Chapter 3 – Haggling (1/2)

Chapter 3 – Haggling

Nie Yan glanced back at the clock, it was already half past three. Conviction’s game servers were open from five in the afternoon to nine in the morning—sixteen hours total. In this way, it wouldn’t be a hindrance to the common person’s work schedule. Thus, everyone’s game time was more or less equivalent. Hence, it made it unlikely for any single player to create a large disparity in level compared to the rest of the player-base. In addition, Conviction’s Virtual Reality technology exceeded perfection. As a result, it gained increasing popularity, eventually becoming popular all over the globe. It gradually transformed into an absolute necessity in everyone’s life.

This was the world that had become dominated by Virtual Reality technology; it had become a perfect system. Five months later, Conviction would complete this system by connecting virtual currency with the real world economy, thus completely merging into humanity’s livelihood.

With such a high rate of player retention, the player-base was able to grow to a tremendous amount. It spurred the increasing consumption of Virtual Reality in the rest of the world. The amount of time the world spent playing Conviction every year was so astronomical, it was to the extent that it surpassed the amount of time they spent in reality. The emergence of numerous new consumer groups caused the creation of a great number of service industries, a vast majority of which targeted the professional gaming community.

Almost every financial group had established a presence in Conviction. Following the establishment of his father’s business—after the company had produced decent earnings—Nie Yan’s father also began participating in Conviction’s rising popularity. He put up a large sum of money into the game as well. Though in the end, due to suffering a crushing defeat, it resulted in the company and its assets being brought to ruin. This allowed Cao Xu the opportunity to seize even more of an advantage… Nie Yan absolutely wouldn’t allow such a situation to occur again.

Establishing an early presence in Conviction was essential, and it was crucial that he mustn’t fail. Nie Yan needed to first help his father by paving the road ahead. Only when his father begins injecting funds into Conviction, will he be able to establish an uninterrupted chain of funding and take the first steps towards success. This would prevent any problems from arising in the future.

Nie Yan made a stop and ate out for dinner, spending thirty dollars. By the time he had arrived home, it was already nearing five o’clock.

After putting on his helmet, he calmly waited for Conviction to boot up.

Twelve minutes had passed. The helmet’s display gradually illuminated, revealing the time to be [05:00 PM]. Abruptly, a lively jingle began playing, echoing through his ears. The tune felt familiar; it had been something he’d heard countless times in the past. He never felt any particular attachment towards it. However, it currently felt strangely pleasant to his ears.

「System: Do you wish to create an account?」

“Yes!”

「System: Please select your country.」

There were three factions you could choose from when entering Conviction. The first was the righteous faction who guarded the light. This faction consisted of the Viridian (Ge-lín-lan) Empire and Satreen (Sa-te-en) Empire. The Viridian Empire was a nation ruled by humans and governed by an Elder Parliament. The Satreen Empire, on the other hand, was a nation formed from the alliance between dwarves, beastmen, and elves. The second was the evil faction who guarded the darkness; it was ruled by a tyrant who reigned over both the devils and undead. For people who didn’t enjoy conflict, there was a third faction which was neutral and ruled by the irenic giant tribe.

In the past, Nie Yan had chosen the Tempest Thief-profession of the Viridian Empire, which meant he was also quite familiar with the landscape of the empire. Furthermore, he was well acquainted with the Tempest Thief’s skills and profession missions. If he had chosen a different starting nation, then the superior advantage he had gained from being reborn wouldn’t be worth much in the end.

Nie Yan held a special type of affection for the Tempest Thief-profession. After all, he had dedicated nearly a decade of painstaking effort into it. The Level 180 Thief represented the height of his glory.

When he considered all these factors, he selected the Tempest Thief as his profession once again—just as he had in the past.

「System: You’ve chosen to start in the Viridian Empire.」

「System: You’ve selected Tempest Thief as your profession.」

「System: Please name your character.」

(涅)Nie(炎)Yan

“Nirvana Flame!” Nie Yan chose the same name as he had in the past. “Nirvana Flame”—though these words were pronounced in the same way as his real name when they were spoken, they presented the meaning of a phoenix entering nirvana and being reborn.

「System: Successfully created character name. The character Nirvana Flame has been created.」

The game automatically blurred the player’s true appearance after entering. Then, the system would conduct minor alterations to the face of the player’s character. Under normal circumstances, the appearance of the player’s character and the player’s actual appearance were vastly different. It would actually be quite difficult to recognize a player in real life. However, the actual beauty or ugliness of the character was more or less equivalent to how it would be outside the game.

Nie Yan opened his status window and took a look at his own stats.

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These were the base stats for every type of Thief in the beginning of the game. Furthermore, at Level 0, the system gave five stat points and one skill point.

Nie Yan took a glance at his status window. When he had chosen the Tempest Thief profession in the past, he had added one point in Strength, two points in Dexterity, and two points in Physique in order to make himself more durable. In turn, it caused him to have a very weak attack power and slow attack speed during the initial stages of the game, causing him to waste a lot of his time trying to level. In reality, thieves never required a lot of HP at the start of the game. In the past, when he thought about this failure and all the time he had wasted, Nie Yan couldn’t help but drop his shoulders down and sigh many times, wishing he could delete and restart again. This time around, he wouldn’t repeat such a disastrous mistake again.

This time, he added three points into Strength and two points in Dexterity. He had concluded this was the most optimum ratio, after taking into account the leveling habits of his previous life. He took another glance at the status window after allocating all of his stat points.