Second World

Before he left Amy's bakery, Jack decided to buy two Bread and a few cooking ingredients from the shop. He still had 6 bottles of medicine in his bag, but it wouldn't hurt to have more restorative items.

Factoring in his 30% discount, he spent 48 copper coins for the two bread and 72 copper coins for the ingredients. His savings dipped to below 3 silver coins. Either everything was expensive here, or he simply wasn't gathering coins fast enough, he thought. He would be burning through coins even faster if he still needed to rent a room, luckily he was getting free accommodation from this bakery. He couldn't imagine what the others were doing about the coin problem.

As he walked towards the Adventurers Association, Peniel urged him to take a slight detour to a shopping street that they had passed before. The Fairy might be bossy, but she had also been quite helpful as a source of information, so Jack complied with her request. When he reached the street, she told him to go to a specific shop along the street.

It was the smallest shop on the street. Jack looked at what the shop had for sale and found it to be an assortment of different kinds of goods. It looked like a pawn shop. Jack was wondering why Peniel asked him to come here. The shopkeeper was an old, thin, and bald man, with slanted eyes. He stared at Jack from his counter with a look that said, 'Are you going to buy something, boy, or are you just here window shopping?'

'Um, Peniel, what are we looking for in here?' Jack asked Peniel.

'Ask the shopkeeper for lockpicks,' Peniel answered him.

He then remembered that she had mentioned these before when they were still in the Cultist's warehouse. He also remembered lockpicking to be one of the auxiliary skills that was available.

Jack then went up to the counter and said to the shopkeeper, "I'm looking for lockpicks, you got them?"

The shopkeeper looked at Jack from head to toe with his slanted eyes before taking out a set of two pin-sized metal pieces with curved ends. He set it down on the counter. Jack touched the metal pieces and its description appeared.

Normal Lockpick (Lockpick tool)

Used to open locks on doors or chests. Will brake if failure during lockpicking

Price: 10 copper coins

'10 copper? That's cheap,' Jack thought.

'You are gonna need a lot of them, buy as many as you can with all the coins you have,' Peniel said.

'What? No way! How can I spend all my coins just for this?'

'Because they are going to break a lot. Do you think you will successfully pick a lock with that Apprentice grade lockpicking skill of yours? If you don't want to spend all your coins, at least buy twenty!"

Twenty. That was 2 silver coins. Jack was unwilling, but Peniel's wisdom had already helped him many times, so he submitted to her will. Gritting his teeth, he took out 2 silver coins. "I want twenty of these!" He said to the shopkeeper.

The Shopkeeper grinned and brought out his order. After completing the transaction, Jack only had 86 copper coins left. He felt like crying.

He then made a bee line to the Adventurers Association. No more detours this time! He walked directly to the Bronze Hall. He spotted an open counter, which happened to be the same counter he had received his quest from. The same pretty lady was still manning that counter.

"Good day, sir Storm Wind," the lady greeted him before he had the chance to speak. She remembered him. Jack was impressed by the customer service standard. "What can I do for you today?" She asked.

"I would like to report on the quest I took yesterday," Jack said.

She took out a square crystal tray. "Please put your badge on the tray," she said.

Jack did as he was told. The crystal emitted a soft glow that encapsulated the badge and transmitted a humming sound. After the glow dissipated, the lady said to him, "The quest you have completed has been deemed a higher grade than predicted; therefore, your reward has been increased. And thank you for your service; the authorities have been informed about the Cult's activity. They are already in the process of organizing city squads to hunt down the Cult members for their crimes."

That was efficient, Jack thought. He had assumed he would have to explain everything that had happened, or write it down like a report or something. But apparently the badge had already recorded everything and could conveniently send the report to the Association through this crystal tray. As he took back his badge, he heard a sound of notification.

"Congratulations on completing the quest Investigate the Cult of Phobos. Difficulty after review, is C rank, thus rewards are increased. Receive rewards of 3 silver coins, 3000 Experience points, and 30 Adventurer Points."

Once the notification ended, it was followed immediately by another notification, "congratulations on being the first outworlder to complete a quest. Receive rewards of 10 silver coins and 50 Adventurer Points."

Jack was amazed. So the quest really was C rank, and the reward had increased by a lot, especially the adventurer points, it were ten times higher than they had been. Adding in the additional rewards for being the first outworlder, suddenly his coin shortage problem was solved.

He had also received a ton of Adventurer points. If he took on another quest like the one before, he would become a Silver Rank adventurer immediately. But after he thought back on everything that happened, he decided he was not going to gamble on another unknown quest any time soon.

It could be argued that he had managed to complete the previous quest only by luck. It was only because of Gilbert that he had managed to escape safely from the cult. And Gilbert was there as part of Amy's mother quest. He didn't know how things would have gone if he had not received Amy's quest.

'Don't forget to report your completion of Amy's quest as well,' Peniel reminded him.

Jack did so. He received 5 Adventurer points, but no other rewards.

Next, he chose a D rank quest. After all, he only needed another 15 points to get to the Silver rank. It was a quest to escort a merchant to the slum, which awarded 8 adventurer points. If he took another two quests like this, he would hit the 100 points mark in no time. And the Cultists shouldn't be roaming around the slum anymore since the authorities had taken action against them, so it should be safe for him to return there.

Before he left the counter, he asked the pretty lady to show him the items he could exchange adventurer points for. The lady took out the previous crystal tray. She did some tweaking on the tray before a holographic list appeared above it.

There were almost a hundred items on the list. The bottom half was mostly consumable items like potions, foods, ingredients. The top half was made up of equipment pieces, mostly low-level. The highest were level 10 to 15 equipment. These would interest most Bronze rank adventurers, who were mostly in these level ranges.

Above the number one in the list, however, there were another four items to choose from. These were categorized as Exclusive List items.

Technique Book: Fast Slash – 80 adventurer points

Technique Book: Shift Injury – 100 adventurer points

Technique Book: Body Double – 100 adventurer points

Skill Book (stock: 10) – 30 adventurer points

They were all extremely expensive compared to the other items on the standard list, especially the Shift Injury and Body Double books. He would be a Silver rank by the time he could exchange for them.

"What's the story with these exclusive items?" Jack asked the lady at the counter.

"The items on that list will be removed when someone exchanges for them," she answered.

"So if I exchange for one of these, no one else can get the item anymore?"

"That's correct. That also includes you. You cannot take these items twice, unless we have additional stock, like the Skill book here. Once all ten skill books are taken, that will be gone from the list as well."

"How good are the skills in these technique books?" He asked again.

"I'm sorry. I don't have that information. You will have to exchange for them to find out," the lady replied.

"The Fast Slash is a Fighter class advance skill," his fairy replied from empty air. "The Shift Injury is Ranger's advanced skill, so you can forget about that one. The Body Double is Magician's advanced skill."

"What about the Skill Book?" Jack asked Peniel.

"It's for granting you 1 skill point," Peniel answered, then she added, "I suggest you save your adventurer points and use them to exchange for that Body Double skill."