Chapter 6 - Family

Lin Feng

Family will have to come first for the other two close beta player slots he will obtain. Out of his five cousins, Lin Feng will have to set aside his eldest cousin sister since she just became a mother this year. His toddler niece will be his cousin's biggest priority in the near term. As for his two cousins on his mother side, it is best not to rope them in for the time being. Both are in their high school years and Lin Feng will never hear the end of it from his mother if he ever jeopardizes their academic results.

The other guaranteed close beta player slot will be given to his cousin brother Lin Yi. He is now a freshman in university. Being the youngest in the family, he ended up with some worrying habits due to being coddled by the whole family. Thankfully, it is nothing serious as Lin Yi biggest concern is his overindulgent in computer games. He spent so much time gaming that the whole family finds it incredulous that albeit borderline, he made it to university. Though Lin Yi academic results are questionable at best, his gaming skills on the other hand is top notch. Lin Feng believes that Lin Yi will play a pivotal role in ensuring that the family ability to lay a solid foundation in . 

The redeemable close beta slot will be given to his cousin brother, Lin Fu. Just like him, Lin Fu is a civil servant and works for the General Administration of Customs. Immortal Online will be a good distraction for his cousin since he just broke up with his girlfriend of six years recently. Lin Feng was hopeful that game studio will hand out another batch out player slots when the Immortal Online enter the open beta phase.

*****

Alexander Smith

A simple screen pops up when Alex tapped his bracelet. The bracelet is a beginner device given to all disciples and act as a proof of identity. The screen only provides some basic information like Alex's full name, hall affiliation, cultivation realm and sect merits earned. He can't go around complaining about the lack of functions since the bracelet is given out free. He had once seen an upgraded version of the bracelet in the sect's redemption store. According to the store keeper, the upgraded bracelet has built in feature to monitor the wearer's physical condition thus allowing the wearer to see their character statistics like those found in any typical games. Additionally, it also comes with a cubic square foot of secured storage space. A security feature that storage bag does not provide. Off course, at this point in time all disciples like Alex would rather redeem a storage bag for their own use since the storage volume is ten times larger than what the bracelet provides and also at a fraction of the cost. The bracelet is akin to a luxury good that Alex doesn't need at this point in time.

Reviewing the sect merits that he has saved up to date, Alex estimate he should have enough sect merits to redeem the additional close beta slot in a few days. As per the latest notice posted on the announcement board, the base should be able to complete the upgrade work within the next two weeks. It's too bad that all players are only entitled to redeem a single close beta slot. Rumour mill has it that a new close beta slot can be sold for forty thousand American dollars. Alex feels that the price has yet to reach its limit as the asking price for a close beta slot was just thirty thousand American dollars a month back. Alex has already decided to sell his redeemable close beta player slot. Even if he only managed to sell it for forty thousand dollars, it will still go a long way in reducing his student loan.

When Alex was in his third year of university, his deadbeat father out of the blue ran off with the family's fortune. Prior to his father disappearance, things were rather harmonious at home. The possibility of his parents ever getting a divorce never even crossed his mind. As a matter of fact, Alex considered himself more fortunate than most of his peers. At the very least, he never have to worry about money growing up as his parents own and operate a rather profitable business. His good life turning point began one day when his father said he has been approached to sell his business for four million dollars. The whole family was so excited about the deal that the plan was to spend the Christmas holidays touring Europe. Few days after the family received the four million dollars, his father emptied out the family bank account and never came home.

The whole ordeal taught Alex a lot about what family means. All his father siblings refused to help them out. What is even more frustrating is his uncle and aunt even say that his father probably had his difficulties and try to understand and forgive him. Talk about twisted logic. In contrast, Alex aunts on his mother side immediately send money over the moment they heard what had happened. His eldest aunt even flew in the next day to help them to pick up the pieces after the whole disaster. With the family fortune gone, Alex could only take up a student loan to complete his study while his second brother, Henry had decided to give up university to become the family main breadwinner. Henry told Alex he should complete his study since he only had two years left and it would open up better employment opportunities once he graduates. Alex felt it a pity that Henry had to give up university and resent his father even more. Henry's academic result was much better than him and there is a very good chance he could gain acceptance into one of the ivy league universities. All this was now water under the bridge. His youngest brother, Joshua had also decided to start working after high school. With the family fortune gone, Joshua said he has no interest burying himself deep in debt for a university degree. The ordeal Alex's father had put the family through ended up making the family bond much stronger.

The two guaranteed close beta slots will be given to his two brothers. Given the time he had spent in so far, Alex is confident the game will be the biggest hit for the foreseeable future. The full immersion technology and time dilation technology will totally shift the socioeconomics dynamics across the whole world. As long as game studio lawyers are sufficiently competent, there wouldn't be any competition out there for at least a decade. As such, Alex has decided to bet his future on . It will be the game that will turn their family's fortune around. The three close beta slots this time round can earn him a neat one hundred and twenty thousand dollars if he ever sold all three slots. His potential income playing Immortal Online for less than two months is more than his current annual income working as a software engineer. It has already been announced that Immortal Online will officially enter phase three when the base is upgraded to level three and will support at least one hundred thousand players by then. Alex is pretty confident each player will be given even more player slots to redeem when the time comes.

game engine full realism claimed by the game studio are no joke. Buildings and resources will not magically appear out of thin air. To progress the game, buildings need to be constructed the old fashioned way. There is no daily reset when it comes to resources in the wild. Any plants that have been harvested will only grow back with time. Animals can be hunted into extinction if left unchecked. To sustain the base economy, farms need to build to grow crops and raise livestock. Mines and quarries need to be built to obtain raw resources. Workshop or factory in the later stage needs to be build to manufacture tools and materials to expand and upgrade the base. All this requires manpower. The NPCs that have shown up to date at the base to date all are in managerial and supervisory roles. Even if new NPCs emerged from time to time, they are there to fill up new vacant managerial and supervisory roles that need to be created to support the ever expanding base operations. All other tasks in the base are left to the players to complete.

As such, Alex can safely conclude the sect leader will continue to offer sect merits and other incentives at least in the short term to get things done. With both Henry and Joshua also in the game, Alex believes that their family can easily secure another nine close beta player slots by the time Immortal Online enters the third phase. Their family could easily earn more than three hundred thousand dollars selling all nine close beta player slots.