Chapter 169 - Pitstop In Reality
Chapter 169 - Pitstop In Reality
Draco removed the Virtua Helmet and stretched his body a bit. Lying down in an almost immobile state was hard on the muscles, at least until the pods came in.
He looked to his right and saw Eva remove her helmet as well. Seeing her beautiful face, as well as her sleek body, extend like a cat stretching was really stimulating for Draco.
As such, he suddenly grabbed Eva into his arms and kissed her deeply.
The madwoman did not resist in the least, as she was currently in the embrace of the object of her obsession. She just allowed Draco to express his love freely, as she enjoyed every second of it herself.
Draco eventually freed Eva from his greedy claws and smiled at her. "Well, let's do a small check and then refill our Bloodline Sources before returning."
They didn't have the leisure to spend too much time out of the game. With only 1 in-game day left until the Guild War, this gave them 6 hours in the real world to settle their affairs.
Fortunately, they had many people they could use to delegate their tasks.
Draco climbed out of the bed and walked up to the door. He then opened it and poked his head out to speak to the two Sanguigno Brothers there.
"Brothers, can I get some more of the 1st Grade NuSmoothies we collected from The Boyz sent to our room?"
One of the Sanguigno Brothers nodded, but asked. "How many of them should we send over?"
Draco pondered. "Anywhere between 300 to 500 of them."
The Sanguigno Brothers were shocked. 1st Grade NuSmoothies were sold at wholesale for $10,000.
The price one would usually buy it at special retail stores would be much higher, and there was an overwhelmingly high demand but a relatively low supply.
To think about guzzling even more of them… these two were monsters.
"We might not have enough to reach that amount, but we should have about 200 bottles left." One of the fellows reported truthfully.
Draco pondered and frowned. This was really quite the problem.
Unlike the game world, he couldn't pull out Pair Dadeni and start whipping up some potion to solve the deficit.
This was the real world and Draco neither had the necessary supply of materials, the manpower, let alone the knowledge of how to make such a product.
Draco was a combat genius, not a science genius. Eva was more of a talented spy and a great commander, so she wasn't a modern Einstein either.
They would have to find a new source of NuSmoothies after the First Guild War. Draco had a few ideas of how to get some, but each of them required a heavy financial backing.
It would no longer be as easy to just roll over and kill a whole group to seize their products.
They could largely move about with certainty because they had a base in this city.
If Draco and Eva went to cull another group in another city, who would transport all the goods back?
The mafia groups there would not allow it and the ones in this city wouldn't either.
If Draco dared to covet other areas before subduing his own, it was more than likely that those groups would come together. Even some outsider groups might be tempted to get rid of the newcomer before he became more of a problem.
There was a realistic limit to what Draco and Eva could achieve in the real world compared to Boundless.
In Boundless, they could grow limitlessly and suppress all entities because it was a game world, where they had cheat-like powers thanks to their advanced knowledge. Here though, they would need to be slow and methodological.
One small mistake could spell fatal trouble.
Draco went back to the bed and lay down beside Eva with a thoughtful expression. He didn't need to repeat what he heard from the Sanguigno Brothers to her, as her senses were more than sharp enough to catch it.
Draco sighed. "Do we really have to?"
Eva chuckled and gently caressed his hair. "There is no other way. I know you can't stand them, but we'll have to pay them a visit."
Draco grimaced but just decided to swallow his grievances at this time. After all, it was for his own benefit, more importantly, Eva's, who was losing Bloodline Source in bits by day thanks to her budding pregnancy.
Draco and Eva discussed their plan to claim more 1st Grade NuSmoothies by visiting the mysterious entity that Draco seemed to loathe, but Eva found amusing.
Soon enough, the Sanguigno Brothers came back and delivered 200 1st Grade NuSmoothies on a tray. Draco and Eva waited for them to leave before pouncing on the poor bottles like starving animals.
Eva didn't need as much, since it had been just a day or two since she was i.m.p.r.e.g.n.a.t.ed by Draco. Draco though, guzzled almost 150 bottles before his Bloodline Source recovered from 74% to 90%. He still needed a few more bottles if he wanted to recover to his peak.
Draco pondered hard on what to do. If he didn't get his bloodline purity back up, he would be unable to display his special surprise for the Guild War.
He also had very little time in which he could do so. He estimated he would need about 70 to 120 bottles of 1st Grade NuSmoothies and he had less than 6 hours to acquire this many. That meant he needed a retailer - or wholesaler - that was in this city or in one of the neighboring cities.
Draco turned on his Holo-Watch and decided to check the group account and his personal account. He was quite surprised to see how much had acc.u.mulated there.
The group account had $70,000,000. Of this, $10,000,000 were gained through the sale of the current assets of The Boyz who Draco had handled, looking at the source of the funds in the transaction history.
The $60,000,000 came from the sale of all the Common and Uncommon items in the Guild Warehouse, which Draco had asked Akainu to perform in order to fly every member of Umbra over to the Central Country.
The base price of a Common item was 50 bronze, while the base price of an Uncommon item was 50 silver. In real-world currency, one Common Item was worth $150 and one Uncommon item was worth $15,000!
And this was only the starting price!
Not to mention the playerbase were still extremely small compared to the total number of humans. Only about 50 million players were currently in Boundless, not counting those who had left due to abuse.
Do not look at the luxurious life Draco and Eva - or Umbra in general - were living in Boundless to use as a yardstick to measure the common player. Many players were still wearing their Common items - assuming they bought a package.
If they hadn't foolishly sold off their stuff for piss poor prices, they could've made a lot.
But it was precisely this deficit of high-quality goods that made the price rise so high. Apart from Umbra and those affiliated with the guild, most other entities would be lucky to have their guild leaders wear one Rare item at all.
Even Legends like Noble Soul and Gentle Flower had no more than two Rare items by the time of the Dragon Slaying Event. Naturally, they had received some great chests as a reward so if they were lucky enough, they could get one Rare item.
However, with almost 50 million players in the game, it wasn't unreasonable if some lucky freak managed to score a hit, gaining a Rare or even Epic item after exploring a certain zone or finishing a hidden quest.
The total number of such lucky freaks would definitely be abysmal, as the luck required would be enormous, but they definitely existed. However, those fellows were one-time wonders, unlike Draco or Eva who could abuse their future knowledge and skills to gain such boons easily.
Essentially, if Draco and Eva decided to sell a Rare item, it would be valued at a minimum of $1,500,000 based on the equivalent cost in the currency of the game, which was 50 gold.
Epic and above items would sell at prices that might give some people heart attacks, so it shall be omitted. Besides, who would sell an Epic item for real cash?
Huh?
What was that?
$1,500,000 was too much for a Rare item in some popular FIVR game?
No one would spend that much realistically?
Haha, such a narrow view of the world. That must be why real estates seem to make so much money renting out wells for frogs to live in.
The things some people spend their money on could make one question the existence of common sense. If some very down to earth fellows saw the transaction history for some of the wealthy people of the world, one might go mad and become a nihilistic supervillain.
So, it seemed like a lot of the Uncommon and Common items from the warehouse had sold out to reach almost $60,000,000. Draco had collected too many of those during the Flora and Fauna quest, thanks to the Witch Slaves of Roma.
Then there was the Underwater Wreckage Dungeon which had been chock full of Uncommon and Rare items. He had collected them all and deposited them in the Guild Warehouse.
He had also ransacked many Rank 1 and Rank 2 shops of their Uncommon items, even taking away many Rare arrows. Many of them had been given to Shani - Boyd's fiancé - and the rest had been placed in the warehouse.
Akainu probably sold all of those too.
It was amazing. From an empty account to almost 100 million in under 3 days. The fellows at the Foljeslagare Bank must be absolutely bamboozled.
Draco shook his head and closed that account.
Moving slightly more than 3000 people from different countries to this one would cost a lot. There was no need to dig into the group account for this.
Draco decided to check his personal account and his heart jumped.
$1,972,138!
Draco was stunned to see so much in his personal account so soon, so he tried to think of where this money could've come from. After brainstorming a bit, it felt like a lightbulb went off in his head.
It was most likely the 11,000 Common items from the chests Fitter had opened. Akainu must've placed those items on his personal account, so the proceeds were sent to him.
Assuming they all sold at the base price of $150, 11000 of them would go for $1,650,000. This naturally meant that some of the bids went for slightly higher than the base price, which showed the competition over measly Common items.
Draco smiled and opened a search engine and looked for distributors of 1st Grade NuSmoothies around. He might've been a powerhouse of the Cartel, but his knowledge of the base companies around was lacking.
After all, his NuSmoothies had been provided by the AAA companies that sponsored Hellscape and himself. The Cartel later gave him even more, so why would he need to worry about such matters?
Draco found a few mega markets that had retailers for this, but most were sold out. One could only put in a pre-order for them and wait for a new shipment. Sometimes, orders could fall back to up to a month later.
Of course, this only concerned the proper retailers. The wholesalers always had some spare stock in between shipments, but the prices for those were up to 70% times higher than the base cost.
Draco frowned deeply, but he decided to place an order for 100 bottles at $15,000. This swallowed up $1,500,000 of his money in one go, but he took it with a grain of salt.
After all, Draco could theoretically make millions by selling items in Boundless. If Draco put down Mjolnir, he had a 55% success rate with Rare equipment and items.
He could become a rich tycoon for sure, but that was just a way to earn a quick buck. Draco knew how the world would progress based on his past life.
If he hadn't died and ruined the old timeline, it was likely that the human race would have become permanent digital entities that were connected to Boundless every hour of every day.
That seemed to be what the AI wanted as well, for reasons beyond Draco's knowledge.
Draco had some of the Sanguigno Brothers nearby head out and pick up his order from the wholesaler. He wasn't going to disturb Akainu or Sanji for a matter this simple, as their time was more valuable, and they had able-bodied men here already.
Soon enough, the Sanguigno Brothers returned with the bounty of 1st Grade NuSmoothies. When the hefty amount was deposited in Draco and Eva's room, the fellows couldn't help but feel like they were feeding two primordial beasts, not two humans.
Draco's eyes glinted with evil intent. Had the bottles possessed sapience, they would've been trembling in fear.
A new terminology had to be created for Draco at this point. When he saw able-bodied and universally attractive females, his reaction was mediocre. Yet, when he saw precious items, he would look at them like they were the incarnation of sensuality.
Draco dived into the bottles and began drinking them like a crazed beast. He didn't even stop to take a break, he just shoved down bottles upon bottles of bonafide 1st Grade NuSmoothies.
His bloodline purity rose with every subsequent bottle he guzzled down, from 90%… 91%… 94%…97%…
Then after he downed the last bottle, he felt his bloodline purity return to 99%!
"Whew. Remind me to make sure we have enough 1st Grade NuSmoothies next time I decide to sacrifice Bloodline Source to do anything." Draco remarked with a slight smile as he tossed away the last bottle.
Eva, who had been watching him with an intoxicated expression, shook her head and woke up from her trance. She smiled lightly and retorted, "I don't think you should be sacrificing bloodline source to do anything anymore."
Draco nodded in agreement. It was extremely unlikely that he would waste any more Bloodline Source. The only three women who would get to enjoy his bloodline source were Eva, Roma, and Hikari.
No matter who the rest were, they would only get the typical bloodline energy that passed on during s.e.x. In other words, the bloodline purity of the descendants he had with any other female apart from the three women would be up to the RNG gods.
Draco jumped into the bed with Eva and nodded to her. "I'm back to full capacity. Let's head back and see what the 25% success chance the Myriad Cards and Lorebinders have against us."
Eva smiled and placed the Virtua helmet on, which Draco copied. Both of them logged into Boundless at the same time, with slight smirks on their faces.
What kind of show would Myriad Cards and Lorebinders put on for them?
...
Joker and Happy Scholar were not as calm as Draco and Eva. After all, they had to go up against the giant that was Umbra. Even if they had slightly more than 500,000 available players, they were still unsure as to whether they could beat Umbra's 2,500.
Not only were those 2,500 players almost at their level of skill and strength as guild leaders, but they were led by the absolute monster called Draco and his yandere assassin, Riveting Night.
Word was already being circulated that Draco could summon a full Dragon at a prohibitive cost, as many of the players had the chance to see this before they were deleted from the game when the Orbs of Destruction collided.
Just because there was no in-game or specific forum for the game didn't mean that there weren't any player-made forums on the internet out there. Draco and Eva never had bothered to check them in this timeline, but everything they did was pinned on those forums.
They were already mini-celebrities at this point, but it would become worse once there was an in-game forum. Happy Scholar had researched into the two as much as possible and came down with only one possible conclusion.
"We will be crushed into paste. Might as well unequip every item we have and go there n.a.k.e.d to minimize our losses as much as possible."
This depressed both of them, because they had done nothing wrong. All they did was brave the Destruction Energy to investigate that portal. Who would've thought that it would spawn a new event?
Just because of that, Umbra wanted to use their guilds as punching bags to display dominance? How was this fair?!
What made it even worse was that they had been unable to refuse, forgoing all the rights to Draco, leaving him to decide where and when he wanted to humiliate them...
Just as the two were lamenting their fate, they froze as an unbearable pressure fell upon them. This was quite similar to the effect Mephisto had created on players in the Stagnant Moss town back then.
A powerful entity was here!
"Immortal Adventurers get on your knees before our might."
A resonant voice commanded Joker and Happy Scholar with arrogance and impunity. It was clear that the two were expected to kneel at all costs, or their fate would be dire.
However, they both gritted their teeth and resisted. While Myriad Cards and Lorebinders had failed to reach the Divine Rank in the previous timeline, no one could deny that they were still topmost Legendary Guilds that were half a step into Divine.
Gentle Flower and Noble Soul might be legends, but they would grow into God-tier players with time. The same was true for Joker and Happy Scholar, who had also occupied spots in the top 20 during the previous timeline.
To try and make them kneel arbitrarily? What a joke!
Just because they were scared and pressured by Umbra didn't mean they were weak. Umbra was just too strong at this point in time.
Even though these two had to fight Umbra, they still held out hope that things could be fixed between them afterward.
However, like many players, they didn't respect or even view NPCs as human, only glorified code. For some code base entity to make them kneel? Not happening.
Even if they died, they would revive and grow stronger in due time. Eventually, they would come and repay such a debt.
Whoever it was that spoke grunted with disdain but released his pressure. "At least you have balls even though you're painfully weak."
From the void out came a more than one Rank 7 entity, which made the eyes of Joker and Happy Scholar bulge. Of course, they couldn't directly see that these people were Rank 7, only endless ???.
These people did not even give them the chance to speak.
"You will use your bodies to provide security for our Rank 1 soldiers who will assist you in this 'Guild War'. As such, you will be able to claim victory of this war after we indirectly crush Umbra. Is that understood?"
The person who spoke right now was part of a neutral race called the Dwarves. His look was rough and his voice was grumpy.
Joker and Happy Scholar shared a look. They understood that Umbra must've done something to earn the ire of many Rank 7 powers, which was shocking in and of itself.
These Rank 7 powers could not directly move on Umbra, so they had to use a roundabout means like reinforcing them with soldiers at their low Rank for whatever reason.
Joker and Happy Scholar, who had been in the pits of despair, suddenly found their strength and said;
"Please give us your directions!!"
"Please give us your directions!!"