Early in the morning, a melodious bell of the alarm woke Ryan up. He sprang off the bed with sleepy eyes.
Everything that happened yesterday was like a dream.
"Mr. System, are you still there?"
"Good morning, Mr. Melton, what can I do for you?"
Hearing the familiar icy voice in his mind, Ryan finally determined that he had really acquired a system call Giving Back, and it was not a dream.
After cleaning up, Ryan and his roommates walked to their classroom.
An old professor was giving an impassioned speech in the lecture theatre. But Ryan's mind was full of the system, and he couldn't hear what the old professor was talking about.
The system was a shortcut to success for him. As long as he spent money or completed tasks every day, he could gain points and purchase the things from the mall. The system had told him that the products in the mall were all treasures from two hundred years later.
Thinking of this, Ryan had an ardent yearning for the future. He wanted to get out of class as soon as possible.
After finishing a boring day of classes, Ryan hurried back to the dormitory, turned on the computer, and logged in to the game.
"Mr. System, I want to spend money!" Ryan said silently in his mind. The system had told him that he had an account that was associated with his bank card, so every time he asked for money, his account would be topped up.
Immediately he received the intelligent voice.
"Topping up your account, please wait."
After a second, Ryan received a text message.
"Dear customer, your account ending 3321 is credited with USD 10000.00 on 20/11/23/ 17:48. Your account balance is USD 11750.63."
Looking at the text message, Ryan was stunned. Although he had already believed in the existence of the system, the message still shocked him.
"It really..."
After a brief daze, Ryan remembered that the money he topped up to his account must be spent before he could gain experience points and mall points.
This made Ryan happy but also worried. He had never received so much money before. How should he spend it? Although his family was not rich, his parents gave him enough living expenses every month.
He had bought everything he needed, and the money was not enough for other things he wanted to buy.
After staring at the message for a long time, he decided to spend the money on the game! He never knew how rich men felt when they spent lots of money in games without blinking.
Just do it! Ryan clicked and opened the recharge page, and then directly recharged his game account with 5,000 dollars. He planned to buy Gold from other players with the remaining money.
After the payment was completed, Ryan clicked into the game mall and bought a set of clothes that he had long been wanting. When his character in the game finally put on the fantasy clothes he had dreamed of, he nodded with a bright smile.
But dissatisfaction replaced the smile when he stared at the weapon and accessories of his character.
"The weapon… rubbish, isn’t it?"
"The earring… necklace… well, too bad."
"The armor… oh no, it’s more than just 'that’s too bad’."
It was no wonder that he had been disliked when he asked to be added to a team. He had got enough of his rubbish equipment with only low-grade enforcement.
Let me flash money about! Ryan used several megaphones and contacted the reputable merchant Jimmy in the game.
"Jimmy, I want some Gold, what’s the conversion rate?"
"1.5 million for every 1 USD."
"Any discount for 5000 USD?"
"You sure?"
"Pretty sure. You have enough Gold?"
Jimmy opened his mouth in surprise. He didn't expect that the guy he just knew would directly ask for USD 5,000 Gold. Wasn’t the guy afraid of being deceived? Although 5,000 was not too much for a rich man, it was the first time he had a transaction involving such a large sum in the game.
A man of wealth was capricious.
However, as a professional businessman in the game, Jimmy came back to his senses after a brief astonishment.
"Not so much for the time being. Only the half, and the rest will be ready later."
"Okay, half first. Give me your account."
It didn't take long for the transaction. Ryan got billions of Gold in the game soon, and he traded with Jimmy several times later.
That day, Legendary equipment for Ghost Knight in the auction house in the game was sold out overnight, even in short supply for a long time.
There was no doubt that Ryan’s lavishing spending rocked the Server. Players who just went online all looked overwhelmed, spamming the screen and asking about the rich buyer.
"Can anyone tell me what happened?"
"Bloody hell!"
"Must be a newly rich! I’m going to ride on his coattails!"
"The buyer can’t be the son-in-law of the boss of Tencent, can he?"
At the same time, a young man about twenty years old, wearing steel-rimmed glasses, chucked in front of the game screen as he took the cigarette dangling at the corner of his mouth. The silver-white smoke formed long tendrils hanging in the air.
"Where’s this guy from?” He appeared to be talking to himself, “all the inventories are sold out one night. It seems that a rich guy from a big family came to our Server. Pretty good."
Ryan didn’t pay attention to the unprecedented splash he made. He was still completely immersed in the pleasure of online shopping at the auction house. After his backpack was full, he came to Lady Kiri.
Ryan looked at Kiri with a smile. For the first time, he felt that Kiri was cute. In his eyes before, Kiri was an old witch and gold-taking expert. Now he was finally not afraid of her.
He clicked Reinforce and dragged a weapon in.
The weapon was upgraded to +10 smoothly all the way, and the upgrade failed when it came to +11. Then he tried more than twenty times, and all failed without exception.
Kiri was not easy to deal with, Ryan couldn’t help but sigh.
At this moment, the Giving Back system finally released a task for the first time.
"Random task: It is detected that Mr. Melton has a strong obsession with Reinforcement in the game, and dreams of having a set of equipment with enhancement +16. This task is hereby released."
"Task requirement: reinforce a complete set of Legendary equipment to +16. You cannot purchase it directly.
The system would judge whether the task was completed or not. Ryan would be rewarded with 300 experience points and 100 mall points for a successful task. If the task failed, he would be deducted 300 experience points and 100 mall points. If the points are not enough to be deducted, he would forcedly be struck by a lightning strike. The task was limited to one week. No additional help would be provided.
Seeing the first random task issued by the system, Ryan couldn't help frowning.
This task was not difficult, but it was involved an immense amount of time and resources. Fortunately, the money was provided by the system. So, whether the task could be completed all depended on his luck. Ryan knew that it was useless to complain at this time. It was more practical to look for strategies to complete the task.
In desperation, he had to google for various reinforcement methods, but no reliable suggestions were found. There was no quick way. It seemed that he had to beg Kiri for mercy.
But he felt the success probability had been reduced, or maybe he thought too much. An hour later, the weapon was not reinforced to +16, and the best he got was +15.
Upgrade Successful +11
Upgrade Successful +12
Upgrade Failed +13
As he continued the money lavishing clicks, the world chat channel got spam again.
Although many rich people were playing this game, it was still very rare to see them directly waste legendary weapons like Ryan today.
Generally, even rich players would try some cheap weapons first to increase the success rate. Few of them would upgrade only one regardless of cost.
"See who swept the auction house."
"A real tyrant."
"I’m crying at my meager salary..."
"Look at his ID, M. The letter M is for money, right?"
"Mr. M, do you want a girlfriend?"
"Mr. M, do you want a boyfriend?"
As the crowd spammed the world chat, Ryan's character was immediately surrounded by lots of viewers. The screen was flooded, and the scene looked extremely exaggerated.
There were even countless requests for Gold in private chat.
Ryan was frightened by this scene.
What the hell? He quickly dragged and clicked the last few weapons in his backpack for reinforcement, and then hurried off the line.
All viewers around him were left stunned.
It wasn't until a long time that people didn't see Ryan going online again, and the crowd thinned out.
"It feels so good to be a rich player." Ryan couldn't help sighing in his mind.