The Great Thief
chapter-48

Chapter 48: Still Short of Money

If it was the Number 7 Administrative Order (the one that was used to establish a guild), it wouldn’t sell for much money. A LV1 guild only needed 20 gold coins, but could only accommodate 1000 people. Most guilds couldn’t even fit their own members, let alone begin recruiting more.

However, the Number 17 Order was different: this could double a guild’s member limit to a maximum of 2000 members. This allowed them to accept many more people.

After finding out that Moon Shadow Valley was hosting an auction for a guild level-up, many guilds had sent out their representatives. Even players from Evil Faction guilds would pay attention to this.

Inter-faction transactions were prohibited in Dawn, but this didn’t mean that items could not circulate between them. The next update would include a Black Market, but an alternative was to kill another player and take the dropped items.

“He’s coming, Lu Li is coming, and he’s coming to sell equipment.”

“I don’t know what kind of equipment will be there today, but I have exchanged money for 2 gold.”

“You dare show off with only 2 gold coins? I exchanged 9 gold in one go.”

“Haha, some idiots bought from the stall I set up. I bought gold for 800 in the morning and sold it for 1000 at night. For some reason, people are buying. I’ve made over $2000 this way.”

…..

As night fell, Lu Li set up his stall. He priced the Bronze equipment at 20 silver each, except for the especially good ones which were set at 50 silver coins. There were 14-15 people just waiting around to quickly pick some stuff up.

“A Steel Hammer for a Healer Priest, Paladin or Shaman is available. There’s also a Guild Upgrade Order, which shouldn’t need explaining. These two items will be auctioned together, with a starting price of 1 gold. Please place your bids. If you want to use real world currency, you will need to pay an additional 20% on top of the normal exchange rate.” Lu Li wasn’t particularly good at auctioning, but this was absolutely a seller’s market. There was no worry that it wouldn’t be sold.

The players looked at each other in dismay, trying to work out how much their opponents could pay.

Currently, the most valuable equips were for Main Tanks, followed by Healing and DPS. An item that increased Healing caused a great deal of excitement amongst the people.

Of course, a single Steel item was not enough to attract the big Guilds’ attention. These guilds had been sending parties to complete the Elite Spider Lair every day, acquiring at least 1-2 Steel equips per day in the process. However, the needs of the Guild were too great, so they would never sell them.

“5 gold.” The bidding had begun.

Suddenly, the price was five times more, but this didn’t mean that this person was rich. Everyone knew that the starting price of 1 gold was a joke.

“10 gold.” Since the bidding had started, some compulsively felt that they had to bid, regardless of the outcome. Even if they couldn’t get it, they could take peace in the fact that someone else had to pay even more for it.

Needless to say, this dark, human mentality tremendously helped Lu Li.

From then on, the bids came continuously and the price kept rising until it was at 30 gold. After this point, only the large guilds remained.

The first guild that levelled up would be a target for the others. If they weren’t strong enough, the losses wouldn’t be worth it. Only those guilds who were in the national top 100 would be able to put the reputation of ‘first guild to level-up’ to good use.

“It’s 30 gold, but it doesn’t cost much more than 20 gold to upgrade your guild. Everyone, please relax.” What the guilds required for an upgrade was stone, lumber and gems. It would be cheaper to send members to harvest these materials. However, if they were to buy them from the market, there was no way they would be able to obtain these all for 20 gold.

“Get out of here. If we relax then you’ll get it. 40 gold: we the Iron Blood Brothers want this today,” a player called out loudly.

“Iron Blood Brothers? What nonsense, does Glory Capital take us to be fools? Extending so far from the Evil Faction, you should watch yourselves.” Iron Blood Brothers sounded like Blood Red War Flag, because their names were closely related. But in reality, this was the Blood Red War Flag’s greatest competitor, Glory Capital, masquerading as a Light Faction guild.

Dawn was an online game, and there would always be leaks of information. As such, players had already known this for a long time.

“Blood Red War Flag bids 80 gold. If the Iron Blood Brothers dare to bid again, we will ensure that your guild members will never be able to leave the safe area,” a Night Elf Druid said with a stern voice, pointing directly at the person who just bid. His tone and action reinforced the threat.

Lu Li’s brow furrowed, but he still hadn’t said anything. Although Blood Red War Flag’s representative was a little much, he was sincere. He had doubled the price, which was way higher than he had envisioned.

A virtual good that sold for 100,000 was very rare.

As expected, after Blood Red War Flag placed their bid, no one further bids were placed.

This guild was third in the nation, but their strength was incredible. They were able to go toe-to-toe with the rank 1 Glory Capital for years without collapsing and were also able to defeat the rank 2 Gangnam Royals. There weren’t many people who dared to mess with them.

Lu Li suddenly realized a drawback to these kinds of auctions. If guilds like Blood Red War Flag made such massive bids, he wouldn’t be able to sell these items for ridiculous prices. However, this wasn’t that big of a problem, as the next update would introduce online and allow all players to participate.

After giving Azure Sea Breeze his portion, Lu Li still had 20 gold on hand and the $80,000 that Blood Red War Flag transferred to him.

Blood Red War Flag didn’t have 80 gold, so they had to transfer real money instead. Today, the exchange rate was fluctuating at around 800. After adding on the additional 20%, the total amount came to $80,000.

Lu Li thought for a while and decided not to exchange the gold he had.

Next Monday’s update would introduce online trading. Chances are, there would be some uninformed players who would trade rare items away as worthless. Knowing what would happen in the coming 2-3 years meant that Lu Li could pick up some of these items with ease.

Lu Li had planned to send the $60,000 penalty fee tomorrow. At first, he couldn’t afford a game helmet, but with the portion of money that he had made and the promise of 20 gold per day, the Star Moon Union had sent a game helmet straight to him.

After that, everyone had become angry when Lu Li rejected the offer to turn in the 20 gold for that week. As a penalty, he needed to pay double of what the helmet cost, which was $60,000.

This seemingly impossible quest had now been excessively completed.

After giving up $60,000, he still had $30,000 that he urgently needed to use.

Due to the popularization of intelligence, society’s demand for skilled laborers grew smaller and smaller. At some point and in some way, the government would downplay the importance of compulsory education, forcing the people to spend a lot of money to enjoy a more ‘lasting’ education.

In the slum area where Lu Li went to school, there were two middle schools. One catered for compulsory education, which allowed for entry at a very small fee. The percentage of graduates from this school going into high school was 0%, but the other school wasn’t much better. There were only a handful of students that could make it into high school every year. This was the school Lu Xin went to. It cost 10,000 every year and most attendees were recipients of social welfare.

But now that the Lu siblings had moved out, they didn’t need to go to the slum area schools any more.

Lu Li had taken a liking to the suburban area’s best school, which naturally was the most expensive.

After checking the website, he found that the second half of the school year cost $30,000. Adding up all the additional costs, Lu Li worked out that the total cost would be $100,000 per year. This was the cost of a typical high-class school. Even people in the working-class area may not have been able to afford this, let alone slum-area residents.

There were also the 2, 3 and 7 middle schools which were close to the university as well. These were significantly cheaper, particularly the 7 middle school. This was the first choice of the working-class residents. However, he wanted the best for his little sister, so these average schools weren’t worthy in his eyes.

He needed to start the formal transfer between schools next Monday, so this $30,000 would be used for that.

Finally, Lu Li had also planned to bring his little sister to a hospital for a full body check.

Just like that, the $100,000 that Lu Li worked so hard to earn was used up. There was not much left.

He was still short of money!