Universe Infinite Canteen

Baldy indeed didn't understand why paid labor was more attractive, but he chose to trust Ma Lu.

After all, the dismal online rate of Red Ridge was right there, with no room left to backpedal.

"The profits from operations can all go to you, Boss Ma," Baldy quickly made a decision, "However, I have a condition."

Despite being one to generally keep things straightforward, as was common among those from the Aisagon lineage, Baldy was after all a Demon General from the Abyss, one whose strength was nearing that of a Demon King's level.

As a demon of the Abyss, he was naturally not as simple-minded as his outward appearance suggested; after he saw Ma Lu's need for money, he decisively wanted to leverage that.

Ma Lu wasn't angry, for it was only normal in business negotiations to have back-and-forth demands; it wasn't possible that only he could make requests.

The condition Baldy subsequently proposed wasn't excessive either, just that any potential operational revenue could be considered as a bonus on top of Ma Lu's base salary, and tied to future online player counts in the game.

Simply put, this operational income would be divided into 10 tiers.

If the online player count in the game was below 10, then Ma Lu wouldn't get a dime; for 10 to 50 players, Ma Lu could get 10%.

From 50 to 150 players, Ma Lu could get 20%, and so on and so forth...

To earn 100% of the operational revenue, Ma Lu would need to ensure a daily average online player count of over twenty thousand.

It must be said, Baldy also played a clever game; not only could this motivate Ma Lu to attract more players to Red Ridge,

it also prevented Ma Lu from killing the goose that laid the golden eggs by greedily pushing for high operational revenue, even at the cost of sacrificing player online rates.

This essentially ensured that the interests of both parties were aligned.

Ma Lu had no objection to this, and after discussing some details, they officially signed a cooperation contract.

800 Star Currency wasn't actually that much for Ma Lu now, as Universe Infinite Canteen just had to operate normally, and serving any customer could earn about that amount.

In comparison, what attracted him more was the subsequent operational revenue.

As a server parasite, Ma Lu had ransacked hundreds of large and small games over the years, and while he didn't spend money on games himself, he knew exactly how profitable they could be.

Even if it was just a large local area network game that couldn't leave City B, as long as it was well operated, the income would definitely not be lacking.

After all, City B's permanent population could now match half of South Korea, and what they didn't lack was people with deep pockets.

Of course, Red Ridge, after all, was still an underground game and couldn't market and buy traffic like regular games.

But Ma Lu had his own free traffic portals.

Moreover, while running a restaurant had earned him a fair amount of money, considering the massive New Value needs for equipment upgrades, it wasn't very impressive.

In fact, the frequency of his equipment updates had clearly slowed down recently due to the fact that after Level 6, each upgrade cost tens of thousands, and moving forward, it could even cost up to millions.

Being able to earn money just by speaking up was an opportunity Ma Lu naturally wouldn't refuse, especially since he would play games in his free time anyway.

After finalizing the cooperation contract, Baldy and Ma Lu exchanged contact information, and Ma Lu expressed that he needed to research the game further in order to provide concrete operations and modification suggestions.

Baldy readily agreed, and even gave Ma Lu a game disc and an administrator account.

While it was called an administrator account, it wasn't much different from a regular account, except it came with a prearranged understanding with the "NPCs" in the town, asking them to cooperate.

So, Ma Lu's orders were actually only valid within Red Ridge Town, and if he went to other towns or encountered wild monsters outside, no one would pay him any heed.

But for the early stages of the game, that was already enough, and if Ma Lu really needed to go out, he could ask Baldy to arrange for an expert to serve as his bodyguard.

Alternatively, he could just let himself get killed; after all, if the Skeleton Puppet was gone, it was gone, and he could summon a new one at the Magic Circle.

However, according to Baldy, all the materials and equipment on him, including the backpack itself, would drop upon death.

That was a bit of a life and death matter because for the average player, that backpack alone would require at least 20 days of grinding.

The journey ahead was daunting.

Ma Lu took the CD, the 7000 Star Currency as payment for the meal, and his basic monthly salary of 800 Star Currency, feeling the weight on his shoulders, he planned to go home to play games.

Before leaving, he went to look for Zhen Ye, wanting to take back the CD from before, but unexpectedly, Zhen Ye seemed to enjoy this crappy game quite a bit.

So Ma Lu left the CD behind, which could be considered helping Baldy and the others to boost the online rate a bit, though he wasn't sure how long Zhen Ye's interest would last.

After bidding farewell to the Red Ridge Project Team, Ma Lu went back to his restaurant to pick up Ma Youyou and Old Wang before driving home.

In the three days that followed, he operated his restaurant while playing the game, and in addition to the normal business revenue, he entertained two special groups of customers, earning another 1365 Star Currency.

By now, his total Star Currency on hand had reached 8053, surpassing the amount needed for the final payment.

And today was the day the smuggling ship arrived on Earth; Lao Hei sent him the meeting point at 5 PM, a KTV called King of Singers, with the meeting set for 10 PM.

After closing business and seeing there was still time, Ma Lu played Red Ridge for a while.

He had already visited all the NPCs in the town, and everyone had complaints about having to play NPCs in the game.

The main issue was that they had to repeat the same old canned phrases over and over. Moreover, as NPCs, especially functional NPCs, their range of activities was very limited.

There was an incident where an NPC responsible for healing had gone to visit relatives in the next town and didn't return for three days, resulting in a player who had been cursed slowly bleeding to death.

Seeing that his account was lost, that player never logged on again.

Because of this, Baldy threw a huge fit and demanded that all NPCs must not leave their posts without permission.

So now everyone just toughs it out from morning till night, living the same mechanic life day after day.

The problem is both troublesome and easy to solve. Once there are more players, NPCs can hire players to work.

That way, NPCs are happy, and players who don't want to fight have an additional way to make money.
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Additionally, more functional NPCs could be hired, so if someone has an emergency or needs to close shop for a couple of days, the same disaster won't reoccur.

In short, it's all because Red Ridge Town's development is at an early stage with not enough people to cause such issues.

For now, there's no better solution than to let these NPCs hold the fort for a while.

And today, Ma Lu tried controlling his Skeleton Puppet to take a short stroll outside to research the Upgrade System.

According to Baldy's previous arrangements, players could learn about the Skeleton Soldiers' path of evolution by paying an Old Sorcerer named Heim in the town 10 Abyssal Blood Clams.

In reality, it just meant going to the wild to find higher quality bones to replace the cheap ones on their body, and for this single sentence, Baldy and the others were extorting players for 10 Abyssal Blood Clams.

Ma Lu didn't even bother criticizing them.

This time, he found a Level 1 Ghoul in the wild and tried to fight it alone, but after realizing he couldn't defeat it, he quickly retreated back to town, where the guard at the gate dealt with the Ghoul.