Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Pygmalion for all I care. What’s your character name?”
    “Surgeon.”
    “Hmm,” the leader of the Black Lightning frowned, looking somewhere off-camera. “There are about fifteen hundred Surgeons out there…Which one are you?”
    “Fifteen hundred?” I asked surprised. “How’d you find that out?”
    As I already figured out, a character name in Galactogon wasn’t unique, so it was impossible to identify any player for certain. Mail as a category didn’t even exist: If you wanted to communicate with other players, you had to acquire a communicator. And when I tried to look up how many Surgeons were running around just like I was, the system politely instructed me to consult the help menu—which told me that the number of players online was not subject to disclosure.
    “Doesn’t matter. What planet are you on? Our guide changes from planet to planet. And forgive me, I’m not about to give you all our guides for fifty thou.”
    “I haven’t been assigned a homeworld yet,” I replied honestly, since concealing this fact would have been pointless. After a little thought, I added, “I’ve started a new character. I haven’t even entered the allocation center yet. Like I said in the email, I need information about leveling up without putting in real money.”
    “You started a new one? Why delete the old one? Why didn’t you just go through retraining and become a commander without wasting an extra month?”
    “It didn’t work out with my old one,” I shrugged my shoulders vaguely, happy that I hadn’t actually lied about anything. Let the bearded guild leader think that I already had some experience with the game and simply wanted to prove something to someone. At least then he wouldn’t try to sell me any nonsense…Then again, he could still offer me something worthless and watch my reaction to see if I was just a fish that needed to be reeled in for all its money. You could sell anything to a newbie like that—from the “secret” number of the various ships in the game, to the location of a “simply unbelievable” planet brimming with Raq (which was like gold) or Elos (the game’s universal energy resource).
    “Whatever—your problem, your headache. If you want to relive training, that’s your God-given right. In that case, for the sum you mentioned, I have a guide detailing non-standard events and how to find them in the Qualian Training Sector. What do you say?”
    “For fifty thousand? You having a laugh?” I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “That’s way too little to be worth fifty thousand.”
    “You asked for it,” the beard instantly grew defensive. “You seem like a shrewd guy, so think about it: Why would I be offering you anything if I didn’t know anything?”
    “No, that’s no good for me. I’m offering fifty thousand for information that’s unique. The Training Sector isn’t so big that I need to pay such a crazy amount of money for it. Like I told you, I’m interested in leveling a ship’s captain. Do you have anything like that or not?”
    “You know, Surgeon,” the guild leader said after a little thought, “I could just as easily refuse. We sell guides quite frequently so customers aren’t exactly hard to come by. But it’s a funny coincidence. Just today, a highly respected player, who also decided to restart from scratch for whatever reason, contacted every clan in the game, including mine. He is offering to pay us one hundred thousand dollars if we keep our leveling guides secret for three months. What’s more is that he wants us to let him know if a player comes looking for that kind of thing—and furnish him with that player’s contact info. I’m guessing you sent your requests not just to us, but to all the other Qualian guilds as well—so you may be sure that Sergei Smolyanov is already well aware of your vidphone number and email. That bit of info is free by the way. If he weren’t such a jerk—and from an enemy empire besides—I would