Cathulhu Online, MUNYA!

Chapter 4 – Cat Dad’s Gacha Machine

Munya!

Nya!

Mew!

Because of Xiaomao’s loud voice, the cats in the house came to his room. They scratched the door, wanting to get in.

Xiaomao opened the door to let them in.

“Oh, hey, Mu-Nyang. Are you going to play with your sisters here, or are you here to play with me?”

Munya

The mama cat that Xiaomao had brought home several months ago gave birth to three healthy kittens.

Mu-Nyang, Xiaomao’s lifelong partner in the previous life, was a bicolor cat with black and white fur, looking like a cow. His iconic meowing voice “Mu-Nya” earned him the name.

The sisters of Mu-Nyang were also cute. The white cat’s name was Nyanko, and she had a unique voice as well.

As for the last orange cat, she was Mir. She kept mewing as if she was still a kitten even though she was already 5-month old.

Xiaomao lay on the bed, and Mu-Nyang immediately jumped onto his chest. Mir struggled to climb the bed while Nyanko simply sat on top of Xiaomao’s face.

“Nyanko, I can’t breathe.”

“Nya.”

Nyanko wagged her tail and slapped Xiaomao’s head. She kneaded his mouth, but her nails were out.

“OW! OW! Nyanko! That’s not how a massage work!”

“Nya!”_.

Xiaomao grabbed Nyanko and placed her on the bed. Then, he pointed his butt at her.

Revenge!

PUU

Nyanko, Mu-Nyang, and Mir rushed to his butt and innocently sniffed it. Then, they retched and opened their mouths to breathe like dogs.

Xiaomao laughed and carried them out of his room. However, the task was a bit difficult as the cats kept coming back inside.

He gave up and let the gang in.

But as soon as Xiaomao closed the door, Mir scratched it and wanted out.

Xiaomao shook his head and laughed. He opened the door again and let her out, but she simply stared at the carpet outside and walked back into the room.

“Haiz. My masters are not easy to please.”

Seeing that the cats were messing with him as usual, Xiaomao stopped playing with them and turned to the game capsule.

It was time to make his final decision. What should he do with the 417,000 tokens?

Exchange them for 834,000 USD next year? Keep it for three years and convert it into 8.34 million?

Invest everything in the game and become a GameFi pro-gamer?

Or the neutral way, invest only half of the tokens in the game and sell the other half when the time comes?

Xiaomao took several deep breaths and meditated for a minute. When the meditation was done, he slapped his face twice.

Amitabha All In!

Xiaomao created a game account on the website and transfer everything to his game account.

Just like that, 417,000 PACT was transferred to the game.

Xiaomao closed his laptop and hopped into the gaming capsule. He put the VR helmet on and closed the capsule hatch.

But after Xiaomao closed the glass hatch, he found Mu-Nyang snuggling on top of his chest, purring and staring at his face.

“Mu-Nyang, I’m about to play a game. You can’t be here.”

“Munya.”

“Do you want to play with me?”

“Munya.”

“Sorry, but you can’t.”

“Munya!”

Mu-Nyang kneaded Xiaomao’s chest and closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep like that.

Xiaomao frowned. He wondered if playing the game like this would affect his cat or his data.

Thinking of his token investment, Xiaomao couldn’t risk it. He opened the hatch and tossed Mu-Nyang out.

Mu-Nyang’s black and white furs got stuck on his shirt, but Xiaomao didn’t care. He closed the hatch and made sure that no cat was in his gaming capsule.

Once everything was secured, Xiaomao pressed the button on his Helmet, and the entire capsule lit up.

Then, Xiaomao’s consciousness sank into the VR world.

…

Ding

<Welcome to Pangu Online 2, Mr. Miao Xiaomao.>

Xiaomao found himself floating in the void, and the character creation menu appeared.

<Please create your first game character. You can either purchase an NFT character from the marketplace or roll a gacha for a brand new NFT character.>

This game had one of Ponzi Scheme GameFi’s mechanics. Even though a player had purchased a VR game capsule, they could not play the game right away.

NFT stood for non-fungible token. In this game, it was a token in the form of a game character, which came with a unique job, race, appearance, and abilities.

To play this game, a player needed an NFT character, which came from two sources. A player could either mint a new NFT avatar by rolling a gacha or purchase one from the game’s marketplace.

In the game marketplace, millions of level-1 NFT characters were on sale. Second-handed high-leveled characters were listed as well.

Some came with pre-existing skills, traits, and perks, depending on their rarity.

The rarity of NFT characters was categorized in tiers – Common, Uncommon, Rare, Super Rare, Ultra-Rare, and Legendary.

As for the gacha, a player had many choices to create their character.

Xiaomao gazed at the gacha shop. There were six gacha machines that he could play with to create a new NFT character.

The first one was the cheapest. It cost only one PACT to generate a basic human character with a random basic job with no rare perk. A player could become a warrior, a mage, or an archer. However, these jobs couldn’t be evolved in the late game. It was suitable for crypto farmers, who made a living by selling farmed tokens from this game.

The second gacha machine was a standard gacha, but the price was reasonable as one roll cost only ten PACTs. In this gacha machine, a player had a low chance of acquiring a super rare job, such as Archmage, Templar Knight, or Saint, to start out as their first class job. However, the race was fixed to the human race.

The third machine was for advanced players. This gacha only contained fragments of NFT, such as skills, races, and jobs. By combining two fragments of skills, a fragment of race, and a fragment of job, a player could create a unique NFT character.

Unfortunately, this machine could be expensive. Although it cost only five PACTs to roll once, it required luck and investment before a player could get their desired NFT character.

The fourth machine was a standard premium gacha for P2W players. It cost 100 PACT per roll, but the rewards that came out would always be a rare, super-rare, or ultra-rare NFT. Moreover, the race was random, and nobody could tell what would come out as there were over a million possible NFT in this machine.

The fifth one was seasonable gacha. Like every mobile gacha game, every month, the game company increased the gacha rate for a certain NFT character. No player could get common or uncommon NFT as the gacha guaranteed at least a rare NFT at the minimum. Moreover, there was a guarantee system to pity bad luck players, who couldn’t get their hands on the ultra-rare NFT.

This gacha was the most popular. Although it cost 200 PACTs per roll, many new and old players came back to spend their money on this gacha to get an ultra-rare character for their accounts.

And lastly, the sixth notorious money-sink gacha machine was what Xiaomao had been aiming for.

Xiaomao remembered it well. In his previous life, every player called it a honey trap for rookie players.

In this machine, 1,000 common, uncommon, rare, super rare, ultra-rare NFT characters, and random fragments were put inside. Each account had one machine, and the gacha machine wasn’t shared with other players.

Once drawn or rolled, the number of gacha in the machine decreased. Players who played this gacha machine were guaranteed to get every item or NFT that was shown in the list.

Players could see what the rewards were, and they had the freedom to renew the rewards if they didn’t like them. However, it cost PACT to do so.

Xiaomao gazed at the list of NFT in the sixth gacha machine. The rate wasn’t as kind as it seemed.

80% was common NFTs.

10% was uncommon.

7% was rare.

2.5% was super rare.

And the 0.5% was ultra-rare.

In short, among the 1,000 gacha balls, 5 of them were ultra-rare items.

Xiaomao gazed at the price. It cost 300 PACT per roll!

It was expensive! To empty this gacha machine, Xiaomao needed to spend 300,000 PACTs!

Xiaomao gulped as he glanced at the small image, which displayed the monthly legendary add-on fragment.

Add-on fragments were something that every player desired. It could be equipped to an NFT character to increase its growth rate, EXP bonus, or status points.

This was the attraction of this machine. Legendary NFTs and legendary fragments only appeared in this gacha!

Currently, the monthly fragment was a perk by the name [Protein from Fish]. The equipped NFT character could acquire permanent status points by consuming rare fishes and fish monsters in the game.

Xiaomao nodded in satisfaction. This fragment was what he had been waiting for as it synergized with the class and race that he had desired.

He checked the machine’s ultra-rare items next.

“High-Elf Druid, High-Human fragment, War Lord Fragment, Angel Slayer, Annihilator Fragment… Welp, all trash. Refresh.”

Xiaomao pressed the gacha reset button to renew the ultra-rare item list. It only cost 100 PACT per use.

Even though he used the refresh button, he hadn’t acquired any NFT yet. It only showed possible rewards in the machine.

“Man-Eater Fragment, Sea Serpent Race Fragment, Arachne Fragment… Nope. Next!”

“Stripper Swordsman Job Fragment? Eh, no.”

“Dual Cultivator Job Fragment?! Nope! Women are trouble, so NOPE!”

“Devil Race? Eh, tempting, but meh. I have a better race in mind.”

Xiaomao kept refreshing as he only waited for a certain ultra-rare NFT to appear in the sixth machine.

After refreshing 200 times, what Xiaomao had been waiting for had come out.

It was a shiny NFT character of a cute half-cat half-octopus.

…

Rarity: Ultra-Rare

Race: Catopus (Evolvable)

Job: Slavemaster (Evolvable)

Unique Skills: Enslavement, Slave Training

Racial Skills: Fish Gourmet, Catnap