GLOBAL AWAKENING: My 10,000x Exp Multiplier-Chapter 41: [] Mass-Producing Gold Rank, A New Hierarchy
The White City was a massive digital structure. It was a ten block sanctuary of pristine marble and clean air standing in absolute defiance of the apocalyptic storm raging outside its borders. Inside the glowing dome of the Chronos Hourglass, nearly five thousand refugees had gathered.
They filled the plazas and the transformed commercial buildings, a chaotic mix of terrified real world civilians and low level players who had barely survived the initial wave of the Convergence.
Vahn Ryker stood on the elevated balcony of the Sovereign Bank and looked down at the sprawling crowd. His Verdant Chronos Sight mapped the logistical flow of the sanctuary. Aria was tirelessly moving through the masses. Her Crimson Lotus Vestments glowed as she dispensed healing magic and cured the lingering effects of abyssal radiation.
Hana was organizing food distribution, leveraging her natural charm to keep the panicked civilians calm.
It was a highly efficient system. But human nature was an incredibly stubborn variable, and Vahn knew the peace would not last.
"Commander." Sia Vance stepped onto the balcony. Her heavy boots clicked sharply against the marble. She had not unequipped her massive obsidian shield, and she carried it with the casual ease of a veteran soldier. "We have a localized disturbance in Sector Four. A faction is attempting to establish an unauthorized hierarchy."
"Details." Vahn requested without turning away from the railing.
"It is a remnant squad from the Silver Fang Guild." Sia reported, her silver grey eyes narrowing in disgust. "Approximately thirty players. They survived the initial city collapse because they possess mid tier Silver and Gold rank gear. They have barricaded the primary supply depot and are refusing to distribute medical rations to the civilians unless they are paid in real world currency or servitude."
Vahn let out a soft and profoundly weary sigh. The world was literally ending. The sky outside the dome was bleeding corrupted data, and the elite class was still trying to play capitalism. It was a staggering display of cognitive dissonance.
If dealing with the Convergence were as simple as just fighting monsters, then humanity would have reclaimed the entire planet long ago. But unfortunately, the situation was far more complicated and terrifying than that. These elites actually grew stronger and bolder just by hoarding resources!
"They view their equipment as leverage." Vahn observed calmly. "They believe that because they have better stats, the rules of the old world still apply."
"Requesting permission to break their line." Sia stated, her hand drifting to the hilt of her secondary blade. "I can shatter their vanguard in under twenty seconds."
"Unnecessary, Sia. Violence against humans within the sanctuary is statistically wasteful." Vahn smiled with a cold and calculating expression that promised absolute ruin. "If their authority is derived entirely from their shiny toys, we simply devalue their currency."
Vahn turned from the balcony, walking back into the bank’s grand lobby and heading straight for the massive reinforced vault doors.
"Gather every piece of scrap metal, rusted sword, and broken shield the refugees brought with them. Pile it in the center of the main plaza. I will handle the elites."
Ten minutes later, the central plaza of the White City was incredibly tense.
The Silver Fang Guild had formed a heavy shield wall in front of the supply depot. Their leader, a broad shouldered man named Kaelen, stood at the front. His Gold tier broadsword rested lazily on his shoulder. His armor gleamed with a faint and artificial holy light. He was currently sneering at a group of desperate and unarmored players holding rusty iron daggers.
"I do not care if you are starving!" Kaelen barked, his voice echoing across the plaza. "We secured this building. We have the power to hold it. If the monsters break through that dome, we are the only ones who can fight them. So, the high level players eat first. That is the law of the Spire, and it is the law here. If you want a potion, you scrub my boots or you pay the toll!"
Instantly, the plaza erupted into a series of murmurs as the low level players discussed amongst themselves in despair.
"You are running this wrong," a calm and flat voice interrupted.
The crowd parted instantly. Vahn Ryker walked into the plaza, his hands casually tucked into the pockets of his cheap brown academy jacket. He looked entirely unremarkable. He looked like a commoner without a single piece of glowing armor. But the sheer and unapologetic confidence in his stride made Kaelen falter for a fraction of a second.
Behind Vahn, Sia Vance marched forward, dragging a massive hover cart filled to the brim with literal garbage. Rusted iron swords, dented copper bucklers, and bent spears. The collective trash of five thousand beginner players. Not just the ordinary ones, they were the heavy ones. Even she had to drop the cart in the center of the plaza with a deafening metallic crash.
"Who the hell are you?" Kaelen demanded, pointing his Gold tier broadsword at Vahn’s chest. "Are you the idiot who set up this dome? Listen here, peasant. You might have found a lucky artifact, but you do not have the manpower to run this place. Hand over the control permissions to the Silver Fangs, and we might let you join our logistics team."
Vahn did not even blink. He did not look at the sword pointed at him. He looked at the mountain of rusted scrap metal on the ground. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞
"You base your entire worldview on the scarcity of power." Vahn said softly, his voice carrying effortlessly over the dead silent plaza. "You think you are kings because you spent thousands of real world credits to acquire Gold rank gear. You think it makes you special."
Vahn pulled his hands from his pockets. His deep purple eyes flared with a brilliant and blinding azure light. The Verdant Chronos Sight engaged, projecting the underlying geometric wireframes of the entire plaza into his vision. He did not draw a weapon. He tapped into the colossal reservoir of forty five million experience points he had siphoned from the Mythic Drake.
"System." Vahn commanded, his voice dropping into the terrifying absolute resonance of the Architect. "Access the EXP Converter. Target, Mass Inventory of Tier 0 Equipment. Initiate structural synthesis. Override all material limitations."
[System Ability]
↳ Access: EXP Converter
[System Resources]
↳ Target: Mass Inventory of Tier 0 Equipment
↳ Action: Initiate structural synthesis
"Allocate ten million experience points." Vahn dictated, entirely ignoring the shocked gasps of the elite players. "Force a hyper condensed physical evolution. Set output parameters to Gold Tier. Execute."
The plaza erupted.
A blinding and cataclysmic tornado of golden light consumed the mountain of scrap metal. The sheer volume of raw data being forced into the physical world made the air pressure drop violently. Kaelen and his elite vanguard were forced to cover their eyes, stumbling backward as the heat of the conversion process washed over them.
Vahn stood perfectly still in the center of the storm, his hands moving with the fluid precision of a maestro conducting an orchestra. He was aggressively breaking down the atomic structure of the rusted iron, rewriting the code, and injecting pure unadulterated experience points into the molecular gaps.
The golden light shattered like glass, raining harmless blue pixels over the crowd.
The mountain of trash was gone. In its place lay thousands of pristine and beautifully forged weapons and shields. Broadswords hummed with trapped elemental lightning. Kite shields radiated kinetic absorption fields. Staves pulsed with deep and restorative mana. Every single item in the pile was flawless and top of the line Gold rank gear. It was an armory that would have taken a major corporate guild three years and billions of credits to assemble. Vahn had built it in ten seconds.
The silence in the plaza was absolute. Nobody breathed.
The jaws of everyone in the plaza dropped as they stared at Vahn as though he had run mad! The civilians could not believe they would actually get to see an actual Gold tier weapon without entering a high level dungeon.
Vahn casually picked up a newly forged Gold tier longsword from the pile. He examined the edge, entirely unimpressed, and tossed it to a terrified low level civilian standing nearby. The man caught it, his eyes bulging as the massive stat boosts instantly registered on his interface.
"The old world is dead, Kaelen." Vahn said, turning his cold and glowing eyes back to the elite Guild Leader. "Your grip on this place is gone. What you called luxury is now just the starting point for everyone else."
Kaelen’s jaw hung open. His Gold tier sword suddenly felt entirely insignificant in his hands. He looked at the thousands of civilians, all of whom were slowly realizing that the man in the brown jacket had just given them the power to overthrow their oppressors.
"You... you cannot do this!" Kaelen stammered, his arrogance completely shattered. "You just ruined the entire economy! You crashed the market!"
"I do not care about your market." Vahn replied simply. He turned his back on the elites, addressing the massive crowd. "Arm yourselves. Protect the perimeter. Anyone who attempts to hoard resources or harm another survivor will be permanently evicted from the safe zone."
This time, the civilians could not hold it in and immediately burst out cheering, in disbelief, awe, and amusement. Civilians and low level players rushed forward, claiming the legendary weapons. The Silver Fang elites did not say a word. They slowly lowered their weapons, vastly outnumbered and entirely outclassed.
Sia Vance stepped up beside Vahn, a rare and highly satisfied smirk on her face. "A masterful tactical maneuver, Commander. You dismantled their hierarchy without spilling a single drop of blood."
"It was never that complicated, Sia." Vahn smiled, the azure glow fading from his eyes. "Now, let us go set up our command center. I need a quiet place to review the system logs before the Spire throws its next temper tantrum."
