World Keeper

Chapter 1167: The Value of Money

Initially, the mining speed for the handheld tool was… painfully slow. It took a full minute just to mine out a cubic meter of material, which led to a few of her viewers deciding to speed things up. First, someone donated to create a simple Miner class, which enhanced the efficiency of all mining tools. After that, several people kept donating to have the class improved. Eventually, she was able to mine a cubic meter every three seconds, which made the wait far more bearable to the viewers.

Though, that did bring something else to mind for Lifre. “Hmm, I should probably consider an explanation as to why I had no levels when I crashed here.” She thought aloud, waiting for her portable refiner to smelt all of the material that she had mined.

“Oh! I know!” Lifre beamed. “Let’s say that the system isn’t a personal thing like in the real world. Instead, it’s tied to a device worn by people. So, my system device got scrambled in the crash, forcing me to do a complete reset!” She nodded her head firmly at this explanation, and the chat seemed to accept it as well. After all, if she was in a crashed pod, that implied that she had at least enough skills to be on the crew of a spaceship at one point.

Thankfully, it didn’t take too long for her to get the materials that she needed from the meteor, and she began to dismantle her pod. While this did give her all of the resources necessary to make herself a jetpack, she hadn’t seen any other nearby meteors to actually fly to.

As she was contemplating her next step, her communicator activated, and Hank’s voice rang out in her ears. “Lifre, we’ve spotted a ship heading in your direction in response to the broadcasted alert. Be advised, we’re unsure of the ship’s origins, so they may be hostile.”

Lifre’s eyes lit up at that. “Pirates?!” She asked excitedly, though her voice must have sounded worried over the communicator.

“There’s a chance that’s the case. If you can, try to make a weapon to defend yourself, just in case. You may also want to try to build a shelter to hide from them.” As Hank was speaking, Lifre was already in the process of using some of her leftover materials to make an iron sword. She didn’t have a reliable energy source to make any kind of energy-based weapon, so a sword was really her best bet.

“Got it, Hank! Thanks for the warning. When will they be here?” Lifre asked, and Hank paused for a moment.

“You’ve got five minutes.”

Out of curiosity, I had decided to watch Lifre’s stream, pulling it up in my office. Granted, there were still tons of other streamers on the platform. I was sure that some of them were likely using the same type of content as Lifre, though I doubted whether they would do the same lottery system that she did, given that most people that did this would have turned it into a career.

Either way, when I opened her stream, I found her hiding in a cave. According to the rapidly scrolling chat, there was a pirate ship on their way to her location. Everyone was wondering whether she would try to destroy the ship with nothing but her iron sword, or if she would try to join their ranks.

Given the fact that this was Lifre, I could confidently say that both of those were very viable options. Up at the top of the stream was a countdown for when the pirates would arrive, and it was already down to under a minute. Curious, I decided to try to make a donation as well. I hadn’t tested this system myself, so I wasn’t sure how intense the prices were for it.

When I selected the option to donate, there was a text field for me to enter what modification I would like to make to the stream. I brought a hand up to stroke my chin in thought, before typing in that I wanted to create an Engineer class, and began to fill out bonuses, such as increased machine efficiency and efficiency when disassembling.

By the time I was done, I saw that the minimum price of the donation was one gold coin. There was a note that donating beyond the minimum level would increase the effects of the class. Out of curiosity, I donated a single white gold coin, which was the equivalent of one hundred gold coins.

When given the option to share my identity, I declined, and there was a banner at the top of the chat, announcing my purchase in glowing, white text. At the same time, I heard a voice speaking up over the stream. “Lifre, I’m getting some strange readings from your suit. It looks like some scattered data has come together to create a modified version of the Engineer class. I can’t make out all the specifics from here, but the amount of data involved is considerable.”

“Eh, really?” Lifre’s eyes lit up, and she smiled wide. “Thanks for the update, Hank! Gotta go radio silent for a bit, I’ve got company.” As she said that, she looked out of the cave where she was hiding, seeing a black and red ship appear in the space above her meteor.

As the ship appeared, everyone in the chat was wondering who had spent an entire white gold coin on a new class, and whether that would make Lifre too strong. Honestly, I didn’t consider a white gold to be worth much at all. I had even been considering donating a black gold coin, which is worth ten thousand normal gold coins. However, it seemed like a good thing that I didn’t, if there was already that much excitement over a white gold donation.

Are the prices just that much cheaper than I thought? I couldn’t help but ask myself. Though, at the same time, I hadn’t really been in touch with the economy of the world. I knew that black gold was the highest form of divine currency that Ashley and Ryone had set, but I didn’t know exactly what you could buy with one.

I sent a brief message to Ryone, curious about what the conversion rate would look like compared to my old world. She told me that a single copper coin was the equivalent of a penny, with a silver coin being one dollar. That made a gold coin one hundred dollars… and a white gold coin ten thousand. Okay, when I heard it like that, I could start to understand why a white gold donation was a big deal.

If I had really donated a black gold coin, I would have been donating the equivalent of one million dollars to the stream, all for the purpose of one class. Though, I was now curious to see just how strong this white gold class was.

Lifre took a deep breath, steadying herself as she looked at the ship above. She had already disabled her suit’s beacon and communication devices. Now, she was waiting for the ship to send a shuttle to her asteroid.

As she waited, she opened her suit’s interface, wanting to check out the new class she had just gotten. The first one she saw was her Miner class, which had a deep silver color to its name. However, the second class was white with a thin gold outline. Her eyes widened as she saw that, realizing the value of the donation that had to have gone into it.

Wait wait, if I remember my donation format… a silver class passively benefits me or my equipment. A gold class gives stronger benefits, and some active abilities. A white gold class comes with its own way of using energy like mana or ki. As for black gold, they basically come with their own magic system. But for a white gold engineer… I should be able to control technology with either mana or ki.

She spotted a shuttle descending from the pirate ship, seeing its somewhat damaged exterior. If I follow normal conventions, I should be able to use mana to alter the programming of a device, while ki can physically control it. If I manage to control my spiritual energy well enough, I should even be able to give an item sentience.

These were all guesses, naturally. The exact specifications depended on the request of the one who made the donation. However, it was far more likely that a god was watching her stream, and donated a white gold coin without specifying too deeply.

Lifre’s plans changed when she understood the value of her new class. As soon as the shuttle touched down, she began making her way towards it, making sure to stay behind any rocky protrusions that she could use to block their vision.

Peeking her head out, she saw three men with laser rifles stepping out of the shuttle, locking it behind themselves. Rather than splitting up, they moved as a cohesive group, which would have made it far more difficult for her to ambush them to steal their weapons.

Thankfully, she didn’t need to do that anymore. Instead, she snuck around them, making her way to the shuttle and placing her hand on the control panel. With a small exertion of mana, she saw a green light flash on the panel, the shuttle door opening. Lifre had a devious smile on her face as she entered, walking over to the control panel and sitting down.

The stream’s camera moved to show the exterior of the shuttle as it took off from the asteroid, making its way back towards the ship. Naturally, when the three on the ground noticed this, they began firing frantically towards their own shuttle, trying to shoot it down and get it back. However, it swerved through space, evading the blasts.

Soon, the shuttle began to dock on the pirate ship, with twenty men and women standing outside of it. Their weapons were aimed at the door, ready to shoot whoever emerged. There was a faint hiss as the shuttle door opened, and five of the pirates stepped forward to drag out anyone inside.

However, after a brief search, the five emerged from the shuttle, shaking their heads. “It’s empty, sir.”

“What do you mean, empty?” The leader of the group asked with narrowed eyes. “You expect me to believe that it stole itself?”

“Pretty much.” A voice came back to answer him, though it wasn’t one from the group. The pirate leader’s eyes went wide as he looked around, the voice speaking again over the ship’s speakers. “Sorry, I just needed a bit of a distraction while I commandeered your systems! Really shoddy work, by the way. Now, let’s see… activating all internal defense turrets, resetting the IFF recognition, and for good measure… opening the hangar bay doors.”

As soon as the voice finished speaking, the doors of the hangar began to open, the air being rapidly pulled out. Most of the twenty pirates inside were dragged out by the force of the depressurization, leaving the rest to deal with the turrets that began to emerge from the ceiling.

“...Okay, so to answer my question, a white gold coin can get you quite a lot in a stream.” I said, blinking as I watched Lifre almost effortlessly take control of a pirate ship. Already, there were people talking about pooling funds to nerf her new class, while others were interested to see what Lifre would do with it. Most of the chat was simply looking forward to seeing who would win the lottery at the end of the hour, since that person would be getting quite a hefty sum.

As for me, while I could honestly say that I was tempted to donate a black gold coin, just to see what would happen, I held myself back. There was no reason to cause unnecessary chaos in her stream.