Chapter 49

Hiro almost forgot the thing he bought for 10,000 SD, the most expensive thing he purchased in his life.

He could find neither the ownership certificate nor the sir/madam title he received in the CBT version.

According to the customer service he contacted, regular plots and settlements could be claimed in the tax office in every city. Because of this, he once again opened the map to find the location of the mentioned tax office. However, it turned out that the previously empty buildings at the town square had been put to use, and one of them was for the tax office.

Hiro headed to the tax office in Beginner Town. Fortunately, the office was in working hours despite it being 6 AM on the server when he arrived.

There was already a somewhat long queue inside, so he had to get to the rearmost of the queue outside the main entrance. He couldn’t help but think of how long it would take as he looked at the length of the queue, and he wasn’t the only one.

“So annoying.”

“I didn’t spend $10,000 just to wait in line.”

“Why do I have to be stuck here? I want to play the game, damn it.”

Numerous players with the same fate were complaining. Hiro also felt that the long line was inconvenient, but unlike them, he decided to read the newly-updated newbie guide book to pass time.

To his surprise, they actually added quite a lot of new information.

Under the ownership of Ninecent were five major cities representing the five races in the game: beast, dragon, dwarf, elf, and demon. In order to get there, players could use the teleportation NPCs’ services at the price of 100–500 LSC depending on the distance.

Players could get there free of charge by completing the main quest. However, this only applied to the city representing the player’s bloodline. Players with a student ID could receive a discount, but they still had to pay if they wanted to go to the other four major cities.

Hiro smiled upon reading the description. The game developers really wanted to use the system in real life for the system in-game. There was even a special discount for students.

Every player’s main story differed depending on the player’s age range, it’s safe for all ages to play.

Hiro was in awe. This was a clever innovation as other MMORPGs only had one main story for all players, which would make it not very suitable for players outside their main age range target.

The [CBT Players] page in the HUD system home menu had been replaced by the [Leaderboards] page. The Leaderboards had four parts: player rankings based on bloodline power and player rankings based on BR, each category divided into players on their own server and global servers.

Bloodline power is measured based on the player’s body stage level. After completing the bloodline-related quest, the player’s stage level would increase like a normal level up. An example is how beast half-bloods only had pointy ears at first but would grow a tail upon reaching stage 2.

The number of players with an account on the NA server could be considered quite large with a total of 350,000 players, over a third of the number of VR equipment sold for the game’s soft launch. Hiro felt relieved. Servers with a lot of players had their advantages, and one of the major advantages was item transactions by players for a smooth cash flow.

The queue to the counter to claim the land certificate had begun to lessen. Hiro was already very close to the counter, so he closed his HUD system to stand by.

“Your name, sir?”

“NightFall.”

Ding!

[W2801 (NA) regular plot certificate has been claimed]

[New title ‘Sir’ has been obtained]

[Fame has increased]

Hiro walked out of the noisy building while checking the details in the rule book for plot owners. It contained some explanation about the rules, the reason he had to take his land certificate at the tax office was that as a landowner, he had to pay a certain amount of tax every month.

The land tax calculation was quite simple; 3% of the income from putting the plot of land to use.

Even though it was only 3%, he didn’t want to incur losses after paying 10,000 USD to buy the plot. He was determined to make the plot he bought popular so the income he received could return the amount he paid for the plot.

However, his goal would not be easy to achieve. When he arrived at his regular plot, nobody was present apart from himself.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

‘There are so many resources here, but nobody came? Are they stupid?’

Hiro felt that he had to do something to publicize his regular plot. If he failed to do so, all his effort so far would’ve been in vain.

The rule was, every player who stayed in the regular plot area to grind monsters or mine resources would have to pay a tax to the plot owner as much as the owner demanded. If a player wanted to build in the regular plot, the tax they would have to pay included the initial development impact tax to purchase how much of the plot would be used and pay a monthly tax decided by the plot owner.

Furthermore, if a player was killed while grinding in the regular plot area, the player would have to pay a fixed tax of 15% of their total LSC balance.

To make his ordinary-looking regular plot popular, Hiro had to decide on reasonable tax prices. Besides, he could change them anytime.

[Grinding and mining tax: 10 LSC per minute.]

[Property tax: 1,000 LSC per slot]

[Monthly property tax: Calculated based on the building size]

After setting the tax matter, Hiro thought about how to promote his land. He had to prove to the players that his regular plot was a strategic place for various activities.

And to prove it, the first thing he had to do was level up until he reached a higher level than the others.

“I’m ready.”