Starting from Zero

"Ah, so you\'re with them?" The old designer came behind us.

"What\'s up? You done the calculations?"

"That\'s right!" He began to read his notebook. "750 paddle chambers, 600 cannon rooms, 400 lounge rooms, 40 double rooms, a large chart house, a combat command center, 16 damage control rooms, 8 modified storage rooms. I need to explain this a bit. Since there are too much space you don\'t use, I decided to merge those storage rooms into 8 bigger cargo holds, to save material. I also put up a temporary prison, you can place up to 200 captives in there. There are also a medical ward, a kitchen, a dining hall, an armory, a strong room and a backup command center. Composite sail cloth, 5 masts, that means 5 main sails and 45 studding sails. We can\'t change the bone\'s shape so I also installed a medium sized ramming horn on it. Don\'t worry you can still put your figurehead. There are also three rotating platforms on the deck bow, for your crystal cannon. Two extra platforms at the back. You can put your cannon wherever you like. The final price is...2.8 million crystal pieces. This may be the most impressive work I\'ve done in my life, so I\'ll even give you a discount. 2.2 million should be enough!"

"2.2 million crystals??" Everyone jumped.

Rose mumbled: "1 million from Ziri, 0.6 from Hawk and Zirai... We still need 600 thousand crystals!"

"Now I know why few guilds have their own ships." Coin said in defeat.

"Uh, excuse me...how big is your ship?" King has been standing there with wide eyes and mouth in the whole process. "The Ocean Might is already a big one and it only cost us 500 thousand. What kind of ship needs 2.2 fucking million? That\'s enough money to build an entire fleet!"

I gave him a serious look. "Quality over quantity. This ship will be more deadly than a fleet."

"That...I agree." King nodded. "But you don\'t have money right?"

"Yeah..." I admitted. "Still 600 thousand to go."

"Figured. It took us months to get 500 thousand for our ship. Is 2.2 million the construction fee or total cost?"

"Construction...huh?" We looked at the old man for explanation.

"It\'s for construction. That\'s what you need to pay for the materials and labor work. You will figure out the rest of the stuff for yourselves. Of course we don\'t provide everything for free."

"You mean, we still need more money even after the ship is built?"

"What do you expect? Our job is only to build the ship itself!" He lifted his fingers one by one. "You need sailors to get your ship moving right? Go to the Sailor Union to hire them. Different people have different prices. The paddlers are usually cheaper, and cannoneers will ask for more. There are also ship doctors, chefs, et cetera et cetera. And yes, you can hire players too. For a warship, you need combat sailors. Either those NPC archers or whoever\'s good at close combat when enemy got on board. Anyway, they all cost money. Go to a blacksmith who sells siege weapons to buy cannons. Powerful ones are more costly. Don\'t forget about supplies. Cannons are just useless junks without powder and ammunition. That figurehead is not free either. It\'s a magical item. Those wizard guilds sell them, and they\'re all different, so you better do more research before buying one. That thing isn\'t cheap and they never refund! Also, you need food. Players don\'t need to eat but NPC sailors do. A starving sailor may even betray you and cause a lot of problems."

"...Anything else?" I feel faint. I\'m afraid we need at least 3 million to settle everything now.

"That\'s all, for now."

"Well...!" Rose hesitated. "We don\'t have enough fund now, can we pay the money later?"

The designer\'s face immediately turned dark. "No. The project has already started. The money will be charged off you by the system. Get enough money before the end of the project or we\'ll sell the ship to someone else."

"How long will the project take?"

He lifted a finger.

"A month? Phew, we still have enough time." I signed in relief.

But the old man shook his head.

"...A year? The nation war would have ended by then!"

"It\'s a day! No matter what you ordered, we always deliver it the next day! You can pick up your ship tomorrow afternoon!"

"What?? Just one day? We\'re never going to make it!" I yelled. I know the game setup is meant to make it easier for players, but now it\'s a serious trouble for us!

"Can you please give us some more days?" I tried to leverage my Charisma again.

...And it worked!

"I can make the discount bigger...if you make your ship a most famous war machine in the world and help me make some advertisements."

"How do we do it? And, how much can we save from it?"

"First, you must engrave the name of our boatyard onto the ship\'s hull. That should produce enough advertisement effect. Then you are going to take down enough enemy vessels whose total value goes beyond the manufacture cost of your own ship, within a week. Should you fail, we will confiscate your ship AND ask for extra penalty payment. What do you say?"

"We can. But how much exactly does that give us?"

"How much money do you have?"

"1.6 million crystals."

"Then the payment shall be reduced to 1.6 million crystals."

"Oh! Thank you very much sir!" I could almost kiss him. We can spend 1.6 million for a ship tagged 2.8 million! Lottery of the month!

The designer interrupted my joy. "Not yet. Remember you still need to hire sailors? Your ship\'s not going to pilot itself you know."

"We\'ll get on to it!" I turned to King. "Can you tell me where the Sailor Union is?"

"Yeah, I\'m going there anywhere. We lost a good number of sailors in that fight. Follow me!"

"Right behind you."

The designer stopped me again before we can leave. "Tell me the name of your ship!"

"Bi-Lin!"

---------------------

We followed King Conqueror across half of the city district area before we saw a house with several life buoys hanging around the wall. "Sailor Union" is written on the door sign. He gave us a direction before going off somewhere for his own business.

Following the direction, we came to the room at the end of the hallway. A small reception room stays behind the broken wooden door, with another old man sitting behind the desk.

I stepped in front again. Charisma bonus. "Good day, we need to hire sailors, can you tell us the procedure?"

"There are no procedures, it\'s simple." He replied politely. "Tell me the name, type of the ship, captain name, captain level, types and number of sailors you\'re looking for."

"The ship is under construction until the next day. It\'s called \'Bi-Lin\'. What do you mean type?"

"Is it a battleship or fishing boat? Or a tour yacht?"

"Battleship!"

"Captain?"

I looked towards the others for confirmation.

"Ziri." Hawk didn\'t hesitate.

"Ziri it is. Alright. Your level?"

"339."

"Sailor types? And how many for each?"

"3000 paddlers, 1800 cannon duty, 300 sail operators, 200 support. And a team of essential crew like doctors and cooks. I don\'t know about the combat sailors, can you introduce them?"

"Not many choices. There are lightweight choppers, heavy swordsmen, archer adaptive at short range, long range or those who use fire arrows. There are also mage squads. Water, fire, wind, lightening, four types of them. Okay, which one?"

"What\'s the price?"

"Do you buy or rent people?"

"Buy."

"50 crystal for paddler and support crew, 100 for cannoneer, 150 for sailman, 10000 for everyone else including doctors, chefs, maintenance and such. Chopper is 200 crystals, swordsman 500, close range archers 200, long range ones 400, and fire arrow archers 500. Mages are all 1000 crystals regardless of their type."

Rose gave me a nudge. "Hey, the basic sailors already cost near 400 thousand crystals. With our lounge rooms we can still hire 2700 combat ones, but we don\'t have enough money for even the cheapest!"

I spoke to the NPC, apologetically: "Excuse me, we need to talk about it a little."

Then I quickly dragged everyone outside.

"This is too much!"

"But it\'s reasonable. These are meant for guilds, not individual players like us." Coin commented.

"Yeah. We should create a guild too!" Zirai suggested.

Yuri: "Oh, Ziri already created one, and miss Rose is the only member. We can join them."

"You have a guild??" Zirai just noticed that badge on me. "Perfect. I\'m in!"

"You sure? I\'m not really serious about it. You probably won\'t enjoy anything in my guild." I explained.

"No biggie. We never wanted to join any guild anyway, now this can help us stay together. We don\'t have to regroup every time people get online from now on!" Zirai seems insisted on staying with me.

"Alright alright, if you all agree."

They did. I invited everyone. So now I can consider myself as the leader of a "big" guild (12 people, including myself). Must admit, this feels pretty exciting.

"What do we do now?" I asked them. "That\'s a lot of red ink we have here."

"Let\'s...go ask about the price for cannons and figurehead too." Elfy suggested. "At least we can learn about how much to work for."

"Let\'s do it!"

We asked our way towards the siege weapon shop. I don\'t know what the shopkeeper is thinking by placing his business at the edge of the city wall! The shop is more like a factory. Semi-finished cannons and similar weapons lie everywhere on the ground. After some more asking, we came to the chief blacksmith who\'s standing in front of a giant furnace.

"Hello, we want to buy cannons for our battleship. Can you tell us their types and cost?"

His upper body is bare, with glimmering sweat drops all over him in front of the furnace fire. His voice is also deep and hoarse like a typical experienced metal worker.

"Come."

He took us to a wall where a line of different cannons are stationed. "This is the cheapest one, the [Bare Shot], 2 kilos reach, 2 shots a minute, poor power and easy to bust."

"Bust?"

"The ball explodes in the barrel before it goes out!"

"Oh. Continue please!"

"Bare Shot is a thousand crystals each. This is [Plain Cannon], 2.5 kilos, 3 shots a minute, medium power, 1.2 thousand. [Heavy Cannon], 3 kilos, 4 shots, big power, big kick, 1.5 thousand. [Chain Cannon], 3 kilos, 6 shots, same power as heavy, 1.8 thousand. The last one is [Bastion Cannon], breech loading, 4 kilos, 6 shots per minute, more powerful than the rest, 3 thousand for each. That\'s all. Take it slow, give me a call if you decided."

The blacksmith returned to his post, and we also left the place quickly. Rose is displaying her economy talent again. "Suppose we want maximum power and go for the Bastion Cannon, we need 1.8 million to fill all 600 cannons slots."

"Holy shrimps. This is going to be more money than the ship itself!" I can\'t take it anymore! "I need money damnit!" I prayed, no, I shouted to the sky.

"How much?" A voice both familiar and strange made me jump.

"Is that...? Shadow Gale!" I soon recognized the rich guy who bought all my companion eggs the last time! "But why are you here?"

"My branch told me the Japanese pirates have been hitting them hard lately so I came to check."

The hair on my neck stood up. This man is Red Moon\'s big brother, which means...

"THERE YOU ARE!!"

Oh shit there she is!!

"When I log on again I never found you. I got you this time!!"

"Eh, heh heh heh!" I tried to keep my smile as sane as possible. "So, why did you came too?"

"The establishment of Goddess Alliance here is also attacked. The problem is, why are YOU here?"

She didn\'t change in one bit!

"We\'re here the fight the pirates."

"Oh good, we can do it together!" Gale smiled. "You didn\'t happen to ask the sky for money because you can\'t afford a ship, did you?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"You tried to collect a million by selling eggs the last time. A ship at least cost several hundreds of thousands of crystals, maybe a million, if you equip it full. Say, how much do you need? I\'ll lend it to you."

That\'s the leader of the number one guild in entire China!

But Red Moon stopped him. "Wait, use my money."

Huh? Since when did she become so kind?

But her following words proved me wrong.

"Ziri? You\'re in debt of ME from now on. Better obey my orders! If you can\'t pay me back, use yourself as compensation! And no, I won\'t mind!"

She\'s trying to buy me off! This is a game anyway. She probably won\'t say that if she knows my real identity.

"Hey Gale, I\'ll borrow the money, cause I really needed it right now. I promise I\'ll return it fast!"

He just smile. "Oh don\'t worry too much. I was hoping you don\'t return the money at all."

"Huh?" I jumped again. Is he trying to do the same thing??

"Those eggs, the management team in my guild almost started a fight among themselves. You can help us find more if you have the time for it. That will be more important than money!"

So that\'s what he meant. I thought he has some...special fetish!

"No problem. I\'ll keep that on my list!"

"Good! Okay, how much you asking?"

I looked at Rose and she instantly caught my idea.

"4 million!"

She isn\'t raising the profit this time. Those cannons cost 1.8 million, and 2.2 million considering the basic crew. The combat sailors will make it 3.5 million. And we never know how much for the figurehead yet! One thing\'s for sure, magical items are all crazily expensive!

"That\'s...a lot of money." Gale has enough to spare but he\'s still not expecting such a number. "Sorry but, how many ships are you buying?"

"One!" I chuckled nervously when Gale\'s jaw dropped open. "Well, you see, it\'s kinda, big."

"Big?? I have my own fleet you know. You lack 4 million crystals, so your ship cost you at least 5 million?"

"Correct. 1.6 for construction, the 4 million is for buying all the equipment."

"You only spent 1.6 million to build something that will need 4 million to gear up?" He took out a handbook of his own. "I already ordered the largest ship around here, it cost 1.8 million, and we never needed so much money for the extra setup."

Rose explained for me: "Our ship is an exception order. The boatyard agreed to make a super large ship for us thanks to his Charisma bonus. The original construction fee was 2.8 million, but they asked 1.6 million if we can do something they proposed."

"Oh shit. So you spent a total of, 6.8 million crystals, just for one ship? When does it come out? I\'m so going to see this biggest warship in Chinese history."

"Tomorrow noon if you\'re interested. Let\'s see her launch together. You invested after all."

" \'Kay, here\'s the money. Now I need to go see my guild so I\'ll be leaving." Gale walked away, dragging Red Moon with him. Oh thank god! I don\'t want that woman to be any close to me!

We went to the blacksmith to order cannons and paid the Sailor Union for our necessary crew.

"What about the combat sailors?" I asked Hawk and the others.

Elfy spoke: "We should bring more melee ones. We already have strong firepower, those wizards and archers won\'t help too much. If anyone can get close to us despite our cannon fire, we\'ll need melee warriors to stop them."

Rose said to me: "Let\'s make it 2000 heavy swordsmen, 500 fire archers, 50 for each type of mage. That\'s 2700 of them."

"Let\'s do it!" I gave the number to the old clerk. Another 1.3 million gone. Manning the ship nearly cost us 1.7 million! Together with the cannon orders, we threw away 3.5 million crystals within half an hour! Ouch, how money flies.

We came to the wizard guild with our remaining 500 thousand. The place looks like those city districts in the 60s, there are several towers, with a small piazza in the center.

"Dark Wizard Guild, Chaos Mage Guild, Fire Mage Guild, Water, Light, Support, Spirit, Necromancer\'s Hall, Chanter of Life, ..." Big Pot read through each of the signs. "Bugger. There are like 70 of them!"

"What should we do? That\'s too many." Elfy held her forehead.

"Let\'s split up." I suggested. "Each one of us take care of some of them and note down anything you think may be useful, then let\'s gather here and discuss it over."

"Got that. Let\'s go!" We went separate ways. My targets are the seven buildings in the middle.

The good part is the buildings are not complex. At least the ones I\'m looking at. They all have pretty interesting stuff.

Three of them went onto my list in the end: the Archdemon Figurehead from the Dark Wizard Guild, the Ifrit Figurehead from the Fire Mage Guild, and the Seraph Figurehead from the Light Mage Guild. They have their own functions and have similar prices.

The Seraph one is the most expensive with a price of 510 thousand crystals. It sells good, too. I wonder if that\'s because its stunning feminine appearance. The demon one is the most unpopular. 470 thousand. Even gods and deities have to follow the market, I guess.

It\'s turning dark when we gathered up. We still have too many choices:

Archdemon: Greatly enhances close combat power for everyone on the ship.

Ifrit: Prevents fire and increases cannon power.

Seraph: Greatly improves HP regeneration and debuff recovery speed for everyone.

Iron Hammer: Greatly improves ship\'s defense.

Skeleton: Panic enemies and cause them to mess up their actions.

Half Moon: Makes the ship translucent and hard to hit.

Virgin: Greatly increases crew moral, making them act and load cannons faster.

Shinryuu: Greatly improves long-range firepower and ship sturdiness.

Shark: Greatly increases sail speed and helps ship stay afloat in bad situations.

Aeolus: Creates an everlasting tailwind around the ship.

… ...

We didn\'t reach an conclusion after some heated discussion, so we removed the choices we can\'t afford (Seraph and Virgin), and those not very cost-efficient. Now we need to choose one from Archdemon, Skeleton, Half Moon or Dragon.

Since we still can\'t agree on the same choice, we used the dumbest but most effective way to make the decision.