[Large Bag of Magic Crystal Coins]: Contains 2,341 magic crystal coins.
Xia Chengfeng kept the bag. Xiaozi had charged over but had gotten there too late. She felt a little indignant.
[Earth Tremble Skill Book (Exceptional)]: Attack the ground with the body's power. The resulting impact will assault the enemy.
[Heavy Cleave Skill Book (Exceptional)]: Temporarily raises the user's power and attacks the enemy with a heavy cleave. It has immense destructive capabilities.
[Large Magic Imbued Iron Lv8]: A powerful magic resource. It can be used to craft equipment.
[One Star Leader Contract (Special Item)]: A user can recruit ten living creatures into his territory and sign a territorial contract with them after he uses this item. Creatures who have signed the territorial contract must serve the leader and abide by his rules in the territory. Any creature that goes against the contract will be punished by the contract.
"To think that there is a leader contract." Xia Chengfeng immediately picked the item up. He was even happier to find this than if he had found pieces of equipment.
Not all of the monsters in the caves were violent and evil. Some creatures were neutral or friendly.
Some of these races were very suitable to be recruited. By recruiting these creatures into his territory, Xia Chengfeng could make them inhabitants of his space bubble. He could also get them to help out in the construction of his space bubble.
He could give them tasks such as building houses, tilling the fields, rearing the pigs, etc. He might even be able to recruit special races if he was lucky enough.
He could also get them to craft weapons or make elixirs. He could even nurture a few soldiers to do battle alongside him.
Xia Chengfeng had wanted this item from the start. Why hadn't he joined a team? Wasn't he afraid of falling behind in the later stages of the game if he didn't cooperate with anyone else?
That was because Xia Chengfeng knew that the early stages of the crypt world were primarily used to gather resources such as food and water. If he'd joined a team at that stage as a person with better survival skills, he would have had to split his time and resources equally with all the other players.
Furthermore, the crypt world was not a static place. The crypt world would become more and more dangerous as time went on. To Xia Chengfeng, operating alone at this stage would boost his chances of survival.
He would be able to develop his territory after he obtained the leader contract. Wasn't it better to be a leader?
As for the other factions of survivors, everything would eventually evolve and an alliance between leaders would come together in the form of a federation.
"This might be the earliest leader contract found in area 2222," XIa Chengfeng thought to himself.
A player had to challenge a leader's cave to find a leader contract.
The game didn't allow players to form alliances or parties at the moment. Challenging a leader cave alone? It was too difficult.
Xia Chengfen had managed to succeed because he had first done a divination to check out any risks and then used every method in his arsenal, from poisoning the water to setting traps to assassination. His home had also almost been destroyed by the Tauren elder before he completed the challenge.
It would be extremely difficult for anyone else to accomplish this feat unless they had the same abnormally fast development that he did or if they had amazing luck.
There were probably other survivors like him in the other areas.
He picked up the other items in the treasure chest. Xia Chengfeng didn't decompose the chest. Instead, he kept it as a storage vessel.
A runic treasure chest on this level should be able to withstand a certain amount of damage. He would be able to prevent his valuable items from being damaged by a monster invasion if he placed them inside.
While Xia Chengfeng was consolidating his spoils of war, the scoreboard of area 2222 had been furiously updating.
There were still about ten hours left until the cutoff time for the scoreboard. The rankings of the scoreboard were completely different than they had been two days ago.
The player who had been ranked first, Yang Yong, had dropped to second with a score of 307.
The current champion was Feifei with 314 points.
In third was Yang Kai with 305 points.
The fourth player was called [Tianxun, Shenhua] with 303 points. He was obviously a member of Tianxun.
"Shenhua?" Xia Chengfeng knew most of the people from Tianxun Internet Technology Ltd. Shenhua was a vice-chairman of Tianxun. Xia Chengfeng hadn't had many dealings with the higher-ups of the company previously. All he knew was that he was one of Wu Rui's trusted aides. He was surprised. He hadn't expected him to be able to squeeze into fourth place. He guessed that Wu Rui had invested many resources in him.
As for Xia Chengfeng, he had dropped to ninth place after gaining only ten points during the past two days.
In the forums, the players had started to fervently discuss the rankings.
"There are only ten hours left. From the look of things, first place will most likely be Feifei's., the chairman of our Sector 2222 Mutual Assistance Association."
"Who says? I think that it will still be Yang Yong. Yang Yong rested for a day. He'll overtake Feifei if he explores two One Star caves today."
"There's also hope for Yang Kai. I heard that he is a mage with extremely strong battle capabilities."
"The fourth-ranked player Shenhua is also very powerful. His ranking has been rising over the past two days. He rose from being ranked 38th to fourth. He might have had a miraculous encounter and become strong."
"Why is Breeze lagging behind?"
"How do you think an individual could defeat a team? A team can provide a player with equipment, skills, and elixirs. It's already good that Breeze didn't fall out of the top ten."
"Open, opening now! Those who want to bet on which player will end in the top three can come to this forum. [Xingyuan] will act as the guarantor." Xia Chengfeng saw a player had set up a gambling thread in the forum. He was a member of Xingyuan.
Xingyuan had been engaged in internet loans and loan collections in the past. They had always treaded in gray areas. It seemed as if they hadn't forgotten their roots when they came to this new world.
Xia Chengfeng tapped into the forum and realized that he was also an option. He then placed a bet with his magic crystal coins. Every candidate had their associated odds.
Most of the players bet on Feifei and Yang Yong. Feifei's payout was 1.2, while Yang Yong's was 1.25. Feifei amassed a bet of 8,754 magic crystal coins, while Yang Yong got 7,440 magic crystal coins.
Yang Kai's payout was 1.7 and had 4,230 magic crystal coins in bets. Shenhua's payout was 2.2 and had 3,311 magic crystal coins.
Candidates who ranked lower had higher payouts and naturally had lower bet amounts.
Xia Chengfeng saw that he was in the group of candidates. The post read, "Breeze, current payout 4.0. Current bet amount, 2,264 magic crystal coins."
Any bet would be taken in by the system and any rewards would be dispatched by the system. The returns would be guaranteed.
"The person in charge is too intelligent," Xia Chengfeng thought to himself. As the banker, Xingyuan would definitely profit as long as they controlled the payout well, no matter which player ended up taking first place.
There were tens of thousands of magic crystal coins in total bets. They were going to earn a good sum this time.
"Since there is a guarantee from the system, I'll have to make some money off this." Xia Chengfeng bet 4,000 magic crystal coins on himself.
If he got it right, the 4.0 payout would give him 16,000 magic crystal coins. He would still have 15,520 magic crystal coins after paying the system's 3 percent fee.
He would earn money faster this way than if he explored caves!
Someone immediately reported this to the Xingyuan discussion group. "@Yang Kai: Brother Kai, someone just bid 4,000 magic crystal coins on Breeze!"
Yang Kai: "??? Who has that much money?"
He immediately understood and said to himself, "The only people who could have 4,000 magic crystal coins were the two other factions or Breeze himself.
"It would be hard to explain why the other factions would place this bet.. The point gap between Breeze and the rest of us is quite large. Could it be Breeze himself?
"He bets on himself? Is he that confident that he is going to win?
"I guess that the lad has thought of the same idea as we did," Yang Yong concluded.
Xingyuan had thought of a way to guarantee first place by immobilizing their opponent.
They could choose to not conquer a cave after they'd finished exploring it. They could then conquer the caves just when the rankings were about to end to get a boost in points and catch their opponents off guard.
Other players could also have arrived at this idea, but it was extremely difficult to implement.
That was because every player's space bubble was threatened from six directions.
If they chose to add an unconquered space bubble that they needed to defend, the new space bubble would be threatened in five new directions. Once a monster discovered their space bubble, they could attack the survivor's own space bubble through the unconquered space bubbles.
Thus, choosing not to conquer a space bubble would add an exponential amount of risk.
Yang Yong was very confident in his abilities and had left four space bubbles unconquered. His opponents could only raise their points by ten or 20 within the next ten hours. Coupled with the One Star cave that he was in the middle of exploring, his points would shoot up by 50. He could guarantee first place for himself.
Yang Kai: "That's right, Breeze has only managed to gain ten points in three days. He must also be taking the risk and leaving a few space bubbles unconquered."
"His 4,000 magic crystal coins will be a gift to us."
"As a precaution, we should adjust the payout. We must not take a loss no matter what."
Even though Yang Kai thought that Yang Yong would definitely win, reason told him that he needed to adjust the payout to prevent anyone else from betting on Breeze.
Breeze's payout quickly dropped to 1.3. No one else bet on him as his ranking was relatively lower than the rest of the players.
...