FB: Chapter 18 – Getting People Set Up

I looked over the group of twenty rougher looking men who Anthony was sending into Exponential first. They had been sent an information packet to read ahead of time. I was showing up now to answer any questions they might have.

“Hello everyone. I am April, but in Exponential I am Foxy Blight and will be the guild leader running things in game. I hope you all read the packet, so I will start answering questions right away,” I said to the group.

“We have to pretend it is real with the characters inside the game?” one man asked.

“Yes. The NPCs will develop a hidden negative modifier if you talk to them in the wrong way. This will make things a lot harder for you. If it gets bad enough it will impact the guild as a whole. That is also why any kind of crime where the Eye of Vigilance is active is absolutely forbidden.”

“But you can just walk out of the prison?”

“The Penitent Mine handles characters from level 1 to 30. But it is surrounded by much higher level monsters. It would be a year before I would consider breaking anyone out. Also, if you are sent there it is miserable. Killing players outside of towns and taking their stuff is a much better option. But that will invite a response. So, if you do that, keep your identity hidden and be ready for them to be ready for an ambush regardless,” I explained.

“You mentioned how there are different starting areas. Where should we start?” one man asked.

“I am glad you picked up on that. It depends on what you want to do. If you just want to focus on killing monsters, then I would suggest one area. If you want to ambush other people I would suggest another. Similar with crafting. A list should be at the back of the packet each of you got,” I replied.

“Money, which place would make the most money?”

“The Rolling Hills. It is a fairly popular starting area that isn’t overrun with people yet. The Green Woods nearby offers a nice segway into higher level monsters. Also great for ambushing people out in the field and stealing their stuff. Lots of fighting between players in that area,” I said.

I continued to answer questions regarding immersion, money, the difference between unions and guilds, and various other details about Exponential. These people would teach other people that Anthony would bring into Exponential.

Most of the questions were fairly simple. Why was leveling up quickly good and bad? Personalized skills to get a small percentage bonus. Soul bound skills to stop them from dropping, but they also stopped them from being traded. If a person died in game what exactly would happen. I had included a lot of this information in the packet I had quickly typed up, but it was incredibly helpful to be able to ask a person these questions to prevent misunderstandings.

“What about the best way to fight?”

“Don’t use magic guns. The damage isn’t tied to stats or skills, but the weapon itself. Only in very large numbers are they useful. The best option is what you feel most comfortable with. A lot of other guilds might try and standardize things. In the future that might happen, but for now, I would go with what you like the most either in melee, ranged, or magic.”

“How do you fight in game?”

“Poison and Luck, which is a very difficult combination to pull off correctly. If you don’t have a good understanding of how the game mechanics work along with supporting equipment and titles, it is a build that is very frustrating to develop,” I explained.

After two hours they started getting into sillier questions. “What about sex? Can we set up a brothel?”

“Getting land or a business isn’t simple. Like I explained earlier, you threaten the NPCs, you will earn a one way ticket to the Penitent Mine. As for sex, there are specific locations that are managed by NPCs where your age has to be confirmed. The more you pay the more skilled the NPC you get. Feel free to spend your personal money on such things,” I replied.

“Do you have experience?” I could see the teasing looks from these men and decided to push back a bit. I would be their guild leader, which meant I couldn’t be a weak wall flower.

“Enough to know that I don’t like things small,” I said giving the man a look up and down to laughter from his friends. “Now, any serious questions?”

“If we wanted to visit you in game, where should we go?”

“Oh, you want to play with me? I am in the hardest beginner area, which I would call a hell zone for how miserable it is. I will leave the rest up to your imagination. I don’t need or want people bothering me in game. While I will accept your friend requests, unless it is important, don’t bother me.” That wrapped up the meeting and I left without any trouble.

I had looked into Anthony, and he owned several businesses in the area. The half a billion dollars was a huge amount of his entire net worth. He still had property and other assets if things went under, but I would estimate the amount as a third to a half of his total net worth. He also wasn’t investing everything at once. It would be done in stages moving forward with our development plan.

A corporation had already been set up with the shares split between both of us as we had discussed. These men would be the first employees of this corporation along with Bethany. The land I owned had been transferred into the corporation’s name. I had a will already set up, leaving everything to my parents and brother in case of an accident.

Anthony would be handling things out of the game for now. He had taken over the construction of the various capsule complexes and was looking into purchasing the surrounding land. The land that would become the future QAI Node had already been purchased by a third party company that was buying up plots of land across the US and other countries. If Exponential Corporation had purchased the land directly then it would have caused a big stir.

The property prices were going up in the surrounding area, but I already had the land I needed for the capsule complexes. Anthony had moved his construction company to the area and would be working with the contractors I had already hired. They would take the lead in terms of design, but he would be bringing in a lot of extra manpower.

Our current timeline was to have all the capsule complexes built in three years. Right now, more land was being cleared, permits being acquired, and the supporting infrastructure being put in place. I could go outside my home and look at the vast amounts of construction happening next to my property. My home was built in one small corner of the property that was being developed.

Anthony was also handling the political angle. Our corporation was getting a massive tax break from the local and state governments for developing in an underdeveloped area. The area had long been dead, now it was coming back to life with this major investment.

He would be handling real world problems, and I would be handling issues in game. That was why I had to give a small lecture today to his people that were getting capsules. If I hadn’t had the financial successes I already had, and was making a lot of money off Exponential, this deal would have never happened. I needed to be both successful and not rich enough at the same time to have others want to invest while being incapable myself.

People liked to bet on a winner, and I had proven myself capable enough. The hints at a confidential source that was part of the development of Exponential further solidified his belief that I knew what I was doing or there was someone pulling the strings behind me.

I was on a path where there was no getting off of. The guild would succeed or fail based off of my actions. But I was already committed. While it was tempting to speed up my personal plans with some of the money I personally earned, that was a bad idea. There needed to be a clear line between my funds and the guild funds. Mixing and matching the two would only lead to headaches in the future. There were other, better ways, to entangle things that I knew about, to make a hostile takeover quite difficult.

A big move was that only the officers would be employees of our corporation. The rest would be independent contractors, that played Exponential on our behalf. There was no reference to the contract these people would sign that would take hold in game. That was the work around a lot of corporations used in my past life to reduce expenses, while ‘hiring’ more people, and to maximize profits.

We were just getting ahead of the curve. Exponential was like a new frontier with boundless wealth. With how money transferred worked, Exponential added a massive economy connected to the global market. Most people didn’t think it would have an impact like past games, but Exponential became so big that the two economies would become interlinked to a much larger degree than game markets of the past.

Large financial movements in game could impact the real world and vice versa. Before I was sent back, some smaller countries were pegging their currency to Exponential’s coinage. When a quarter of the world’s population had capsules, Exponential Corporation and QAI had really had taken over quite a bit.

It was no joke to call it the world’s first mega-corporation with how large it had become in the future. Not all of those people played the full 20 hours a day, but the fact that over a quarter of the world had capsules was huge.

“You handled it well,” Anthony came up to me as I was leaving the building.

“If I couldn’t handle that much teasing, then I would have no chance of managing a large guild.”

“Well construction is going well enough. How are things in the game?” he asked.

“Everything is on track.”

“You know, as Vice Leader I should know what you are planning,” he said.

“That is true. I am going to win the Tournament of Champions that will eventually come up. Once I do that, the guild will be public in a massive way.”

“My wife has been asking about my new business partner and would like to meet you. Dinner?” he asked me.

“Tonight?” I asked and he nodded.

“I know your schedule is tight, but it was arranged for after the seminar you just held.”

“I would love to. Give me the address and I will head right there,” I replied. I now had a security company on retainer, paid out of my own pocket. They would keep an eye on my home and drive me places. While I trusted Anthony quite a bit, that was no excuse to travel on my own. Having someone on my payroll with me, who knew where I was at all times, ensured good behavior from my business partner.