God of Zero Cost

"Welcome to Bereshit Online. Please select your regional entry quadrant."

A massive, wire-frame map of the ancient Near Eastern world bloomed in front of Ethan’s eyes. While the visual quality was slightly blurry due to his cheap rig, the scale was vast. To the west, the blue of the Mediterranean Sea; to the south, the scorching expanse of the Sinai; and stretching through the center, a jagged, mountainous corridor of dust, olive trees, and ancient limestone fortresses.

Before selecting a drop zone, Ethan focused his low-tier display on the floating global economics ticker hovering in the corner of his field of vision. This was his true interface.

Ethan’s inner calculations began immediately. Fifteen Shekels just to keep a basic dagger from snapping? At forty-eight cents a shekel, that was over seven real Singapore dollars just for tool upkeep. If a player spent their day fighting trash mobs, half their daily earnings would bleed straight back into the corporate-owned blacksmith shops or the system's coin sinks.

He pulled up the public forums to inspect the regional corporate distribution.

The Nile Delta region was purple—dominated by the "Angmoh" (Western) syndicates who had established high-tier pharaonic trade monopolies. The Mesopotamian basin to the far east was blocked out by the East Asian conglomerates, who were already industrialising the bronze-smelting process using heavy macro-automation scripts.

The major routes are heavily taxed, Ethan thought, his finger scrolling past promotional videos of elite Singaporean players from Merlion Holdings showing off their iron vanguard gear. If you hunt in their zones, they charge a safety fee. If you sell in their markets, they take a percentage. To make pure profit, I need an asset with absolutely zero operational friction.

He looked back at the map and zoomed in on the northern hills of Canaan. The region was a chaotic patchwork of independent city-states: Hazor, Megiddo, and the dusty pastoral trails leading down toward the Negev. The system text flagged it as an open world region, meaning it simulated real-world historical laws without hard-coded system protections. If you built something here, the system didn't protect it—but it also couldn't tax it if you hid it well enough.

"Hazor District selected," Ethan commanded. "Initiating character generation."

The darkness dissolved.

Ethan’s virtual feet hit the ground with a soft, solid thud.

The sudden, overwhelming sensory input of the game engine hit him like a physical wall. The air didn't smell like the sterile, filtered recycled oxygen of his Chinatown flat; it was thick, heavy, and hot, smelling intensely of dry straw, goat manure, and the sharp, metallic tang of sun-baked red earth.

He was standing in a massive, sprawling outer courtyard constructed from colossal, roughly hewn limestone blocks. Thousands of players were materializing around him, their high-tech, sleek pre-order skins clashing violently with the dusty, Bronze Age environment.

Ethan didn't move. He stood completely still in his default linen tunic, letting his bare feet sink into the loose topsoil of the entry court. He opened his raw character profile to check his baseline allocation.

"Zero shekels," Ethan muttered, a small, cynical smirk playing on his lips. "Perfect. You can't lose what you don't possess."

Around him, the entry courtyard was absolute bedlam. Hundreds of affluent players who had purchased high-tier starting packages were rushing past, their digital banners gleaming.

"Recruiting for the Merlion Vanguard!" a loud, amplified voice boomed near the main gates. A player wearing a glowing bronze breastplate stood atop a stone mounting block, waving a heavy iron broadsword. "All strength-builds report to the Garrison Quarter! High payout in real SGD! We are rushing the Chariot Commander class prerequisites! Iron rations and weapon repairs fully covered by the guild!"

Ethan watched them run toward the recruiter like sheep marching toward an automated shearing station. His photographic memory instantly tracked the small print scrolling at the bottom of the holographic contract the recruiter was projecting:

Clause 4.2: Signee acknowledges that all physical salvage, including copper ore, timber, and animal hides harvested during guild operations, remains exclusive corporate property. Signee will receive a fixed daily stipend of 2.5 Silver Shekels, subject to deductions for structural damage to guild-issued equipment.

Two point five shekels a day, Ethan calculated under his breath, his eyes turning cold. That's barely one dollar and twenty cents Singapore money. They're renting out human processing power for less than the price of a synthetic cup of coffee, using a flashy bronze breastplate as bait.

Ethan turned away from the corporate recruitment drive. His original strategy remained completely cold and transactional. He would enter the local administrative quarter, find the basic combat instructors, claim the standard-issue novice weapon kit given to every free-tier player, and then immediately march to the nearest open-air pawn broker to liquidate it.

If he could flip the starter kit for even ten copper bits, that was ten bits closer to keeping his grandmother's oxygen lines clear for another hour.

He adjusted his coarse linen collar against the rising heat of the virtual sun and marched down the wide, limestone-paved avenue toward the inner citadel of Hazor, his eyes scanning the horizon for the cheapest path forward.