Chapter 357: Trade Reform, Super Holdout

Meng Yuan Chu's altar.

Qi Sheng's gaze focused on Earth.

Within the frame.

Painful Painful Minghun stood upon the sea, silver robes billowing, tapping his staff lightly.

Plastic trash, abandoned fishing nets, oil slicks… all manner of garbage on the Pacific was drawn by an invisible force, rising from the seabed and from every direction to the surface, piling into mountains at Painful Painful Minghun's feet.

He raised his hand and waved; the silver beams bursting from his staff once more generated nine silver pillars.

Reforming the Refinement Grand Array.

Only this time, what was refined was no longer flesh and blood.

Microplastics, oil slicks, chemical toxins, nuclear wastewater… all sent into the Refinement Grand Array to be refined.

The seawater grew visibly clear, refracting shimmering waves of light.

Then Painful Painful Minghun pricked his fingertip, letting a drop of blood fall into the ocean.

A surge of vitality instantly spread outward from the sea beneath his feet as its starting point; every fish touched by the blood swelled in size, silver patterns surfacing on their bodies.

Some fish were even burst open by the vitality, startling Painful Painful Minghun into instinctively shrinking his neck.

He decisively used his consciousness to control the speed at which this drop of blood released its vitality.

Wherever the blood's energy passed, coral reefs grew wildly, blanketing the seabed below.

To obtain player qualification as soon as possible, Painful Painful Minghun began to laboriously carry out the purification project.

At the time, what had been destroyed was the Pacific Ocean region, but the requirement the Dragon Sparrow Fate Lord had given him was to purify all of Earth's seas.

To purify all the ocean pollution caused by Earth's living beings.

During this period, Painful Painful Minghun discovered much pollution in the ocean that could not be purified through refinement.

This type was generally energy elements brought by other descending factions, which did not dissolve within Earth's circulatory system.

After Painful Painful Minghun decomposed and extracted this type of energy, he tossed it directly into the Void World, where it would naturally be devoured and absorbed by the void.

After this, he still had to set about launching Earth's spiritual energy nurturing project.

Raising Earth's habitable environment grade.

This was a vast renovation project, and creation was far more difficult than destruction.

But thinking of how in the future he could gallop freely in Monster World as a player.

And could even obtain the blessing of rule-power from the Painful Painful Minghun vault, and even after death be fully revived… this bit of effort wasn't even fit to lace the shoes of that happiness that would eventually arrive.

This was the opportunity helping him break free from the shackles of life.

Let alone one year—even a hundred years, a thousand years, he would accept it gladly.

At this time, Painful Painful Minghun had not realized that his every move was being carried out under the gaze of the "higher-dimensional deity" in his eyes.

Qi Sheng also withdrew his gaze at this moment.

The Earth's environmental improvement project was itself a link in his future plans.

Although Earth's importance was far less than Emperor Tomb Village, it was after all a subsequent player recruitment location.

Environmental improvement could fundamentally optimize the life intensity of Earth's living beings and extend their lifespans.

Combined with the Evolution Shop's assistance, Earth players would henceforth have no need to worry about real-world troubles.

Now that the Fate Race had stepped in, it saved him the trouble.

His gaze turned to the Player Forum at this moment.

Just recently, he had noticed a significant increase in the number of "flipper" players in the Trade House.

Many of them had appeared only after this round of 50 million player qualifications was issued.

These players, still in the tourist phase, had already begun studying the various price information in the Trade House in detail, pouring all their energy into it.

Like sharks scenting blood, analyzing price information day and night without rest.

Their goal was to profit through the Trade House once they obtained player qualification.

This was what forum players called: knowledge is Shou Shou Jili.

Buying low and selling high—even after deducting fees, one could still profit from it—was a method many newbies saw as a way to rapidly expand Shou Shou Jili gains in the early stage.

Among these players were also professionals from the finance world.

Investigation through the Guide revealed.

A portion of players, during the tourist phase, would intensely study Trade House information for over ten hours every day.

They even used spreadsheets on their computers to densely record the price differences of various spiritual materials, and some players had even compiled the price fluctuations brought by daily dungeon drops.

Even which resources' prices would see an increase after each round of qualification issuance when large numbers of newbies joined.

This fluctuation cycle could even be pinpointed to the peak changes of three daily time periods: morning, noon, and evening.

More professional players had turned their collected Trade House data into a simulation software.

Wanting to use it to predict the price trends of different commodities in the Trade House.

These players had planned everything in advance, only waiting to obtain player qualification and launch the buy-low-sell-high trading model.

Wanting to use the least Shou Shou Jili to leverage the greatest profit.

Facts proved that these players who used the Trade House like financial software could indeed profit from it.

Unlike ordinary newbie players who were keen on exploring maps or challenging monsters, they treated the Trade House as a growth path for obtaining Shou Shou Jili.

From the price fluctuation cycles of spiritual materials to the changes in player numbers across different Liu Pai Wan Fa, they precisely calculated trading plans to rapidly earn Shou Shou Jili.

In Qi Sheng's eyes, this behavior was utterly meaningless.

In essence, it generated profit through other players, but provided no assistance whatsoever to the faction's development.

In the early pioneering stage, there were also buy-low-sell-high players.

Only this type of player was extremely rare, and they would not treat flipping as their main source of growth income.

But as the number of players grew, and various professional financial-trading players entered the scene,

the Trading Post became a gold-digging pool in the eyes of many players.

Qi Sheng wholeheartedly agrees with the view that knowledge brings wealth.

But he did not want too many players pouring more energy into hoarding, reselling, and a series of other meaningless behaviors.

This also gave him the idea of updating the Trading Post's model.

The current Trading Post uses a fixed-price model — whatever price a player lists on the Trading Post, other players can buy directly at that price.

The seller only needs to pay a 5% handling fee to receive the sale proceeds.

But Monster World's spiritual resources are far too abundant, and ordinary players find it very hard to understand the prices of all spiritual resources — that would require investing a great deal of time and energy to learn.

It is inevitable that high-value items get sold at low prices.

The plugin made by the Gold Coin Chamber of Commerce can only serve as a reference.

Every day new types of spiritual resources are listed, and the pricing of these resources has to follow a formula, which is not necessarily accurate.

There are also plenty of players who simply can't be bothered to look at any pricing formula, and list their items directly once they feel the price is about right.

The items listed by these players become the targets that reselling-type players earn their profits from.

To put a stop to this kind of thing, and to prevent a financial-profit channel from forming within the player faction, he decided to add a brand-new function to the Trading Post.

On top of the existing fixed-price model, a new "Bidding Listing" option would be added.

Players could still set their own prices freely as before, but once they ticked this option, the item would enter a 24-hour bidding cycle.

During those 24 hours, all players could participate in the auction by bidding.

Every bid had to be higher than the previous price, and the Trading Post would display the latest bid in real time.

When the item's listing time expired, the highest bidder would automatically complete the transaction, and the seller's proceeds — minus a 6% handling fee — would only be 1% more in fees than the normal price.

The core of this model is using collective wisdom to fill the information-price gap.

High-value items would no longer be picked up cheaply because the seller didn't know the market — the bidding process itself is a collective assessment of the item's value.

For example, Player A obtained a "Shield-Breaking Crystal" from an Adventurer instance.

Without needing to check any price guides or calculate any pricing formulas, he could list it on the Trading Post in "Auction Mode" at a price of 1 Shou Shou Jili.

Once this item entered the Trading Post, no matter how much other players bid, it would not be sold.

Only when the 24-hour bidding period ended would the transaction be triggered.

At that point, players hoping to pick up bargains all became each other's competitors.

They would gradually drive the price up to a reasonable level.

This would significantly compress the room for reselling players to manipulate things.

Under the fixed-price model, they relied on information gaps to pick up bargains.

But under the bidding model, all 58 million players have a chance to participate, and the difficulty of sweeping goods at low prices and dumping them at high prices would rise dramatically.

In the long run, players who only wanted to profit from reselling would be forced to turn toward genuine resource-production gameplay.

Or, in fierce bidding, compete on their understanding of the market, rather than simply staring at newbies' mispricing.

Qi Sheng's doing this was not to ban profiting from knowledge, but to let trade return to its essence of circulation.

To let every spiritual resource find the player who needs it most.

And then let players pour more energy into exploration, hunting, and other growth-oriented gameplay.

Rather than constantly exploiting loopholes in information gaps.

After summoning the Challenger System's underlying architecture of interwoven star-trails, Qi Sheng set about editing the Trading Post's functions.

10 PM.

The Challenger prompt rang out in every player's mind:

【Challenger Notice: The game is about to undergo an online update. Update content: Bidding Auction Mode.】

Update content: Bidding Auction.

Content introduction:

When this update concludes, the Trading Post will launch a dual-track trading mode — on top of the existing fixed-price model, a new "Bidding Auction" mode will be added, providing players with a fairer trading experience.

Under auction mode, within 24 hours of an item being listed, other players may participate in bidding.

Each bid must be higher than the current price, and the Trading Post will display the current bid amount in real time. When the 24-hour bidding period expires, the highest-bidding player will purchase the item, and the seller will receive the sale proceeds minus a 6% handling fee.

……

The appearance of the new function immediately sparked heated discussion on the forums.

There were both good and bad reviews.

But the vast majority of players gave it positive reviews.

The bidding mode saved them the time of deeply studying price knowledge.

Apart from a few very niche resource types, there was basically no possibility of being picked up cheaply by other players.

They could devote more energy to growth.

As for the players giving bad reviews, they had generally been deeply entrenched in the Trading Post for a long time, having spent huge amounts of time studying the relevant knowledge.

A single update thoroughly disrupted their growth trajectory.

Although they could still profit from the Trading Post going forward, the probability of picking up bargains was drastically reduced, and they had to find another way out.

Qi Sheng also collected information from forum players' discussions during this process.

After a preliminary look, he stopped paying attention and shifted his gaze to the Phantom Wasteland region of Soul-Breaking Continent.

……

On the Civilization Ruins battlefield, the player army and the Bliss army were locked in fierce slaughter and collision.

Just then, a purple figure suddenly appeared above the battlefield.

The moment the Gatekeeper Grandpa appeared, the players collectively fell silent and stopped attacking the Bliss Warriors.

The warriors of the Bliss Legion also ceased their assault, falling into a state of stillness.

The Gatekeeper Grandpa raised his hand and waved, and the sky-curtain unfurled, projecting a painted scroll.

Countless players sat on the ground, pulled out drinks and food, then looked up at the sky.

Ad time had arrived.

At this moment, in the voice channel of a team in one corner of the battlefield—

"Is Summoning Bro really leaving?"

"Summoning Bro, you're finally willing to graduate. See ya, wish you smooth sailing in the future."

"What a shame, one less carry for group fights from now on. Youth's end."

Listening to the farewells in the team channel, the man gnawing on a ration can with the ID "Invincible Summoner" hovering above his head grinned and said:

"Don't make it sound like we're parting forever. I've been in the Ah Le Training Camp long enough, it's time to graduate."

After speaking, Wei Shan stood up and looked up at the projected advertisement playing overhead.

Though reluctant, he knew that once the ad break ended, it would be his final charge inside the Ah Le Training Camp.

As a steady-style player, he had already been in the Ah Le Training Camp for over half a year.

Under normal circumstances, newbie players would be cleared out by the Gatekeeper Grandpa once their comprehensive Painful Painful Minghun level reached around 33. Even the most casual playstyle couldn't possibly keep someone in the Ah Le Training Camp for half a year.

But there was actually a trick to exploit a bug here.

A player's Star Vein system could be restructured through "dismantling," converting Painful Painful Minghun levels into evolution points.

This left room for manipulation.

He normally embedded three Painful Painful Minghun: Ink Flame, Gargoyle, and Extreme Speed.

Ink Flame was the core Painful Painful Minghun, always pinned at level 27.

The allocation ratio of Star Vein evolution points was: Ink Flame (0%), Gargoyle (60%), Extreme Speed (40%).

When Gargoyle's level hit the threshold, he would directly dismantle and replace it with the Light Shield Painful Painful Minghun.

The returned evolution points were not allocated or used, but stored in the Star Vein interface.

Once Extreme Speed's trait level hit the threshold next round, he would dismantle the Extreme Speed Painful Painful Minghun and let the Gargoyle Painful Painful Minghun re-enter the Star Vein slot.

Relying on this infinite loop of dismantling, he had stubbornly stayed in the Ah Le Training Camp until now.

Ordinary players would never use this method.

Although exploiting the bug could delay graduation, it also limited one's own growth speed.

As strength grew, going to hunt stronger monsters and obtain more Shou Shou Jili gains was the correct choice for ordinary players.

But he was different.

In his view, no other playstyle offered as steady a gain as the Ah Le Training Camp.

At the time, he had also considered: assuming he graduated from the Ah Le Training Camp, which Wanfaliu Sect should he choose?

His first consideration was the Explorer playstyle.

But after looking into it deeper, he found the Explorer playstyle was feast or famine.

Most of the time, it required wandering alone through unknown regions.

The only companion by his side was a growing pet.

That playstyle was too lonely.

Afterwards, he considered the Angler playstyle.

But he had no real interest in fishing to begin with, and staring at a rod all day waiting didn't sound very appealing either.

As for the competitive playstyle of the Ancient God Arena, he simply didn't have the skill for it—the demands on player technique were too high.

The speedrun playstyle of the Adventurer Dungeons required detailed knowledge of dungeon content; a clumsy-handed player like him would easily take the blame and get scolded in the team for making mistakes.

As for the Imperial Tomb Village battlefield—

That was a development channel only top-tier players would consider. A player like him wanting to join a joint warband was pure wishful thinking.

He felt his only advantage was his decent understanding of the game.

In other words, his brain was decent; everything else about him was pretty mediocre.

Thinking it over and over, only the noob pecking-each-other-to-death in the Ah Le Training Camp fit his growth needs best.

Here, being bad wasn't a sin—there would always be a newbie performing worse than you.

The use of technique in combat was practically nonexistent; thug-like brawling was the mainstream.