Cow and Horse group chat for ages, and the consensus they reached was only around 800.
After all, compared to the horrific meat grinder at the entrance of the greenhouse ruins, the hundred-plus Gnawers had been spread across two levels of an underground parking garage. The Crawler had been a bit tough, but that was several versions ago.
With equipment, levels, and the ability to set traps and plan tactics in advance, the actual difficulty wasn't nearly as exaggerated as Ye Shi bragged.
If Lightning King Professor Yang found out they had made four digits from a single dungeon, he would probably start crying foul about insider rigging again.
"Let me think about how to spend it..." Fang Chang rubbed his chin. "Two hundred silver to forge a set of steel armor for Lao Bai shouldn't be an issue, one hundred silv—"
"Alright, alright, stop counting," Lao Bai waved a hand, cutting Fang Chang off. "Set aside 200 silver to save as a guild fund until we have enough to construct our guild building. We'll split the rest and figure out what gear to buy for ourselves."
"I agree." Gale Force 8 nodded. "Though 200 probably won't be enough. At eight o'clock, we still have to bid on the exploration rights for the greenhouse ruins dungeon."
Lao Bai grimaced. "Hiss... Will reserving 500 be enough?"
"Definitely enough," Fang Chang said with a smile. "If you calculate how much money the others have in their pockets, you'll know—I bet no one has more than 200 silver. If the bidding stays under 200, we'll just bump it straight to 200 and buy it out!"
Lao Bai nodded.
That made sense.
Unless several other players pooled their money, they wouldn't stand a chance. And even if they pooled their money, it didn't matter; the squad could always bid more.
"By the way, how do we split the contribution points? And what's that weapon upgrade opportunity all about?" Ye Shi suddenly asked.
"Let's split the contribution points evenly—including Elaina, that's 200 each. Anyway, everyone's already a citizen, so we're just waiting for the new version to unlock higher status tiers. As for that weapon upgrade... my guess is adding a grip to a gun or engraving an optic or something. My imagination isn't big enough, so we'll see when we get there," Lao Bai said, rubbing his chin as he tossed out guesses.
Gale Force 8 said, "I plan to install a cocking windlass on my crossbow and swap the stirrup at the front for a bayonet."
Ye Shi said, "That's completely pointless—like taking off your pants to fart."
Gale Force 8 replied, "You don't get it. It's more wasteland style that way."
"Count me out. I'll give my chance to Old Yi." Fang Chang loved his "Daybreak" too much to let that workbench ruin it.
Ye Shi snorted. "Pfft, who the heck is Old Yi?"
Fang Chang said, "Well, I can't very well call him Old Na."
The three of them stared blankly at the same time.
Uh.
That was lame.
...
Around seven in the morning, wasteland time.
The distant sun gradually rose, its thin rays piercing through the gaps in the forest and spilling over the pristine white snow.
The nomads in the camp carried plastic buckets of various sizes to fetch water by the lake. Players also began emerging from the sanatorium elevator, kicking off their after-work leisure time.
At this moment, a dense crowd had gathered outside the entrance of the sanatorium.
Standing in the center of the crowd, clad in heavy armor with a war hammer slung across his back, Chu Guang spoke in a solemn and dignified voice.
"What is now up for auction is... the exploration rights to Floor 1 of the greenhouse ruins."
Hearing this, the surrounding players began whispering among themselves.
"Why only auction Floor 1?"
"Dummy, of course you have to clear Floor 1 before you can tackle Floor 2 and Basement 1!"
"I recall there being five floors above ground and ten floors below ground, right?"
"I know that—the controllable fusion generator seems to be on the ninth floor! Does the tenth floor connect to the city's drainage system? The devil moth hive queen should be down there!"
Glancing at the chattering players, Chu Guang didn't linger long. He briefly outlined the dungeon's difficulty, expected monster count, and other details as an introduction to the auction lot.
Then, he declared the start of the auction.
"...The guaranteed clearance baseline reward is 200 silver coins. The starting bid is 100 silver coins, with minimum bid increments of 1 silver coin."
Mosquito shot his hand up.
"One hundred and fifty—"
Before he could finish, he was cut off.
"Two hundred silver!"
Seeing Fang Chang raise his hand, the surrounding players drew in a collective breath of cold air.
"Holy crap, for a dungeon with a 200-silver clearance reward, you bid 200 silver right off the bat?! What the hell profit is left?"
"That's absurd!"
"What do you know? That 200 silver is just the baseline reward. If you clear out the cocoons inside and sell them, how could it only be 200 silver?"
"Not necessarily. You might not know this, but devil moth cocoons are already piled like small mountains beside the warehouse. The buyback price has been slashed multiple times. If there's no new loot, the remaining devil moth cocoons might not even fetch 200 silver."
Wasteland OL currently had two markets: the NPC warehouse and the bazaar by the north gate.
During the closed beta, there were too few players and their spending power was low. For now, making money mainly depended on orders issued by the NPC warehouse.
Wasteland OL's economy system was quite intriguing.
To prevent surpluses of single resources and severe inventory backlogs, the NPC warehouse preset a blue line and a red line for each type of resource.
The blue line represented the "reserve ceiling," while the red line represented the "inventory alert threshold." These two lines maintained the balance of supply and demand, determined primarily by the needs of the industrial zone.
If resource stockpiles exceeded the blue line—the reserve ceiling—for every 10% over, both the buying price and selling price would drop by 10% from their current levels, simultaneously reducing production and incentivizing sales.
If stockpiles fell below the red line—the inventory alert threshold—for every 10% under, both buying and selling prices would rise by 10%, driving up production and curbing consumption.
There was another piece of trivia: the vast majority of players had no private storage.
Small amounts of items could still be shoved into lockers, but bulk goods either had to be sold to factories in the industrial zone or piled on their own private land.
Piling items haphazardly would be deemed abandonment, meaning other players and NPCs could take them freely.
Right now, never mind the NPC warehouse—even Tengteng Cottage's storage room was stuffed to the brim with these cocoons. After several days of dumping, the purchase price of devil moth cocoons had plunged to 1 silver coin each, and the sale price had been slammed flat against the floor alongside it.
Supposedly, if inventory exceeded the blue line by five times, it would trigger a circuit breaker mechanism, where the Administrator would establish a "white line," locking the sale price and halting purchases entirely until stockpiles dropped below the white line.
This situation hadn't occurred yet, but at the rate things were going, it probably wouldn't take long.
The same went for devil moth carcasses and spirit leaves. The reserve ceilings for these two materials were already low to begin with, meaning the warehouse had little interest in stockpiling them. Their purchase prices had been cut drastically again and again; aside from newbies tagging along for carries, hardly anyone bothered hauling them back anymore.
"Stop worrying on their behalf," Brother Mole said, looking at the bunch of fools stressing over whether someone else would make a profit. He looked up at the sky, let out a long sigh, and shook his head. "You guys don't understand the rules of this thing at all... Are they really after that 200-silver payout? Even if they don't make a dime, so what?"
"What do you mean?"
Elven King Fugui stared blankly, completely baffled.
Running a dungeon without making money?
Then what was the damn point of fighting?
Forget the bullets—if an axe chipped, you'd still have to spend money to buy a replacement!
Brother Mole cast a meaningful glance at the naive fellow.
"Clearing Floor 1 unlocks the entrances to Basement 1 and Floor 2, right?"
Elven King Fugui asked, "Uh, and then?"
"The priority exploration rights can last up to seven days," Brother Mole paused, then continued calmly. "If it were me, I'd sell the priority exploration rights to Floor 2 directly to another team... say, for 200 silver, and then concentrate our forces to assault Basement 1."
"Holy crap?!"
Elven King Fugui finally understood, his eyes going wide.
"Isn't that just snowballing?!"
"As long as you clear each floor within the priority exploration window and keep clearing floor by floor, theoretically, you do snowball."
Mole sighed with envy.
"The first floor guarantees 200 silver baseline... and there are ten floors down below."
If he hadn't known these guys had just cleared a major dungeon and that he would lose a bidding war against them a hundred percent of the time, he would have raised his paddle to give it a shot no matter what.
After all, the premium on this was downright terrifying.
Damn it!
If only this game were pay-to-win!
Mole had a hunch.
If these guys were allowed to keep snowballing like this, Wasteland OL wouldn't even wait for the open beta to roll out a guild system.
Or gameplay features that burned even more cash than a guild system.
After all, the most expensive gear in the shop was currently only three digits.
He truly couldn't imagine where these guys could possibly spend their money once they earned more than three digits of silver coins.
...
After securing the exploration rights to the greenhouse ruins dungeon, the Cow and Horse Squad didn't jump straight into the raid. Instead, they recruited five veteran players who had previously taken part in the dungeon, assembling a mixed nine-man squad.
Every member was Level 4 or above, primarily belonging to the Strength-type and Agility-type sequences.
Naturally, a certain Brother Mole was among them.
Serving as squad leader, Lao Bai stepped before the five recruits and spoke up.
"Floor 1 has already been picked pretty clean. I doubt the remaining resources will even add up to 200 silver. Barring any surprises, the final dungeon reward will likely just be the baseline payout."
Elven King Fugui nodded.
"True... that bunch of newbies went completely feral."
Lao Bai said, "You can't really blame them for being feral. The previous mechanics were definitely a bit flawed, with dozens of people cramming into a single dungeon. We didn't even dare speak up on the forums back then. It's different now. A more structured approach is better for everyone."
Pausing briefly, Lao Bai continued.
"If the final dungeon earnings come out to 200 silver, the five of you will split the money; the four of us won't take a share. For anything exceeding 200, we'll take forty percent, and the rest will still be split among you."
Midnight Chicken Slaughter froze. "Then wouldn't you guys take a loss?"
"No need to worry about us," Fang Chang said with a smile, laying it out plainly. "Our goal is the exploration rights to Basement 1 and Floor 2."
Lao Bai shook the VM on his arm.
"If there are no objections, I'll start drafting the team contract."
Party contracts could be formulated using the VM's team system. In addition to several templates provided on the official website, custom terms could also be edited.
In the event of a dispute, the outpost would arbitrate based on the contract's terms to determine the ownership of spoils and rewards.
After receiving the team details, the five players checked them over, exchanged glances, and raised no objections.
In particular, Mole and Brother Fugui had talked earlier and already knew what the Cow and Horse Squad was after.
These top-tier players had no interest in scavenging leftover broth; their real targets were the next stage, and the stage after that.
Still, what Mole hadn't expected was that they wouldn't even bother taking a cut of the remaining 200 silver coins, simply handing it over to randoms like them.
Just how filthy rich were they?!
Tapping confirm on the VM's screen, Mole cupped his fists.
"Brothers, I'm counting on you. I'm just here to tag along and sip some broth."
Fang Chang said with a chuckle, "Good brother, don't say that. We're counting on you to teach us how to run insect-type mutant nests. Don't worry, next time there's a good opportunity like this, we definitely won't compete with you!"
Like hell I believe you!
Mole sighed deeply in his heart.
Sure enough.
To strike it rich, one had to find ways to explore high-value resource points; following behind others to sip broth held no future.
Looking at Mole, Lao Bai said with a smile, "Brother, why don't you join our chat group? When the time comes, we plan to establish a guild so everyone can play together whenever we're free."
Ye Shi chimed in with a grin, joining the fun. "How about becoming a vice guild master? Once the guild is built, we'll make you one."
Mole looked up at the sky and shook his head.
"Thanks, but I'll pass on the guild. In other games, I lacked the money and time to push for Tier 1. Now that I've finally run into an incredible game like this... I want to be a powerhouse carry for once."
An MMORPG vice guild master was nothing more than an empty title to toss around.
As a closed beta player, not getting to play as a guild master himself would be a total waste.
Fang Chang and Lao Bai smiled understandingly and dropped the subject.
"Form up, form up! Enough talk, time to make some money!"
"Charge, charge, charge!"
"Let's do this!"
Chapter 121