The Almighty Ring

There was a good reason why Profession players were highly sought after. Why else would someone play a game? To have fun, of course. Profession players would have not much of a choice, but to spend most of their time in city maps, working with fabric, leather, metal, you name it. How was that supposed to be fun? Hence, the second priority. Money. Players who chose such a path was doing it for the money. That’s why you don’t see many of these players around!

“Cutie pie! Come on! Say yes! Say yes? Pretty please?” said Miaomiao as she clung on to Jiang Fei’s arm.

“Fine! Fine! That’s too much skin contact! I accept your invitation!’ said Jiang Fei. This girl was highly aggressive.

“Yay! Big brother is such a good man!” cried Miaomiao as she jumped to Jiang Fei’s side and whispered into his ears, “We have plenty of boobalicious babes in the guild! If you work hard enough, you might end up going home with one of them!”

“Hoho,” Jiang Fei coughed. “In that case, I’d like to bring you home.”

Jiang Fei turned to the little brat and gave her some of her medicine.

“Kyaa!” cried Miaomiao in a high-pitched cry. She may be aggressive, but no one would have expected a virgin to get that crafty little minx all jumpy like that.

“Enough Miaomiao, cut the crap!”

Rosette Rose rubbed her temples before turning to Jiang Fei, “Welcome Verdure Glider, to the Rosette Knighthood.”

“Ding! Rosette Rose has invited you to join “Rosette Knighthood.” Do you accept the invitation?”

“Yes.” Jiang Fei nodded.

Rosette Knighthood was a guild. Guilds were one of the many kinds of group system in the game. Since the guild was only just established, it had a low maximum member limit. At that time, they only had 40 members in the guild and a maximum member limit of only 100. One thing to note was that Jiang Fei was currently the only guy in the all-female guild!

“Haha! Verdure Gilder! What a cute name!”

When Jiang Fei entered the guild and opened up the guild chat, members of the guild started to welcome him with utmost passion.

“Urgh…”

Although the girl meant well, Jiang Fei now regretted his choice of IGN. It was very lame. Even if it was a dream, Jiang Fei could have created a better name for himself!

“Verdure Glider… I think I’ll just call you Glider!” said Rosette Rose, as she too noticed the oddity in his IGN. (TL note: The Chinese Name for Verdure Glider is 草上飞. Brother Glider alone is referring to a single character:飞.)

“That’s nice.” Jiang Fei nodded his head. Even the Guildmaster felt that Verdure Glider was… Not cool.

“Brother Glider, I need you and Tinkerbell to sign a contract with me later on.

Do you have any qualms with this?” said Rosette Rose.

“No. No problems.”

Jiang Fei could see that Tinkerbell was another Profession player in the guild. Her IGN was Jade Tinkerbell. She was a Tailor, and had been recruited to join the guild as she was like Jiang Fei, a solo player.

As for the contract, it was common practice for most guilds. It was to prevent players from exploiting the guild. After all, the guild did provide all the necessary materials for Profession player to increase their Levels. Without the contract, the players could just leave once they have milked their share.

“We are just a small guild. There’s no way for us to compete with other bigger ones. However, we can give you a larger cut. We created the guild not to earn money, but to enjoy the game. The only reason we would recruit players like you is to give the other members a better time,” Rosette Rose explained.

“I understand,” Jiang Fei replied. As mentioned before, players that chose Profession had a motive, and that was to earn as much money as they could. Even though Rosette Rose said that the guild was not aiming to earn money, Jiang Fei had his suspicions. However, when he read the contents of the contract given to him, he was genuinely shocked.

The contract stated that after cutting the cost of materials, all profits shall be divided between the Profession player and the guild at a ratio of 8:2! That’s 20% to the guild while the Profession player would earn 80%! It was an unbelievable number! To put in comparison, other guilds would only give a basic salary and a 10% profit sharing! The guild itself would take 90% of what the Profession player made!

“Hm mm,” Rosette Rose saw Jiang Fei’s reaction and chuckled. “Like I said, the guild was created for the sole purpose of having fun. We recruit players like yourself to ease the gameplay of the guild members. There’s no shortage of money! We only ask that you prioritize the production of any equipment to the fellow sisters. Anything else can be discussed.”

“Mother f—” Jiang Fei screamed in his mind. “Just how rich are these chicks…”

Still, there it was. Even Jiang Fei had no intention of earning money from the game. However, who could say no to money? Jiang Fei needed an exceptionally large sum of it, since he needed to “feed” the ring!

“Alright. I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to train now with the other sisters. I’ve already given both you and Tinkerbell access to the guild’s public storage. Each of you are allowed to withdraw a daily limit of 50 gold coins. Good luck, and work hard. We will be expecting you to deliver!” said Rosette Rose as she left Jiang Fei alone and dragged the other giggling girls to grind their Levels.

“F*ck me. What have I gotten myself into! This is too much, even for me!”

Since the beginning of the game, Jiang Fei had yet to amass even a single gold coin! They actually allowed anyone to withdraw 50 gold coins a day?!

It was hard for anyone to farm gold coins at that early stage of the game! Selling junk items to NPCs would only yield peanuts! It would never be enough to even buy potions, much less equipment!

How was a guild filled with more than 40 female players able to collect that much money? It was a certainty that the source of that money was not Rosette Rose alone. If it had not been procured from the black market or MMORPG currency sellers… There had to be an explanation for this!

“Argh! Why the hell am I thinking so hard about this! I’d better start buying materials!”

Shoving his curiosity aside, Jiang Fei quickly withdrew 50 gold coins from the guild’s public storage and headed to the entrance of the city gates to set up shop.

“Buying all Copper Ores! One gold coin per stack!”

Even though Jiang Fei could melt down and salvage materials from White tier equipment, he had a far better option. Players right then were all from the Beginner’s Village. Equipment would be highly scarce and costly. It would be better for Jiang Fei to buy Ores, instead.

Even though Jiang Fei’s buying price was the market’s standard, he had still managed to buy many items from players returning to the city. They were all too lazy to make their way to the NPCs, and since there was someone who was willing to buy their Ore, why not sell it to him?

Jiang Fei’s Profession was considered to be of the Crafting variety. Some other Profession players focused on Gathering. That said, there were very few crafters around, but several more Gatherers about! Crafters required capital to start their business. On the contrary, Gatherers did not need any starting money to earn money! Even if their combat ability was lesser than that of specialized combat type Classes, they could “hitch” a ride with a large group of players. As they slew monsters for experience points, the Gatherers could take the opportunity to gather the necessary materials. That was why players who purely wanted to earn money through the game had chosen Gathering as their Profession.

In less than an hour, Jiang Fei had spent all 50 gold coins to buy more than 50 stacks of Copper Ores. He had even run back to the guild storage to offload most of the Ores that he could not hold on to.

“Alrighty then! It’s time to Smith for a living.”

Satisfied with the number of Copper Ingots, Jiang Fei headed for the Blacksmith Workshop with 20 Copper Ingots in hand.

Unlike Tailoring, Blacksmiths required an actual workspace, whereas Tailors could start crafting anywhere, anytime they wanted — as long as they had the necessary materials. Blacksmiths needed an anvil and furnace!

“Dang! Dang! Ting! Ting!”

With each strike, Jiang Fei sent sparks flying. It was beautiful. Jiang Fei was able to begin appreciating his Profession as a Blacksmith.

Soon, he would be able to survey his first work. Soon, in this case, was literally 5 seconds. The Green Copper Wrist Guard was a cheap, White tier equipment. 5 seconds was all it took!