CHAPTER 3
“Umm excuse me, priest. Can I talk to you?” Robin asked, walking up to the still annoyed priest. He whipped his head around and was shocked to find Robin there.
“How did you get past the Holy Barrier? Wait… wait y-you have the divine grace on you! Praise be the Holy Ones!” The priest animatedly said. He rushed up to Robin and grabbed her hands. She was caught off guard by 1. How quick the priest was and 2. How strong he was. She wanted to pull away but his hands were like vice grips and refused to let go.
“Get off me asshole!” Robin shouted and kicked at the priest. She might have used a feather duster because it might have dealt more damage than her kick. It didn’t even ruffle the priest's clothes. Luckily the priest got the message and let her go.
“I’m so sorry your grace. It’s just that we’ve been looking for a chosen one for years and… and… you’re here. You’re finally here!” Tears started to form in the priest’s eye. This weirded out Robin. She knew that these “NPCs” weren’t just super advanced AI, but real people from a higher plane. Therefore this priest wasn’t programmed to be emotional but was genuinely happy.
“Umm OK, this is weird. I’m just here for the quest. I’m also in a rush so can you hurry it up.” Robin said impatiently. Robin had no love for anyone in the higher plane. For her everyone here was an enemy until proven otherwise.
The priest nodded fiercely and said with way too much energy “Yes, yes of course. The luck bonus should not be wasted.” With a flick of his wrist, a prompt appeared in front of Robin.
[Ding~ Quest - The Chosen:
Objective: Meet a priest of the Holy Ring Church - Complete!
Reward: 100 exp, 1 silver coin]
[Ding~ Quest - The Chosen part 2: Those who have made the first step on the path of justice are the bravest of them all. This does not equate to power. Prove yourself fit to continue forward.
Objective: Slay 100 Fanged Rodents, 100 Tri Horned Boars, 100 Feral Green Goblins]
“I shall await your return ol Chosen One.” The priest said with reverence and even gave a bow.
“Um… Ok?” Robin still weirded out, replied awkwardly. She then turned around and ran out of the church. She didn’t run because the priest was looking at her creepily, no it was for the luck bonus. Yeah just for the luck bonus.
When Robin finally left the church, to her surprise there was a large group of players blocking the entrance. The sound of chatter was deafening. She wanted to sneak past the mob but that however was wishful thinking. Just when she stepped out of the church she heard a “Hey there she is!” shout from the crowd.
(Son of a bitch!) Robin screamed in her head.
“Miss!” A large hunky man walked out from the crowd. He looked extremely handsome. Perfectly shaped nose, strong jaw line, with bright blue eyes and wiry brunette hair. Robin could see his toned and ripped body through his polished steel armor and it looked like it was sculpted from marble. Robin frowned when she saw him. Because he looked TOO good. Almost unnaturally so. She looked at the rest of the crowd and noticed that all of them had a variation of drop-dead gorgeous women with amazing bodies, or ultra-chad men with bulging muscles. Of course, these muscles were superfluous and didn’t equate to actual strength.
“Miss, I’m BrightEyes from the Golden Eagle Company. We are willing to pay you $1000 if you tell us how you were able to pass through the light barrier.”
“Pfft the Golden Eagle Company is full of paupers and bugs. My name is AbsoluteZeroG. We at the Crimson Fang Guild offer you 10 silver coins for exclusive rights to your information.” Said an equally handsome man that walked out from the crowd. He had reptilian green eyes with black swept-back hair. Instead of steel armor, he had on a blue mage robe that had black trim on its sleeves. Of course, these weren’t the novice clothes everyone else was wearing. Both the mage robe and steel armor were bought from the higher quality shops in town.
(The whales have already begun to throw their money at the game. Soon enough anyone not willing to shell out millions of dollars will get left behind.)
After the mage walked out, other people started making their entrance. Robin only had some recollection of one or two of the groups from the future but even that information was vague.
"Alright, Shut the hell up!" Robin yelled at the crowd. Most of them shut up but there were still some chatting away. The noise quieted down enough for Robin to talk so she didn't mind.
"I'll sell this information to anyone who can buy it. My price is 1 silver coin for a general answer and 10 silvers for an in-depth answer. Lastly, if someone wants exclusive rights they’ll have to pay 10 gold coins. No haggling, no refunds!” After Robin finished speaking the crowd went silent but soon a loud uproar resounded in front of the church.
“You crazy bitch! Who do you think you are charging that much just for information!”
“Greed can kill, woman! Just tell us and we won’t do anything too serious.”
“10 silvers is too much! Drop it to 5 and I’ll think about it!”
“The Journeyman Group can guaranty an exclusive position if you sell us the information.”
Their protest was warranted. So early in the game, the only people who have coins are the rich assholes who are able to throw money at the problem. Right now every copper coin costs $10. The coins are arranged in a 100:1 ratio. Thus 1 gold coin is 100 silver which is 10000 copper.
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Robin's prices converted into USD are $1000 for a simple answer, $10,000 for the extended description, and 1 million for exclusive rights.
More and more shouts were heard but Robin did her best to ignore all the small people barking. Instead, her eye’s never left the elites that introduced themselves. Selling this information to them could jumpstart her road to becoming strong. Also, there were still the lingering loans she took out that needed to be paid back asap.
Out of the 7 whales that presented themselves, the only one to step forward was the blue-robed mage. With an air of arrogance and snobbery, he said “10 gold is nothing! Quick make the deal.”
Robin smiled and walked towards him but before she could get close, Mr. BrightEyes stepped in between them.
With a reluctant face, he said "Before you make the deal allow me to buy the 1 silver option"
"Ha! I told you the Golden Eagle Company is filled with paupers. Stand down BrightEyes, I've already secured the deal. You can buy the information from the Crimson Fang Guild at 1 silver per word. Hahahaha." AbsoluteZeroG laughed and as he did, a group of other mages in various robes also laughed. Robin pegs them as AbsoluteZeroG's cronies.
BrightEyes for his part just looked sullen and backed away. AbsoluteZeroG smirked at BrightEyes and walked towards Robin. But their transaction was again interrupted by someone in the crowd. This time it was a woman whose looks made even Robin blush.
She had a head of flaming red hair that glowed even in the daylight. Her face exhumed sexiness'. From her perfectly sculpted eyebrows to her delicious luscious lips. After a second of being entranced by her face, Robin looked at her body and if Jessica Rabbit was real, this would be her. Except nothing looked fake. Even her breasts which were bigger than her head, looked as if it was a piece of a puzzle that belonged there. She wore an extravagant bright red dress with gold spiral designs.
(She must have spent a fortune on that low-level dress. What a waste!) Robin thought as she gawked at the woman.
The woman in question strode up to the trio and spoke in a voice that could drown any man in euphoria. "Miss," She began "I'll give you 15 gold coins for exclusive rights to your information"
"Ms. Teller, don't you think it's inappropriate to jump into someone else's business." AbsoluteZeroG snarled.
The beautiful redhead gave him a leveled look and said in a flat tone "Don't you think it's rude to use RL names in this environment… Kevin."
A round of hushed snickering flowed through the crowd. AbsoluteZeroG's frown got worse. The redhead paid him no more attention and turned back to Robin. "My name is FlowingPhoenix, an executive of the Myriad Dreams Guild. My offer should be the highest bid, no?" She smiled at Robin showing perfectly white teeth.
Robin simply nodded and looked at AbsoluteZeroG "Unless he's willing to raise it."
Seeing that he did not and everyone around also did not place a bid, FlowingPhoenix took out a tan scroll and lit it on fire. A notification resounded in Robin's ears and a window popped up in front of her. Everyone including AbsoluteZeroG was taken aback by this.
"You bought a Soul Contract!? And even used it for something as simple as this?" AbsoluteZeroG shouted. Other people in the crowd also showed their surprise. Robin was surprised as well. She knew that these contracts were damn near impossible to get at this stage of the game. She would even say that it was impossible without cheating. The Soul Contract is an item from the higher plane. It shouldn't be available until just before the game merges with the real world. Even then, the price for one could buy a well-developed city.
[Ding~ Soul Contract: FlowingPhoenix has offered you a contract.
Content:
* Details about crossing the light barrier surrounding the church.
* 5 follow-up questions answered honestly.
* Nondisclosure agreement.
* Price: 15 gold coins
Terms for punishment
* The character will be destroyed
Do you agree?]
Robin frowned at the window then looked at FlowingPhoenix. "Remove the follow-up questions line and add a clause for an extended time to deliver the info and I'll agree. I'm very busy and don't want to waste any more time here. 4 hours should be enough time to complete my errands." The line about follow-up questions was way too vague for Robin to just agree to it. She wasn't a lawyer or anything but she had a bad feeling about giving FlowingPhoenix that much power. Also, Robin was keenly aware that Angel’s Grace was running out and wanted to at least kill some monsters with the 350% luck bonus before it ran out.
FlowingPhoenix just smiled and gave Robin a knowing nod. After a few seconds, another notification chimed and a new window popped up. Robin looked over the contract again and didn't find anything out of place so she accepted it.
A different chime echoed in her ears and notification that she received 15 gold coins popped up in front of her. She then opened her status screen and looked at the bottom where she found [Contract With FlowingPhoenix] there next to Angel’s Grace.
"Thank you for the business Ms. FlowingPhoenix." Robin said as she closed her screen. Doing her best to hide her smile. She made 1.5 million dollars in the first 20 minutes of playing the game. Who wouldn’t be happy?
FlowingPhoenix smiled and said in a voice that was much too savory "The pleasure is all mine. Let's exchange contact info. I'm sure that you will be selling many mysteries in the future."
Robin Was taken aback by her forwardness but still added her to her contact list. Not because she was the most beautiful woman she'd seen in her life but because she was the richest, prettiest woman she had seen in her life. But any cool points Robin had died off when she forgot to create a username so in FlowingPhoenix’s contact list she was the only one with a string of random numbers as a name.
Before Robin left, she also added AbsoluteZeroG to her contact list. Even though he was an arrogant elitist asshole, he was another whale that she could exploit for gold coins. She did not however add BrightEyes much to his displeasure. BrightEyes seemed more like a dolphin than a whale so Robin wasn’t too keen on exploiting him like she planned to do to AbsoluteZeroG.
After everything was finished Robin could finally leave. All the players there knew that she signed an NDA so squeezing information out of her was impossible.
She sprinted to the weapons store and bought two steel daggers and another iron dagger. She was sure that she was going to level up soon and wanted to prepare better daggers for the occasion.
[Steel Dagger (Common)
Type: Dagger - 1-handed (Slash/Pierce)
Equip Requirements: 5 Str, 10 Dex
Physical Attack Power: +10
AP scale: Dex(E)]
She then rushed to the armor shop and bought the best leather armor they had. Even though they didn’t add anything to her stats, they still gave a good bonus to her defense.
[Hard Leather Armor ‘Torso’ (Common)
Slot: Body
Equip Requirements: 4 Str, 5 Dex
Physical Defense: +5]
[Hard Leather Armor ‘Braces’ (Common)
Slot: Arm
Equip Requirements: 3 Str, 7 Dex
Physical Defense: +3]
[Hard Leather Armor ‘Greaves’ (Common)
Slot: Leg
Equip Requirements: 4 Str, 3 Dex
Physical Defense: +3]
Lastly, she stopped by the potion store and bought 10 E-Grade Health Potions. She only bought this many because she was sure that she would out level the E-Grade Health Potions soon and didn’t want to waste money on them.
On her way to the city gates, she equipped all her new gear, except the steel daggers since she didn't have enough stats to wield them.
"I can finally kill something!" Robin yelled. Many players gave her a wide berth and stayed away. She didn't care though and ran into the high grass, looking for her first victim.