Reborn: Super God of War

After a ray of Soul Magic engulfed Aquatic Predator, he was resurrected. He immediately ran to Baili Changcheng with a face full of grievances, and he pointed to Lin Jie. “Leader, he snuck up on us when we were attacking the Boss and even robbed our Boss! You have to help us and return justice to us!”

Lin Jie raised his brows in surprise. ‘Leader?’

This was Baili Changcheng’s team?

Baili Changcheng rolled his eyes. “Shut up!”

Aquatic Predator immediately stopped. He stood behind Baili Changcheng and had the expression of a sullen wife.

“I am not their Leader,” Baili Changcheng shrugged and let out an embarrassed laugh, “please don’t kill me along with them.”

Lin Jie shook his head calmly. “They attacked me first.”

Baili Changcheng turned to look at the Skeleton Commander’s corpse—what’s left of it anyway—and asked, “Fu Sheng, are you holding on to the Runes Rib?”

“Yes.”

“That is my friend’s required quest item. Since you won’t have any use for it, do you mind giving it to me so I can give it to my friend?” said Baili Changcheng.

Lin Jie threw him a glance, decided not to make things difficult for him and took the Runes Rib out. This bone was densely imprinted with words from ancient times. Were the words Dragon Language? Lin Jie couldn’t understand them anyway.

The relationship between Lin Jie and Baili Changcheng was still amiable now. It would definitely be a good thing to earn his trust and let this sly fox-like enemy keep his guard down around him.

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

After taking the Runes Rib, Baili Changcheng said smilingly, “Brother, how about introducing you to a friend of mine? You will definitely be interested to know him.”

“Oh?” Lin Jie thought for a moment and nodded. “Okay then.”

Aquatic Predator watched as the two of them went off and felt utterly cheated. This time round, he was definitely being taken advantage of! Fuming, he shouted, “Stop there!”

Baili Changcheng turned and said coldly. “Is there something?”

“No… no.” Aquatic Predator flushed, and his fists tightened and loosened for a few times. His blood vessels were visible too, but he did nothing except to let out a sigh.

——————

“I swear, all those idiotic players just now were not my people,” said Baili Changcheng disdainfully. “We are just working together for a mission. I am of a higher level than them, and thus they addressed me as their leader…”

Lin Jie asked, “Mission?”

Baili Changcheng nodded. “Yeah, a hired mission. Have you heard of Brotherhood? I joined this organization and earn a little pocket money by completing hired missions. Hehe… This time round, the person I planned to introduce you to is a big local tyrant. He’s what I’d call ‘stupid but rich,’ and his money is easy to earn!”

He laughed and patted Lin Jie’s shoulders.

Now, it was Lin Jie’s turn to feel speechless. In his previous life, Baili Changcheng had owned more than 20 cities and had been assisted by the Alliance of the three major guilds. Why would he still need to earn money by completing hired missions personally?

Shouldn’t such people concentrate on collecting the resources of the entire game, and then conquer the game secretly from behind the scenes?

Returning to the City of Light, Lin Jie first went to the Holy Church to heal his injuries, and then followed Baili Changcheng to the most prestigious Imperial City Restaurant and entered a room.

There were three tables in the room.

On the first table, there were Roasted Dragon Meat, Fried Devil Scorpion, Desert Oasis King Crab, Giraffe Sauce…

On the second table, there were all kinds of clear soups, like the Hundred Poultry Soup, Thousands Beast Soup, Chinese Paddlefish Soup…

In comparison, the third table seemed more light—colorful fruits which still had dewdrops on them were placed in beautiful platters. Although Lin Jie had not seen many fruits before, he thought the prices of the foods on this table wouldn’t be as expensive as the previous two tables. However, when Lin Jie noticed that there were two Blood-Enhancing Berries on one of the fruit platters, he realized he was still too naive. He should dump his previous assumption into the Atlantic!

‘Which damn wastrel would spend on such a lavish banquet?’

“Baili! Is the mission completed?” A fat man with a big belly walked in with a smile and said, “Is he your friend? Come, sit, sit…”

He sat on the Dragon Leather seat and chewed a piece of golden Roasted Dragon Meat, greeting Lin Jie, “Here, do help yourselves to the food, it is still rather difficult for me to finish all of these foods alone.”

Lin Jie blinked. “You are planning to eat all of these?”

“Yeah, is there a problem?” The fat man blinked and put a Blood-Enhancing Berry in Lin Jie’s hands. As if like a salesperson trying to promote his product, he encouraged, “You must taste one of these fruits, its sour and sweet at the same time. This is tasting much better than all the other fruits.”

Lin Jie took a look at the fruit, and his pupils shrank.

[Blood-Enhancing Berry]: Strength +8

Lin Jie couldn’t help but pull up the corners of his mouth into a weak smile. Strength was the most important attribute to a Warrior. If one could increase their own Strength for nothing, they would be overjoyed.

However, Lin Jie had already eaten two Blood-Enhancing Berries so it wouldn’t matter to him even if he ate more. As for the berries’ taste, who would really care about how that thing tasted?

This fat man who was now eating heartily was Dominance, or else known as the greatest wastrel in the entire of The New Age! He was also the president of the Money Gang! Lin Jie had once seen this fatso In the village where the Boss for the Guild Base was respawned. Lin Jie had recognized him when he first stepped into the room.

“Do help yourself, the taste of this fruit is really good, trust me,” commented Dominance.

Lin Jie smiled and snuck the Blood-Enhancing Berry into his backpack. Such a precious item should not be wasted—it could be sold for a large sum of money!

Dominance took the Runes Rib from Baili Changcheng in a gleeful manner, and let out a sigh. “Aish, just by exchanging these for EXP, when can I ever get to the top of the Rankings Board?”

Feeling dejected as it seemed like there was no hope of reaching the top, Dominance dug into his food again.

Baili Changcheng poked Lin Jie and sent him a private message. “This person is called Dominance. His real name is Hong Dali, a super rich kid, and his family seems to be very powerful! I heard that he had used millions of dollars to build the Money Gang!”

Lin Jie gulped nervously and glanced at the Runes Rib.

There were some missions in The New Age which allowed players to exchange rare items for experience points. However, the purpose of these missions was to increase the monsters’ values, rather than for the EXP, which was what Dominance was doing exactly. A Runes Rib could be exchanged for 3,000 EXP points, and it would take about 400 such items to level up. However, only monsters which were of the Elite level or above could spawn such items.

Lin Jie inquired about the price Dominance gave for obtaining a piece of Runes Rib and got the shock of his life—he actually rewarded players with 1,000$ for a piece of Runes Rib!

‘Wastrel, such a wastrel! WTH! Surely this guy has not gotten to the level he is at now by such means!’

However, after looking at the items on the three tables and calculating that all of it amounted up till an estimated $10 million, Lin Jie felt that Dominance’s actions seemed somewhat logical, then. As the saying goes, ‘The portals of the rich reek of meat and wine while frozen bodies lie by the roadside.’ ¹ Money could be the ultimate life goal for an ordinary person, but it could also be just some useless paper to someone else.

“You want to reach the top of the Rankings Board?” asked Lin Jie.

“Yes, that’s right!” Dominance wiped his mouth, “A girl told me she will sleep with me if I make it to the Rankings Board… oops, I mean, she promised to have a ‘friendly exchange’ with me. Thus, I can only try my best to earn it.”

“Aish, as the saying goes, ‘The hero is angered for the sake of the beauty ² , who would he go to great lengths for’…” Dominance sighed, and there were traces of saliva at the corners of his mouth.

Baili Changcheng hurriedly interrupted, “This is my friend, he’s an expert among the experts! He had once won the GIA championship, and he’s a professional gamer. You can employ him to complete your mission.”

Lin Jie whispered, “What is GIA?”

“I made it up, who cares anyway?” Baili Changcheng shot him a look.

“Good! It’s great working with experts! But we will not talk about this today, I can put the matter of my leveling up aside first. I will need to tell you all about this great insider news—are you interested?” said Dominance. Before anyone replied, he revealed excitedly, “The Cash Exchange System will be launched soon, and several sets of the game’s estates will be placed for sale!”

Lin Jie’s pupils constricted. ‘How does he know about this?’

One of the events which caused a series of drastic changes to the game was the introduction of the Cash Exchange System within one month of its official launch!

Previously, the state had officially stated that no real cash could be used to exchange for game currencies, as they had predicted this would cause a detrimental impact in both the real world and in the games!

If such systems were set up, many rich businessmen and corporates would reduce their investments in the real world and invest their money in the games. If the real world’s businesses lost financial support, how would the country’s economy continue to prosper?

As for the virtual game world, if the real world’s cash could be exchanged for an unlimited amount of game currency, the economic system of the whole game would be completely paralyzed, and “inflation” of the game’s currency might occur. Imagine, if a low-level health potion was priced at a few gold coins… who could afford it? The game would be abandoned soon.

However, despite all objections, The New Age managed to launch its Cash Exchange System! The catch was this: could one use cash to exchange for the game’s coins anyhow to buy equipment, properties, swimming pools, or even a King’s title just for the sake of enjoying life in the game? No! The game had strict rules, and the game currency cannot be exchanged for such purposes!

However, dearest rich players, you could skip the steps of exchanging your real-world cash for the game’s currency and buy the items you want directly in cash. As long as you have enough cash, you can obtain coins from players, groups or get them from other channels. In essence, you still can live like an emperor in the game.

In the game, the smart NPCs’ settings were very novel. They would accept the currency of the alternate realms, just that they would treat them as waste paper… No, definitely not, of course! The currencies of the alternate realms were still quite useful to the NPCs. When they accumulated enough money from the alternate realms, they could turn them over to the Holy Church, and on their behalf, it would offer the currencies to the Lord God (the game’s system). In return, these NPCs would get all kinds of blessings, some including prolonged lives, transfer to another job, etc…

However, in order to maintain the order in the game, the Empire would strictly control the sale of real estate, land resources, etc. in the game!

The game’s structure henceforth would change entirely! Those small guilds that had just lifted their heads would instantly be overpowered by the big guilds which had strong financial backings. All kinds of branded goods would get introduced in the game, causing a trading war.

Nevertheless, the Cash Exchange System still benefited the majority of players. As everything one owned now would have a price attached to them, as long as one was skilled in certain areas, they would be able to make income using that aspect.

In Lin Jie’s previous life the rate of employment in China had reached a whopping 400%! That was an unprecedented figure in the whole of China’s history!

During the first month, the Cash Exchange System had been launched, the entire game had undergone through epic changes. Numerous companies had invested in virtual games for the first time, and real-world endorsements, advertisements, branded goods were introduced to the game. This situation only stabilized until half a year later.

During those six months, the daring move of The New Age had earned it a great name—the second ‘world’ indispensable to mankind!

Other than that, with the launching of the Cash Exchange System, the game’s properties would start being auctioned in the game! These properties would basically lay the foundation for the city’s future developments. In his previous life, many shrewd businessmen still had their doubts about the game and decided to wait for a while before starting their investments, only to regret later as no more game’s properties were being auctioned in the next few years.

The first property auction had been the one with the fewest participation, but definitely the most historic one!

Lin Jie looked at the sky outside the window, muttering silently to himself,

“Everything is going to be changed!”