Chapter 1 The Bottomless Abyss, Stone Forest City

The moment Shi Feng logged in, he noticed more than a dozen unread messages in his inbox, sent by Melancholic Smile, Youlan, and Hei Zi. Melancholic Smile seemed particularly anxious, sending five or six messages in quick succession. Shi Feng immediately contacted her.

"What's wrong? Why are you contacting me so urgently?" Shi Feng asked, looking at Melancholic Smile in the video with a curious expression.

Zero Wing's finances were now abundant. Even with a large influx of new members, Stone Forest City's income could easily handle it, with plenty to spare.

As for Starlink's constant bounty orders, they were no longer a concern. Because of Stone Forest City, Zero Wing's core members were almost all grinding in the Bottomless Abyss. This significantly reduced the burden on Zero Wing regarding upgrade resources, allowing both elite and ordinary members to level up safely on their own turf. Even if Starlink experts launched sneak attacks, the casualties they could inflict were quite limited.

On the contrary, Starlink was suffering significant losses due to the bounty issue. Every day, numerous players came to Zero Wing to collect rewards for killing Starlink members.

Over time, while this wouldn't cripple Starlink, it was draining a considerable amount of their liquid capital, hindering the guild's development.

Especially now, with major forces vying for resources in neutral maps, the demand for high-level consumables was immense. The output of these consumables from the super guilds themselves was simply insufficient, and a significant portion had to be purchased with gold coins. A shortage of liquid capital could easily stall the progress of exploring neutral maps.

"Guild Leader, just recently, Starlink, along with several other super guilds and three large merchant firms, jointly monopolized the raw materials for Advanced Shadow Potions and Advanced Forest Potions. Any time these advanced materials appear on the market, they are bought up at inflated prices. The prices have almost tripled now. Even if we try to compete, we'll get very little, probably not even enough for our own use," Melancholic Smile said anxiously.

"Quite a move. They're really getting desperate, it seems," Shi Feng said, slightly surprised.

Advanced Shadow Potions were considered relatively rare among advanced potions. They not only increased a player's shadow resistance but also improved their vision in the dark, making them ideal for areas filled with dark energy.

Advanced Forest Potions were also rare, enhancing a player's resistance to corrosion and slightly increasing their perception range.

Both of these potions were ideal for leveling up and monster hunting in the Ancient Undead Kingdom and the Bottomless Abyss. Using both at the same time could increase a player's leveling efficiency by at least 30% and reduce the difficulty of monster hunting by about 20%.

The raw materials for these two potions weren't scarce, so a single super guild couldn't monopolize them. After all, these raw materials were scattered in many locations, and buying them all up would cost an astronomical sum.

However, monopolizing the two potions would severely limit their opponents' exploration speed in the Ancient Undead Kingdom and the Bottomless Abyss.

"What I'm worried about isn't just that. Starlink is now offering sky-high contracts and is frantically poaching our Candlelight Trading Firm's lifestyle players. They're not only receiving priority training but also a large number of credits every month. I heard that advanced lifestyle players are getting a minimum of 20,000 credits per month, and master-level players are getting 100,000. We've already lost over fifty advanced lifestyle players and two master-level players. Now everyone in the Candlelight Trading Firm is talking about it," Melancholic Smile said, shaking her head. "The Candlelight Trading Firm has only just started and needs a large number of goods to fill its shelves. If we lose more advanced lifestyle players, the Candlelight Trading Firm will be finished."

Previously, the trading firm's lifestyle players earned money by sharing the profits from the goods they produced. They could then exchange the gold coins they earned for credits. But now, Starlink was using a credit-based employment system, which had a significant impact on the lifestyle players.

After all, as players' levels increased, they acquired more and more gold coins, and the exchange rate continued to decline, making them much less valuable than before. Credits with a guaranteed minimum value wouldn't decrease with gold coin depreciation, making them incredibly enticing to lifestyle players.

"So, they're using capital?" Shi Feng said with a smile.

The credit-based employment system for lifestyle players wasn't new to Shi Feng. In fact, he was very familiar with it. In the previous life, after God's Domain reached level 80, the major super guilds realized the growing importance of lifestyle players and adopted this approach to recruit them. Eventually, all the major forces had to follow suit.

This immediately sent many guilds without capital back to the Stone Age, and some even collapsed and disbanded.

Because after doing so, the guild's credit expenditures would double. After all, the number of lifestyle players far exceeded the guild's internal members, and the exchange rate for gold coins largely depended on the major super guilds. Selling a small amount of gold was fine, but selling a large amount to exchange for credits wouldn't fetch a good price, giving the super guilds an advantage instead.

"Guild Leader, if we don't take some action, I'm afraid even more people in the trading firm will leave," Melancholic Smile said worriedly. "But if we adopt the same method, we simply don't have enough credits to support the entire Candlelight Trading Firm. If we sell gold coins, we'll be playing right into Starlink's hands."

At this moment, Melancholic Smile truly understood the terror of super guilds. They could literally crush people to death with money.

"I don't know who gave Starlink this idea, but if Starlink wants to compete with Zero Wing in terms of capital, they're going to break their own teeth!" Shi Feng said with a laugh.

If Stone Forest Town hadn't been upgraded to Stone Forest City, facing Starlink's move would have caused significant damage to Zero Wing. But now, with Stone Forest City, Zero Wing was no longer the same.

The major super guilds simply didn't understand the significance of Stone Forest City.

"How are those private residences I asked you to build next to the arena coming along?" Shi Feng asked.

"Seventy percent are complete, and the remaining thirty percent should take another two or three days," Melancholic Smile replied. Although she was curious as to why Shi Feng was asking about this, she quickly sent him the work progress.

Building these private residences had cost over 160,000 gold coins in the past few days, making it Zero Wing's biggest expenditure by far.

"Seventy percent, huh?" Shi Feng looked at the work progress and nodded. "Seven thousand rooms should be enough. Immediately announce that Stone Forest City is officially renting out private residences, with bidding at the various Candlelight Trading Firms, payable in credits. The starting bid is 30,000 credits per month."

"Thirty thousand credits a month? Isn't that a bit too expensive?" Melancholic Smile exclaimed.

Private residences were different from shops. Shops could be used to make money, but rented private residences were purely for consumption. Some players might be willing to spend a few thousand credits, but 30,000 was a joke.

"Don't worry. Just have people prepare immediately. The sooner, the better," Shi Feng said with a smile, not offering any further explanation.

In the previous life, cities that could establish themselves in the Bottomless Abyss were like holy cities. Countless expert players wanted to own their own private residence in such a holy city. Unfortunately, the major forces didn't sell them, only rented them out. But even so, there were countless experts renting, and competition was fierce.

The peak price at that time was over 50,000 credits per month, making everyone realize just how profitable earning money in God's Domain could be. A starting bid of 30,000 was already very cheap.

Soon after, Melancholic Smile had the news posted on the official forums of the various kingdoms and empires.