Chapter 96

Chapter 45: The Long Road of Legendary Upgrades

As November arrived, Lin Feng received his October income from the Chu City branch. The Chu Feng Internet City had a net profit of 300,000 yuan, the flower tea processing plant, which gradually opened up the national market on Dangdang.com, brought Lin Feng over 250,000 yuan in pure profit; the barbecue shop brought Lin Feng over 20,000 yuan; the 50+ Qidian Fast Food stores nationwide gave Lin Feng over 300,000 yuan in revenue share, while Dangdang.com was still in a loss and had no income, and the previously popular "CS" game saw limited sales due to the widespread piracy across the country.

After the final tally, Lin Feng had a total surplus of 750,000 yuan after paying all expenses in October. He left 250,000 yuan for the Chu City branch as working capital and transferred the rest to the headquarters. Although 500,000 yuan was not a huge amount for the headquarters, it could still help fill the funding gap to some extent.

For the former Lin Feng, 500,000 yuan was something he never dared to dream about, but now Lin Feng deeply realized that in Shanghai, it was not about how much money you had.

Lin Feng also instructed Su Xiaomei and others through a web conference to continue expanding the Qidian Fast Food stores. Due to the tax incentives provided by the state, the 50 franchise stores opened in the early stage had a very high profit in October, which gave Lin Feng the confidence to raise prices.

For the next batch of 100 franchise stores, Lin Feng set the franchise fee at 50,000 yuan for prefecture-level cities and 100,000 yuan for provincial capitals and municipalities, but the 3% monthly revenue share remained unchanged. This was to ensure the long-term stable development of Qidian Fast Food. If the revenue share was too high, the franchise stores would have no profit, forcing them to cut costs, which could ruin the hard-earned brand.

Although Lin Feng raised the franchise fee, the number of franchise applications continued to pour in. After careful selection by Su Xiaomei and others, the 100 new franchise stores brought Lin Feng 6 million yuan in franchise fees, which greatly replenished the increasingly dry account of the Shanghai headquarters.

At this point, Lin Feng's company account had 13 million yuan, and the 6 million yuan in franchise fees from Qidian Fast Food would be transferred by mid-month. However, with the number of registered members of "Legend" rapidly increasing, the server was already running at full capacity. Every evening from 8 PM to 11 PM, the entire "Legend" server would experience overload. The server, originally capable of handling 50,000 people, was now crammed with 80,000 people during peak hours, causing lag.

Many players would die while leveling up during this time due to server lag and would post on the official forum demanding compensation. Although these comments were drowned out by the numerous discussions about how to level up and kill monsters, increasing the server capacity was the top priority.

Without hesitation, Lin Feng almost invested all the remaining money into increasing the server capacity, but was stopped by Wu Zhaofu. The reason was simple: the company had no car.

"Mr. Lin, although the company is currently developing, it must have a car, and a good one at that," Wu Zhaofu said, but his words did not receive everyone's approval, and they all looked at him in surprise. After all, the company's financial situation was not optimistic, and although "Legend" had a promising future, it was better to save money before it started charging.

Wu Zhaofu was not bothered by the surprised looks and smiled, "Mr. Lin, in Shanghai, this international metropolis, a car represents a person's status and economic strength. In this highly exclusive city, a luxury car can make it easier for people to accept our company."

Wu Zhaofu's words made everyone think deeply.

Lin Feng deeply agreed with Wu Zhaofu. Exclusivity existed in every part of China, but it was especially severe in Shanghai. However, with the growing economy and the prevalence of materialism, a luxury car indeed made it easier to gain respect.

"Right, Mr. Lin, if you're going to buy a car, at least get a Mercedes or BMW. Don't buy a Japanese car, or you'll be laughed at," Wu Zhaofu, with his keen eye, saw Lin Feng's nod and knew he had agreed, and said with a smile.

Wu Zhaofu's words caused a burst of laughter among everyone.

On the spot, Lin Feng bought three cars. A Mercedes S600 for himself, an Audi A6 for the company executives, and a Jinbei minivan for the security department. The total cost of the three cars, including various expenses, was 3 million yuan. Looking at the remaining 10 million yuan in the account, Lin Feng left 1 million yuan as working capital and gave the rest to Cui Mingze to add servers.

After adding the servers, "Legend" could now support 100,000 people playing smoothly online. By the end of November, "Legend" had expanded from the initial 1 zone with 2 servers to 2 zones with 16 servers, but each server was still full. By the end of November, it had expanded to 3 zones with 24 servers, with a peak online population of 110,000 people and 50 GMs online, ensuring that each server had a GM available 24/7.

However, like all online games, the rapidly popular "Legend" also saw the emergence of many cheats, such as duplicating equipment, money, and experience. Under Lin Feng's strict policy and the support of the original technology team, these cheats were mercilessly shut down within 24 hours of their appearance. Any account using cheats would be permanently banned and announced to the entire server, with the banned accounts posted on the official website.

Although this policy faced some protests from players who did not intentionally use cheats, it was smoothly implemented with the support of many enthusiastic "Legend" players.

Lin Feng's crackdown on cheats was not limited to those that disrupted game balance. He was equally ruthless with auxiliary cheats like health display, auto-run, and no-candle. These cheats, while seemingly not disrupting game balance, indirectly led to the situation where later in "Legend," the priest with a "dog" became invincible. Without auto-run and health display, a priest could not play with a "dog" and toy with a team.

On December 1st, Lin Feng set the official charging date for "Legend." Although many executives in the company thought it was too early to start charging after just one month of public testing, Lin Feng knew the charm of "Legend" and, with the original team in place, could solve any system bugs. Launching the charging system after one month was not too early.

For the charging system, Lin Feng adopted both physical cards and virtual cards (issued by Dangdang.com). He launched various card types: 5 yuan for 30 hours, 10 yuan for 60 hours, 15 yuan for 90 hours, and 30 yuan for 180 hours. This price was one-third higher than the original "Legend," but Lin Feng appropriately reduced the experience required for leveling up (ensuring that a mage could reach level 40 in one month if they played 24 hours a day) and temporarily capped the level at 50. Once more than half of the players reached level 50, Lin Feng would open level 60, and then 70, 80, 90, and so on, adding new magic and equipment every 10 levels to keep players leveling up and pursuing new equipment.

Lin Feng felt that his idea was quite evil, but he liked it. It was just a pity for the Chinese players who would start the endless leveling journey for "Legend."

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