Hoarding Begets Victory

Hold on! Don't get excited yet! True, all his stuff was still here—but could he actually use any of it? What if, like much of his user interface, they'd lost their functionality? What if he wasn't able to use these items?

Zhang Yun swallowed hard. He picked up a Golden Apple (one of the lesser treasures here), and took a bite.

[You have consumed a Golden Apple. 2,000 HP restored. 10,000 SP restored. You are now Energized: SP consumption reduced by 50%, gained immunity to certain negative conditions. Duration: 10 min.]

All of a sudden, his whole body came alive, every inch of him thrumming with energy. Gone was the terror and anxiety that had been gripping his heart, replaced by an indescribable sensation of joy and excitement.

"Hot damn, this is amazing! I'm unstoppable!" Delight bloomed in his heart, and he tried out some of the other goods. They all worked.

The Summoning Scrolls seemed functional as well. Just like he'd become accustomed to in the game, he could choose to draw from a specific set, resulting in a more predictable range of results. In this way, he'd be more likely to get Heroes suited to his tactics.

But then, the way summoning sets worked was one of the things that had changed with his new situation: All those sets which had been officially discontinued—such as the Limited Set, the Unity Set, the Legacy Set, and so on—were still available to him here.

In other words, he had access to every Hero ever released in 'Lost Kingdom'—even those phenomenally powerful ones he'd reluctantly passed over during his past life, for the sake of that title he'd been pursuing… with this profusion of Scrolls and Coupons, he could get them now!

But no, he wouldn't do that—the reason being that the Quest and Title systems were still active here, and the 'King of Hoarders' title could still be his, if he could scrape together two million Diamonds. He'd pursued this goal for ten years—he wouldn't abandon it now.

The problem with four-star and five-star Heroes was that, even if you only kept them in Storage and never actually brought them out into the field, they'd still tax you for Diamonds periodically.

Indeed, rather than the act of summoning Heroes, it was the upkeep of those Heroes themselves which cost one the most in this game. This was particularly true of Heroes with high Levels and Rating, who required a commensurately higher tribute of Diamonds. As such, even if you were lucky enough to get them, the real question was whether you'd be able to afford having them around.

With enough Heroes, not even the wealthiest players would be able to afford to hang on to them, because there were limitations on purchasing Diamonds—whether you put eighty thousand bucks into the game, or one million, either sum would nevertheless get you exactly the same amount of Diamonds.

Sounds silly, doesn't it? Don't the game developers want to make money? Are they stupid or something?

Sorry, it's their game, and they can manage it in whatever way suits them. That's just how they roll: They won't let anyone buy too many Diamonds. They'll shut down servers at a moment's notice, without giving players any time to deal with it. What can you do about it?

And so, no matter who you were, every player had to scrounge for resources and hold off on Summoning, if they were to have any hope at all of becoming the 'King of Hoarders'.

It was an impossible task, for anyone…

… anyone, besides Zhang Yun.

Although, considering that the server had already shut down, now… he'd failed at it, too.

"Alright, I'll handle the Diamond drain the same way as before. If I just keep saving up, I'll get there." Leaving the vault in high spirits, Zhang Yun was returned to the beach beside that vast blue ocean.

"So… how am I gonna get those last eighty thousand Diamonds?"

With a chuckle, he opened up the Attendance system. There were rewards for logging in seven days in a row. For some reason, he found himself looking at a picture captioned 'Draconic Trophy'.

Seven days in a row, resetting every week, with a reward of 120 Diamonds for making it to the last day. This could be one viable source of Diamonds.

The Draconic Trophy was a part of the Welcome Bundle for new players, and it granted 30 Diamonds each day you logged into the game, its benefit never expiring. Another promising source.

These two sources of revenue could provide a total of 330 Diamonds weekly, or 17,160 Diamonds annually. That meant he could achieve his goal in four years or so—and that was if you only accounted for the Diamonds gained from being logged into the game.

Factoring a multitude of possible Quests into the equation, as well as uncovering treasure hoards which contained Diamonds, he might well be able to reach the target much sooner—perhaps in two years, give or take.

Of course, much was yet uncertain about the game world. For all he knew, there might be no Diamonds to be found anywhere, nor Quests to be taken on… leaving him entirely reliant on income from Attendance alone.

"In any case, I'll have to look around myself, and find out what's what." Having reached a decision, Zhang Yun began planning a survey expedition, with particular focus on self-defence.

Although his ten years of hoarding meant he had Resurrection Tokens out the wazoo, which of course he could use on himself—it wasn't actually an infinite supply. If he ran out, that would be it. The only real way to get more would be to buy them from a shop, using Diamonds.

On that note, he already expected to be spending Diamonds much faster than he could procure them. If he didn't keep his expenditures in check, he might never ever get to become the King of Hoarders.

For the sake of that precious dream, death was to be avoided if at all possible, lest his Resurrection Tokens run out and he had to start spending Diamonds.

Another thing to consider was that in recent years, players of this game had been dwindling, but any one of the characters might still be in use. If certain Heroes proved useless at certain Quests, even more players might decide to dump the game.

Knowing this, Zhang Yun had long ago developed the habit of holding back whatever he could, and never using anything from his Storage unless absolutely necessary.

"Hee hee hee! Hoarding begets victory! Once I get that 'King of Hoarders' title, along with its unique boon… When that day comes, I'll splurge like no one's ever seen before! I'll go wherever, eat whatever… bwahahahahaha!"