Radiant Bulwark faltered, frowning a little. And he wasn't alone.

12.5 gold was what Carl would normally have to pay for binding the Black Fang to him, which he previously found out at the temple. Meanwhile, the items available at the rank 5 system shop were worth 10-15 gold on the market. Thus, the total cost of buying and binding 4 such items would be around 100 gold. Carl was asking for half of that, which was very reasonable, but …

“That's … a steep price, brother Lionheart. My apologies. What I didn't make clear, is that the Scroll of Danger won't guarantee a boss spawning. Nowhere near that, actually.”

“You misunderstand.” Carl shook his head. “I'll be paying for the scrolls.”

“… But then … you might not make any profit … worse than that, you may lose!”

“I haven't yet told you about my way of flushing out bosses, have I?” Carl grinned, prompting the stalwart man to inhale with a realization.

“The 6th person in the party will be your tracker?”

“Correct. If the chances of spawning don't reach 100%, they shouldn't be far off.”

“That good?! Our trackers barely reach 25% with our experimental full-realism players reading the scrolls!”

“He's quite an expert.” Carl smiled with content.

Radiant Bulwark sighed.

“Normally, I'd agree to your conditions right away, brother Lionheart, but …”

“There's the issue of depreciation,” Carl filled in the blanks, well versed on the matter. “How long do you think would it take you to carry your weaker guild members through the dungeon yourselves?”

“Don't get me wrong, your offer is excellent, and I'd agree to it without hesitation, but like I said, my position in the guild is more of an honorary one, and Fate, who is my treasurer, is already telling me the guild leader wouldn't be happy with this deal. After all, money is tight right now, and we can't afford to spend so much liquid funds to arm our inferior members, while our experts should be able to tackle the horrid wolf on their own within a week or two.”

“I see.”

“But! We would be very willing to exchange for various benefits with value exceeding 50 gold per run. How about that?”

“Hmm … what did you have in mind when you first came here?”

“Access, manpower, training, whatever you need.” Weaving Fate stepped forward. “We have vast information networks, trade contacts, research divisions, lore chroniclers, professional martial artists and blood sports gamers, VR system experts, and employees in multiple countries to manage our facilities and infrastructure in the real world. We could assist you with quests and conquering the more difficult dungeons, look out for your interests, and send our members on errands for you. To people like you especially, time is money, and we could help you save a lot of it. We would only like to part with as little liquid capital as possible.”

“Yes, that,” Radiant Bulwark acknowledged, grateful for a bit of respite. This wasn't his strong suit. “What do you think, brother Lionheart?”

“I'll be frank with you.” Carl suddenly turned serious. “I don't care about the money. That's not what I'm here for. I just want to shake the world in its foundations, and I'll take any means that will be of use to this end. Give me all the Scrolls of Danger you can get, and try to contest for more. Get me a good light armor, the best available bracers, and anything that can boost tracking skills. Wolves are the best mobs for me to tackle, as they're glass cannons like myself, and their accurately portrayed survival instincts make them afraid of me. I want to go at the horrid wolf at full speed, as fast as possible. If there's any way to cut travel time, that would be awesome. Stamina potions, mounts, portals, what is there?”

“That's what I'm talking about!” the stout axeman jumped for joy. “Fate?”

“The Scrolls of Danger are still a rare commodity, and I doubt we can get more than 10 in a day at this point, but their availability and price will soon improve,” the elven enchantress began explaining. “Scrolls of Threat on the other hand, even those of peak quality, are a dime a dozen, but you must keep in mind that only one can be used per dungeon. As to equipment, I strongly recommend for the parts that won't suffer much wear to be of high quality and low level materials, and vice versa for those that will be regularly exposed to damage. The reason for this are repair costs – high quality items made of low level materials will have excellent magical properties and can make a huge difference, but they'll break easily. Boss' masterwork axe may have merely cost 60 gold, but it already snapped three times, almost doubling it.”

“It won't happen again with the shaft protector, you'll see!” the disgruntled vice guild leader announced with indignation. He must have taken the heat for it properly.

“Aha, I guess we will,” the woman continued without batting an eyelid. “To that end–”

“Wait,” Carl interrupted, “what about a complete set of masterwork light armor for a thousand gold? How good would those materials be?”

“That sounds cheap. Not an armor you'd want to wear into battle. Is it something particular?”

“Never mind.” Carl deflated. Of course it was just an expensive toy …

“You should know that the merchants in this game are vicious. They evolved through an unforgiving cycle, and ruthless practices are a norm for them. They'll prop their wares up with a sweet tongue, but really sell you what you can't afford. It's like an unspoken collusion, that they'll all push the fragile high quality items and shun those that are made to last. They've really mastered planned obsolescence. It's not as pronounced at the bottom range, but the further up you go, the worse it gets. Besides, there's a lot of exceptional crafters among the locals, but not as many precious materials. The supply of magically augmented produce is there, so they have to sell it somewhere. Then you get a powerful yet cheap magical item and so you naturally aim high with it, but you soon find out it can't handle rough treatment well. Don't fall for it.”

“Ouch. Thanks for the warning.”

“You're welcome. Now, if it's wolves, then for the chest piece, the boots, maybe thigh guards, you could go for superior or even masterworks, if you take good care of them. They could also give you a slight boost to agility and stamina regeneration if you can find the right enchantments. As for bracers, if you intend to get bit all the time, then honestly, I think the system shop is your best choice. Don't look down on the quality – these items are really very good. Cybercore has made a scary race track, but they also gave us some big training wheels.”

“Yeah, I've noticed that most of the stuff there is made of some exotic materials,” Carl remarked.

“Exactly. They're supposed to be durable,” Weaving Fate confirmed. “Actually, we've recently defeated the spectral centurion and conquered the haunted battlefield. With your maxed out mental constitution and the magical weapon coating your skills generate, you should be able to defend yourself in emergencies, and we would take out the centurion and all its minions with ranged attacks and pulse grenades. What do you think, boss?”

“Why are you asking me?” The man shrugged blithely.

“Sure,” Carl readily accepted with childlike naivety. How bad could it be?

“Very well, we will be awaiting your return, then.” The woman curtsied gracefully. “As for tracking bosses, we're struggling with it ourselves. There isn't really any affordable equipment to boost that skill. What we've seen so far are supreme diadems and accessories that sell for thousands of gold. The same goes for cutting travel time. All these convenience tools are out of our league for now.”

“That is such a nonsense,” Carl grumbled. “For every hour of running I'll be fighting barely a minute. Kill me now.”

“But once more, there are consumables.” Weaving Fate smiled. “Perception buffs can be obtained through potions and drugs. Potions are the best option, as drugs often have potent side effects, but you will have to drink a lot, since their downside is a short duration. Likewise, if you want to run faster, there's food and beverages for that. They're very expensive, but if your tracker can reliably find the horrid wolves and you reliably kill them, then the increase in turnover should compensate for the reduced margin.”

“Fantastic. Would be nice if I could kill at least two horrid wolves per hour.”

“Wow … brother Lionheart, you really are ambitious …” Radiant Bulwark was taken aback. 100 gold per hour? That was a legion of his subordinates! He himself could maybe bring 10 gold of net profit if he grinded a whole day – that's provided his wretched axe wouldn't snap on critically misaligned impacts, of course – but he was the best armed Skyborne Lion!

Now, that wasn't his mission. He spearheaded his guild into the various dungeons, securing plenty of conquest rewards and devising strategies for his juniors to farm funds faster and avoid losses, so his real worth was much more. But 100 gold per hour? By an unaffiliated individual? That was just unreal. Carl was playing in a different league than the rest of them.

At this point, professional blood sports gamers could make a few Gold Crowns in a day. 1 Gold Crown a day indicated a proper, hardcore gamer. An ordinary guild trooper would yield between 20 and 50 silver. But the vast majority of hunters wasn't yet ready for rank 4 dungeons, and their net incomes were pitiful, usually below 10 silver …

… and that's only if all went well. In case of an unfortunate team wipe, the losses would be devastating, especially for the top-end parties. Even if all their gear was bound to them, the death penalties would still hamper their operations for entire 24 hours of ingame time. Once taken into the equation, this factor severely lowered the average.

Meanwhile, the black market currently valued 1 Gold Crown at 110 dollars, which meant Carl was aiming for some 100k dollars a day …

And although the supply of coins would soon soar – so would the demand. The exchange rates would not necessarily drop.

Just what kind of benefits would they have to surrender in order to pay for all that?!

“We will go for that then,” Carl decided. “Can you take care of all the supplies?”

“We'll have everything ready once you're done testing in the gray wolves' den.” The elven enchantress nodded.

“Can you get me a few Scrolls of Threat for that? You can also send some of your people with me,” Carl requested. “Rank 4 system shop isn't peanuts, after all.”

“Err … boss?” Weaving Fate suddenly turned to her superior.

“We're not from around here, brother Lionheart,” Radiant Bulwark disclosed. “We only came with some elites to canvass the area today and to meet with you. All of us have already conquered the gray wolves' den.”

“Woah, seriously?” Carl was flabbergasted with the amount of fame he gained by simply taking out a horrid wolf pelt from his backpack. “Where are you from? Should I teleport there?”

“Lyon.”

“Heh, why didn't I think of that?” Carl laughed. “That's very close, actually.”

“It may be close, but we belong to the Western European server,” the man clarified. “Teleportation fees are rather harsh between time zones. But you know what? I quite like it here. We have branches across five continents, but none in Central Europe. We have so much manpower in our headquarters in Lyon, we could spare some to establish ourselves here. After all, this is Cybercore's central. What do you think, guys?”

Since no one had any objections, and even Weaving Fate agreed that it was a good avenue of investment, it stood on that. Radiant Bulwark generously gave Carl 50 Gold Crowns of advance payment, and by the time the hero returned in the evening, there would be some promising Skyborne Lions' fledglings waiting to be taken under his wings, as well as a party of peak mages to carry him to victory on a haunted battlefield.

Having the money now, Carl politely thanked for the accommodation they booked for him in the arena, and elected to rest at the temple instead. He had a spanking new honor, and more burning questions to ask the officials! How could he fall asleep with them weighing him down?

Sprinting to the altar and requesting an audience, blithely ignoring his blood-smeared state, Carl sat down on the stairs made of resplendent white opal and took off his VR helmet. He was famished. After quickly throwing some frozen cutlets de volaille into the oven and preparing extra cheese to put on top of them once they were hot – as he was well aware he shouldn't eat any carbohydrates right before sleeping, and he had no time to cook anything healthy – he was right back before his avatar logged off.

Looking around, he saw no one yet, so he made his way to the blessed font, but then … he felt eerily invigilated.

“You again?!”

Carl turned around, then grinned from ear to ear.

“Hello Nathan!”