Slime Evolution

Chapter 434 - Astralis "Bank"

Three days had passed since that first group of recruits crossed the gates of the headquarters tree, and in that short span of time, the entire atmosphere of the guild had changed in a way Lohan never imagined would be possible so fast, considering they hadn’t even invited that many members.

The main hall, which used to have only a few veteran members walking around at specific times, now lived in a constant flow of people coming and going, trading equipment, checking "quest" boards, which were basically requests for materials the guild’s partners in Thalendor needed, and how much money they were willing to pay for those materials.

Unfortunately, for now the guild still hadn’t managed to set up a traditional quest channel like the ones in the RPGs Lohan knew from the other world, their fame was still too small, and their knowledge of the world wasn’t broad enough yet for them to venture far with confidence.

Besides that, the members would also just chat excitedly about the day’s hunt.

The members weren’t nearly as numerous as in the big guilds, far from it, Dylan and Lisa had made a point of keeping a controlled pace of admissions, preferring to test how that first batch would adapt before opening the doors to more people, but even a few dozen new members had already been enough to completely transform the energy of that place.

"Have you noticed the noise down here never stops anymore?" Lohan remarked, rolling beside Lisa while the two of them watched the hall’s activity from a more secluded corner. "I used to be able to hear the birds outside. Now the sound of chatter barely stops for a moment all day haha."

"That’s the price of growth," Lisa replied, a slight tone of satisfaction slipping into her voice. "And, to be honest, a good price to pay."

The main reason behind that enthusiastic joining, Lohan knew well, wasn’t just Astralis Requiem’s growing prestige or his own fame circulating among the players. It was, mostly, money.

The guild paid double the market rate for the game’s gold coins, converting everything into real credits instantly and without any hassle.

It wasn’t the highest rate out there, the black market in big cities still offered better rates for anyone brave enough to risk it, but at the guild it was a completely reliable rate, no risk of default, no shady middleman, no fear of getting scammed in the middle of some shady deal, and with the guarantee that within a few hours the money would be clean in their account.

Most of the new recruits came from the High Zone, considering few people from the Low Zone had enough money to buy game helmets, and among those few people, even fewer had the qualifications to join Astralis.

But both the few who came from the Low Zone, who had pushed themselves to the extreme just to afford their own equipment, and the many Players who came from the High Zone, were thrilled at the chance to earn thousands of extra credits a month just by playing, an amount that far surpassed any salary they could get from any ordinary real world job.

"You know what’s funniest about all of this?" Dylan remarked, walking up to the two of them with a scroll of notes under his arm. "A lot of people simply weren’t withdrawing the money. They were holding onto the coins, waiting for the thirty day probationary period to end before doing any conversion."

"Why?" Lohan asked, curious.

"Chasing profit." Dylan replied, adjusting the imaginary glasses he wasn’t even wearing at the moment out of habit. "Considering the rate during the probationary period is 2x the standard rate, and that after that period the rate goes up to 3x the normal price, just like all the other members, nobody wants to give up 50% more money unless it’s an extreme necessity."

Lisa shook her head, narrowing her eyes.

"Dylan told me about this earlier this morning..." She said, looking at Halon.

"That obviously created a cash flow problem..." she added. "We had dozens of people literally sitting on top of thousands of coins, not spending, not exchanging, not doing anything with it besides hoarding it. That’s dead money, serving no purpose, either for them or for the guild, and dead money and a pile of rocks are basically the same thing."

It was exactly that observation that led Dylan and Alice, after a few nights discussing the matter, to implement a change Lohan found genuinely clever as soon as he heard the details.

Not that they were excluding Lohan and Lisa from dealing with that kind of thing. The subject was even discussed in their presence, but the two of them had been so focused on hunting together over the past few days, looking for monsters with higher mental power, that they hadn’t even paid attention to the problem.

"Explain the system again," Lohan asked, still trying to take in all the details of it. "Because I heard you talking to Alice about it yesterday, but I only caught half of it."

Dylan smiled, but didn’t seem bothered about repeating the explanation.

"It’s simple," He said. "Members can now treat the guild’s headquarters like a bank. They deposit their coins here, and can withdraw whenever they want, either in Elysium gold or in real world credits."

"Ohhh, that’s a great idea!" Lohan understood why the Players were turning in plenty of quests at the guild’s newly set up quest counter, but weren’t walking away with much money from it. "If they don’t have anything to spend that money on, they have no reason to withdraw it all the time! The credit just needs to stay registered under their name."

"Exactly, withdrawing Elysium coins works normally, but if they withdraw in real credits before the thirty days of the probationary period end, the conversion stays at double the standard rate, just like before," Lisa continued, patiently. "But if they’re patient and wait until they complete the probationary period, the rate goes up to triple the standard rate, same as the veteran members."

Lohan was impressed by that. "That’s a great idea, and with that money under our control, the guild can use those resources to invest even more in Thalendor, manage to secure more trade contracts with other merchants, and further increase the amount and variety of quests."

"It’s a good incentive," Dylan cut in, a satisfied smile on his face. "Think about it. If the person waits the thirty days, that means they behaved well, followed the rules, didn’t cause any trouble, and probably already decided to stick with us permanently anyway, and keeping their money with us also shows they trust us and want to show enough good will to look better in our eyes haha."

"And besides that," Lisa added, "it solved the security problem that had been bothering a lot of them. Before, members used to walk around carrying dozens, sometimes hundreds of coins in cloth or leather pouches, constantly at risk of being robbed, of losing their pouches during some particularly tough hunt, or simply losing everything if they died in the middle of a fight against some stronger monster."

"Now they deposit everything here and go about their lives in peace," Lohan finished, finally understanding the complete logic behind it.

"Exactly," Lisa confirmed, satisfied. "And just look at the result."

She discreetly pointed at a group of recruits chatting excitedly near the entrance of the hall, all of them with a visibly more relaxed posture than what Lohan remembered seeing in the first few days.

Seeing the new members like that made Lohan even more excited about the guild’s development.