Monster Economics

Deadmines instance: Level 15-25 required, 5-player normal difficulty instance.

Looking at the light screen in front of me, a line of data naturally appeared.

Upon entering the dungeon, Xiao Yu felt a sense of relaxation. Having played too many monster-based dungeons, he actually became more nervous closer to towns, but he felt safer in this eerie and terrifying cave dungeon. It was quite strange.

"I'm curious, why do you value me so much? You know, I'm just a goblin mini-boss." Xiao Yu asked curiously as they walked deeper into the dungeon.

Dark Rod shook his head. "No, no, no, you're wrong. You're not just a goblin mini-boss, you're a professional player who went from a goblin to a mini-boss in just one week. Plus, you can gather a horde of monsters to attack a village. This kind of ability isn't something ordinary players possess. In fact, what we value isn't your boss status; we, the Defias Brotherhood, have dozens of mini-bosses like you. What we value is your ability."

"But I failed. Although we killed the Archdruid, we were driven out by the adventurers, and our monsters were almost all wiped out. Do you think that counts as ability?"

"Failure, haha, you're too modest. Monsters are destined to be defeated by adventurers, aren't they? That's our fate. If you call this a failure, then there are no successful monsters in this world. However, although we will ultimately fail and be defeated by adventurers, it doesn't mean we can't profit from this failure. You did very well in this matter. Although you lost your Horde, your template leveled up to a mini-boss, you gained a lot of reputation from conquering Nightwhisper Village, and you even escaped alive. You also successfully attracted a lot of attention. From this perspective, your operation tonight was a great success. How can it be considered a failure?"

Xiao Yu wasn't pleased by Rod's flattery, but he did become somewhat interested in Rod himself; the guy seemed to be a sensible person.

So you want me to join you?

Dark Rod nodded. "Yes, I hope you can join our Shadow Dynasty Studio."

So you're saying you really are a game studio? And you have a lot of people in your studio?

"There are probably several dozen core members," Dark Rod said quite frankly.

Xiao Yu asked, "I'm curious, why would your studio join the monster faction? At least so far, it's still easier to make money from adventurer players, right?"

Xiao Yu wasn't just saying that casually. He used to be a 3-skull level boss who created a 40-player difficulty dungeon. Even so, his monthly income was only a few hundred thousand, and that was assuming he didn't get killed by the plot.

After all, monster templates can't directly sell the equipment dropped by killing adventurers; they can only be recycled by the system, and the system's recycling price is extremely low.

Tens of thousands of yuan is a substantial income for him alone, but it's far from enough for a studio. A studio usually has a dozen or twenty people, so if you divide it up, each person would only earn a few thousand yuan. It's not even as good as farming equipment and selling it to adventurer players.

And if someone were to kill you off due to a plot device, you'd lose everything.

Hearing Xiao Yu's question, Dark Rod burst into laughter, "You don't think we run a monster faction just to create a dungeon, kill players, and make some money on equipment, do you? Haven't you heard of the Mirror Dungeon system?"

The so-called mirrored instance is a feature in the game. After a instance is created, the player with the BOSS template can only face the challenge of one adventurer team at a time. However, if the mirrored instance is enabled, the player can face the challenge of multiple adventurer teams simultaneously.

When adventurer teams enter a dungeon, they will enter different mirror worlds. Of course, the bosses in these mirror worlds are no longer controlled by the players, but are controlled by the system with pre-designed tactics.

"But the system's AI is very weak; it can easily be defeated by adventurer teams. Won't you lose money then?"

"Hehe, you seem to know your stuff. That's right, it's hard to make money just by running dungeons. After all, players run dungeons to get gear, not to equip themselves with gear. If they wipe several times and can't clear the dungeon, they probably won't continue if they don't see any hope of clearing it—at least that's true for some transitional dungeons."

"But what if this dungeon is a max-level dungeon? A single piece of top-tier equipment can be worth more than ten pieces of ordinary equipment, so it's definitely worth the investment. Besides dungeons, we have many other ways to make money. For example, as you probably know, ores, herbs, leather, and other materials in the game are basically produced in areas controlled by monsters, right?"

"You mean!" Xiao Yu looked around at the interior of the surrounding mine, and suddenly a flash of understanding appeared in his mind.

If a guild has influence in both adventurer and monster factions, making money together would be incredibly easy, provided, of course, it has control over a monster faction first.

For example, back when he was the Fire Demon Lord, although he was powerful and influential, he only earned a few hundred thousand a month. The real money was not made by him, but by the merchants who sold fire resistance equipment, fire resistance potions, and fire resistance scrolls.

Xiao Yu had considered controlling the upstream and downstream industries, but he couldn't do it alone. However, a studio was different. A studio could open a dungeon while selling guides, equipment, potions, and other items related to that dungeon, since most players still spend money to play the game.

Rod continued, "Leaving aside other things, take that crystal I took out when I entered the dungeon just now. Do you know what it is?"

Xiao Yu said, "It should be the dungeon key, right?"

He knew that some dungeons would have a door deliberately designed to prevent players from entering easily, requiring the use of a special item to open it; this special item was called a dungeon key.

"That's right, this energy crystal is the key to the Deadmines. Adventurers need this to run the dungeon, and it's only dropped by the Defias Envoy in the entire Westfall. The Defias Envoy only respawns once every half hour. Even if an adventurer's guild raids all the Defias Envoys, they can only get one or two keys a day at most."

Xiao Yu asked curiously, "Does that mean most adventurers won't be able to clear this dungeon at all?"

Dark Rod smiled slightly, "Of course not, because there's a Defias black marketeer in Moonbrook in the Westfall who also sells these crystals, though they're not cheap—50 gold coins for one charged crystal, a one-time consumable. By the way, this Defias black marketeer is also one of my men."

(Damn, that's really shady, Xiao Yu thought to himself. This way, he can make a lot of money just by buying dungeon keys. No wonder he said there were no easy ways to make money.)

He knew the nature of adventurer-type players very well: they were reluctant to spend big money but would spend small amounts without batting an eye. If they could spend a little money to get a dungeon key, Xiao Yu believed that most players wouldn't be stingy. After all, it was really not worth spending several hours to farm a dungeon key. It would be better to go to work, earn some money, and then spend a little money to buy one.

Now he believed that the other party could indeed make money. As expected, professionals are professionals. Their money-making ideas were far superior to his own. Xiao Yu thought to himself, "Why didn't I think of arranging a key seller at the door back then?"

Dark Rod shook his head at Xiao Yu's astonishment. "And this is just small change. It's enough to keep the studio running, but not enough for me to invest all my resources and energy. You know, I invested a lot of money to take control of the entire Westfall. What I've earned so far is just breaking even."

This is just a small amount of money!? Xiao Yu thought, what news could be more astonishing than what he had just realized?

He stopped and looked at Rod with a serious expression.

Dark Rod also stopped and asked in a very mysterious tone, "If I knew a way to make you millions in a year, wouldn't this seem like small change compared to that?"