The Earth After Rebirth

It took a lot of digging to mine for ore and coins. The treasure was usually buried deep within, so they had to be patient, but sometimes they'd dig and there wouldn't be anything.

"I saw the videos on Talkalot. You're stronger than I thought Kiro." Nikolai started a conversation.

"He is."

"I am." Kiro said smugly.

The two laughed and shook their heads at Kiro's occasional arrogance. His wasn't overbearing, it was funny and innocent.

"But what's Talkalot?" Kiro asked innocently.

"What the—it's a social media platform, you can post videos, pictures and everything. Your video is posted there. You should create an account if you don't have one."

"It's online already? How fast are they?" Hiro was shocked, it hadn't even been a minute since they left the fields.

"Why should I get an account?" Kiro asked with an eyebrow raised.

Nikolai pinched the bridge of his nose in disbelief, "just do it."

"Okay, okay. Hiro, you heard him, we should." Hiro simply nodded, he didn't understand why they needed a social media platform.

Nikolai noticed that they were confused, so he gave a brief explanation. He sighed deeply.

"It's the best platform to amass a following, with your gameplay it won't be hard and with a big following, you have a lot of people that trust you, you can let them hire us as mercenaries. That'll bring us quite a lot of money. Posting our dungeon runs there too will be good."

As soon as he said he could monetise this social platform, he had gotten his undivided attention.

"Wow, I had no idea. Say no less." He thought hard trying to remember if that was such a thing in his past life, nothing came to mind.

He was ecstatic, he was grateful for Nikolai. If they hadn't met he wouldn't have known this perfect strategy.

They mined all sorts of things, though more than half of what they dug up were coins. Ores were rare. They did this day and night. Rain or shine. 30 days in-game time later, they had amassed great wealth.

"Hey Kiro, do you like anyone at this school?" Hiro abruptly asked.

"Yeah, you." He answered absent-mindedly.

"Not like that, y-you dunce!" He shouted without meaning to.

"Whoa buddy, relax. Do you like someone? careful around these rich snort nosed brats. You're too good for them." He said, and looked at Nikolai, and added, "no offense Nikolai."

Nikolai simply shrugged. He knew how bad rich people can be. He knew it very well, the two had no idea but Nikolai was a victim of the rich too.

"I know, but Saanvi is different. She doesn't sound like those typical rich brats." Hiro said in an almost sing-songy voice.

Kiro just snorted and shook his head.

"I don't have the luxury to think about those things at this moment. Let's mine, be rich and then we'll talk." Kiro said trying to shove the feelings he had for a certain girl, deep deep down.

"You're saying that as if we will be rich in real life. Its just a game."

Kiro didn't say anything, this would be a pleasant surprise for him. He was probably going to be speechless!

"Hey, Hiro. What other skill did drinking the true blood potion give you?"

"Apart from the Alchemy skill, it's a Force field or something like that. Apparently my shields will be able to exude a force field kind of energy. But it uses a stupid amount of mana. So I can hold it up for a few minutes. What about you?"

"That's a nice skill, really. I got Meditation and Lightning Manipulation."

"What about whirlwind?"

"Oh, I just fused three compatible skills and it was born."

"You can do that?" Nikolai was shocked.

Kiro shrugged, "apparently."

They were busy mining. And just like that 2 weeks passed and classes started. Asgard Online had over 20 million players now.

The new update would be in 5 days if everything went according to the future he was familiar with. Where coins will be usable in real life.

They sold the rare shield for 20 000 coins. While the goblin equipment went for 50-100 coins. Hiro had done over 5 designs for various guilds. His reputation in-game was starting to pick up. With 2 weeks of just mining, Hiro got a lot of ore.

They managed to mine 30 million coins each. Kiro was satisfied! Nikolai was dumbfounded, he had no idea what he would do with that many coins.

Kiro looked at him concerned, "Don't waste those, they'll come in handy."

Kiro thought about the true blood potions they had, "oh, I almost forgot, here drink this."

"What is it?" Nikolai was confused.

"A potion to make you stronger—"

He didn't need to hear anything else, as he downed the potion in one gulp.

"You didn't even let me finish. What if to get stronger, you'd die a few times losing progress?"

"As long as I'll get stronger. It doesn't matter."

Kiro couldn't be sure, but he sensed a trauma there. Somebody who hated being dependent, somebody who chased strength so that they can never be helpless, somebody like him.

Nonetheless, he told him that, drinking that potion meant he was a guardian of Asgard more or less. They recounted what happened on their way to the capital.

"WHAT?"