City of Sin

Book 8, 109

A Devious Plan By Devious Women

Hearing Nasia describe the origin of the reward point system, Richard suddenly felt like he was on the other side of the veil for the first time. He had never even bothered to consider things from the perspective of the Eternal Dragon, only hunting down offerings for his own use. Now, he would be the person controlling that fierce temptation.

“Oh right,” Nasia added on, “This isn’t in the list, but when there’s about twenty plus participants with a decent amount of points, I’ll start up a list of accumulated points for everyone. Those in the top three will receive some extra ever so often as encouragement.”

“And you’re expecting that to do what?”

A fiendish smile flashed on the paladin’s mask, “Let’s say you’re a level 25 legendary mage. How would it feel to be outdone by a loser at level 20?”

Richard’s eyes sparkled as he realised what she meant. She was establishing a public competition; for the sake of glory alone, the most prideful legends would fight endlessly to earn points. Only three of them would get the actual benefits, while the extra work from the rest would feed the system further.

“Here are some more ideas to improve the system. They’re from Rosie though, not me.” Nasia took out another piece of paper from her pouch, passing it to him. The first thing on this list was a note that the main premise behind this point system was the idea that they could accurately determine battle results. She wanted to add another cloned brain to each future battle, mobilising the Thinker to calculate points and attend to other matters of the exchange. This would take up the entirety of his attention.

In many ways, the Thinker was a big help in large-scale wars. However, the point exchange system was clearly where he would make them the most money, so Richard felt like he had no choice but to approve the idea. He would just have to get the broodmother to create a few more in the future.

At the moment, it was becoming increasingly apparent that he needed more and more special units, while his divinity was running out. Outside of the seven gods in the south, he started wondering whether he should look at the other deities of Faelor. Unfortunately, killing too many powerful gods would destabilise the entire plane; he could only pick on the lesser ones.

Rosie’s second suggestion was to incorporate the abyss into the system. There was bound to be a barrage of monsters appearing from there sooner or later, and the threat from them could possibly even dwarf that of the dragons. At the same time, greater demons were even more valuable than many dragons; a venture there would be just as profitable if not more. She even suggested that he find a passage leading to hell.

Faced with this frightening ambition, Richard didn’t know how to react. Devils weren’t like demons, following order more strictly than even humans. They travelled in full armies, and even though they were weaker individually than their counterparts their organisation made them a much more dangerous enemy overall.

However, he had to admit that the other part of the idea was sound. He had already been looking for a way to deal with the passage in the Genesis, and this would be the perfect solution. He let out a sigh of relief; not only would this take care of a budding threat, but it would also add to the number of things he could put on offer.

The final suggestion was pretty straightforward; she wanted to increase the number of things that could be bought, specifically in the high end. From thunder cannons to magic mounts, she also wanted him to offer a few drones and even the battle edition of Midren. The last one especially tightened his chest; just how many times had he used that rune set himself? The thing had great power, no doubt, but it was almost impossible for normal people to control.

It was the explanation for the idea that stunned him. Rosie wanted to split Midren into its base components, selling each runic armour piece off separately at different prices. This would give hope to even the strongest figures amongst them, allowing them to get at least pieces at a time. Those with strong wills would then start pursuing the set relentlessly.

Of course, this was a path of no return. Rosie’s plan was to have each component be more expensive than if it was bought as part of the whole. It would be near impossible for anyone to accumulate tens of thousands of points, but if a single piece only cost a thousand or two thousand it was an entirely different story. Even sky saints could manage that over a few weeks, and the legendary mage Rakis had already earnt over a thousand points in total.

In the future, Richard could also open up the other sets of Heaven’s Armour as well. Truly strong figures would continue to chase Midren’s battle edition, but others would settle for less. If only one piece was released at a time, people would happily engage in bidding wars to be the ones to buy it.

There were many devilish traits in this plan. Nasia and Rosie had clearly pulled out all their cunning to design this system.

With Nasia still watching, Richard closed his eyes and focused on the original design of Midren’s battle edition. He quickly split it up into ten parts, designing them to act at least somewhat independently at a cost of efficiency and increased capacity. Of course, it only made sense for a rune set he put up for sale to be inferior to his own. There was no telling if this would one day land in the hands of his enemies.

He didn’t stop there. No one would be willing to spend huge sums of money on runes that barely even worked; many would rather save up all their points before buying it all in one go. Revising the plan, he designed every single part to have the properties of at least a grade 4 rune, thus turning it into a proper rune set instead of a massive integrated single rune. The total power of each rune would be boosted by the number of other parts one gathered, until it ultimately formed the complete version. This allowed both immediate and long-term reasons to bid for these runes.

A complete plan was quickly formed, leaving only a few minute details. However, Richard suddenly thought of a problem; where would he get the materials from? The soul crystal from an adult astral beast wasn’t just available for sale, and even if he could replace it with an equivalent material those materials were all rare too.

He suddenly opened his eyes, “We need to tweak the system, allowing people to exchange certain items for points. I’ll give you a list that we’ll definitely buy soon, find someone to appraise it all and decide on the cost. Anything else, we can go on a case by case basis.”

Nasia tutted in surprise, “You learn so quickly, now you’re getting people to offer to you.”

The devious plan was finally complete.

......

The Five-Coloured Dragon continued to guard the portal, her light never faltering. The dragons launched three more attacks over the next week, almost toppling Richard’s defences, but in the passion of battle they abandoned dozens of corpses and 20,000 draconians for nothing. After the three battles, many people accumulated a decent number of points, starting to eye valuable items that were in rare supply. All legendary items, rune sets, and the two grade 4 runes had been snatched up, and they were all waiting for the announcement of what would be added.

Outside Dragon Valley, Richard had built a new line of defence and started work on living quarters. Tens of thousands of workers from the Iron Triangle Empire were quickly building new houses, and even though these new ones weren’t as lavish as before they were still grand and awe-imposing. After all, saints and legends were swimming in money in normal terms; they wouldn’t agree with shabby housing.

As the sun reached its apex and warmed the icy winter, a group of rune knights rode up to a temporary villa and knocked on the door. Rakis’s voice sounded from the yard, “Come in, the door isn’t locked.”

The rune knights entered and headed to the courtyard, coming upon the legendary mage enjoying tea with two of his friends in the sunlight. There were two other saints and some elderly people present as well, all part of Rakis’s family.

The lead knight bowed, “Your Excellency, your supplies have been prepared.”

“So soon?” the mage’s eyebrows rose up.

“His Grace has ordered that any redeemed items are to be provided to you first. Your priority supersedes even the Family.”

“I regret the inconvenience,” Rakis chuckled, his gaze barely moving away from the chests that had been brought in. The rune knights opened the five chests one by one, each one containing three rune sets packed neatly within.