Vcoin. The butt of many jokes.

Vcoin had a few tiers. The lowest tier was the simple Vcoin itself. To prevent inflated numbers more tiers were introduced. A tier two Vcoin has the value of hundred tier one Vcoins.

All coins had their own distinct art. But they all have two commonalities. One was the Vcoin symbol. And the other a small notation. An uppercase t, and a number behind it.

People didn’t always call it tier one or tier two Vcoins. Instead they referred to them like a classic currency. A tier two Vcoin could be a hundred dollar chip or a silver chip.

The Vr world is too large and diverse that there are multiple cultures with different names for it.

Sorp and is friends were not cultured. They could only call it by its name. And Sorp had received hundred tier three Vcoins for winning his fight.

“How much is three tier three?”

“Come here.”

The group had united and after calming down they were now calculating the gains.

“Look. You go into the finances window.”

Kom is navigating a window floating in the air. Usually people used a small device to navigate the system, but it is possible to project it into the air as well.

It is possible to enlarge the projection to the size of a movie theater. Kom decided on a large fifty inch screen.

He controlled it through his small hand held device. He could do it through the projection itself, but he felt it was easier through the device.

“There, under balance.”

“Huh? Wait. how did you get into finances again?”

Kom gave his friend a long look before show them again how to navigate the interface. Dart was already off on his own. Sat in a comfortable sofa.

“Oh! I got it! Nice!”

“Good, now check here. See?”

“Woah! Isn’t that a lot?”

Their gains were considered large for people like them. Food in general was almost free. Their housing could be considered free to an extent.

All their expenses were vices. They indulge in different substances, women, expensive clothing or items.

So the amount they were seeing was enough to live comfortably for a few months.

In general they weren’t poor and could still make some money from their connections. Sell some shady things or work for some even shadier people.

They didn’t because Sorp was making enough money for all of them. And Sorp did it for fun. They spent all their time playing around.

“Guess how much Sorp got?”

“What do you mean? He got more than us?”

“He also got paid for fighting and a bonus for winning. What do you think?”

“Sorp, how much did you get!?”

Sorp didn’t care about the gains, he was still riding that fighters high. He could barely concentrate on anything else.

It wasn’t until they called to him a few times that he snapped out of his reverie.

He didn’t care about the gains, but he did care about messing with his friends. He looked at his friends open screen. He chuckled and gave him a pitying look.

They were all friends so they were quick to laugh and quick to anger.

Before they could begin cursing him, Sorp, with Kom’s help, navigated to the finance section.

“Huh?”

“That’s like.”

“Twenty six tier two’s?”

Of course much of it was from winning the fight, but a lot of it came from his betting as well. In addition to him betting more Vcoin, because he had more to bet with.

Sorp swaggered a bit before sitting down in a sofa next to Dart. he glanced at Dart’s screen but didn’t understand what he was doing.

Dart wasn’t the smartest guy in the world but he was far more knowledgeable than this little group.

Kom was something of a rallier and pushed them into all kinds of things. It was Dart that made sure things didn’t go too bad.

Right now Dart looking for some strange things. his interested, while still violent like the rest, are more perverse.

Perverse, not in a sexual nature, but in that it could be considered strange.

When Sorp glanced at his screen, all he saw was text. With nothing to draw the eye, Sorp lost interest in an instant.

In Perpetual Power’s Virtual world, people can spend their currency on a lot of things. All kinds of food, drugs and fancy items.

Brand name clothing exist in this world like any other. Making it easy for those that like to show their wealth.

There are few items free in the virtual world. Even inconsequential things like a small lamp can be considered expensive.

It seems counterintuitive that items in a virtual environment would cost more than what they did in real life, yet this was how things were.

It can be hard and easy to gather Vcoin. But many instances, both public and private, award items.

Sometimes these items are exclusive, sometimes they’re common to the point of being worthless.

Many people hunt down exclusive rewards. They collect these items and way until they become unattainable through normal means. Meaning they can only be achieved through trading.

These kind of rewards are not Perpetual Powers way to give back to the community. Instead it is large and small companies that want to attract people that pay the cost.

Special deals made with Perpetual Power is a common thing.

Sorp could make such a deal with them to promote his fights. He could set up his own game instance with prizes.

Many people do this for the patrons. The more popular their instance becomes, the easier it is to sell other things.

People buy exclusive memorabilia. These items are made by Perpetual Power for the sole purpose of allowing others to sell them through their own shops.

Perpetual Power has its own extensive shop, but will still allow others to set up their own shop. These shops can be considered a middle man.

Sorp won an exclusive one-time item with special text on it, indicating how it was won.

This was a wooden sword with engravings. On it are statics from the fight.

It said how many fights Sorp had won and how many fights he had lost. It is also possible to peer deeper into the data by clicking the engraving.

This opens up the Coliseum database and shows a more in depth analysis of the match. Everything from total participants to particular data of each participant.

Because of this, Sorp now had a unique item. Something that couldn’t be attained again or replicated.

The closest one could come, was to find another similar item where a first-time participant won a medium scale Coliseum fight.

This meant this item held value. What that value is, is hard to defer. Right now Sorp is unknown and can only be considered a newbie that got lucky.

If in the future he gains some fame, this item might rise dramatically in value.

Sorp didn’t think about this at all, he just place the sword on the wall. He liked it. It was a memory he wanted to cherish.

“Drinks?”

“I’m in.”

“Can’t we get something stronger than just drinks?”

“Have you checked the prizes?”

It was at this point that Dart finally joined the groups chatter. He had just been browsing things, trying to find something in particular.

On this search he found that the Perpetual Power did allow the sale and use of various drugs.

These drugs were far more expensive than street drugs. They were not necessarily better, but they had the added benefit of being harmless.

There were numerous claims that the more hallucinogens types could cause detrimental mental effects. Especially for people with underlying conditions.

Perpetual Power’s statement towards this was simple. They had researched it thoroughly and determined it was safe.

This stance caused outrage. But Perpetual Power is a privately owned enterprise and has exceedingly deep pockets.

Their substances did not cause physical addiction. But many still heralded a campaign to stop it. Calling it a gateway to real drugs.

Many believed that virtual drug abuse bled into real life. Real life drugs were considered multitudes cheaper.

This campaign was directly ignored by Perpetual Power. They’re tests were rigorous, long ago, they challenged others to prove their claims.

Till this day, no one has put out any concrete evidence. Allowing Perpetual Power free reign. And they did reign.

Without the negative side effects of drug abuse, no tolerance issues, the wealthy hit a new height in debauchery.

Sorp’s crew of six wanted to partake in it. Sorp could still afford to spend a bit at this moment and his mood was already great.

Seeing as Dart had some knowledge on the issue, he was the designated tour guide.

The issue wasn’t finding drugs, but a venue to use them. They weren’t too interesting in drugs, they wanted to play around.

They wanted to find girls. They wanted to find other guys like themselves, maybe get into a fight. And Dart was tasked in find an adequate place.

This could be considered an easy task. But there were a lot of places to choose from. Dart didn’t have many requirements, but the ones he had, did narrow it down a bit.

He had too many options, after feeling irritated at his friends hurrying he picked one at random.

“I found a place.”

“What’s it called?”

“Willows burn slowly. Its a large place.”

The place could be considered fancy. But fancy in the virtual world doesn’t mean much.

The place has multiple venues. There are multiple floors and within those floors were multiple private rooms.

As per the rules of Perpetual Power, one place had to have a single instance. This meant the entire place was a single structure. This is fixed with subinstances.

It’s size could be compete with a small village in size.

When the boys loaded in, they were greeted by the noisy environment. The dim lit zone looked like it was in its twilight.

The first thing they saw was a group of handsome men swaggering about, laughing, drinking and smoking.

“Not bad.”

“Suits my style, suave.”

“You are anything but suave.”

It took them the total amount of six seconds to start arguing. And a total of twelve to begin laughing again.

The reason Dart had picked this place was because it had no virtual humans. All staff here was brought from the real world.

This was for two reasons. One it could be cheaper to hire outside help than buy or rent virtual humans. Virtual humans were not immortal either.

Perpetual Power did things in their own way. Any reasonable person would assume they are insane.

Virtual humans could be killed. There was no way to revive them. Virtual humans developed their personality over time.

They did this for their own reasons, their reasoning was too esoteric, meaning it required personal experience to understand. This was their official statement.

People complained endlessly, some had fantasies they wanted to fulfill through virtual humans. Some wanted cheap labour. Even to this day, people keep requesting immortal virtual humans.

There are no safeguards towards humans casually walking around the virtual world. And in that vein, nothing did. If anyone destroyed something, it would stay destroyed.

This made people hire expendable outside helpers to serve in their Instances. Only in high tier, restricted places, would you find virtual humans serving.

It was because of this nature that Instance owners had to hire guards. They hired guards to prevent public disorder. And to protect their environment.

Every Instance has a default setting. It is possible to have it decorated for you. This costs Vcoin. Without it, your personal Instance is white room.

Sorp had to purchase his decoration. His things could be considered custom made. He even designed the insects skittering on the ground.

It didn’t cost too much to decorate a small space, if it was considered a personal use area. Public enterprises paid tax on items. They had to buy more and it was more expensive.

The main effort was towards keeping the public within reasonable bounds. People would still fight. People would still be killed. People were still robbed. But it was kept small.

Sorp’s friends were the main instigators in causing trouble. They knew Sorp loved to fight, and he would be the first to defend them.

This safety net allowed them to be arrogant. And it felt good to be arrogant, it put them above others. For people like them, who grew up disfranchised, it was a desirable high.

They all knew they would get into a fight tonight. They just didn’t know how or when. So as a starter they went for a place Dart had in mind.