16 Investment Returns

That night, Ling Yun returned home for the night.

The first few days he entered the Sanctuary, he always returned. Of course, he only needed to hunt ordinary creatures, and they were a lot of them around the shelter.

But as his total tally of points rose, he started going farther and farther, until returning to the shelter every day just became an unreasonable endeavor. But still, he always made sure to make his family know he was okay.

Actually, the way Ling Yun was behaving was the norm inside the sanctuaries. Very rarely would people leave unless they had previous arrangements. There was a reason every single person teleporting to the sanctuary was given his own room, after all.

The reason his mother didn't do that, was her lack of real skill and geno points.

Because of that, she only took the areas closest to the shelter to hunt. She escorted newbies that payed her and protected them occasionally, but the bulk of her income came from the sale of primitive creature corpses and beast souls. Still, each primitive one could be sold for only a couple of thousand dollars, if you were lucky. And with her skills, she could hunt two or three per day. And even then, carrying them back to the shelter was a risk. If you encountered a group of creatures you needed to be fast and cut your losses, dropping your goods then and there. And even if you managed to get to the sanctuary with the goodies, not everybody wanted primitive meat. And those who did, didn't want it constantly. There were times when the goods rotted, and you couldn't sell them anymore. So, was it any wonder they were so poor?

In the past month, Ling Yun had killed over a thousand ordinary creatures, about two hundred primitive ones, and nineteen mutants. Instead of feeding them to little ugly, though, he only took five corpses for each type of creature and sold the rest to the system. This made his wallet very, very heavy.

He gained 1,159,000 points from killing the ordinary creatures and the same amount for selling the corpses. For primitive ones, he got 5,175,000 for killing them and 865,000 for selling them. And as for mutant creatures, he got 9,500,000 for killing them and 14,000,000 for selling the corpses. He gained a total of 31,858,000 points.

With the money he had left, his balance rose all the way up to a staggering thirty-five million levo dollars.

For most people in the alliance, this was a big amount of money. But as a monthly income, it still wasn't enough for some families.

The way the alliance worked was by dividing all their planets in three classes and further dividing them into tiers.

The first class was the military planets. Just about one or two percent of the planets in the alliance belonged to this category. They were completely controlled by the military division of the Alliance and their tiers were designated based on the danger of said planet. A tier three military planet was a planet completely controlled by the Alliance's military where, although there was a martial rule, battles were very scarce and was usually very secure. Most often than not they were planets near the borders of the Alliance's territory. A tier two planet was what was called a hot-planet. There were a considerable number of battles on its surface or the surrounding space, and casualties were not uncommon. Although it was not as dangerous, it was still not peaceful at all. A tier one military planet was a live-warfare planet. It was constantly involved in battles and more often than not those planets were usually very damaged. They were valuable planets with resources or strategic positions the Shura and the Alliance battled constantly to get hold of. The peace periods were short, and it was were soldiers were sent on when they went "to the front".

Next, were the production class planets. As the name implies, they were planets were primary economic activities took place. They were shipyards, factories, refineries, mines, agricultural areas and even dumpster planets on these. They were the backbone of the Alliance's economy. They also were numbered in about a third of the Alliance's planets, so about thirty-three of every hundred planets were of the production class. They were further classified into five tiers. It was a tier five production planet if it made at least a hundred million levo dollars per month. These planets were few and belonging to a few small businessmen. The tier four ones needed to make at least a billion levo dollars monthly. This was the tier that a majority of the production planets were located. The tier three ones had to make ten billion a month, and the tier two needed to make a hundred billion a month. The tier 1 production planets were few and far between and belonged almost exclusively to the big families and top conglomerates. They were the true force of the Alliance's economy. In order to qualify for this category a planet needed to monthly produce material worth a trillion levo dollars and above.

The next and last class were the commercial planets. They occupied about sixty-five percent of the Alliance's planets and were divided into seven tiers. This was where the ordinary citizens lived. They rarely had a factory or farm in them, though it was possible. The way they were divided was by the average income of its inhabitants.

A tier seven commercial planet had an average income per family of twenty thousand. Of course, the number was so high due to the big cheese companies that were established in those planets. Most families scraped by with an income of ten thousand. The poor ones sometimes even five. A tier six one was a little better. Their average income was of eighty thousand levo dollars. The prices in their planets were higher than the ones in a tier seven, though, so it was still considered a low lass planet.

The tier five commercial planets were considered middle-class planets, and their living standard was decent. Also, the difference between tiers was very noticeable, since the criteria for classification was steeper that the low-class planets. The average income of a family was of a hundred and fifty thousand levo dollars. The average families of tier four commercial planet had an average income of a million levo dollars. The tier three commercial planets were the ones where a family earned on average ten million dollars. These three tiers made up the majority of the alliance.

And after middle-class planets, came the high-class ones. There were the seats of the biggest corporation's headquarters and politicians. Most of the vacation planets were also categorized under the high-class label. A tier two commercial planet needed their residents to make a hundred million dollars a month on average, so it was a pretty desirable place to be. And finally, the tier one commercial planets needed their families to make at least a billion levo dollars a month, which was why there were so few of them. This was the real seat of power. Everybody who was somebody lived in these planets.

With the thirty million dollars Ling Yun made last month, he barely had enough money to be considered slightly above average on a third-tier commercial planet, which was not what he wanted.

He needed his family to be in, at least, a tier-two planet in order for them to be protected. And to do that, he needed to make a hundred million levo dollars a month.

And that's just to be an average citizen, mind you, not a respectable one.

Actually, with all the money in his bank account, he would most likely not be able to buy a property there, since it went for at least half a billion dollars, and it wouldn't be a good property.

Ling Yun sighed. Unless he could beat a dozen or so sacred-blood creatures and sell their corpses each month, he would never have enough money.

But still, not all was lost. It had been a month since he gave Anne the instruction to run simulations in the stock market in order to see how well she could do. He just hoped it was a profitable investment of time.

While thirty million was just a small amount of money in the stock market, it wasn't nothing to scoff at. Hopefully he could make some extra money from this.

"Anne, how are those market simulations I instructed you to run going?" He asked once he got off the bus and entered his building.

"I send the updates to your comlink each day. The newest one should be going out right about now." Anne answered.

And true enough, his comlink received a message.

He opened it and started to read the overview.

'There are thirty thousand dollars in the account, which means Anne at least didn't lose all the money she started with. But with how much did she start the simulation?' Ling Yun couldn't help but wonder. After all, this was very important information he might eventually need.

"Anne, how much money did you have when you started?" He asked while starting to walk again.

"Master, I started with the same amount of money you had when you assigned me to run the simulation, which was 3,049,000 points which I simulated their conversion into levo dollars." She answered and Ling Yun's hopes hit rock bottom. She lost three million dollars, after all, so having her control his finances was definitely a bad idea. He might have to buy a finance package from the system store in order for her to get at least some profit.

"Well, don't worry too much. If you could start the simulation again with the same amount of money, do you think your performance could improve?" He asked in a hail Mary.

"I believe so, master. I would very likely be able duplicate the returns." She answered, confusing Ling Yun.

"What returns? You lost over three million dollars." He answered apathetically.

'Luckily it was only a simulation. Otherwise, I would've cried myself to sleep.' He thought to himself before being interrupter again.

"Master, I recommend you check the daily transaction history." Anne pleaded and Ling Yun, seeing no harm in it, obliged.

After a few pages, his eyes were close to falling out of their sockets.