Sacred Souls: Genesis

“Once in a lifetime deal, golden coins 1:152! If anyone’s interested contact me!”

“Jumping Nucleons Guild buying golden coins at 1:153! Private messages are open!”

As Jiang Qiao and Xia Shan walked through the commercial street, they came across two players who were already buying gold coins on the streets.

As it implied, 1:152 meant that the players were buying gold coins for somewhere around 150 real-life dollars per gold coin, which was already a large amount.

There were only still a few players in game, and so the gold coins produced were high in demand but low in supply. The most pitiful part was that…No players responded to their calls.

They not only shouted out to the players that were passing by, but also continued to spam the chat with the message, speech bubbles popping out of their heads.

But there was only a pitifully low amount of players on the commercial street, and they could only see a couple of Level 25 players as well as a few newbie players.

No one paid them any heed as gold coins were high in demand now. The items sold in NPC shops wasn’t just potions and elixirs, but also single-use magic scrolls and some alchemic items.

These were all important for grinding for levels.

“These game coins are too expensive.” Xia Shan counted carefully, and with the ratio 1:152 she wouldn’t be able to buy a hundred gold coins with two months of her salary.

“Go and grind for levels then, no need to be in such a rush.” Jiang Qiao advised.

“I’ll go clear the newbie missions first, thank you for helping me out! Can I add you as a friend?”

Xia Shan had played MMORPGs before, and she knew that it would be a great help to get an experienced ally now.

“Of course.”

After adding Jiang Qiao as a friend, Xia Shan ran to the nearest newbie mentor and started doing her missions.

“Are you satisfied?” Ocean Blue asked, still invisible. “She doesn’t look like a bad person.”

“Maybe Tiangong-13 gave me the wrong info and she wasn’t an official after all, but we should still keep an eye on her.”

Jiang Qiao came into contact with Xia Shan because of the report that she was an official, and he didn’t want them to give him any trouble.

Xia Shan did give him a little bit of trouble, but only as a player and not an official from the verification department.

Jiang Qiao welcomed players getting into trouble with open arms…He himself was a player that liked to get into trouble too.

As Jiang Qiao was about to go train, another player shouted out on the street, attracting his attention.

“Buying Sacred Souls activation codes for thirty thousand! My DMs are open!

“Buying Sacred Souls activation codes for thirty thousand! My DMs are open!”

After shouting like that, the players on the street all looked at him, including the two players that were shouting to buy gold coins.

The ratio of 1:152 was still considered normal, but 1:30000 was a high enough number to garner the attention of every player that was around.

That amount would probably be the same as a few months or half a year’s worth of the average person’s salary, and even a year’s worth of salary for some people.

But activation codes? Those…don’t exist.

“Hey, thirty thousand he says! Why not sell one?” Ocean Blue asked, her eyes glimmering.

She learned about the real world very quickly, especially on the topic of buying food. Jiang Qiao had set a budget for her, and she could only spend around a hundred every time she called for takeout.

Therefore, in her world view, thirty thousand dollars was equivalent to three hundred meals!

“No need to do that.” Jiang Qiao had hated those highly-priced activation codes even back when he played games himself. Every time there was a game that he wanted to play that was in beta or in closed testing, he would always curse at the scammers and game creators when he saw activation codes being sold for more than eighty thousand on the market.

“B-But…Thirty thousand!” Ocean Blue had already lost her dignity as a goddess.

“What about it? It’s not like I lack money.”

Jiang Qiao wasn’t being too confident in himself. Even though he was only in his fourth year of university, but his income as a writer was enough to rival some higher-ups of small companies, earning around twenty to thirty thousand per month.

But Jiang Qiao hadn’t thought of using Sacred Souls to rake in cash, at least not now.

Because he knew that he had the ability to buy whatever he needed at this point, which was a high spec computer and good VR equipment and not much else.

Whenever he truly needed money, would be when the professional matches of this game start.

“I…”

“You don’t need it either.” Jiang Qiao cut her off, knowing what she wanted to say. “I can buy whatever you want to eat, no need to sell activation codes and ruin the reputation of your own game.”

“If you say so…I want some garlic lobster today!” Ocean Blue requested.

Jiang Qiao nodded in response, and the player that was shouting for activation codes had been at it for almost ten minutes now.

In this period of time, several players asked how to sell the codes, but after discovering they didn’t know what activation codes were the conversation came to a quick end.

Jiang Qiao couldn’t stand it any longer, going up to the player named ModaoSwordsman and tapping him on the shoulder.

“Hey…”

“Hey, bro! Do you have activation codes?”

Jiang Qiao hadn’t even finished his words before ModaoSwordsman turned around and inched closer excitedly. This man was a Swordsman as his name implied, which was the class change after the Warrior class at Level 25, focused mostly on enhanced agility.

“Why do you think I would have those?”

“You’re high leveled! Don’t you old players have your ways?”

“Uhm…This game has only been open for twelve days, I don’t think there are any ‘old players’…”

“Bro! If you really have it then sell it to me! Send me your Tiangong Pay account and I’ll transfer the funds to you in a second!” He seemed to have been stuck on the idea that Jiang Qiao had activation codes, or else he wouldn’t come to talk to him proactively.

“Why do you want activation codes so urgently?” Jiang Qiao asked curiously.

“My bro does livestreaming, and he wanted to try this game out because this game would definitely become extremely popular…But he doesn’t have the activation code.” ModaoSwordsman said, sending an embarrassed emoji in the form of a chat bubble on top of his head.

“Why don’t you let him livestream your gaming experience?” Jiang Qiao asked, thinking of another way to solve the problem.

“I’m a livestreamer too, see? Up until yesterday I could only log into this game on the phone so no one believed in me. I could use my VR equipment and livestream it to them, but they’re still dubious about it…” ModaoSwordsman sighed.

“Is that so? Where do you livestream, and which is your room code?”

Jiang Qiao started thinking about the possibilities of promoting Sacred Souls. He hadn’t put promoting the game on top of his list of priorities, because he believed that good games didn’t need to be promoted, but…Now that livestreaming was popular, a single livestreamer would be able to bring a lot of players into a game.

Professional players had a higher degree of this effect too, and Jiang Qiao believed that if Zhao Mingwei started livestreaming Sacred Souls, probably players from all around the world would ask him for activation codes…

Jiang Qiao definitely wouldn’t sell those, however. Once he sold the first one there would be the second one, and even though they would profit from it momentarily, it would ruin the reputation of the game itself in the long run. Jiang Qiao didn’t have any other activation codes to be sold at the moment. Anyway, he had already sent out all hundred beta testing qualifications.