Death Arena Dungeon: Admission level 15-25, difficulty level of a five-man normal team dungeon.
Looking at the light veil in front, a line of words appeared.
Xiao Yu finally relaxed after entering the dungeon. After playing Monster Mode for too long, he was more nervous the closer he was to the cities. On the other hand, he would feel safe in such an eerie and gloomy cave or dungeon. That was quite weird.
“I’m very curious, but why do you think so highly of me? You should know that I’m just a small Goblin Boss,” asked Xiao Yu curiously as they walked deeper into the dungeon.
Dakar Rhode shook his head.” No, no, no, you’re wrong. You’re not only a small Goblin Boss, but a professional gamer that took only one week to advance from a tiny Goblin to a small Boss. Also, you were even able to gather monsters to attack the village. Such an ability is not something that normal players have. In reality, what we value is not your Boss ability—Shadow Brotherhood has tens of small Bosses like you. What we value is your ability.”
“However, I failed. Although we killed the Archdruid, we were chased out by Adventurers. The monsters under us mostly died or were injured. You think that’s counted as my ability too?”
“Failure? Haha, you’re too humble. Monsters are supposed to be defeated by Adventurers, no? This is our fate, so if you call that failure, then there is no successful monster in this world. Although we will fail in the end and be killed by Adventurer Mode players, that does not mean we cannot earn a profit from that failure. What you’ve done is very good. Although you’ve lost your tribe, your Mode has advanced into small Boss and you’ve received quite the amount of Reputation from attacking Night Whisper Village, right? Also, you escaped alive and even successfully caught the attention of many people. Thus, your actions tonight were extremely successful. How could it be counted as a failure?”
Xiao Yu was not happy from hearing Dakar Rhode’s flattering, but he became interested in Dakar Rhode. It seemed like Dakar Rhode was a sensible person.
“So you wish for me to join you?”
Dakar Rhode nodded. “That’s right. I hope you can join our Shadow Dynasty Studio.”
“That means you’re really a game studio? Are there many people in your studio?”
“There’s a few dozen core members,” said Dakar Rhode honestly.
Xiao Yu asked, “I’m very curious, but why would your studio create a Monster Force? At least now, it’s still easier to earn money from Adventurer players, right?”
Xiao Yu was not someone random—he was a Three Skeleton Level Boss before and had created a 40-man difficulty dungeon. Even so, his income per month was only $100,000, and that’s on the basis of not being killed by the plot.
Since Monster Mode was unable to directly sell the equipment dropped by Adventurers, the equipment could only be sold to the system. However, the price of selling them to the system was unimaginably low.
An income of $100,000 was already quite abundant to him, but to a studio, it would be far from enough, as there would be about 10-20 people in a studio no matter what. Thus, if the money was equally split, each person would only receive a few thousand dollars. At that point, it would be better to farm equipment to sell to Adventurer players.
Also, if one was killed by the plot, even their original capital could not be regained.
After hearing Xiao Yu’s question, Dakar Rhode started laughing heartily. “It can’t be that you think we are managing a Monster Force just to build a dungeon to kill players and earn some money from the equipment, right? Haven’t you heard of the Mirror Dungeon system?”
The so-called Mirror Dungeon was one of the functions in the game. After one created a dungeon, the Boss Mode players could only face the challenge of one team of Adventurers, but if they activated the Mirror Dungeon, then they could simultaneously face multiple Adventurer teams.
When the Adventurer team entered the dungeon, they would enter a different mirrored world. Of course, the Bosses in these mirrored worlds would no longer be controlled by players, they would have preset battling strategies and be managed by the system.
“However, the system AI intelligence is very low and would easily be killed by Adventurer teams. Then wouldn’t you lose money?”
“Hehe, you know the ropes. That’s right, it’s quite difficult to earn money with just dungeons alone, since players want to obtain equipment from dungeons and not lose their equipment in the dungeon. If they are wiped out numerous times and are still unable to clear the dungeon, or if they cannot see hope of clearing the dungeon, then they would not continue—at least that is so for some transitional dungeons.
“However, what if this dungeon is a maximum level dungeon? The price of one of the best pieces of equipment is even higher than ten normal pieces of equipment, thus it is totally worth it to invest into the dungeon. Besides dungeons, we also have many other ways to earn money. For example, materials like ores and leather are all produced in areas controlled by monsters.”
“You mean!” Xiao Yu looked around the inside of the mine and instantly understood.
If a studio were to simultaneously have forces with Adventurers and monsters, then it would be too easy to earn money. Of course, the premise was for one to have a leadership position in the Monster Force first.
For example, when he was the Demonic Blaze Overlord, although he seemed impressive and awesome by slaughtering the adventures, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, the one really earning money was not him, but the Merchants selling Fire Resistance equipment, Fire Resistance Potions, and Fire Resistance Scrolls.
It’s not as if Xiao Yu had never thought of controlling the whole game production chain, but it was impossible for him to do it alone. However, it would be different for a studio. A studio could totally create a dungeon and at the same time sell the items, like equipment and potions, to clear the dungeon, since most players still spent money to play the game.
Dakar Rhode continued, “Let’s not talk about anything too far in the future. That crystal that I took out when I entered the dungeon, do you know what it is?”
Xiao Yu replied, “It should be the Dungeon Key, right?”
He knew that some dungeons would specially set a door to prevent players from entering them easily. Some special item would be needed to open the dungeon, thus this special item was named Dungeon Key.
“That’s right, this Energy Crystal is the Dungeon Key for Death Mine. Adventurers need this item if they want to enter the dungeon. Meanwhile, in the whole West Wild, only the Difia Special Envoy has a small chance of dropping it. However, that Difia Special Envoy only respawns every half an hour, and even if an Adventurer guild takes all of the Difia Special Envoy kills, they could at most obtain one to two keys in a day.”
Xiao Yu asked in doubt, “Then wouldn’t most Adventurers be unable to clear this dungeon?”
Dakar Rhode smiled. “No, because there’s a Difia Merchant in Moonbrook Town’s black market that sells this crystal. Of course, the selling price is not cheap—one crystal costs 40 gold coins, and it is a one-time consumable item. Just for your information, that Difia Merchant is one of my people too.”
“F*ck, they’re really black-hearted. Just by selling the Dungeon Key, they could earn quite the amount. No wonder he said that there were plenty of ways to earn money.”
He knew the Adventurer players very well. They were reluctant to spend large sums of money, but if it was just a small amount, they would spend without batting an eye. If the Dungeon Key could be obtained by just spending a small sum of money, then Xiao Yu believed that most players would not be stingy, since it was really not worth it to spend a few hours to farm a Dungeon Key. If they had the time, then why wouldn’t they go to work to earn some money? That way, they would have enough to buy a Dungeon Key.
Now Xiao Yu believed that they could really earn money. Professionals were indeed professionals—their ideas for earning money were much smarter than his. Xiao Yu could not help but feel vexed. Why had he not arranged for a person to sell the keys in front of his dungeon before?
Dakar Rhode only shook his head towards Xiao Yu’s exclamation. “This only makes a small sum of money. It’s enough to keep the studio running, but not enough for me to invest all my resources and time. I’ve already invested a huge sum of money to be able to rule the whole West Wild. The money earned now is just barely my original capital.”
That was only a small sum of money? Xiao Yu was curious about what could be even more astonishing than what he had learned just now.
He stopped and looked at Dakar Rhode with a serious gaze.
Dakar Rhode also stopped and asked in a mysterious tone, “If I say that I know of a way to let you earn a few million dollars in a year, would you think this is just a small sum of money in comparison?”