Mature Content Warning: Nothing really

Author's Note: Well, here we go with today's update. (Did you feel spoiled with three yesterday?:))

Chapter 15.2: The Rewards of a Pioneer

She held up the four strange pieces of paper then looked to her master. “So, these are mine? I can buy things with these?”

“Yes, I would have given you more, but I need to upgrade the house.” said Scott.

Sonja smiled at him then looked at the four one hundred dollar bills that her master had granted her. Briefly she wondered what she might be able to buy with such a small amount of money. Four hundred jerin was either a lot or very little depending upon what you needed to buy. Food and a cheap place to stay were affordable with that much money. A decent low-end weapon would cost several times that amount of money.

“This was really sweet of you, thank you.” she said, a warm and sincere smile on her lips.

Scott blinked then coughed twice and turned away. If you stare too long into the pouty lips, the pouty lips stare back at you. He had too much to do, to allow himself fall into that honey trap today. “You’re quite welcome.”

It was still too early to go to either the scrapyard or to meet up with his acquaintances, so Scott thought that it would be a good idea to test out his skills, or review his house upgrades. He was not certain what he could do with mystic chemistry, but dark magic was something that he was quite familiar with.

Scott brought up his house information first then looked through everything. Little had changed except that his copper was shown as a resource, and Sonja had a big red heart next to her name with a number and a percent sign emblazoned upon it. “Forty-seven percent?”

“Hmm?” asked Sonja gently. She smiled at him then tilted her head to the side.

He coughed once more then shook his head. “Nothing... nothing...”

Scott decided to ignore Sonja’s heart for the moment. He needed to check his available upgrades. First, he checked his house stats.

<<< Blackthorne Manor >>>

Stately Blackthorne Manor is a low-end home that resulted from upgrading an abandoned warehouse into a livable residence. It belongs to the Dark Lord Scott Blackthorne.

Level: 1/3

Next Upgrade Level: $200/$10000

Health: 11634/13240

Durability: 4560

Defense Rating: 125

Upgrade Potential: Low

>>

Scott thought about his home and property. The information window seemed to think that his property was in need a serious repair, though his house seemed fine.

“I wonder if that includes the broken asphalt and rusted chain fence?” Scott had managed to at least keep his warehouse home intact, but he could do nothing for the cracked parking lot that served as his front yard, or the badly sewn up chain link fence.

Sonja looked at him but did not say anything. She could tell that he was not actually speaking to her.

Scott reviewed the status of his home then clicked an option next to his home’s health. “Repairs will cost eight hundred thirty dollars, huh? Might as well.”

What would be the point in trying to put in an upgrade if his house fell apart, right? He clicked on the repair option and then checked his wealth. His assets had dropped by eighty hundred thirty dollars. A little digital clock appeared next health. “Twenty minutes?”

The last time he had upgraded the house it had taken four hours. He thought about it for a moment then shrugged. Perhaps repairing something that already existed took far less time than it took to add something new?

Sonja looked at her mumbling master for a moment then walked into the living room area and sat down on the couch. She placed a booted foot onto his coffee table then lifted the other one up and crossed her ankles. Comfortably barbaric, she hefted the remote then began to channel surf while her master did whatever it was that he was doing.

“Let’s see, for four hundred dollars per unit I can create a stronger sanctuary field that stimulates health regeneration.”

Scott looked at the housing option for a moment then realized that it was considered a level two option. He could not use it until his house reached level two. Everything had an upgrade limit of three, and he concluded that his house could not be upgraded further than level three. If he wanted a stronger, more dynamic, residence he would need to find a new place or perhaps rebuild entirely.

He checked through the level one upgrades and noted that he could increase things like the durability of his house and defense rating of his fence. It was not until he noticed a tiny little button at the bottom that signified that there was more to see that he discovered something really good.

<<< Housing Upgrade >>>

You have made a permanent choice that has shifted the balance of power in the world. Good job!

Since you are no longer a common man, you have been granted expanded abilities. This sort of expanded service will granted to all NPCs soon, race and profession dependent, as the dream world will eventually be phased out. However, expanded housing upgrades are currently only allowed for alpha-testers and specialized NPCs who are willing play hard or go home.

>>

“Wow... Nice!” exclaimed Scott. He checked the information screens for a moment and discovered among other things that he now had access to an exchange rate that compared dollars and jerin. Currently, a single dollar was worth a little over eleven jerin.

After a moment, a thought crossed his mind. He tilted his head to the side. “Alpha-Testers?”

It made a certain sort of sense, he supposed. Whoever bought the place must have wanted to test the new features. Still, it reminded him of the fact that a lot of people had their lives wrecked by whoever claimed to have purchased the planet.

Scott decided to ignore that unnerving fact of existence and chose to consider his options. He checked to see what he could do then blinked. He really did have new options; specifically he had one pretty neat option. “What’s this...?”

Scott clicked on a link labeled personal dungeons. It had a stylized black dragon’s head symbol next to it along with the words (Dark Lords Only! Shhhhh!)

“Ha, no kidding? I can have dungeons built through the system or whatever?” Scott grinned at the screen then laughed merrily. He could even populate it with monsters, traps, and treasures.

He looked through the information then nodded to himself. He needed a lot more money before he could do anything truly spectacular. He could build a basic dungeon, however. He could even choose to make the dungeon adversarial or [/i]dark army approved.[/i]

“I see, so an adversarial dungeon is a place for me to train against monsters, though I have to pay a small fortune to populate it the first time. A dark army dungeon is a place for my minions to spawn.”

“I only have the one minion though... Wait, is Sonja a minion?” Scott mused aloud. Sonja was livestock; would she count as a minion?

“Master?” asked Sonja. She was curious since she thought that she had heard him call her name.

“Ah, it’s nothing Sonja. I’m just trying to decide if you count as a minion or livestock.” said Scott.

She blinked. “OK...”

“Well, I should give it a try at least. If nothing else I might have a minion later...” said Scott in a low mumble.

Sonja made a cute face then turned away. Did that mean that she was livestock? The girl snorted loudly then crossed her arms over her impressive chest. It was not long before a small smile crossed her face. She widened her eyes then tilted her head to the side. She then unleashed a soft, mildly sarcastic sounding, “Moo.”

Scott ignored his mooing livestock for the moment and continued to check on his house upgrades. He looked over the cost then clicked accept. A 3D mini-map of his primary residence appeared. He clicked a spot then dragged his finger around until he found a piece of real estate on his property that was suitable. As it turned out, there was only one spot in his back yard that could be used. He chose the most basic unit available and discovered that it would cost ten dollars per cube-unit.

“A unit seems to be something like a yard, or perhaps a meter. So a ten by ten cube-unit starter room would be big and reasonable.” said Scott. He checked the price then nearly fainted. The cost was not nearly as reasonable. He had forgotten about the height of the room! A single dungeon room of that size would be ten thousand dollars!

He fiddled with sizes for a moment. He did not need a perfectly cube sized dungeon room. He dropped the ceiling to four cube units then checked the price once more. “Damn, still four thousand.”

Scott could cover that cost after he sold his copper, but he would only have a hole in the ground to show for his money. He would not even be able to make any special decisions.

The creation of a personal dungeon was something that he wanted to do, but he would need a lot more money first. At the moment, the only thing he could create was one moderately sized room. He decided to give it a week of solid smuggling before he built his dungeon as he would want to populate it with monsters who dropped usable equipment, or other things. A larger dungeon would allow for more monsters, though the highest monster level allowed would be three, and that would only be allowed if he upgraded his property to level three.

He checked the cost to have the dungeon upgraded with stone walls and a roof then shuddered. He then checked into other materials and laughed. He could fill his dungeon with water that never ran dry for three dollars per cube-unit.

Scott looked into what he could do with such a large pool of water. For a moment he considered finding a mermaid or something, but most likely he would make a fish pond.

He shook his head and discarded the idea after a moment. He would either need to make it a place to fight monsters or as a spawning point for his minions, or so he thought. As he looked through the information screens to find the available materials and costs he found the room settings menu.

“Training room...” Scott was highly interested in a training room. Unfortunately, it was greyed out. It was not available at this time. Most of the more interesting settings were not available.

He checked the information on adversarial dungeons then nodded. He was glad that he had not spent any money! He could not actually populate it with monsters yet, and the costs would be high anyway. He could make it a spot conducive to random monster spawning when it becomes available, but the cost even for random spawning along a specific range was hideously expensive.

“What I really need is a fortune and a better location.” said Scott. He thought about the crafting skills that he possessed and how quickly he could acquire jerin if he went adventuring more often. Smuggling would help with the local fortune, but how did he acquire new property without having local law enforcement come down on him? He would have to explain his fortune somehow when that happened.

“How does one explain to the authorities that he smuggles goods across inter-reality borders through the usage of a slave girl?” Somehow, that did not seem like it would be a conversation that he would enjoy. Plus, there was the whole dragon thing.

Scott rubbed his scaly chin. He would amass his fortune for now, and await his chance. When shit hit the fan, as he expected that it soon would, he would be ready to make his move. If he acted quickly enough, and had the resources, he could probably set himself up with a pretty sweet deal.

After he thought about it for a while, interesting thoughts came to him. He would have to take Sonja home first, but afterward he might be able to find a way to convert some of his assets legally. While he had access to Sonja, he would smuggle in items and resources, but after she made it back to her homeland that option might not be available any longer. Only time would tell.

“Ultimately, it is no different than selling virtual game items, right?” Scott thought about his ability to use synergy then grinned. He needed to get Sonja home this week and then make his way to a large city with people from Earth tooling around. Hopefully they would be people who used CashBuddy. Idly, he wondered how long it would take to get a proper website set up for sales of his crafted items.

If he was one of the top synergists on the planet, it stood to reason that few Earth people had access to advanced equipment. Smithing required a lot more time and expense to perfect, not to mention that creating a single sword or dagger might take hours. He did not need to make items. He could simply make what he found into better items through magic.

Scott felt a disturbing warmth in his chest. The idea of smuggling and legitimate commerce going hand in hand made his draconic heart go all aflutter. He would still have to work at Archer’s for a while, though. It would take weeks, if not months to set up a proper business. Instead of relying on other people, he would accept transactions in the real world and require pay upfront. People might not like the idea, but he only needed to convince a few people to buy things. It was all just to cover his ass while he scraped the dream world for every salable resource he could fine.