Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat - Chapter 53

Chapter 53: A Surprise Windfall

Back in the VR capsule, Ethan brought his hand to his nose and sniffed. A sweet, floral scent lingered, one that carried a hint of feminine allure.

A grin spread across his face before he finally logged back into the game.

“Loading… Entering the game…”

The progress bar finished, but Ethan’s screen remained black, his vision still adjusting. His thoughts drifted back to the two figures he had gripped earlier, their presence like twin roses swaying in the breeze, delicate, tempting, utterly captivating. The tantalizing feel was enough to incite any man’s desire.

A rapid series of chimes pulled him out of his daze.

“What the—who’s blowing up my inbox like this?”

Ethan opened his inbox and scrolled through the flood of messages. They were all from Skyblade.

The first read: “Boss, where’ve you been? It’s been ten days since you logged in, and you dropped out as soon as you came on earlier!”

The second: “Boss, if you don’t show up soon, we’re all gonna get wiped out.”

And the third: “You’re back? Finally! We’re at coordinates: 32465.59872.6551. Hurry, we need backup!”

Ethan typed back a quick reply: “You guys already left the Starter Zone?”

The message had barely sent when Skyblade’s response popped up almost instantly: “The three of us hit level 15 already. We’ve got over 300 guild members in Harmony City now. Boss, you have to come! We’re getting boxed in by Marcus Skeiner and his crew!”

Hearing that name, Ethan’s expression darkened. Marcus Skeiner, the infamous leader of the Blade Syndicate, Harmony City’s number one guild in his previous life.

Blade Syndicate had its roots in an old MMO game, but whatever respect it once commanded had long since withered.

These days, Blade Syndicate was nothing more than a band of toxic, glory-chasing idiots who thrived on griefing others. By the time they migrated to Ethereal, they were nothing more than a band of troublemakers who thrived on ruining everyone else’s experience. Their signature move? Ganking low-level players en masse and running away the moment the tide turned against them.

If outnumbered, they’d flee without hesitation. If a boss fight required teamwork, they’d scatter like headless flies. They’d exploit bugs, cheat the system, and leave behind a trail of chaos and misery.

Despite their incompetence, they somehow managed to recruit thousands of like-minded trolls into one guild. Ethan could never understand it. One or two dimwits? Sure, that was par for the course. But to gather thousands of them in one place, all with the same abysmal level of skill? That was a feat of collective idiocy unmatched in gaming history.

Ethan vividly remembered his own encounter with them during his past life. It was in the Starter Zone. A Blade Syndicate squad had joined his party for a raid on the Murky Swamp. They spent an entire night trying, and failing to defeat the Ancient Tree King, the dungeon’s most basic boss.

By the time dawn broke, their party leader, in sheer frustration, rage-quit the raid, leaving the rest of them stranded.

The memories were humiliating. Ethan could still hear the leader’s shouts:

“Position to the left! What the hell are you doing spinning in circles?!”

“Hold your ground at the choke point! Why are you hiding behind the healers?!”

“STOP running into the group with an exploding debuff!”

It was less of a raid party and more of a synchronized display of collective idiocy.

And yet, somehow, this clown fiesta persisted.

But Marcus Skeiner wasn’t their only problem. Ethan remembered another guild, Judgment. Initially, they were rivals to Blade Syndicate, but it didn’t take long for them to fold. Judgment quickly devolved into glorified snitches, leaking the coordinates of their own guild players to Blade Syndicate for favors.

Back then, they were infamous for being traitors, mercenaries for hire with no sense of honor. Ethan couldn’t help but smirk as he thought about the nickname they earned: The Backstabbers.

In Ethereal, the reason Blade Syndicate managed to dominate Harmony City as its top guild wasn’t due to skill or strategy, it was because they had numbers. And numbers came from money. Lots of it. The kind of guild full of rich idiots who spent their way to the top.

Ethan had long suspected that Blade Syndicate had backing from some shadowy corporate group. Perhaps even Zachary and his crew. The thought made his jaw tighten as he sprinted toward the coordinates Skyblade had sent him, memories of his past life bubbling to the surface.

“Survivor Faction has to deal with Blade Syndicate here,” he mused. “I wonder if the Carnage Faction has its own version?”

He wouldn’t have known in his past life. Back then, his latter days were spent toiling away in an abandoned mine, and he didn’t even gain the qualification to participate in cross-faction wars.

This time around, Ethan had logged back in right outside Harmony City’s gates, which made his journey to the teleportation hub quick and efficient. Skyblade’s coordinates pointed to a spot near Cogden Village, a small outpost where Ethan vaguely remembered delivering a side quest to a young NPC girl. The village bordered a hunting zone filled with Level 15-20 monsters, perfect for grinding after leaving the Starter Zone.

Just as Ethan arrived at the teleportation hub, a flickering envelope icon above the mailbox nearby caught his eye.

Mail? Who’s sending me mail?

Curiosity piqued, Ethan veered off course and opened the mailbox. To his surprise, the sender was Trusty007.

For a moment, he froze, memories snapping into focus. Right, he had worked out a deal with Trusty before venturing into the Necrotic Domain. Worried that something might go wrong, Ethan had given him a detailed guide for delivering it.

Guess it worked out after all.

Excitement thrummed through Ethan’s veins as he opened the mail.

Ding…

[System Alert: You’ve received 14,256 gold coins.]

“What the—?!” Ethan stared at the number, dumbfounded. That much gold?!

Attached to the mail was a note from Trusty007:

—

“Big Boss, we’ve hit the jackpot! This is the total revenue from selling your guide across 2,000 Starter Zones in the Northern Frontier Region. We sold 7,129 copies in total. One of those was to Skyblade from Renegade Alliance, but I didn’t charge him since, you know, he’s one of yours.

That leaves 7,128 paid copies, bringing in 14,256 gold coins. I’ve also sold guides in other regions where gold couldn’t be transferred, so I converted it to cash and deposited it into your bank account. We sold 3,562 copies there, at the current rate of $1,800 per gold coin. Total cash transfer: $12,823,200.

This is the most profitable deal we’ve ever done! If you’ve got another guide in the works, let me know, there’s already demand for the next copy!”

—

Ethan nearly jumped for joy as he finished reading. Fourteen thousand gold and over 12 million in cash?! If he sold off the gold at market rates, he’d have nearly $40million total in his account! All this from a single dungeon guide for a Starter Zone.

He couldn’t help but smile at Trusty’s enthusiasm. It was clear the guy had made some decent amount himself, though Ethan didn’t bother wondering how much Trusty charged per guide. He had only asked for two gold per copy and wasn’t about to get greedy.

With a spring in his step, Ethan walked onto the teleportation platform and selected Cogden Village as his destination. The cost of one copper for the teleport barely registered, it was a drop in the ocean now.