By the time the second mini-sale ended, Ren had cleared out everything he wanted to move—and all of it for coins, not credits.

  He hadn’t transferred anything yet.

  No way was he cashing out this early.

  Coins were still more useful inside the game than credits outside.

  Besides, he was still riding the auction house, still buying reagents, and still preparing for the real money-makers down the line.

  He tucked the growing pile of silver and copper away into his inventory with a satisfied smirk.

  Ren had earned another 90 silver total from that 6-hour batch.

  If Ren was looking at straight numbers—and he wasn’t—then yeah, 90 silver was laughable. Barely a dent in the 30 gold he’d already torched on reagents. By the math alone, he was losing. But that’s the thing: Ren wasn’t playing Towerbound like a merchant trying to stay solvent. He was playing like a future tycoon loading up on stocks before anyone else even knew there was a market.

  His reagent stockpile had grown so massive that he’d had to unlock another warehouse slot—cringing at the fee but knowing it was necessary. Alchemical ingredients of every tier, color, rarity, and disturbing side effect were now sitting safely under lock and key, waiting to be turned into currency. Into power.

  The rest of the dorm? They had no clue. They probably thought he still had a gold or two tucked away somewhere, sipping mana tea and humming over bubbling beakers.

  Nope.

  Ren was broke.

  Poor, poor, poor.

  The kind of broke where you skip vendor meals and pray your staff doesn’t break because you definitely can’t afford repairs. But that was how it worked—both in Towerbound and in real life. You didn’t win by being comfortable. You won by pushing while everyone else was still scrambling.

  People like Kanuka’s workmates might laugh, but they didn’t understand investment. They didn’t see the storm brewing.

  Ren did.

  He knew that the window was closing. That soon, every guild, every crafter, every auction-flipping parasite was going to figure out how valuable reagents were. Prices would spike. Demand would explode.

  And when that happened? He’d be ready.

  The black market boys were left grumbling, stuck holding overpriced potions nobody wanted anymore.

  ‘Maybe next time,’ Ren thought smugly, ‘they’ll think twice before trying to gouge people.’

  Step one of his empire?

  Still going even better than he could have dreamed.

  And he was just getting started.

  —

  The reason Ren hadn’t exchanged his coins into credits yet was simple: he knew what was coming.

  It wasn’t because the Tower had appeared yet.

  It wasn’t because monsters had come to Earth.

  No, the truth was way more boring—and way scarier.

  In Ren’s first life, the banks had pulled out of Towerbound’s exchange system months before the first signs of the Tower ever showed up.

  And they didn’t do it because of some moral panic.

  They did it because of pure greed and fear.

  Towerbound had exploded into a financial monster.

  Real-world credits could buy in-game coins.

  In-game coins could be exchanged back for real-world credits.

  It had been a dream for players.

  And a disaster brewing for banks.

  Anonymous transactions, shady laundering schemes, virtual currencies bouncing through dummy corporations across the globe.

  It didn’t take long before governments started poking around and regulators started sharpening their knives.

  The banks weren’t about to wait for the hammer to fall.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  So at the six-month mark, without warning, they pulled the plug.

  No more coin-to-credit exchanges.

  Officially, it was about “protecting financial integrity.”

  Unofficially, they’d already made their money and didn’t want to get caught holding the bag.

  After that?

  If you wanted credits, you had to go through the black market.

  And the rates doubled, then tripled, practically overnight.

  Coins became way more valuable than credits.

  Ren remembered the panic.

  He remembered the desperate players who had cashed out early, thinking they were smart—only to realize later they’d crippled themselves.

  He wasn’t going to make that mistake.

  Every coin he hoarded now would be worth twice—maybe three times—as much six months down the road.

  That’s why he hadn’t changed anything yet.

  He had an agreement with the Scrap Rats: after one month, everyone could take some of their earnings in credits if they wanted.

  Ren had already budgeted for that.

  But for everything else?

  He was hoarding like a dragon on a gold pile.

  Because when the coin blockage showed up—and it would—he wasn’t going to be caught broke and desperate again.

  He was going to be ready.

  —

  Ren needed a break.

  It wasn’t an action-packed shift, but six hours of potion brewing had again taken a toll on his mental state. Stir, bottle, seal, repeat—over and over, with no explosions or flashy spell effects to liven it up. Just hard work, focused effort, and that constant pressure to make sure every brew counted.

  He passed his helmet to Cameron with a glazed look in his eyes.

  “Have fun, bro,” he slurred, then faceplanted onto his creaky mattress and passed out like a man who had been hit with a double sleep debuff and a weighted blanket spell.

  The rest of the dorm didn’t say a word.

  They’d seen him grinding. They might not have known how much he’d made, but everyone could see the work he was putting in. Hours of alchemy. Auction house runs. Setting things up so they could all benefit. Making sure, day by day, that when the first payday rolled around, there’d actually be something to show for it.

  And getting paid? That meant everything.

  Because right now, Towerbound was still just hope. The kind of fragile, flickering hope that lived in quiet dreams and late-night talks. Nobody had cashed out yet. Nobody had seen the coins hit their real-world balance. Not yet.

  But they could feel it coming.

  And when that happened—when those first credits landed in their hands—it wouldn’t be hope anymore.

  It would be a full-on raging horse galloping through their hearts and minds. A stampede of belief, charging straight through doubt and poverty and tired days working dead-end jobs.

  Cameron grabbed the helmet, ready to take his first shift.

  He knew there was already a pickup group called the Scrap Rats in-game. And now it was his turn to join them.

  ***

  After a solid four-hour nap, Ren woke up with that weird burst of energy that only comes from collapsing mid-thought and waking up in a puddle of your own drool. He blinked at the cracked ceiling, stretched like an old cat, and let out a sigh that could’ve been mistaken for the death rattle of a retired NPC.

  Four hours wasn’t a full recharge, sure—but for Ren, it was enough to slap his mental health back into place like a duct-taped healing spell. The real kicker? He didn’t have to do anything for the next two hours. No shift. No game time. No brewing. It was the closest thing to a vacation he’d had since Towerbound launched.

  So, he lived like a proper dorm rat.

  Instant noodles? Absolutely. He even upgraded to the fancy kind with actual vegetable flakes—like someone had waved a carrot vaguely near it during production.

  He watched bad TV—mostly dubbed cooking shows from regions that didn’t exist.

  He swept the Auction House out of habit, flicking through listings with a greedy gleam in his eye like some kind of broke fantasy stockbroker.

  And of course, he dished out unsolicited advice to whoever was in earshot.

  “Don’t waste silver on that skill book. It’s trash,” he muttered, spooning salty broth into his mouth. “Also, skip the wolf side quest. The alpha respawns weird. You’ll just die.”

  It was alright.

  He didn’t mind doing it. Hell, it made him feel a little like the cool uncle in a VR sitcom. But deep down, he knew what he really wanted to be doing.

  Sipping wine.

  Eating fancy cheeses.

  Not the plasticky cheese product that came in a wrinkled packet and barely qualified as dairy—no, real cheese. Imported, overpriced, and pretentious. Brie. Camembert. Stuff that made you feel like royalty and gave you digestive problems if you weren’t ready.

  In his first life, he’d almost made it there. A steady guild salary. Alchemy gigs. Mid-tier comfort. Sure, it had all ended with him being sacrificed like a chicken at a cultist picnic—but for a while, he’d had a real taste of the good life.

  Now? Back in the slums, even dreaming about cheese felt like a luxury. At best, he could probably afford something labeled “cheez-like.” Maybe spreadable. Maybe not.

  He stared at his noodles, shrugged, and slurped them anyway.

  ‘Someday,’ he thought. ‘I’ll be rich enough to sneeze at lactose intolerance again.’

  ***

  Ren grabbed one of the helmets, gave it a long sigh, and pulled out the shared cleaning rag from the hook beside the shelf. It smelled like antiseptic, sweat, and bad decisions, but he wasn’t about to slot a crusty helmet onto his head. Not after what happened last time. He scrubbed it clean—forehead, visor, ear pads—especially that one weird spot that looked like someone had coughed a noodle onto it and never confessed.

  Only once it passed the sniff test did he nod in approval.

  He didn’t even look to see who was grabbing the second helmet. He didn’t care. Everyone had their orders. Grinding, leveling, figuring out their second profession. Herbalists were told to gather, crafters were told to craft, and everyone else was told not to be an idiot. He’d made it clear.

  Taped right above the helmets was a torn piece of cardboard with his messy writing:

  GRIND. LEVEL. PICK SECOND PROFESSION. HERBALISTS—GATHER HERBS. DON’T BE DUMB.

  Underneath that, even more scrawled, in a different color marker:

  WHO WANTS TO BE GUILD LEADER (NOT REN)

  WRITE YOUR NAME HERE:__________

  Still blank. No surprise.

  None of the Scrap Rats wanted to be in charge. They were just a bunch of slum kids playing Towerbound to escape their lives, not win tournaments. Nobody had experience. Nobody had played VRMMOs professionally. This wasn’t the Prosperous Guild, with corporate backers and guild managers and raid planners with six-figure salaries.

  This was the opposite of that.

  If the Scrap Rats were a professional league team, they wouldn’t be qualifying for Super Bowls, World Championships, or even their local slum district’s dodgeball finals. They’d be lucky if anyone even knew they existed. They weren’t even ranked yet.

  Yeah, Towerbound was technically brand new. Technically everyone started on equal footing.

  But everybody in the world knew that was bullshit.

  The big guilds had already started sprinting. They had money, gear, networks, and full-time players. The Scrap Rats had two helmets, some hope, and Ren’s fraying patience.

  But that was fine.

  He shoved the clean helmet on his head.

  ***