Chapter 235: A Win All Around — Winning So Hard It Hurts (Begging for Monthly Tickets)

Colorful Mist Coast.

Twilight deepened, a deep blue blooming where the sea met the sky.

Mist drifted across the water, dyed pale violet by the last wisp of sunset.

Lights began to flicker on along the shore one by one, and the Gillfolk's barbecue stalls were set up in succession.

The sea wind carried the scent of grilled fish and grilled meat, mingled with salty, damp vapor, drifting through the dusk.

As more and more player figures arrived, the coast grew especially lively.

At this moment, a corner of the beach.

"Three more silver-tail fish."

Liu Yi called out to the stall owner, then his gaze drifted to the party interface floating in the upper-left corner, listening to the brothers in his party grumble.

"So painful, really so painful. Every time I log off I feel like a fish about to drown — the water pollution is way too serious."

"Right, yesterday I logged off to swap out my nutrient fluid and didn't want to stay a second longer. The moment I finished I logged right back on. Feels like Monster World has an addiction system — I just can't pull myself away."

"I hope the Eclipse Clan rolls out a gaming pod accessory for assisted physical exercise soon. Otherwise it's no good staying logged in all the time in-game either — no exercise long-term does real damage to the body. Every time I log off now I have to chug a can of body-conditioning fluid… Also, every time I log off it feels like I've walked into a stinking toilet and have to hold my breath and speedrun through it. All I want is to get back online fast."

Listening to his brothers' complaints, Liu Yi took a big swig of spirit-wine and cut in:

"Yours aren't real problems. One of the brothers in our guild who plays the monster path — now that's tragic. He hadn't logged off for two months and forgot how to walk. When he crawled out of the gaming pod he was on all fours, had literally devolved into a quadruped. When he realized something was off, he didn't think to stand up and walk — his brain short-circuited and his first instinct was to switch to his Black Armor Serpent form and slither along the ground… This brother plays the Black Armor Serpent and the Roar monster forms. Later, when he realized the problem, he slapped himself across the face twice before finally transforming back into human form."

Hearing Liu Yi's story, the voice channel erupted in roars of laughter.

"Speaking of which, Old Liu, how's your Gold Coin Guild coming along?"

"We've already closed several deals, but most of the other races come to Dream Island to trade with us directly. We haven't opened a trading market yet, and we're not in a rush — as long as we keep growing, the trading market will get built eventually."

"Man, I'm jealous of you. Even with Shou Shou Jili now you can't get into the Gold Coin Guild — they only take wage-workers. Missed my chance."

"What you're jealous of is the profit. Back when we first started, pioneering, recruiting clients, we worked around the clock, twenty-four hours a day, nearly puked from exhaustion. It took forever just to get one day off to rest here on the coast. I was going to invite you guys for a meal, but none of you youngsters would come." Liu Yi said, slightly sulking, as he ate his skewers.

"It's not that we didn't want to come. Today the United Guild is rallying to deal with the Dryland Tyrants, we're swamped."

"Alright then…" While chatting, Liu Yi glanced at the Gold Coin Guild group from time to time.

Real-time trade updates were posted above.

【Blazing Flame Ore (arrived on island): 1,500 jin of Blazing Flame Ore, total expenditure 45,000 Shou Shou Jili, profit: 12,000 Shou Shou Jili.】

Transporting race: Black Backs Clan.

Trade status: Completed.

Profit acquisition method: Sacrifice Beneath Di Zhao bro.

【Ice Crystal Flower (arrived on island): 200 stalks of Ice Crystal Flower, total expenditure 18,000 Shou Shou Jili, returns: pending.】

Transporting race: Ghost Bat Clan.

Trade status: Completed.

Profit acquisition method: Consigned to the Trading House.

【Dragon Scale Grass (arrived on island): 18 stalks of Dragon Scale Grass, 30 self-made energy crystals, estimated expenditure 58,000 Shou Shou Jili, returns: estimated profit 18,000 Shou Shou Jili.】

Transporting race: Red Belly Clan.

Trade status: Incomplete, currently haggling. Those idiots of the Red Belly Clan want a higher price. I'll update once the negotiation's done.

Profit acquisition method: After trade is completed, consign to the Trading House.

……

Whenever a foreign race arrived on the island, the brothers in the guild would tally the trade resources the race carried and appraise them.

Then they would post the resource value, transporting race, and a series of other information in the Gold Coin Guild's chat group, updated in real time.

This was one of the guild rules set by the guild leader "Collect Shou Shou Jili."

Making every transaction transparent meant guild members could open the info integration column on the chat interface at any time to check.

It eliminated the trust crises that could arise during development and hinder the Gold Coin Guild's growth.

The Gold Coin Guild was now on the right track, with daily transaction volume. Though the profit split among individual guild members wasn't much.

One could already see the future prospects once it matured.

He pictured the Gold Coin Guild chat group refreshing a new trade every second — raking in gold by the day wasn't a dream.

Watching the trade records in the group, Liu Yi was in a great mood.

Just then, a Challenger prompt sounded in his mind:

【Challenger Prompt: Player "Awooo Big Monster" requests a video connection. Accept?】

They had just been talking about this monster-path brother in the guild, and here came his call already.

After his consciousness touched accept, the light-screen image generated before his eyes.

A monster shaped like a brown bear, eight meters long, with interwoven red-and-blue fur, appeared on the connection screen.

The great bear spoke in human tongue:

"Vice Guild Leader, stop resting. Something needs handling."

Thinking something had happened, Liu Yi's expression instantly grew serious, and he lowered the meat skewer he'd been about to pop into his mouth:

"Was Dream Island raided?"

"There's nothing on this island, who'd raid it? You remember the Tiger-Stripe Clan, right? The race I went to four or five times before I finally established trade with."

"Of course I remember. You even said back then you were about to puke from swimming and were planning to swap your Black Armor Serpent for the Painful Painful Minghun — faster swimming speed."

Faced with the question, Liu Yi nodded at once.

He had a deep impression of the Tiger-Stripe Clan — a faction on an island north of the Azure Star Sea, their territory a straight-line distance of 223 nautical miles from Colorful Mist Coast.

The guild brother on the call back then had died and gone back again, and through sheer perseverance finally opened up a trade channel with the Tiger-Stripe Clan.

The Tiger-Stripe Clan was now one of the Gold Coin Guild's steady clients, bringing them a fair amount of trade income.

"The Tiger-Stripe Clan just landed on the island with a batch of resources, but far less than usual. I specifically asked why and learned that the core mining area on their island has been occupied by a monster that crawled up from underground. The Tiger-Stripe Clan struck at it several times but couldn't take it down — losses weren't small. They're planning to recall their clansmen abroad, but exactly when they'll make their move is still being planned."

"I feel it may take some time, and there's no guarantee we can take down that monster."

After hearing his brother's explanation, Liu Yi fell silent briefly before asking:

"You contacted me specifically to help the Tiger-Striped Clan solve their problem?"

"Yes. I take the larger share of the profits from this trade route, so naturally I hope the Tiger-Striped Clan's trade remains stable. Now, because of that monster, my profits have plummeted. When things will stabilize is completely unknown, so I was thinking we should just handle it ourselves."

"Do you know the monster's hunting level?"

"I don't. The distance is too great for me to analyze it, but judging by the Tiger-Striped Clan's combat power, the hunting level should be around 70+. The Tiger-Striped Clan are all warriors with hunting levels in the 40s; fighting a level 70 is too difficult for them. Breaking their defense is hard enough, and with the cramped environment of the underground mine, their numerical advantage won't work well either."

"I understand. Wait for my notification."

"Alright."

After hanging up the connection, Liu Yi fell into deep thought.

He could completely understand his brother wanting to help, after all, the stability of this trade route concerns his brother's future profits.

Naturally, he wanted to restore normalcy as soon as possible.

But hunting this monster would not be easy.

The members of the Gold Coin Merchant Guild are not combat personnel; even the guild master's main Painful Painful Minghun, who collects Shou Shou Jili, is only level 46. Even if the whole group went together, it would be difficult to stand against it.

Their combat power is completely overwhelmed.

As for seeking the intervention of a top-tier guild, that would be a good method.

The Divine Hall Guild has many top-tier combat forces; perhaps sending a small squad could solve the problem.

It's just that I don't know what price would be appropriate.

These top players earn very high Shou Shou Jili from hunting in the Di Zhai Mountain Range battlefield; inviting them to act will inevitably cost a considerable amount of Shou Shou Jili, surely breaking ten thousand.

If we confirm the invitation to top-tier guild high-level players, this expense will obviously have to be charged to the Gold Coin Merchant Guild's comprehensive expenditures.

It will require a vote from all members of the Gold Coin Merchant Guild, or the guild master to make the final decision.

Thinking of this, Liu Yi immediately summoned his contact list, found the guild master "Shou Shou Jili," and sent a connection request.

Shortly after, a light screen image popped up, accompanied by panting sounds and the "beep-beep" sounds emitted by a mechanical lifeform.

"Wait a moment." The voice of Guild Master A Lan came through.

In the image, the guild master suddenly leaped up; the golden flowing light erupted from the battle axe in his hand, cleaving an engineering robot to pieces in one strike. He smoothly raised his right leg and kicked away a robot attacking from the side.

One minute later.

The battle ended. The guild master stood panting in place as the Force-Mighty Axe in his hand dissolved into points of Jin Guang.

"Old Liu, what's the matter?"

"The monster just contacted me, saying there's a problem with the Tiger-Striped Clan's trade route..."

After listening to Liu Yi's account, A Lan in the connection image fell silent for a while before shaking his head:

"From your description, there might be more than one monster inhabiting the Tiger-Striped Clan's underground mine. Inviting high-level players from a top-tier guild to act once is no problem, but if it happens too many times, the expense is truly too great. Perhaps we should change our approach."

"Here's the plan: I'll contact you again shortly to deal with the monsters in this area first."

"Alright." Liu Yi nodded.

Shortly after, a connection prompt popped up in front of Liu Yi.

The light screen image revealed the figure of Guild Master A Lan, who looked at him and nodded, saying:

"Some time ago, I had the idea of forming a Gold Coin Merchant Guild guard unit. Now that the Tiger-Striped Clan situation has arisen, it's a good time to discuss this with you."

Hearing this, Liu Yi felt confused in his heart:

"Guild Master, you said back then that forming a guild guard unit and maintaining a group of warriors would consume too much Shou Shou Jili. Why do you have the idea of forming one again?"

A Lan in the image shook his head:

"It's different. What I want to form is not a guard unit maintained by the Gold Coin Merchant Guild, but a free guard unit."

"The specific plan is this: We will still provide services, establishing a platform similar to a mercenary organization. You can also understand it as an adventurer platform in other games. By publishing mission requests from other races and completing tasks for them to earn profits, we will not only spend not a single point of Shou Shou Jili on these expenditures, but also collect a 5% profit margin from the task rewards. This way, we solve the needs of trade clients while keeping the connected trade channels running stably.

"Taking the Tiger-Striped Clan as an example: this time their mine was occupied by monsters, so they are obviously more anxious than we are. At this moment, we can approach them with a service request, quote a price for solving the problem based on the situation of our player legion. As long as the Tiger-Striped Clan is willing to pay this price, we will publish the task externally, letting forum players accept the order to help solve the problem. After the accepting players complete the task, the Tiger-Striped Clan needs to pay us the agreed-upon reward, and we will then deduct 5% from it."

"Doing this also gives forum players an extra channel to earn Shou Shou Jili. The Tiger-Striped Clan, the Gold Coin Merchant Guild, and the accepting players can all benefit from this."

A Lan's answer made Liu Yi's eyes light up.

Other players really couldn't pull off the plan of building a mercenary platform.

After all, ordinary players simply do not have channels to connect with other races.

But our Gold Coin Merchant Guild is different; through trade, we have already connected with many clans and can build a mercenary platform on top of the existing channels.

We don't even need to find clients; there are existing trade clients who can provide various mission requests.

But Liu Yi quickly thought of a problem:

"Guild Master, free players have too much mobility. This order-accepting model will be difficult to develop in the early stages, and the influence of the Gold Coin Merchant Guild is still far from enough... Should we try spending money to get 'Night Falls' to do some promotion? With his influence, it would be easy to expand our Gold Coin Merchant Guild's reputation and get more players to pay attention to our organization's mercenary platform. After all, a mercenary organization without mercenaries to execute tasks can't take a single step."

A Lan in the image shook his head:

"It's not necessary, but you are right. Having stable mercenary orders is the core of the mercenary platform's development."

"So I thought of a special group; perhaps they can help us solve the problem."

"Group?" Liu Yi felt confused in his heart.

"Yes, they are the Arena Faction players. This group of players draws lots every day by the edge of the Colorful Mist Coast, waiting for the opportunity to go to the Ancient God Arena, but each time the arena's flying vehicle only takes away a small portion of the players. The rest of the Arena Faction players can only search for hunting challenge targets as freelancers."

"So I plan to build an assassin organization under the framework of the mercenary platform, cooperate with the Arena Faction players, filter out hunting-type tasks to provide to them, letting them hunt happily while also gaining extra Shou Shou Jili profits... Most importantly, Arena Faction players generally possess good combat skills, capable of killing enemies above their level, which fits my positioning for members of the assassin organization."

"Of course, after the assassin organization is successfully formed, we will not restrict the freedom of these Arena Faction players. We will only provide a task list for the Arena Faction players to filter. They just need to leave a screenshot after completing the task, and payment is instant... Even if the client submitting the task hasn't paid us yet, we must first pay the task reward to the player who completed it."

After listening to A Lan's account, Liu Yi was stunned.

He never thought one could play it this way.

If we can really build a mercenary platform and an assassin platform on the foundation of the Trade Center, the Gold Coin Merchant Guild will gain two more channels for generating profits.

The key point is that after these two platforms are built, the Gold Coin Merchant Guild won't need to spend a single coin to solve clients' problems, making trade between both parties even more stable.

A win all around, a total win.

What competitive players lack most is a stable income, and the establishment of an assassin organization is also a benefit for them.

"President, that's badass."

"Right, to set up these two platforms we still need to pre-set some terms. For example, if two clients who have already established trade have a conflict of interest and post bounty missions against each other to us, we can't take these orders. The Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce must always maintain a neutral position among clients, not getting involved in conflicts between trade clients…."

As A-Lan spoke, Liu Yi summoned the forum and kept recording the key points he mentioned.

"That's the situation. I've set up a combat guild on my end and have been a bit busy lately, so the Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce can only be temporarily handed over to you all to manage. Sorry about that."

"Hahaha, President, all you need to do is show up with your brain. It feels great having you around—when I can't figure something out, I just ask you." Hearing A-Lan's apologetic apology, Liu Yi burst out laughing.

Closing the conversation, Liu Yi acted immediately.

He entered the forum to search for information, and in no time he had locked onto his target for this trip.

He summoned his contacts list, added a note, and sent a friend request to the target.

A few seconds later, the friend request was accepted, and a chat window popped up.

Phase Kill:???

Crab Roe Seat: Big Brother Phase, I'm the vice president of the Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce. I've got a stable money-making route I'd like to partner with you on. Interested?

Phase Kill: Not interested.

Crab Roe Seat: Don't be in such a rush, Big Brother Phase. This money-making channel lets you fight to your heart's content, and also lets you bring your brothers in to earn extra Shou Shou Jili rewards.

Phase Kill: Oh? Tell me more.

Crab Roe Seat: Let me first introduce our Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce… Right now we want to set up a mercenary platform to take order requests from all races, and then under the framework of the mercenary platform we also want to establish an assassin organization, prioritizing the hunting and challenge missions from the orders for the assassin organization. Our requirement for assassin organization members is that they possess formidable combat ability—you competitive players fit the bill perfectly.

Crab Roe Seat: Let me be upfront. For every completed mission, our Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce takes 5% of the earnings, and the remaining 95% goes to the brothers who complete the mission. Payment is settled directly upon order completion. As for whether the race that submitted the mission pays up, you don't need to worry about that—even if the order results in a loss, we bear it…..

At this moment, a corner of the Mist-Color Coast.

After reviewing the content Liu Yi described three times, Phase Kill's heart was moved.

If this platform could really be established, it would mean that from now on, his competitive brothers would have one more way to earn Shou Shou Jili.

When there's no bus, just take orders and head out to sea, challenging hunting targets.

This undoubtedly gave a competitive player like him a path to getting rich.

He immediately shared the chat content in the competitive group "Endless Battle."

In no time, group friends popped up, one after another expressing willingness to cooperate and hoping for plenty of orders.

But it would be best if the orders could detail the mission difficulty in detail; otherwise, taking on missions they can't complete would just be a waste of time.

Phase Kill relayed You De Xiang Fa from the group friends to Liu Yi.

Crab Roe Seat: Don't worry. Since we've decided to build the platform, we'll definitely provide detailed mission information. When the time comes, we'll rate mission order difficulty using s-f, or subdivide it according to hunting level. If during the actual execution of the mission the difficulty is found to exceed the rating, the player who took the order only needs to provide a video of the mission process, and we'll give extra compensation. Of course, we'll also demand extra payment from the party that provided the mission—we'll negotiate that side, you don't need to worry about it.

Getting a clear answer from Liu Yi, with no worries left, Phase Kill asked again:

Phase Kill: How exactly do we proceed?

Liu Yi: I'll create a new group chat in a moment, then pull you into the group and give you admin. When the time comes, pull in all the competitive players you know, and you can also have them pull in competitive friends they know. The more the merrier. From now on I'll post mission orders in this group. What do you think?

Phase Kill: I'm in.

……

Getting the nod from the competitive players' leader, Liu Yi smiled very happily.

After creating a new chat group, he pulled Phase Kill into the group chat.

As the group chat membership grew rapidly, Liu Yi decided to set off immediately for Tiger Stripe Island.

Now that the Tiger Stripe race has already left the island, this order can only be handled by going there personally to negotiate the payment.

Then post the first hunting order in the assassin chat group.

He glanced at the remaining grilled skewers on the table, stowed them in his personal space, and headed toward the rolling waves at the end of the beach.

"Set off, make money!"

(End of this chapter)