Chapter 8: It’s only stealing if you are caught

Since I have moved up to my new land in North Carolina I have seen a temporary boost in my stats and abilities. As long as I stay on my land I receive these benefits. If I move more than 1 kilometer away from my claimed land under the system these bonus benefits disappear. The help screen has hinted that the range will increase as my holdings increase. This means I need to keep expanding until I reach an optimal size for my little kingdom. We need to be self-sufficient and able to defend ourselves without out growing so large that management becomes an issue. From what I understand if my kingdom reaches a certain size than the bonuses I enjoy could become permanent and passed down as a legacy to my heirs.

Even though owning and ruling over more land is extremely beneficial, I am going to make it a secondary priority. After the Great Game goes live I am sure that unclaimed land and opportunities to grow the kingdom will present themselves. I believe that my priority needs to be on training and resource acquisition. I think that the more in game currency I can accumulate before monsters and other distractions and troubles appear the better.

I am about 99% sure that the easy money I am making now is because I am either the only one or one of the few people at this point that passed the beta test. This gives me a huge advantage until the Great Game is fully integrated. There is basically no competition and the threats from the game world have yet to materialize allowing me to travel and use time intense spells that might still work later but will undoubtedly be harder to use without interruption.

As for my wealth I am burning through money like there is no tomorrow. I need to go on another resource gathering trip, but I want it to be outside my projected area of my new kingdom. The resources that are in my kingdom I want to leave alone and have them be there for when I need them later when travel is sure to be much harder. I do have a somewhat risky plan to get massive quantities of gold and other resources that I need. I am about 75% or better confident that it will work.

I think that this is a high enough percentage that I have to try. It should give me a massive influx of gold and other precious materials to spend at the beginning of the Great Game to outfit my entire kingdom with equipment that would be almost unheard of for starting players. If I do this right I will only have to make this one extended trip and can use the rest of the time until the switch over building up my area and making myself better.

There is so much to do and so little time to accomplish everything that I feel is necessary. I need to speed up my training and underground construction skills and increase my level if at all possible. It will be essential to my plan and will allow me much greater confidence in accomplishing my goals. I will check my progress again before the Christmas Holidays, spend a little time with family, and then start on the big plan.

I have discovered that I cannot accomplish everything myself. I am going to have to start delegating things to others without letting them know the real reasons behind what I am doing. This realization also made me understand that I need to identify helpful and potential employees, friends and others to have close by during the changeover. Travel will be very difficult once the Great Game starts so I need to get these people close by before it happens.

Some of the critical needs areas that I have identified are doctors/nurses, soldiers/law enforcement, gamers, farmers /ranchers, veterinarians, general contractors, and just general workers. I do not care about nationality, religion, language, etc. As long as they are good workers and have the potential for loyalty to me it will all work out. There will be no discrimination in my little kingdom. I plan on having it run mostly as a meritocracy where your contributions to the greater good are rewarded with wealth and power. This means that anyone regardless of background can do well as long as they put in the time and effort.

I need to come up with some method to interview and find out if these people will be compatible with me and my goals. I could probably use my mana sense to watch skin temperature, pupil dilation, and other bodily signs as a crude lie detector for in person interviews. I can rely on back ground checks and other things until technology stops after the Great Game starts.

Finally Christmas break has arrived for my daughter’s college. I did not want to start my new plan until after I had a chance to see her and the family again. She has come home and is remarkably upbeat about all of the changes I have made in our lifestyle. We have a new house and compound, new wealth, new businesses and land and she just rationalizes everything away. It’s actually kind of creepy.

I have accumulated more wealth while practicing and traveling locally, but with my estimations it will definitely not be enough for my grandiose plans. I have increased my skills and level and feel confident my plan should be feasible. The boost from my titles once I reached level 10 actually was a big help and raised my confidence in my scheme working.

Let’s see where I am at now: Status

Name: Mark Anderson Titles: Survivor +1, Quadelementalist +4, Lucky One +1 Level: 12 - 46% Unspent Attribute Points: 5 Strength: 25 HP: 250 Intelligence: 40 +10%MP MP: 800 Wisdom: 40 +10% MP/Regen HP/Regen: 25% per 15 min. Agility: 25 MP/Regen: 40% per 15 min. Constitution: 25 Luck: 30

Affinities: Earth - 100% Fire – 100%

Water – 100% Air – 100%

What I have planned will either be the start of a brilliant, but short criminal career. Or an absolute failure and I will end up in jail. However, even if I end up in jail I will just stay there until the Great Game starts and then break out using my overpowered stats to make it home as quick as possible.

I am going to rob gold and precious metal depositories, diamond brokers, and mines around the world. Hopefully if my plan works no one will ever even know it happened. In fact with the Great Game switch over in about 6 months I am not even sure I can call it robbery. More of a wealth redistribution trip before the start of the game. I like that, it sounds less villainy.

From everything I learned, governments do not “count” as owners of property or wealth after the Great Game Switch over. Thus everything they own such as gold depositories, land, etc. reverts back to the first come first served rule. Rather than letting somebody else just walk into Fort Knox after the Great Game starts and having all of that wealth to themselves I am going to take a significant portion of it and other places around the world to use for my new kingdom.

I have been practicing my fine elemental manipulation for the last few months for a reason. I am going to approach each area from deep underground, using silence and earth manipulation spells to not set off alarms. I won’t ever enter any vaults. I will use Earth manipulation to drill holes up to where the gold and other precious metals are stored and then use a trick I have been working on to siphon off gold and other metals without leaving a trace.

The tricky part is I now have enough control over my mana that I can hollow out the bars of precious metals and replace the interiors with stone. This will leave just a thin film of metal surrounding a block of worthless rock. In practice I have been able to average around 500 bars an hour. I have been practicing with copper bars and should be able to increase my speed with practice as I travel the world. I can continue doing this until I get tired, run out of mana, or just feel like I should move on to the next location.

This plan should net me an untold amount of wealth. The majority of which will be the new kingdoms treasury with enough left out for personal use. I hope to accomplish several goals of mine at once with this plan. First and foremost I will increase the amount of funds that I have to be able to help others directly after the switch. Second it should increase my magic and control to unprecedented levels as I drain the gold deposits. Finally I should also be able to get ideas and samples of various helpful things in my travels. This could be from architectural designs, management techniques, and just exposure to how other cultures work.

During my world travels I will also add in some public mine tours and tours of played out mines to increase my take without exposing myself to more risk. Hopefully I can also meet and invite several people from around the world to my compound. This will ensure a healthy mix of peoples and cultures for my little kingdom.