Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Old Huang looked at Old Zhou. “What do you think?”

Old Zhou pondered for a moment. “I think there’s something to it.”

The others nodded their heads as well.

Old Huang thought about it further. “Alright, let’s take the job! Since the client’s footing the bill, we’ll use it to test the waters.”

“If the style isn’t well received, the client’s the one losing money anyways. It’ll be a timely reminder to give up on the style as well.”

“But if the style gets popular, we might truly be able to set up our own studio. Once we get famous, everything’s possible!”

Ruan Guangjian nodded his head. “Exactly my thoughts!”

“Right now, it’s as good as us using the client’s requirements to build our own reputation. Besides, the client’s paying a fat sum too. Let’s work hard for the next three weeks and give it our all using the highest possible standards to complete this job beautifully!”

“If this set of original art is extremely well received, we can seize the opportunity to build our name as well. Our future will be bright!”

Finally, the few of them came to an agreement and started working.

Ruan Guangjian produced the concept drafts while Old Huang was in charge of the basic sketches. The others who were less skilled or less familiar with the style were in charge of detailing and coloring.

Based on a normal workflow, Ruan Guangjian would show Pei Qian the original art sketches once it was done. Once Pei Qian confirms that it fits his requirement, they’ll continue with the detailing.

However, since Pei Qian could not be bothered, that step was skipped entirely.

The entire dormitory began working furiously on it.

…

…

Handong University, Dormitory.

In the blink of an eye, two weeks had passed.

Pei Qian checked on the system.

<Wealth Conversion System>

<Owner: Pei Qian>

<Profit Conversion Ratio 100:1. Loss Conversion Ratio 1:1>

<Next Settlement: 16 days later.>

<Note: If there are unannounced products a week before settlement, the settlement date would be postponed. Postponement date would be determined by the system.>

<System Funds: 8,792 (↓291,208)>

<Personal Wealth: 1607.6>

Pei Qian had already spent 290,000 of the System Funds, leaving less than 10,000 left.

Other than purchasing of art resources, music, sound effects and cloud rental service equipment, Pei Qian had even purchased a card game skills template.

He had not intended to buy this. But, Pei Qian saw no need in keeping the unexpended System Funds.

After all, unspent System Funds would not be converted to his Personal Wealth. That was equivalent to a pure loss and wasn’t something that Pei Qian could take.

He had already embedded the skills system into the game.

For example, Guan Yu’s skill was Green Dragon Crescent Blade Slash, Zhou Yu’s skill was Burning the Red Cliff which could damage all the enemies and Xiahou Dun’s Iron Will could give him full status resistance and damage reduction for a short period of time et cetera.

In any case, those were the same few card game skills and most of them were copied from Qute Three Kingdoms. Skill mechanics were all roughly similar so that was all the skills template had as well.

Pei Qian assigned the skills to the various characters in the game and had more or less made use of all his resources.

But of course, in between, Pei Qian had tossed all the jobs that he found troublesome to Ma Yang.

In fact, Pei Qian was not even expecting Ma Yang to assign all the skills correctly – it would be best if there were some mistakes in the values or bugs.

But it turned out that Ma Yang was rather conscientious. After he had assigned the skills system, Pei Qian checked through it and found no issues at all to his surprise.

However, since this wasn’t the main focus on him losing money, Pei Qian did not bother overly about it.

Out of the final 8,000 yuan, 3,000 of it was for Ma Yang’s salary that could only be paid out at the end of the month.

Pei Qian was thinking about how he should spend the remaining 5,000. He should go and purchase more stuff on the resource website – all the System Funds must be spent completely, not a single cent less.

As to why his Personal Wealth increased…

His family had sent him an allowance of 1,000 yuan.

Pei Qian could not help but lament over how shameful it was for a man with a system to have to depend on his family for allowance!

He was practically the disgrace of all protagonists!

Initially, he had intended to lose 50,000 yuan but he ended up earning 70,000 that after conversion turned to 700.

That was even less than his allowance.

How disgraceful!

But, things were different now.

300,000. As long as the game fails, he could have it all converted to be his Personal Wealth. Only a word could describe it by then – awesome!

When he thought about how the 300,000 was about to be his, Pei Qian felt bliss surging from within him. In fact, he was even willing to attend classes now.

Everything was prepared and he were just waiting for the art resources to be added to the game. Thereafter, he just had to wait for the game to be published and fail rapidly, concluding his success!

…

A week later.

Shanghai, a certain finance university’s dormitory.

Ruan Guangjian was sporting two huge, dark circles around his eyes as he tossed his pen at the table. “Okay! Work’s done!”

He turned around and looked at the rest. Some were sprawled asleep against their computers while others were sleeping on their beds – he was the only one awake.

There were many cups of instant noodles and tidbit wrappers beneath the tables while empty cans of energy drinks were littered on the surface of the tables. The entire dormitory looked like a wolf’s den.

“Huff, completed on schedule.”

Ruan Guangjian felt that it was a pity that no one was here to share this historical moment with him.

But, there was no other choice. The others did not have the same vigor as he did and could not hold out against the tough working conditions of working day and night under high pressure.

Thankfully, the job was still completed on schedule.

It could have been completed earlier but Ruan Guangjian had high expectations for the sets of original arts. He redid multiple drafts of the areas he was unsatisfied with and that was why even with everyone’s full efforts, the job was completed on the day of the deadline itself.

Browsing through the set of original arts swiftly, Ruan Guangjian was highly prideful.

This was art!

A perfect masterpiece!

Each of the characters were painstakingly designed by him bearing their own distinctiveness and vibrant personalities. He had flawlessly combined their historical images, the modification requirements and their traditional elements.

Every single piece was bound to leave a deep impression for anyone!

However, Ruan Guangjian could not guarantee that these original arts would be popular as well.

After all, beauty was highly subjective.

Even for world famous art pieces, there would be many who thought that they weren’t that good.

That was even more so for original art in games. At times, no matter how intricately they drew, how outstanding their designs were, it did not guarantee that gamers would pay for it. On the contrary, some might even dislike it even if the drawing was slightly on the dark side.

Why did so many inferior games fancy having huge, shining golden wings in it? Was that because their chief art designer liked it? Not necessarily.

It was because whales loved huge, shining golden wings and would splurge for it!

That’s why, if it was any other company, they would most likely be displeased with this set of original arts.

However, Boss Pei of this Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd. had already made it clear that Ruan Guangjian could create as he willed and design it freely. So, these drawings shouldn’t pose any issues, right?

Pulling himself together, Ruan Guangjian logged into ESRO’s resource website and sent the original arts to Pei Qian.

“A total of 50 sets with 200 pieces of original art. Please confirm.”

He received no reply and presumed that Pei Qian should be offline.

Ruan Guangjian checked the time as the skies were starting to brighten up – it was around 7am.

He reached out for a ham sausage and opened it, filling his stomach slightly before climbing into bed for a rest.

They had finally completed the job. Once he wakes up in the afternoon, it was time to gather the guys together for a good meal!

With the huge burden relieved off his shoulders, Ruan Guangjian fell deep into slumber.