When it came to Refined Player Banking, guilds and extremely wealthy players were the ones that benefited from it the most.
The updated banking feature with the Universal Currency Exchange Trading System could be considered an extreme pay-to-win option. And because of this, many casual players regarded it this way.
However, Refined Player Banking was not the true highlight of the current UCETS.
From what Kieran recalled, players began regarding UCETS differently shortly after the second revision.
Rather than simply sticking to its common name, players divided it into two functions—RFB (Refined Player Banking) and CTS (Convenient Trading System).
The latter—the CTS—referred to both the Player Auction and Virtual Auction House.
Unlike the RFB, these two new functions catered to all players, with the Refined Player Banking feature playing a minor role in the auctioning system.
'Considering the items I've just gotten my hands on recently, this is absolutely perfect. I wonder how many guilds I'll draw out of the woodworks with this plan,' Kieran inwardly thought, continuing to grin wickedly as he awaited Max's return.
Thanks to his mass Treasure Chest opening, Kieran had come across quite a few nifty items that many guilds would covet.
For example, the Official Guild Creation Orders.
Setting aside the one he needed for himself, Kieran had two additional orders that could be auctioned off.
Of course, Kieran had a plan to maximize his profits—profits that didn't necessarily relate to Zenith Online.
At least not directly.
Unlike other players, Kieran knew the enormous advantage of forming an official guild.
Once recognized by the Adventurers' Guild, a player-formed guild could access a wide array of benefits that wasn't too different from visiting the Adventurers' Guild.
Additionally, Guild Conquest and Territory Wars to claim resources were two other significant differences that arose.
After recalling this matter, Kieran thought back to the item he received after becoming the first player to reach Lord-rank World Fame. 'A Conquest Order… I didn't pay it much mind earlier, but attempting to conquer an area is somewhat suicidal at the moment. After all, a Lord-rank player shouldn't have appeared this early.'
If one ignored Kieran's current World Fame, which was close to reaching the next standard, the person in second place on the World Fame Leaderboard was still possessed Knight-rank fame.
On top of that, Kieran reaching Lord-rank fame didn't guarantee that he'd receive a Conquest Order.
Instead, it was more likely that acquiring the fame ranking in record time played a vital role in helping him obtain the order.
Perhaps the game system believed he was ready to conquer, given all his accolades thus far.
'If I'm not mistaken, one should wait until one possesses World Fame on par with a Baron before attempting to conquer or gain territory. Maybe I'll try my hand after my Advancement. We'll see. It all depends upon how strong I become,' Kieran thought.
Afterward, Kieran retrieved one of the Official Guild Creation Orders and held it at two corners.
With a flick of his finger, the order spun in his hand as Kieran continued to smile.
"A Player Auction sounds fitting," Kieran muttered.
A second later, he swiped his hand, bringing up his User Interface.
Once before him, Kieran sifted through the menu until he arrived at the UCETS tab and clicked on it.
Upon bringing up the newly revised menu, Kieran chose the Player Auction, which gave a brief summary of its function.
As the name implied, a Player Auction was a limited-time auction started by a player. And because it was not linked to the Merchant Association, there was no need to visit an association building to join.
It was a platform that catered to players in need.
Suppose one was interested in an item but couldn't gain access to an auction house? That's where this system came in.
With the presence of this platform, a player could participate in a Player Auction or browse the Virtual Auction House from their current location!
Unfortunately, Player Auctions possessed a caveat that made many people iffy—anonymity was not allowed.
If a player decided to host a Player Auction, their identity would be broadcasted to the entire player base.
For this reason alone, many players opted for the safer option—the Virtual Auction House.
It was a mirror image of a Merchant Association's platform, except that it was tailored for players, with players being the only ones with access to it.
After all, how could a denizen of Xenith have access to VR Devices?
Aside from the access restrictions and lack of anonymity, the difference between a Player Auction and placing items on the Virtual Auction House was item's listing duration and exposure amongst the player populace.
Whereas a Player Auction would broadcast each item that was accessible for bidding, one would have to manually peruse the Virtual Auction House to stumble across goodies.
Given all this information, Kieran felt he'd be a fool not to take advantage of the revision's recent appearance.
With a few taps of his fingers while continuing to grin wickedly, Kieran assigned the two Official Guild Creation Orders and one Promotion Order to a Player Auction.
After finalizing their listing, Kieran then opted for individual announcements.
Though players could view the number of items within the Player Auction, the item's information would remain blacked out until the auction block began.
However, because he had the Aeredale Revival Auction coming up, Kieran chose to delay the Player Auction. This was done in case he stumbled across something in the auction that could bring additional value to his pending Player Auction.
In the meantime, after information about the Universal Currency Exchange Trading System's second revision hit the public, many considered putting up all their copper, silver, and gold coins at that very moment.
With the introduction of direct purchasing, the value of Zenith Online's currency skyrocketed immediately.
This decision was driven by greed, fear, and a lack of reading ability. Many players were known to skim through any information they received, so they breezed past the update's limitation. They also needlessly grew concerned that the value of coins would now drop since people could use Earthen Dollars to make direct purchases.
The coin buying frenzy to to Kieran participating since the value of gold coins ballooned to as much as $8,000 instantly!
This was nearly ten times what he was used to in his past life, but that was understandable, considering even the lowest rung guild of his time could produce millions of gold worth of profit.
In contrast, unofficial guilds struggled to produce as much as 2,000 Gold daily.
After giving it some thought, Kieran devised a plan to recycle the Gold in his possession.
Thanks to the completion of Isadora's quest, his funds were restocked.
Plus, taking into account the upcoming grand opening of the Godhand Bazaar, Kieran didn't worry about spending his Gold without ways to recoup it.
"So this is what it feels like to drive the market. The omnipotence of it is very addicting," Kieran commented, immediately placing all 100,000 Gold from Isadora's quest back on the trading platform.
However, Kieran didn't do so through the Currency Exchange as he didn't intend to sell the coins to the system for it to then make a profit off him.
Kieran went the traditional route, manually placing them up for grabs.
Because the amount of each batch varied, as did their price, people didn't realize it was all listed by the same person. They simply believed it was part of the current coin-dumping trend that everyone followed.
Within seconds, Kieran began to receive several notifications.
〈System: Due to your current World Fame and Merchant Association membership, your listings will only incur a 5% tax fee.〉
〈System: Your 1,200 Gold listing has been sold. $8,892,000 has been credited to your bank account: xxxx420.〉
〈System: Your 4,400 Gold listing has been sold. $32,604,000 has been credited to your bank account: xxxx420.〉
〈System: Your 3,500 Gold listening has been sold…〉
As he looked at the screen before him, Kieran's eyes lit up. "Selling coins is absolutely lucrative due to all this fear of missing out on the hype, but all it's really doing is providing me with enough funds to secure a stock of X-hancers for all our future core members."
Less than a minute later, roughly half of the 100,000 Gold Kieran posted was consumed by the ravenous wealthy players, but Kieran ignored that.
He was too preoccupied with the current balance in his bank account.
Thousands and hundreds of thousands might not be able to move him emotionally, but the same couldn't be said about tens or hundreds of millions of dollars!
'Who would have thought… just over $400 million in less than one minute. I know it's not sustainable, but it's still ridiculous to think about, knowing that people will trample over people to devour this gold,' Kieran thought.
For a moment, greed took over Kieran's mind, compelling him to list another 100,000 Gold, but thankfully, reason soon returned.
He currently didn't have any other quest that rewarded a decent sum of Gold. On top of that, investing in another property would be more profitable.
After all, a guild couldn't do without a Guild Residence, and properties that fit the criteria to become commercial residences were ridiculously pricey.
Suddenly, as Kieran continued to monitor the coin price market trend, he noticed an influx of people, and Max quickly approached him.
"Lord Aatrox, the VIP suite has been prepared. When you're ready, I can lead you there," Max said, panting out of breath. It was clear he had exhausted himself to quickly prepare all the accommodations.
"We can go now, then. I'm not particularly busy at the moment," Kieran said.
With a nod, Max led Kieran deep inside the building until they appeared before three grand double doors. After entering, Kieran was greeted by a scene resembling a large theater.