The poor remain poor because of their mentality - John Krilensky.
Atharva suddenly remembered this quote by the famous economist after watching the one side war in the social media. The news channels were hyping them to the next level. There were instances where some stupid people even vandalised VR gear shops. As to why gaming company was not vandalised, they had already taken precautions. All the major centers related to the game
See, this was literally a cheat code. Approved and handled by the gaming company. You stretch your wallet to extreme and choose highest level gift crates possible to you. Then you sell them to the players in the game. You would be still making money. A bit extra if there is demand for your items. What's there to cry and create mayhem? Artha didn't understand it.
This game was breaking all the limits and habits set before. You should expect something like this to happen.
Then, suddenly, it hits him. He starts to hyperventilate.
Did it take this much time for him to understand the implications of the news?
No! No! The cheat code.
It would become real cheat code for him. He had multipler bonus for every item given by the game! Even with the minimum of 2x, which he hadn't had till yet ( the lowest was 6x), he would be literally having double the items. So if he paid a million, the minimum amount of items worth two millions would be present in the crate. And this could happen weekly or monthly once.
Hello, passive income!
Yes! With this, Atharva decided he would continue to play the game. Till the bitter end.( When he can't break even).
But this left with another problem. His job. His potential, future job.
He learnt all that was there to learn in Saint Augustine for few reasons. One - so much to learn. Two- so much can be learnt together. Three - more knowledge, better job prospects.
When he went to chat with Mrs Briggs that evening, that was the gist of the talk. Or to phrase it rightly, they just touched upon the subject, more like a preview rather then talk.
It didn't help that the call came when Atharva was still building castles in air.
He is a young man, not completely beaten by the life or the society. No wonder he would have flights of fantasy sometimes. But he had the capital. Afterall, he dared to dream of completing his studies in Saint Augustine and he did it. He fulfilled one of his wishes. One of his dream turned into reality.
Mrs Briggs, though outspoken, was still a businesswoman. This the talk started with the mundane. As she had arranged his settling in on the fly, she had no idea how it would work out on his end.
"So, how is the stay at hotel?" she asked.
Atharva who was still under the effects of thoughts of passive income and what not, behaved like a brat that he was normally. What? You thought the NPCs in the game would casually call someone Nosy parkers, Nitpicker etc? The game character in the village was perhaps very close to the real life persona of Atharva.
"It's nice. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought you were actually bribing me by showing how your employees are treated." He teased the teacher. Yes, he considered Mrs Briggs as a teacher, though she never taught in the class. She was a good rolemodel, according to him.
Mrs Briggs could not stand his talk. When was the last time she was teased like this? Though it was true, he should not say it so bluntly.
"Tch! You even guessed it!"
The headhunting of exceptional talents doesn't start with talking of scope of the job and salaries and bonuses. There were intangible perks which can sway people more thoroughly.
Atharva was a greenhorn. Never written a CV before, never worked a job before, not even a part time one, even before he entered Saint Augustine. He truly was the youngest child in the family, always pampered and cossested.
"Mrs Briggs, it was a suite. Not a standard room. Even standard room would look luxurious to me but you sent me to a suite." Atharva replied, implying that the response had been over the top. He would have been impressed even with a standard room in such hotels.
"What? Don't tell me you got inferiority complex just by staying there." Mrs Briggs fired back. This type of trick might make many people fall, but she would never believe he would fall for it. It just didn't get with the character he was. But, the job she was planning to offer him came with such perks. If he is not used to it, it would make his job adjustment a tad difficult.
Atharva fired back instantly, "Would you believe me?" Who would talk such things unless it was confession time. Even in forced confession times, he would never say such things. He shuddered involuntarily.
Would Mrs Briggs stay quiet at such saasy and obvious comeback. "Obviously...not! " She continued," You came to Department of Scholarship with such puny money and such attitude, why would you suffer from inferiority complex?"
Truth to tell, she had been impressed. Not many would consider paying back the loan, especially education loan when they had their first pot of gold. After all, education loans had the lowest interest rate. Though the money had had brought had been indeed like a drop of water to a sea, it was the attitude, the behaviour that counted.
Atharva didn't mind the dissing. Though Mrs Briggs was older and they had met only few times, he didn't feel odd or awkward around her. But would he be quiet just because he didn't mind? Why should he? He had restrained himself for long, long time all in the bid to realise his dream. Now that the restraint was gone, he would not hold back. Especially when the opposite party was of Mrs Briggs ilk.
The reply came back resoundingly, "The attitude you spoke of was due to the money being self earned. And I believe they call it confidence rather than just attitude." He had been proud as peacock then. It was true. He acknowledged it. But shouldn't he be proud of earning so much money by himself? No one in the family had earned so much. As far as he knew anyway.