“How did they take it?”
“They celebrated,” Hung said shortly. “Opened bottles.”
“I’ll give them all loan contracts to buy a capsule today. Well pay them in gold. The workers can take out the money using the contracts and legally buy capsules with no trouble. At rank one, they’ll start getting some richer gemstones, and the clan’s income will increase by a quarter.”
“Any of those gemstones good for strength or stamina?” I asked. “I need three for my shield…”
“We’ll find you some,” Ed promised. “The top players had epic ones in their gear. We can pull ’em out.”
“For rank one, the noncitizens need to reach level one hundred. I can…”
“We can handle boosting a bunch of low-level noobs,” Ed interrupted. “But I’m not sure how yet… We can’t take them to Latteria—some of them are undead. Us too. Holdest is no place for the ones that stayed human. Same problem with the desert. Where we can we level them up?”
“Has Gyula restored the temple?” I asked.
“He should finish it today.”
“Then we’ll discuss it after. But in the meantime, this is the way I see it: we need to turn everyone undead and quickly level up, some place in the desert where players haven’t reached yet. The guards can help. I’ll lend you Sharkon too. Alright, what’s next?”
“Three million phoenixes for capsules. I suggest we don’t worry about selling the legendaries right now. We’re better off waiting for Overweight. For now, I have another idea. I’ve been leveling up Enchcuitinent. A little more and I’ll reach rank one. I can not only enchant items, I can disenchant magic gear too. That splits legendaries up into their source material, Shining Substance, but also, there’s a small chance that a Hero’s Heart can drop. That’s an ingredient for a bunch of top-level recipes in various professions, including inks for Inscription. The price of that ingredient is about to shoot up.”
“Why’s that?”
“Armageddon, Alex. You sorry excuse for a scribe! Didn’t you watch that interview with Horvac? It’s clear now that the Alliance was planning to wait until it saved up a couple dozen Armageddon scrolls. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to take on Deznafar. Their top scribes have a week-long cooldown to create a scroll, and Hero’s Heart is far from the most expensive ingredient. But the point is, the auction house is empty—there are no Hero’s Hearts up for sale. They’re rare as it is—few people willingly disenchant legendaries. The few hearts that do go up on the auction house get snapped up quick for rich guild banks.”
“Think you have the guts to disenchant them?” I smiled.
“For the base, Alex. Capsules for the workers! Listen, I took a few of the weaker legendaries that we aren’t going to use anyway.”
“How many is a few?”
“Around fifty.”
Jaws dropped around the room. Mine was no exception. Silence, then a groan from Malik. Ed continued:
“Armageddon is going to be useful for us too. You’re leveling up Inscription, right? If we’re lucky, we could get ten Hero’s Hearts. If I put ’em up at a million each…”
“Try one and a half. The Alliance is in a hurry. They won’t haggle.
Just group up with me when you disenchant them. As you know, Lady Luck and I have an arrangement.”
We talked for around another hour, discussing our plans. Apart from everything else, Ed suggested we invest in a range of promising companies, although he didn’t know which yet. Said he needed to read up on it. I was skeptical; what did we know about investing? We’d just lose our money. But then I remembered my friend Zoran from Vermillion and told Ed to research the First Martian Company. I liked his neurointerface idea.
We racked our brains for other ways to find money fast; until Rita left the sandbox for big Dis, we didn’t want to sell our loot, and it was unlikely to provide a stable income anyway.
We brainstormed the following.
Firstly, I had to drop some exclusive videos to Ian. Shots from the snowy continent would cause an uproar and warm up the public. Then we’d put the key to Holdest up for sale right after.
Secondly, Cooking. It made perfect sense to sell Roast Undead Rat Chitterlings. The dish couldn’t be made without my recipe, and it was a cash cow that could be milked for an age; rich kids would happily part with gold in the pursuit of fast levels. And now that we had a clan vault full of ingredients, I could figure out some new dishes.
Thirdly, we could sell maps of the local area and information on its fauna. The Lakharian Desert was already unlocked; there was no longer any point in hiding our information. I might be able to earn something if I paid a visit to the Dangerous Game Hunters and the cartography guild.
Two messages in a row interrupted our chat. The first was a text message from Hairo. Our new security expert said he’d wound up everything ’at his old job’ and was ready to fly to Cali Bottom. I confirmed the meeting and opened the second message. It was a holorecording, and it would have been better checked in private.
Karina Rasmussen appeared on the screen for all to see. We knew her as Goosebumps, friend of Overweight. We flew to Glastonbury together, and since then the girl had filled out nicely. Her long blond hair was gathered in a ponytail, her dark brows drawn down in a slight frown over blue eyes and rosy cheeks. Teachers from her
