Dynasties Online
Chapter 189: Through Peace, Through War, Both Worlds Continues To Turn.

Chapter 189: Through Peace, Through War, Both Worlds Continues To Turn.

"Despite humans having navigated the globe and it seeming smaller than ever, the world in fact is vast, whether that is in the virtual world or the real one."

"On one side people can live without a care in the world eating from silver platters laden with all sorts of food and delicacies while on the other people starve or die on the battlefield."

"Despite only having less than 1/3 of Earth’s countries, all the countries in Dynasties Online are much bigger, taking months if not years to get from one to another."

"It was why it took me 2 years of in-game time to be able to visit most places in the world, and it was the reason why I endured so long on that damnable sea that made me so sick."

"But one thing is constant because whether it is through peace or war...."

"The world continues to turn."

Reginald Coulan, creator and head of House Aurellion in Dynasties Online.

....

Time continued to flow, but as wars were waged throughout the virtual world, Railius Aurellion and Nathia, for now, remained unaffected and away from its cancerous reach.

By now, nearly 2 years of in-game time has passed, 4 months in real life, though over the last month in real life and 6 months in game since meeting his maternal uncle Arathuk Caskarm, Railius had been very busy.

Shortly after, he met with his maternal uncle in-game, Reginald, the player behind Railius and creator of House Aurellion in Dynasties Online. Finally, he had little choice but to exchange in-game gold for real-life cash.

Though for his current in-game income or at least suspected income 10,000 gold would be a paltry sum as while he has been travelling and so could not properly look at the finances of his noble house and did not know how much Sigismund Security Company his mercenary company makes these days after its rapid expansion he does know how much his overseas trade makes.

And it is a considerable sum at that.

Likely more than all of his other endeavours combined, as there are reasons why eventually even the wealthy landowners and nobility got eclipsed by the merchant class in wealth.

Nearly 1 million gold in profit he had made while traveling with his trading caravan through the world over the last one and a half years, the seaborne routes present both danger and the opportunity for immense profits to merchants, which is why, despite the rampant piracy that happens at sea, especially around the Black Flag Islands so many merchants continue to make the journey all dreaming of vaults full of gleaming golden coins.

10,000 gold is merely 1% of that and enough money in the real world to ensure he could pay off all his student loans.

10,000 gold is equivalent to £100,000 and he even managed to find a buyer for his gold because something happened that was surprising while also not being so and what was better was that they paid for the commission meaning that he got the full £100,000 instead of the £80,000 he would get through trading with the system.

Businesses had also started to invest in the game.

Heavily at that, especially three large powerhouses of their industries, Emart, Felonds Fashionable Goods, and Hiramo Incorporated, each from a different sector of the economy, had begun to sweep up the market for every gold coin they could find or buy, considerably relieving James Larant of pressure.

This is in addition to 100 other businesses who also created dynasties and began to invest in the game, sending the player base into a frenzy with all players now looking to sell their gold to these companies instead of the game system due to the lessened tax burden, which the companies usually paid for them at any rate.

But more importantly, after all of these companies registered one of their products to be sold globally, albeit with a higher commission than you would have to pay at a shop, the diversity of the goods available on Dynasties Online virtual marketplace drastically increased.

From food to cars, toiletries, and all sorts of other goods that used to have only a few options on the online marketplace, thanks to James providing all of his myriad businesses with access to the game for free and at no tax or commission, expanded exponentially with this crucial reluctant investment.

This started to take away one of the last things the internet has that James’ new virtual world did not.

Variety.

Because while the price of a product is essential, as people gain more disposable income, they also look to expand their horizons.

Whether this is going out and exploring new pubs and clubs, or going on an expensive holiday to another country, all manner of things that were once only a dream to them could finally become a reality.

Once the paupers of the world, these people would begin to look not at how much something costs but how nice it is and look for more variety in their diet and food purchases than before.

As such, having a hundred businesses join the game and contribute to the virtual market just when players were starting to gain more disposable income was a massive boon for James Larant and Dynasties Inc. It allowed him to keep customers who may have once done more of their shopping online instead of using James’ virtual marketplace.

It was actually Emart who Reginald made a deal with to sell his 10,000 gold to, and after offering to pay for the 5% commission needed by the system to facilitate such a transaction the gold swiftly changed hands allowing Reginald to pay off his headset and keep the other 95,000 odd pounds for the day after he finished university to pay off his student debt as England has what would be considered a strange system for it compared to the rest of the world.

This would give Lee Smith and the other two who invested heavily in the game early a massive advantage over the other in-game guilds and real-world businesses behind them.

An advantage that would only ever widen in time and rarely shorten.

However, for Railius, what was more important was having the money to get him through the next two and a bit years at university.

While he would not be able to spend wildly without a care in the world, he had more than enough money to live a comfortable life at university, while playing the game, essentially giving him 12 in-game years to build up more assets.

In England, not Scotland or Wales, as they have their own regulations, you can get a loan from the Student Loans company to help fund your university education, this company is a government-backed organisation that gives out student loans to any British citizen who can enter university to gain their first degree.

A maximum of 4 years of tuition and a smaller maintenance loan depending on your family’s household income can be taken out to ensure you can live while studying.

If your family was more affluent, you got less money from the maintenance loan, and if your family is poorer, then you got more from the maintenance loan.

This is also what is referred to as ’good debt’ in England, as you only have to pay a small percentage of your salary each year for repayment, and nothing at all if you don’t ever make it over the threshold and after 30 years all outstanding debt is written off.

This added to the fact that Reginald wanted to laze around and game while he got a degree that led him to go to university more than anything, otherwise he would never have gone to university due to its considerable cost and minimal help in tangible life outcomes.

After all, even people studying business management, like him, will struggle to get a job in the current satuated job market more concerned with someones connections than their compatency, which is why he is focusing far more on the game than on real life and his degree, as it is there where his real future was likely to lie, especially after what happened in the real world where despite having to face pressure from the entirety of the business world.

James Larant was winning.

And winning hard at that.

Reginald rarely misses a lecture, but he is far from the most diligent student in the world, spending almost every other minute not attending a lecture in the game.

Depending on how the game develops, how much money he makes and whether James Larant can turn it into something more permanent, Reginald may drop out of university to play the game more permanently, especially with how profitable it is turning out to be.

It’s just a shame that Reginald had so many expenses in game that it will be many years until he can take out more than 10,000 gold at a time as he had many plans to increase the power and wealth of House Aurellion quickly so that he could survive and thrive in the new virtual world that would become so important in the future.

Especially as now certain businesses were going all in and these are not businesses who are just investing in the game and have a massive gap with the current playerbase, but those that had already joined the game and successfully gone through the Dynasty History System as one of the highest scoring players were in a completely different situation.

Whether it was Lee Smith, Theodore Forlond or Okura Noburu, each of them started the game as a powerful landed noble who passed with flying colours, and one even managed to become a count, a rank a step above what is usually attained even if they were in an empire.

Because during the Dynasty History System, the highest rank of nobility you can conventionally get is either a Baron in the case of a kingdom, one of the lowest ranks in the nobility if you count landed nights as landed nobility or Viscounts if you are in an empire.

Only by doing exceptionally well and choosing an especially challenging Dynasty History would one be able to attain that rank.

After all, the only reason that House Aurellion can even claim to be a former Marquis of the Chavarian Empire is that they were always meant to start as a fallen noble house. There was even a chance to turn that title into a landed count title, however, instead Reginald decided to gain a unique unit and a loyal house of retainers under them who would stay no matter their title.

Reginald chose these rewards because while the title of Marquis can be revoked from them at will by the imperial family, a unique unit and a loyal house of retainers that he could raise to landed nobility themselves could not.

It also helped that the unique unit was the first ever created by a player, and as a reward for this achievement, the Pelican Guards are far more powerful than other unique units regarding their base stats and combat power.

This allowed Reginald to focus on them being loyal while not sacrificing combat power, something that every other unique unit made after would not have, which is why they were able to go toe to toe and even be superior to the Chavarian Imperial Guards despite them being a melee combat-oriented unique unit and not built to be loyal bodyguards.

What Reginald did not know was that only 10 unique units were created by players by the time the Dynasty History System ended and the servers officially opened.

This is because the conditions to unlock a unique unit are very stringent, so out of the nearly 600 million players around the world who went through the Dynasty History System only 10 managed to create a unique unit and most of those got it as a reward for their final Dynasty History event, not their first like Reginald did.

The first condition is that you must be a martial noble, as only a founding noble from a military background will have the experience to create a unique unit for your house by the start of the game.

This is already hard to get as you need to invest just under 100 of your starting points into both the martial house trait and the fallen noble trait, as it will then become the fallen martial house trait, making it cheaper. This also happens to be the most affordable and arguably efficient way to become a martial noble.

It is even more expensive if you want to become a landless or landed martial noble house. So most of these houses start the game with little to no land to their name but with a contingent of some of the best soldiers in the game fully customised to their liking and needs and a training manual allowing them to easily recruit more once they have the resources to do so as most of their CP would be spent on these two traits.

Also, many players are joining the game just for the money and don’t want to have to go to war, and so are more likely to create noble houses based on mercantile and political pursuits, especially as maintaining a well-equipped military is so expensive despite the sense of security it offers you.

Second is that you must win a large-scale battle in the Dynasty History System, and this cannot be a battle that you have an advantage in, so Reginald winning the Battle of Brunag, which was on an open field, outnumbered 2/1, met this requirement.

The third is that they must pick it as an option, and get it as an option in the first place, as only those who do exceptionally well in the Dynasty History System will have the option to create a unique unit.

Most players who got this option instead decided to increase their rank as a noble from either landless to landed or upgrade their landed noble rank by one.

Only a select few players decided to have a unique unit at the start of the game, which is why there are only 10 unique units created by players so far, out of a population of nearly 750 million players, even if 150 million of those joined since the servers started.

Many of these players would become military powerhouses in the future due to these units, and many player-martially inclined landed nobles would later regret not having a powerful, unique unit from the start.

Of course, it is possible to create a unique unit during the game, however, it is much more challenging as it will take years of research and a lot of money to be able to do it, and unlike the ones created by the system for Reginald and the other ten farsighted players, they will have fewer options.

This is because the weapons that the unit has been trained with, how they are taught, and how they are treated outside of the military will all affect what that unique unit becomes.

A good example is the unique unit the Duke of Plantaria made after getting direct help from Aldorus and observing their training practices for years. While soldiers of that unit are far more skilled than regular soldiers, they are no match for the Pelican Guards.

Though, considering that almost no one is a match for the loyal protectors of House Aurellion, they are not the best comparison one could make.

Also, unique units can be upgraded over time or degraded, and as with all military orders or troops in history, they are not guaranteed to stay the best.

This is because while Dynasties Online is a game, it focuses primarily on realism, and so like all elite soldiers from the Chinese Imperial Guards to Praetorian Guards, there is a chance for them to fall to corrupt practices, so unique units need to be carefully managed to prevent such things from occurring and having them lose effectiveness.

So it should always be remembered that even the most prestigious and elite soldiers can fall.

But such considerations were not on Reginald’s mind as he played as his character Railius. Instead, it was on the decision he had to make when he landed with his merchant convoy, which had just managed to navigate through the lands of the Svanski Confedracy, though not without encountering some raiders who thought their merchant convoy was easy pickings.

Which these raiders would soon find out to their cost was anything but true as the Pelican Guards, especially those who had experienced nearly 2 years of fighting raiders, bandits, and pirates, were anything but the green recruits who set off with Railius from Nathia.

So after slaughtering a few small raiding fleets of opportunistic frozen curs, the others soon got the message and allowed them to reach the 3 Dwarven kingdoms that live on the Eastern part of the continent unmolested.

It also provided much needed weapons and chainmail to Railius, who could use it to disguise more people as mercenaries and lower the cost of expansion for his mercenary group, who would no longer need to spend tens of gold on armour and weapons for each of his new soldiers in training.

The problem was that at that time Railius had 1 million gold stuck in hostile waters, an amount which would even attract countries let alone lords to attack and loot his convoy even if his Pelican Guards stayed which they most certainly would not as he would travel by land into The Great Elirian Forest the last part of his journey around the world of Dynasties Online.

Before these poor eastern countries only knew that they were a trading fleet, not how much money they had, but this would all change as soon as they started trading in the Dwarven kingdoms, where these countries had countless spies to report on the wealth held by their merchant fleet.

It was also out of fear for these impoverished Viking-like nations attacking that Railius only docked in a port which did not count cargo or were known as reputable ports by the merchant guild.

So he found a branch of Dominon Holdings in the Kingdom of Costoronia where he landed and after spending 300,000 gold on goods for trade, giving Kaila who would continue to be sailing with the merchant fleet until it could get to Nathia with an extra 50,000 gold for her to spend on protection and any other costs.

Then, after taking out 1000 gold for his own personal use, he put the remaining 649,000 gold into the bank to be placed in his company’s account name, making sure to ensure that both he and Kaila had a means of taking money out of that account, then went traveling through the 3 Dwarven Kingdoms of Costoronia, Thendihr and Norbohr.

After that, Railius then travelled through the Beastman United States before finally setting foot in the Kingdom of Corlond. However, he quickly moved on as the war between Corlond and Dresz was at full throttle with hundreds of thousands of goblins and elves battling each other daily and the forests being filled with the blood of the fallen.

Then, after 2 years in the game, after the game server opened and 4 months after it opened in real life, Railius finally entered the Kingdom of Pelthas and met someone destined to become an intricate part of his life.

Ciradyl Erberos.