Chapter 5

Karma Gauge Consumption: Seven hundred thirty two

Karma Crystals (Estimated Value in Gold): Two million eight hundred fifty thousand nine hundred twenty three

Remaining Ammunition: Zero

If there was anything that he would be able to draw from the results of his first venture, it was that karma consumption was not as big of a deal as he thought it would be. At least for Cruel, it wasn’t.

As a Medic Droid, he initially thought that it was, but doing the actual work, he found out that the class was definitely not as karma hungry as any other classes out there in Helion. Its beginner skill was far cheaper in terms of karma consumption when pitted against two moonlight slashes from that of a swordie or say a single spellcast of magic missile from a newbie mage.

The reasoning behind that was simple; when others were only dismembering one or three monsters at a time, Cruel was dusting off multiple enemies on one side of the map for the same amount of karma. With 2 bombs per 30 enemy ratio, there was really nothing to contest.

On the surface, it would appear rather unbalanced. However, that was just how Medic Droids were built to be in terms of light versus dark. The class was most lethal especially under the care of someone who knew exactly how to play the character right. To begin with, the dev’s created the class in that fashion since most White classes were fragile to a fault, most notably against non-undead monsters. Them squaring off against the forces of the Shadows were the only few areas they could excel at. They were kings there. Anywhere else, they were mediocre and even border line pathetic.

White Classes were the support cores of Helion. They were never fully or even partially designed to be damage dealers. Their true strengths were measured in terms of the heals they could dish out, the support buffs that they could cast, and the number of comrades they could resurrect in a pinch. Most of these were true, but not for Cruel though it wasn’t, or at least that was his own interpretation of it. He made himself an exception to the rule, practically rebranding what a Support Class should be. Yet somehow, as difficult as it was, the deviation was working for him. The only area that didn’t sit well with him about the Medic Droid class was how this job was so unbelievably expensive in terms of consumable items.

Whenever he swoops in for combat and plants a heal bomb on the ground, it felt as if he was giving away a portion of his arm or a portion of his leg each time. He sort of cries in Filipino with each explosion since that was basically money he was detonating and not just some fancy pixel pyrotechnique he made for entertainment.

To help us wrap our heads around a Medic Droids predicament, we need to first understand as to how a single healing nuke came to be. In order to create a heal mine, a Medic Droid would need 1 fine grade photon crystal, 4 chunks of high grade iron, and 3 scoops of modified blessed dust. Now here’s where the math truly hurts. One photon crystal costs about 500 gold, three portions of iron costs between 700-850 (depending on the market value fluctuation), while a scoop of modified blessed dust were valued at 300 gold each. Conservatively, a single heal mine would cost roughly between 2100 to 2300 gold. Now imagine using two of those every mob lure. Have you pictured something unbelievable yet? If not, then read on.

These past five hours alone, Cruel practically planted over 1464 of those heal mines. If one was to convert that in gold, that number would have roughly translated to 3,074,400 gold. In-fucking-sane!

Supposedly, if Cruel were to only sell the heal mines, he would have been rich by now. He didn't have to worry about meeting his monthly quota. He could practically rent out an entourage of V.I.P pussies if he wanted to with that thicc amount of dough (just saying). But of course, Helion's dev's were always two steps ahead of him and way smarter than anyone else in the game who were trying to one-up the system.

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Devious nerds! Cruel cursed under his breath.

What the RAT did was rather simple; instead of the NPC's buying the items at market value, they programmed them to only buy the heal mines from anyone crazy enough to sell them for only 100 gold each. In-fucking-sane part two!

But what about the auction house? Surely, someone else might need it eventually, right?

Well… yes, someone else might need it eventually. However, the probability of that happening soon would be far too slim. Last time he checked the population board, he was still the only Medic Droid in the game so far. Tapping the Auction House for money at this point in time would be next to useless.

Luckily, there were ways to offset this gargantuan operating cost. There were two ways in fact: Mini Games and the Pet Adventure System. Unfortunately though, the second option was still unavailable for him to take advantage of since he hasn't reached the base level requirement yet which was level thirty. The Mini Games however, were made available to everyone at level one. In fact, while he was doing the Riddles Apprenticeship Quest, he spent most of his time beating Mini Game challenges. That was where he spent the entirety of his untouched karma gauge before. And it was the same place where he acquired most of his ingredients too such as the high grade irons and modified blessed dusts among other things. The photon crystals though were acquired through a steep loan.

Bummer, but not having access to the Pet Adventure System (where the photon crystals were looted for free), Cruel had no other choice but to seek the Repository's aid. He took out a modest eight hundred thousand gold loan with the agency just so he could buy the crystals. It was for a 3% weekly interest rate which would mean that his possible 2.8 million earnings just now, 824 thousand of that would immediately go to the Repository loan payment. Plus, another 400 thousand gold would actually go to the refueling of his life core. The rest should be his net income.

Tsk. That 3 million winnings would have conveniently covered my work quota if only that idiot didn't refuse the bet.

Cruel wasn't sure whether to applaud the bastard, but kudos to Lucho for not falling into an obvious trap. He was baiting the guy to show its true rotten self to others but surprisingly, Lucho The Turd (not Lupin The Third) held back. Regardless though, he still got roasted by the Helion community for refusing to duel a Level 1 Medic Droid.

Pussy!

This was Cruels underhanded idea. Regardless if Lucho accepted the bet or not, the guy would still suffer even for a bit. And as a son of a business tycoon, bad press would have greatly hurt daddy's bank accounts had the guy agreed to fight. It was a wise choice back then when Lucho walked away from the bet. The turd was able to do damage control when he could. He chose to be a pussy that day rather than be exposed as a bully.

Well played Lucho. Was the last thing Cruel said before fading into darkness. He allowed himself to die on purpose through the assistance of the zombie wolves. It was painful but quick. But why did he do that? Well, first of all, dying and resurrecting directly inside the town's cathedral was a convenient means of transportation… for free! Second, he needed to start all over again. He was a farmer and gaining levels were not really necessary for him. As long as the level provides him profit, he didn't see the need to move up. And right now, he was avoiding the level gap penalty from happening and 'suicide' was the quickest answer. He wanted to be able to farm the zombie puppies for as long as he could until he gets sick of it.

Waking up on top of the resurrection circle, what was going through Cruels mind the moment he woke up was how he could cut down the heal mine to just one instead of planting two per lure. That way, he could significantly minimize his operating cost and maximize his profit instead. Luckily, he discovered something useful while he rose up to level twenty-five just a few hours back. He realized that when he allocated a few free stat point to INT, his healing output rose up to a 5 point increments.

Hmnn. So, there really was a way to one shot one kill the Z puppies with a single heal bomb. I think a little bit of shopping should help. But first, I need to make some arrangements.

A few hours later, Cruel found himself lurking behind window 7. It was located at the left wing of the enormous Ouroboros Castle reception. And although he had a hard time hearing the petite clerk through the glass panel, he could tell that the woman behind the window was beckoning for him to come closer.

Three strides later, Cruel stood inches away from where the gold painted window glass panel was. He positioned himself directly into the mouthpiece and spoke. "Hi, I need to file for a one week extension. My name is Cruel. Employee ID 00019348."