23. Turning Hobby into Job

"The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office." — Robert Frost

Four days after officially joining forces, it was the one-week mark since Harbinger's Call, and Paul and Claire were once again in the slaughterhouse, killing cows with abandon.

"You were right; even the highest-level teams are only in their mid-30s right now."

Hearing her voice, Paul nodded. The two had become friends in the past few days. There wasn't much else to do when killing cows and riding a horse for eight hours daily.

Not long ago, they had refined enough leather to sell to NPCs to buy the basic horse mount and increase their inventory slots from 40 to 60 each. This meant they were each carrying 2500 hides back each trip and getting back in around 5 minutes compared to 20. 

With that and other optimizations, they earned over 15,000 daily hides, matched with the tier 2 passive to increase upgrade material drops when refining. They had begun gaining large amounts of wealth incredibly quickly. 

"I told you, not only do you need more XP, but quests and activities begin getting longer and more complex at higher levels."

In the past few days, Claire had become increasingly content to sit in the gruesome house filled with scenes that would make an average person sick, relishing every hide she farmed. After everything they had spent, they both had over $100,000 worth of materials in their banks. 

With the tier 2 passive, the rate at which Paul was refining legendary materials had averaged around 3-4,000 hides per upgrade material, meaning that on each trip, he would usually get at least one. 

Doing the math, she quickly realized how right he was about having to get this glitch patched before anyone else found it; if he maxed out his tailoring, they would be able to make an absurd amount of money, meaning that others could also do so, tanking the prices. 

From what the two of them could find out, every time he increased the passive level, it would cut the average hides per legendary in half, meaning that when it was maxed, it would take 750-1,000 per legendary material; once that happened, they would be making up to $100,000 a day each.

Looking over at Paul, Claire felt that even though they talked often during their time farming, their conversations were very surface-level, and they quickly became tedious.

"So what do you do in real life? I know that is a taboo question to ask, but we have been sitting here for so long and have nothing to talk about."

Looking over at her momentarily, Paul returned to killing cows while speaking.

"I just graduated college and am trying to make this my job instead of going out to slave away for some company to earn barely enough money to enjoy life."

"Wow, me too! I guess we are both Class of 2120; what a coincidence."

"You do realize that by saying that, it suddenly seems like infinitely less of a coincidence, right?"

"Now that you say something, it does seem that way, huh."

Looking over with a smirk, Claire continued speaking.

"What was your major?"

"Are you trying to steal my personal information or what? My major was business analytics; if I were to guess, I would say you look like an engineer girl."

Coughing lightly.

"I actually majored in meteorology; not much of a demand for that in the workforce, hence why I'm here. It seems like we're both majored in largely obsolete professions." 

"Yeah, my parents wanted me to get a degree because that is what everyone did when they were young; now, someone would need one for a few reasons."

"Yeah, that's what my dad is like too."

After a brief silence, they continued into a personal conversation, which was rare since most people wanted to keep their real and in-game lives separate.

Paul normally wouldn't divulge much personal information, but the first day after meeting her, when he went offline, he remembered who she was from before he came back in time and somewhat understood her situation. 

Holly, who played in Emerald Enclave, was a name many people knew after the one-year anniversary update, when the population exploded. She was the main person in the first shocking scandal that happened in the player base and led to many subsequent incidents. 

Knowing that Paul was pretty much as she presented herself, not hiding anything and a reasonably good person, and knowing what would happen in the future, he found himself feeling sympathy for her.

From getting to know her, he came to the conclusion that this girl should never have become a live streamer; not only was she very shy around strangers, but she seemed soft-spoken and too helpful, not having enough of a backbone and confidence to stand up for herself and survive in a very competitive and cruel environment. 

Most of all, he pitied her. From what he could figure out, she had some complex about earning money, most likely leading to what happened before he came back in time. 

Although they were making lots of money, he was thinking of ways to make much more money, not only because he had a feeling Claire would get more and more obsessed with it, but because he needed much more money for what he wanted to do.

Looking over at her as she happily talked about another game she had played years ago, he suddenly felt that they had become closer by a single conversation.