Atharva was talking about his theories about gift crates to Mrs Briggs. Did she need this? Not really. She had invested, not based on their game performance. It was literally pure business investment.
She just wanted to know why a young driven man who give up his dream job and be ready to be a mediocre person just to play a game. Was it for money? Did people really earn enough credits to become millionaires in one go?
Atharva genuinely thought she was interested in the game and was planning to invest in it or show interest in that direction. So he harped about what he had learnt and his crazy theories.
His food had cooled down in his plate. Yet he was chatting outside. Oh no! They would take away the food on the plate and put it into waste.
Wasting food is a big taboo.
Unsurprisingly, he ended the talk and rushed in. The service people in the restaurant were good. They even found his nook. If only...if only he was a mere peasant staying here for few days instead of probable assistant under Mrs Briggs. The chances of him coming again was more. Can not leave a bad impression.
Deep breath. Calm down. Atharva smiled at them, took his plate and sat in another place to eat. He had to finish this meal faster. He could play the game in VR pod today too. He wanted to fiddle a bit before entering the game.
It was not just Atharva who had a tremendous day. The big name guilds went the classy way and just wanted one time investment. They hoarded their shares like dragon holding the gold. You shall kill me before taking this piece of parchment. But they had to loosen their hold to get big investments.
Others...yeah. If they were very good, a new investor joined in. If they were just okay, a new owner entered quietly. This sort of acquisition and mergers happened when the guilds had stabilised and made name for themselves. Now it happened so early in the game. Some people are going to get burned later. Gaming is, was, will always be high risk high profit investment. Even after pumping so much cash into guilds, only few would become solvent later on. But it's not complete loss to others too. The brand effect, ambassadors, the good players under contract - indeed, there were many ways a company could use these guilds in the mean time and get their money's worth.
The rich brats of Saint Augustine - present students or Alumni were really rich brats. They needed to hit their parents to get extra investment and they were good to go. After that managers worked round the clock to prepare documents to justify extra investments and the liquid assets started depositing on guild bank accounts.
With so many variables in place, all that guilds or workshops could do was hold on to cash and wait. Wait for a good deal. With the money they had collected this far would surely not net them better deals, forget the big ones.
Right now the only good thing was that there was really not enough time to gather all the liquid assets for all of them. In this way, small guilds and big guilds had same starting line.
Common people were not worried about these things though. They wanted rumours, on dits on which would be better to earn more money. Which gift crates awarded better rewards compared to others? Which guild or scion or a workshop was paying the highest price?
The news were all over it. They had tried to get someone from game company to answer the questions or even give an interview. The reply was - a closed door.
Looking at the antics of various people, Atharva suddenly had a hunch and order a bunch of VR head gears.
Oh, look at that! New set of rules. No free trial period. Had to pay each day from day 1. And a person cannot order more than 2 gears under his own name unless he owns business related to games - even a just formed gold farming team works. Even the most basic headgears had preorders. He ordered a VR pod too. Pre-order for that too.
Oh my! The fella who ate packed sandwich in park to save few credits bought a VR pod. Granted that it was not new model with maximum compatibility for the game
This was not indulgence. This was pre-planning. It would be easier to work on VR related things easily inside the pod. After all, the pods didn't need down time to cool down. There was another thing. He had no idea if he would be provided any rental apartment as part of salary package or given rental allowance directly. Cheap rentals for a single graduate male - he had seen neighbours of his parents' home. They would try their best to manage the kid's life- be it yours or some one else's. And the managing included getting a partner, a good one. He would choose costly as h*ll but of shoe size apartments over that. And this pod would be god sent in such space.
After checking related things, he dived into the game using the pod. The experience was indeed smooth, noticable even on second logging in via this device.
Artha woke up with a packed schedule in his mind. Which promptly derailed almost immediately.
Sun Lord and Baccara had sent the list for the new probably -will - be - a- guild teams and the handover person would be waiting near the inn.
Artha had to start a new ledger for this investment. He called it- first investment diary. Very unoriginal and realistic to the ground.
A barely legal teenager was loitering near the inn. He was so into the game that he was practicing his swordmanship even then. Such a dedicated player. As Artha had no knowledge of swordmanship, he didn't realise the immensity of the situation.
Here was a young lad who was practicing swordmanship, which could be considered exquisite. Important thing was not that. The most noteworthy thing was that this set of movements was not taught by the mentor in the game. In other words, the lad was incorporating his real life skill set here in village. Truly a talented swordsman.
The initial handover would be just some potions. The next set would have to be provided soon. The swordsman said he would be point of contact from henceforth. They exchanged the contact details.
"Edgeless blade. Nice name." Artha said. The lad didn't give any explanation for the name and he didn't ask.
Just like that a chance to cosy with incoming famous swordsman was lost.