Chapter 5

Making Galactic Coins

On Galactic Dark Net, drugs are one of the most commonly traded merchandise . There are thousands of types of drugs currently on the market, all with differing effects . Mental stimulating drugs can cause one to temporarily forget fear, and it is very popular among soldiers, as it allows them to feel like invincible titans and fight endlessly . Shockwaves, thrill, demon blade, are all popular types of mental stimulating drugs .

Light hallucination drugs can bring pleasure and, according to users, the feeling can be even better than having sex . Moderate hallucination drugs can come with some risk when used by ordinary people, and high hallucination drugs are limited to espers because only their bodies can handle the effects this type of drug can have . Pleasure, super stimulation, heaven, sex experience, these were all typical hallucination drugs found on the dark net .

Empowerment drugs are very useful in comparison to the two types previously mentioned, for instance Pyromancers can take some stimulants to quickly enhance their abilities and strengthen themselves for a short period . Higher level empowerment drugs can even increase your power index number, improving one’s strength, reflex speed, and so on . Flaming phoenix, Frosty ice, Sensation, Mental burst, Nuclear drive, these are all essential empowerment drugs espers should have to improve their skills . Many super soldiers will bring a small medicine box with them that contains these drugs, in order to address sudden needs .

The dark net also sells a lot of drugs used on other people . Honesty potion can force someone to spill all his secrets at once, confusion potion can cause a married woman to mistake you for her husband, and temptation potion can persuade the most innocent woman take off her cloth…

According to Han’s initial estimation, the GDN is selling over 100 thousand kinds of drugs, so if he wants to calculate the index number he can’t take all of them into account . Instead, he will only be able to use the popular, most iconic ones to determine the general price for the industry . Han spent a whole month on GDN and chose 80 websites that are representative of the drug industry . From these websites Han picked out 650 of the most “Flagship” drugs to use as the drug index number’s calculation foundation .

In addition to the current data, Han also needed to calculate the historic data . He set his daily working hour to 21 hours, with only a mere two hours to sleep, and one hour for personal hygiene and food .

After one month, Han had lost at least three pounds and dark circles had become common place around his eyes . June 8th came quickly, and the fresh index number that Han prepared a whole month for could finally be published . Han named himself Wind Speaker on GDC, which originated from a Hollywood movie he watched in his childhood . Shortly after, he published his first post on dark net and started nervously refreshing the page .

“It’s actually pretty exciting . ” chuckled Han to himself .

The Index number for drugs has a resting value of 100, so if the number for a specific day is higher than 100, it means that the market is trading more frequently than normal resulting in an increase in price . If the number is below 100 then it indicates a drop in demand and an increase in storage available, signalling the sellers to start selling with discounts .

When the first visitor views Han’s post, he almost jumped up happily! Han’s post soon passed the 200 views bar, but no one replied… Did I do something wrong? Han thought to himself and started reviewing all his calculations .

Everyday Han keeps his schedule very tight so he can’t always keep an eye on his post . From midnight to the following day’s noon, Han worked hard to collect data in order to write the Index number for that day . Han worked furiously and completed today’s number in 11 hours . He added to the post list, and at the same time he noticed that over 1000 people already visited Han’s post and there are also two comments!

User “Galactic Solder 101” asked, “Drug index number? Reliable?”

But User “No way to get home so I slept” encouraged Han, “Wow man, you actually collected everything by hand that’s impressive!”

Han hesitated, and he decided to reply these two users . But right before his fingers hit the keyboard, the screen flashed, indicating that a user donated 1 GC to Han! This user called “White horse not horse” said, “Although I’m not involved in drug businesses, I’m impressed with your hard work, you actually collected all the data for the past year to construct this index system . Although 1 GC isn’t much but it’s my token of appreciation . ”

Immediately, Han felt the urge to cry his eyes out!

Hurray to nice people in the world!

Holy crap . Just to calculate the index number, Han did a ton of work, and the beginning was the time when Han needed the most encouragement and appraisal . Although White horse not horse only donated 1 GC, but it significantly increased Han’s confidence and strengthened his determination to continue updating the index number no matter how hard it gets .

For the next half of the day Han didn’t receive any more donation nor subscribers . But it was okay since White horse not horse’s encouragement was already enough to keep Han going for a while . At midnight, Han visited all 80 websites again to collect the data . This time, it only took him 10 hours and 53 minutes, slightly faster than before . Han noticed that calculating Index is a bit tough in the beginning stage, but as soon as the model is established, workload will slowly decrease as proficiency goes up .

Now, Han’s post already reached more than 10 thousand people! Aside from the horse guy, another two nice users donated 1 GC each . Now Han is worth 3 GC, which equals to 3750 UC on earth!

The first person to subscribe to Han’s drug market index is a user called “Night Walker”, and he subscribed on the fifth day of Han’s first post . He didn’t leave any comments, just simply transferred 3 GC from the forum’s subscription function to subscribe for a month of index numbers .

Honestly, Han didn’t set the subscription too high, 3 GC a month, a seasonal subscription discount lowers it to 8 GC for 3 months, high year subscription is 13 GC, and subscribing for the whole year is as cheap as 24 GC . Maybe Night Walker is the manager of a drug market website, and for these drug lords a few GC is nothing .

After someone subscribes, Han would email the full version of drug index to the subscriber, which is different from the public version because it also includes specific daily trade volumes and trend analysis which Han wrote himself . The package totaled about 30 to 40 pages of detailed data . He hadn’t ever worked so hard on a report, even for school…

His finger was shaking just before he hit sent, he was quite nervous about whether his first subscriber would be satisfied with his data . Beside the email function is Han’s GC account, including the 3 GC subscription fee and other 8 users’ donation, Han has made 11 GC which equals to 13585 UC already .

Every day, Han spent 11 hours generating the index numbers and the rest of his free time continuing to explore the drug market . He was hoping to find the drug markets hidden even deeper in the dark web, in order to expand the historic record of drug index numbers and improve on the existing calculation model .

Of course, hard work yields results, evident by the daily increase in subscriber numbers to Han’s index number, and Han continued to meticulously generate daily index numbers, carefully protecting the hard-earned viewer base and saving every coin he earned .