CH 172

“Looking to purchase the Spirit Armor Set! Will pay 1,200 gold for the Regret and Despair parts of the set! Not 1,200 gold total but 1,200 gold per piece! I’ll also pay 5 gold to anyone who refers me to a seller!”

“Selling the Ascetic’s Protection Stone! It can handle most mid-rank magic spells!”

“Looking for a Level 8 or above mercenary warrior. Travel and earn money at the same time~!”

As always, Starting’s city square was bustling. Many users were gathered and chatted loudly amongst themselves. Among those gathered was a green haired man.

“I’ll purchase this marble.”

“Huh? That’s just something I picked up on the street. I haven’t properly assessed the items’ value yet…”

“100 gold.”

“Thank you, dear customer~!”

One gold was equal to 50,000 won, and 100 gold was a whopping 5 million won. Although the seller didn’t know what the marble was, the item was labeled a common item, so the offer of 100 gold for such a basic item wasn’t something that the seller could pass up. Happily, the user sold the marble to the green haired man.

“…”

The man with green hair who bought the marble looked at the marble without saying a word. Numerous users passed him by as he continued to stare at the marble, but, for the man, his surroundings were as quiet as if he had entered another dimension.

“Tsk. I told her to be careful. It seemed like things were unraveling; eventually, it came to this.”

He sighed. It was completely coincidental that he was able to find this marble. Actually, he was not in a position where he could access DIO. The reason he was interested in DIO and paid attention to the system’s operations to some extent was because he was curious about the difference between this system and the previous warrior training system.

“It must have been so urgent that she couldn’t get out.”

He laughed. Anyway, he thought he was really lucky. If it wasn’t for Number 4’s connection to her, it would have been impossible for even him to restore her.

“I wonder what will eventually happen to this place.”

Suddenly, the man turned his head and looked around. He saw people talking and shouting. For him, the scene was something he missed quite a bit, but that didn’t mean he felt the responsibility to be involved in their future.

“I’ll have to be careful and keep my head down for a while.”

He smiled and took a step forward. Soon, the man completely vanished.

***

“I finished what you requested.”

“Thank you. Here’s your compensation.”

“It’s more than I expected.”

“You made it on short notice, so of course I owe you a bit more than usual.”

Merlin inspected the weapon, a 120-centimeter-long silver longsword, he requested from Aidelin.

Merlin used the system’s appraisal function to inspect the item.

[Item: Aidelin’s Supreme Longsword

Rank 6

Rare

Description: A masterpiece made by the blacksmith Aidelin. The strength and flexibility of the longsword is excellent, as it is made from a special metal, and the longsword possesses a feature to restore itself. It also possesses an effect of hiding its special feature.]

“Excellent. To be able to produce a Rare-type weapon through simple production…”

“It was possible because of the materials you provided. No matter how much I try, I won’t be able to create a Rare-type weapon using normal materials. Moreover, the rank of production items rarely rises unless they’re accompanied by some special effects.”

Saying this, Aidelin took out a pair of gauntlets from his inventory. Surprisingly, the gauntlets were made out of metal.

[Item: Aidelin’s Divine Gauntlets

Rank 5

Rare

Gauntlets made by the blacksmith Aidelin. Mithril was processed into thread-like fibers and interwoven to create the gauntlet. Moreover, Arken stone was melted and attached to the gauntlets to allow magic power to be charged into the item. The gauntlets’ magic power can be used to nullify an enemy’s magic power attack.]

“Let me return your money. Instead, can I ask you to enchant one of my items?”

“Hmm… you’re much smarter than you look.”

“I hear that often.”

As a powerful mage who possessed tremendous image making skill, Merlin was DIO’s premier enchanter. Though he offered quite a lot of gold to Aidelin, Merlin received a longsword that was one of a kind.

“What enchantment features are you looking for?”

“A defensive enchantment. Since I’ve trained a bit in martial arts, an active defense enchantment would be nice.”

“That… shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll show you something that’ll knock your socks off. I’ll come around tomorrow around this time.”

Hearing Merlin’s response, Aidelin made a surprised expression.

“Tomorrow? You mean real-time?”

“No. DIO time.”

“You’re able to enchant that quickly?”

“Whether I spend a lot of time or a little, the results are pretty much the same. I have some urgent matters to take care of as well. Oh, also, can you find me some potential buyers?”

“As I thought. You’re planning to sell that longsword.”

Aidelin pointed towards the longsword in Merlin’s hands. Before Aidelin produced the longsword, Merlin had asked what weapons were popular amongst users, so Aidelin surmised that Merlin was planning on eventually selling the item Aidelin produced.

“I’m planning on testing out a theoretical enchantment approach on this longsword. Anyway, I expect this longsword to eventually become a Unique-rank item. Moreover, it’ll be possible to add reinforcement stats on the new item.”

“Reinforcement stats? Are you talking about the plus (+) stats in other online games?”

“Yeah. The upgraded longsword will be useful, especially to high level players that need to increase their fighting power, so please keep a lookout for those types of users for me. They won’t be displeased.”

“Okay. Please make sure to give some extra attention to my enchantment.”

“Of course.”

Merlin put the gauntlets and longsword into his inventory and respectfully bowed to Aidelin.

“Then, I’ll be off.”

“See you later.”

Merlin turned around and headed out of the smithery. He started making his way to the marketplace area. Before introducing a new feature to the public, Merlin needed to round up a substantial inventory of ingredient materials.

“Give me all that you have.”

“Excuse me?”

“All of it.”

In DIO, there were two main marketplaces where one could purchase items. The first was the NPC operated storefronts. Second was the user transaction center, which operated by adding a commission on top of one’s selling price. The user exchange center arranged items based on selling price, so it was a good place to find out the going rate for certain items. Additionally, users could open up their own shop, like what Aidelin did, or swap items in designated areas. Then, there was the underground auction house.

Of course, there was no need for Merlin to stop by the underground auction house because the auction house was a place where expensive items were traded. Merlin wanted to buy magic stones and inner cores. Of course, Rare-type items such as Great Cores and Blue Crystals were sold in the underground auction house, but Merlin didn’t need such expensive items.

“Give me all the magic stones you have that are priced below 1 silver. I’ll take all of the small ones, too.”

First off, Merlin planned to wipe all the shops clean of their magic stone inventory. Magic stones like the Great Core, or Millennium Spirit Core, were the magic stones most sought after in Dynamic Island, but there weren't very many of these rare magic stones. However, the marketplace overflowed with low level magic stones.

For example, there was the blue core, which were the lowest-grade cores, that Merlin obtained after defeating a Waterdrop Turtle.

These lowest-grade cores usually contain 5 to 10 years of internal energy or 10 to 20 tetras of magic power, but if one tried to increase one’s spiritual power by taking them, the purity of one’s energy would go down. Hence, these cores were best used as energy storage units, that is, a kind of battery.

“Do you have a use for so many of these lowest-grade cores and magic stones?”

“I need it for a magic experiment. Are you planning on not selling me the cores?”

“Oh, no. Of course, we’ll sell you all our low-grade cores. Thank you for using our Magic & Miracle shop.”

Soon, Merlin bought up 700 cores while walking around the NPC shops. Most of the cores were the lowest-grade cores; moreover, most of these low-grade cores possessed unpopular attributes, such as land or water attributes.

“Time to sweep up all the cores in the user exchange center.”

Merlin went onto the user exchange center and bought up all the cores and magic stones listed at a price below a certain level. Since the drop rate of the lowest-grade core was high compared to its use rate, the quantity Merlin was able to secure was quite large. Of course, these cores could be used as material for magic tools or as storage batteries for energy, but it was common practice amongst the users to use at least a low-grade or intermediate-grade standard magic stone or core as ingredient materials for magic items. Moreover, even though the drop rate of the lowest-grade core was high, its price was also relatively quite high, as it had many different applications. In other words, the market was flush with these lowest-grade cores since they weren’t being used widely and had a relatively high price compared to their application. After his mass purchase, Merlin headed over to the user-run stalls and storefronts.

“I’d like to purchase these ten.”

“1 gold and 11 silver.”

“Too rich for my blood. See you later…”

“Ah, c’mon bro. 1 gold.”

“80 silver.”

“Don’t run me dry, man. How about 90 silver? I’m trying to buy a new weapon myself.”

Merlin slowly roamed the marketplaces, buying cores and magic stones from the user-run shops. However, unlike the user exchange center and NPC-run stores, the individual user-run stores sold items in small quantities, so Merlin couldn’t buy in bulk at any one time, but because the scale of user-run stores was larger than any other method, Merlin was able to eventually purchase about 400 cores.

“1 gold.”

“Is it 1 gold for five of the lowest-grade cores?”

“Yes, and I don’t haggle.”

As Merlin continued to buy cores, the sellers who saw his rampant purchasing began to raise their price and squeeze out as much as they could from him. Since Merlin was purchasing a large amount and seemed to have a lot of money, the sellers started taking actions to maximize their profit.

“Then I won’t haggle as well. Goodbye.”

“Huh? What?”

However, Merlin, who had already purchased close to 1,800 cores, didn’t need to force himself to buy cores at a relatively high price. Merlin had made a lot of money after overturning the battlefield in the New Continent and selling the drop items he had picked up then, but Merlin had already spent a majority of that money in his recent shopping spree.