Chapter Sixty five

The game of was instant hit. The craze had not recessed even after a week of launch. Even in the campus of Saint Augustine, the fevour had not come down. It should be remembered that the result day and admission days were considered festivity days, days to be remembered, by the college and related personnel. The whole campus, no the whole college City would be geared towards it.

This time, the festivity, the gayness, the joy...all were there. But it was mixed up, jumbled up. For the first time in recent years, the result day exuberance mixed up with joy of playing .

The bold ones, the self confident ones went on their regular routine and took a break after 10 am to check the results. 10 minutes to check. 15 minutes to tag. Then merry making.

Stop! What is this trending topic? Who is this Murphy? Did they take classes with this devil? What a curve wrecker!!!

Let's gather around and pull our heads together to identify this masked persona. They didn't even know if this person was a boy or girl. Time to sit together and remember! What do you mean by wasting time? Knowing this person or not knowing is the first step to bragging. Just imagine telling someone, 'Oh! That person! Yeah,we were in same batch. We passed out together!'. Totally brag worthy. Now imagine saying, 'Oh him(her)! Yeah, yeah! We had few classes together. He(she) is a monster! I still wonder how he(she) learn.' Pride squared. The pride would have been max if that said person was BFF, but lying so much while bragging will bring you down sooner or later.

All funny thoughts aside, they really needed to search for this Murphy and rope into their side. It would make taking charge of their works in their families' business oh so easy.

They got together chatted, tried to find out. The departments had no idea. The admin section, the same. Heck, even the housekeeping and culinary department had no idea and these were the most hands on departments. All the file had to encrypted to max. To de-encrypt, you had to pay best hacker team and they had to work for weeks or months together. Easy way would be to get Principal or Dean to look into the matter. The problem was that even if they saw the details, they would not divulge. Any person would could hold important position in the college would be a powerhouse, worthy of facing the world alone.

Another way is to trace back. Not that they hadn't done that but it was truly a dead end. Why? Because the order for encryption came from Mrs Briggs who could technically hold the whole college in her palm. So, don't ask her directly, find clues. Whom did she meet before ordering encryption? Unfortunately, the clue turned even more useless. She attended few 'thank you teachers' feast before she came into the office, encrypted the file and left to attend another get together. She met nearly all the students who were graduating, it seemed. Dead ends. Nothing but dead ends.

But it made things interesting. They could build castles in air, let their imagination fly and dream up various stories of what had happened or what may happen. If you are not resigned, continue searching.

So while the joy of passing in flying colours was washed away with the suspense of searching the hidden person, there were few who did their own things. In addition to the above things done by their fellow batchmates. Yep! These people were planning on making big via the game. Rarely would people get such a chance of grabbing first row seats of historical event. The game might not turn out to be historical event but it would be one biggest business in recent times. Time to hitch the wagon. And these people had money, connections and brain to boot. How couldn't they succeed?

There were more than 10 groups who made big promises before the launch of the game. Heck, they even made the list of all the students who wanted to own a piece of this pie. When the alumni were included, the list turned into a mess. When including all the students playing it, it turned to be near exact copy of admission list. So after lots of errors and issues, the list got turned into multiple lists. The list with students who were graduating this year was considered sort of tie breaker. They hadn't spread the wings yet and it was a fresh start. They were not in the college to pull the juniors to pad up the numbers or do the basic works. They are no longer students, so their every contract, every workup would be what would happen normally in real life. In other words, they are adults, behaving like adults, without supervision of adults. The last part is a joke. How can there be no supervision? There would be no hand holding or spoonfeeding. That itself is a great start and a good way to showcase the talents of the youth. Of all the people or groups who were graduating this year, only top ten were monitored constantly. The current affairs department and news department were working round the clock to provide the ondits accurately and preferably in real time.

Why? There were millions and millions of villages and the student strength of graduating cohort was so small. The chances were that it would be a miracle if few batchmates spawned in the same village without any pull. (Remember, players could get few people as followers, use the code and get spawn together. Obviously, more people coming together would cost a lot more.) Its clear from first glance that unless they were from same team or group, they would try their best to get into game in different villages.

And all knew that village level is just orientation level. Real development starts later on. The race is to reach the town or city first and develop there. Clearly, that would happen later. By the looks of it, probably take two weeks or more to reach level 10.

So why was such a hoo-haw, and lots of noise about this top ten list? It is for Branding.