I Gain Infinite Gold Just By Waiting-Chapter 253: Episode 51_Preparation (3)

4.

When Kim Buja’s channel finally went live after a month and a half of silence, a massive crowd rushed in. Less than a minute after he started the stream, concurrent viewers had already passed eighty million. The interest was so intense that it wouldn’t have been surprising if the video platform’s servers had crashed, and that overwhelming attention quickly turned into heated speculation about the day’s topic.

—Why’d he go live?

—Is this a 9-star attempt?

—Can’t be. Fly’s not here.

He had so much content lined up that unless he put it in the title, people couldn’t even guess what he was about to do. Naturally, their anticipation climbed higher and higher, continuing for the full five minutes it took for Kim Buja to appear on screen.

“Hello, everyone.”

When he finally appeared, he greeted them casually and gave a brief update.

“There wasn’t any particular reason I didn’t stream. I’ve just been grinding and getting ready, so I didn’t really have time to turn the camera on. There’s no point in filming a pointless, repetitive grind, right? I did climb some floors in the Tower during that time, but you can watch that later when the edited videos go up.”

It was simple small talk. A status update. From what he was saying, it was hard to pick out any clear hints about the topic of today’s live stream. The only real clue, if you could call it that, was that his expression wasn’t exactly cheerful.

—Why does he look so down?

—Are you sick?

—How would he be sick? He’s a player, and a top ranker at that.

—True. Either way, he doesn’t look happy. Maybe he’s just in a bad mood?

As people started tossing out their theories, Kim Buja slowly got to the point.

“Yeah. I’m not exactly depressed or anything, but I guess it’s showing on my face. It’s true that I’m not feeling great when I think about today’s content. Hm? You want to know what today’s content is?”

After more than a month without uploading a single video, he had come back with a live stream for this reason: He revealed it with a bitter look.

“Preparation. Nothing special. It’s just one of the preparations I’ve been doing for months now. It was something I had to do eventually, and I’ll probably do it again once more near the end. You can think of this one as a midterm checkup.”

There weren’t many viewers who didn’t know what kind of preparation he meant. Ever since he had started uploading his continent adventure videos, he had been hammering home that everything he was doing was for one purpose only: to defeat the Demon King and restore peace to the continent. So what kind of preparation would make him look this unhappy? He hadn’t looked this grim even when he was clearing the 8-star Legendary dungeon.

“Some of you probably already know. It’s been popping up on my board a lot lately. People keep asking what the point of Heavenly Earrings, Demon King’s Finger, and Lucifer’s Necklace is when you can’t take items with you to the continent. I turned the stream on today to answer that. I don’t have to explain it, but since you all love my videos and watch them so closely, I figured I should at least give you a bit of an explanation about the setting.”

It had been his first and biggest concern when he faced the Demon King, and also the highest hurdle he had to clear. Items. For a Gold Maker, they were one of the most important parts of his power. Even if he squeezed every last stat out of Gold Enhancement, without item effects, he would only ever be half-complete.

The same was true for other rankers. Items were far more than simple devices that amplified a user’s strength. If you couldn’t bring them, then the advantage a player could prepare on Earth before starting a Gold Mission would vanish. Of course, that was probably exactly why the system took items away at the start of each Chapter.

“There is a way. Some of you have probably noticed already, but not everything gets taken. Gold Ring and Gnawing Soul are the answer I’ve been using all along. The simple commonality between them is that they’re bound items. When you start a Gold Mission, bound items are not taken away; you can bring them with you. The same goes for items you buy on the continent with bound gold.”

Whether it was intentional or not, there was a loophole. That was why he had acquired those items, and he had also been looking for ways to bring his other items with him.

“You can probably guess what I’m going to do. If I can only bring bound items, then I just need to make sure all my items are bound. But the new items I got aren’t bound, right? Yeah. That’s why I’m not thrilled. So what do I do?”

It was a method that normal players couldn’t even imagine. And even if they did think of it, it would be impossible for them to pull it off.

“I’m going to bind these items.”

—How?

“With this!”

From his inventory, scrolls worth millions of gold each in the SVIP Gold Shop poured into view.

[Item Binding Scroll]

▶ Grade: Legendary

▶ Level: ★★★★★★★★★

▶ Permanently converts an item up to 9-star into a bound state. Applies to an item currently equipped, and once bound, it cannot be undone.

“The 9-star binding scrolls were 5 million gold each, 8-star were 2.5 million, and 7-star were 1.25 million, so in total I spent over 8 million gold. Once I get some decent armor, I’ll bind that too. That’s why I’m calling this a midterm check.”

—Damn. He’s actually turning his items into bound gear?

—He’s insane. What kind of shop even sells stuff like that?

—Legendary class, as expected.

Turning an item into a bound item carried a lot of implications. First, it completely removed the possibility of anyone else using your gear. Since it was bound, it also couldn’t be looted from you. You could always keep it equipped, and if this were a game, you wouldn’t have to worry about losing it when you died.

In games, that was probably the biggest advantage of bound items. Reality was different. For bound items in the real world, only the rights to the item were bound to the player; they didn’t come with any kind of teleportation feature that would bring them back if you left them somewhere or lost them. Another player could still pick them up, and if they were stolen, you would have to find some other way to get them back.

It was, quite literally, just “bound.” A function that turned the item into useless trash for anyone else.

—He’s really going to bind those items?

—How much value is he just erasing?

—If he left that stuff as an inheritance, his descendants could live in luxury for three generations.

—Three generations? Try until the end of humanity.

Naturally, people were stunned that he would do something so crazy—and not for free, but at an exorbitant price. He had already explained that it was necessary, and everyone understood that. But understanding it logically and actually accepting the insane reality unfolding before their eyes were two different things.

Even so, he himself was perfectly calm. In fact, after pulling the trigger, his expression looked noticeably more relaxed.

“Whew. Honestly, I was a little nervous at first. The Demon King is out there, and I was wondering how I was supposed to defeat him without my item boosts. I was thinking I might have to buy every decent weapon I could with Gold Ring and feed them all to it, but luckily the SVIP shop sells stuff like this. I’m relieved.”

Out of the hundreds of millions of viewers, only a handful could relate to that feeling.

—Is this that filthy-rich kind of moment? The kind where you have so much money you don’t even remember how many zeros are in your bank account? Like, “Rare items are mine and mine alone! I’m never going to sell them anyway, so it’d be great if they were mine forever!” That kind of thing?

—Sounds about right. I mean, why would money matter to Kim Buja at this point? Even if he never sells that stuff, he can just dump all the junk he gets from 9-star dungeons from now on.

—And it’s not like he spent “real” money. He said he bought the scrolls with gold he earned from hunting. Plus, doesn’t he get free gold every night at midnight?

—Whatever. I should go run some dungeons instead of complaining. They say the most pointless thing in the world is worrying about how the rich spend their money, and here I am doing exactly that.

The item-binding operation was carried out successfully.

* * *

Now wearing his newly bound accessories, Kim Buja wiped sweat from his brow as he faced down a massive golem. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

“Man. This thing is a pain in the ass.”

Once, it had been a guardian deity protecting a Temple.

Now, the stone colossi, each embodying one of the seven attributes, lay toppled and shattered, reduced to nothing more than enormous boulders.

This was the aftermath of the battle against the boss of the Tower of Trials’ 10th floor.

As he climbed, the tower had begun to throw increasingly brutal trials at him. Even for Kim Buja, whose stats had skyrocketed, some enemies felt overwhelming.

The boss floors were particularly grueling.

If it had been a special mission like the one on the 3rd floor—crack an egg, solve a puzzle—he could have at least relied on his wits. But the boss floors offered no such shortcuts. All he could do was grind through a straight-up slugfest.

The boss on the 5th floor had at least been outmatched by his stats, so he had taken it down without much trouble.

The 10th floor, however, had nearly killed him.

The golem had ignored every spell, and physical attacks had barely scratched it.

He’d had to meticulously stack damage by chaining every status effect he had, chugging potions from the Gold Shop, and unleashing two-to-three-second bursts of damage over and over for several minutes just to pry open a tiny crack in its defense.

Only then did the real raid begin.

When he tried to attack through that opening, the golem suddenly focused all its defenses on that one spot. He’d had to devise yet another strategy to punch through the newly raised difficulty.

He did eventually kill it, but it was a fight he never wanted to repeat.

Beyond the fact that it had taken him over a week, the sheer fatigue was crushing.

’I’m done with the Tower of Trials for now.’

He had earned more than enough rewards.

The special rewards that dropped every fifth and tenth floor were especially huge—fair compensation, he thought, for the massive difficulty spikes. That was why he had pushed himself to tackle the 10th floor in the first place.

Now that he had hit his goal, he knew it was time to pull back.

▶ Gold Held: 22,341,442

▶ P Held: 9,122,392

This was the gold and points he had accumulated over the past few months.

Even after buying the item-binding scrolls, the Tower of Trials rewards had been so lucrative that he had managed to build his reserves back up. He needed this capital to prepare for his next climb.

He was already looking forward to it.

’I wonder just how much stronger I can get with these points.’

Strictly speaking, this kind of anticipation was completely unlike his old self.

Back then, he had crushed games with pure skill rather than gear. To him, items were nothing more than currency to be liquidated for cash.

He didn’t think this change was a bad thing, though.

In any situation, what mattered was having the right attitude for the circumstances.

In this game, items meant more than just skill, and items were the most important point to support that skill and let it shine. It had been the same in regular games, too; he had just valued the worth of money more back then.

He began to plan, his mind buzzing with anticipation.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a plan for how to spend his points. He intended to go on a point-shopping spree only after he uploaded his Tower of Trials videos and saved up a bit more.

’Time to play with the gold.’

This was why he had clawed his way up the Tower of Trials so obsessively.

It was time to reap the rewards for squeezing out every last bit of gold he could.

After a long wait, Gold Enhancement was finally before him again.

* * *