Jay woke up, stretching his body as multiple notifications greeted him.

[+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp][+15 Exp]

“Heh, they’re quite productive.” Jay smiled in satisfaction at the free experience, while he calculated he would get about thirty to forty-five rat teeth.

Jay leaned on his side in bed, looking out the window at the mist-sheep in a nearby field for a few minutes while he was still waking up. He always enjoyed watching them phase to mist with the rest of the herd-cloud, while periodically turning back to sheep again when leaving the safety of their mist-form to eat some grass. Mist-sheep had to be farmed by mages who practiced water-based manacraft, otherwise no one could force them out of their mist form.

“Well, I can’t spend all day in bed.” Jay had planned to go to the adventurer association to buy a tent, and camp outside of stink-rat marsh – but now he didn’t see the point anymore since he could just stay at home.

“I think today I’ll head back to the wolf’s quarry dungeon. Maybe I’ll reach the boss this time.” Jay thought as he mentally willed the skeletons to exit the stink-rat marsh and wait near the wolf quarry. “Thanks to the tooth stockpile, It’ll be way easier with all the unstable teeth spells I’ll be shooting.”

Jay had his breakfast like usual, adding a little bondtussle root for the flavour and the mana regeneration buff.

Leaving his house, he was walking to the forest before he realised he needed to make a trip to the adventurer guild to sell his monster drops; his inventory being 93% full.

Jay began walking to the bottom of the hill, arriving at the path towards the adventurer association, then he noticed a familiar face walking down – Anya.

Sighing, he kept walking up the hill, knowing that she would probably try to rope him into a dungeon run.

As they got closer to each other, Anya was the first to speak.

“Goodmorning Jay” she smiled._.

Jay only looked back at her blankly “Morning.” and kept walking.

Anya stopped and started walking with him “I need help with something, there-“

“No sorry, I’m busy” Jay cut her off.

“Doing what?”

“Stuff.” He bluntly said.

“There’s a reward from Sullivan himself” she sounded desperate.

Jay stopped for a moment, turning to her. He didn’t say anything but only raised an eyebrow, gesturing to her to continue whatever it was she was going to say – a total power move.

Anyas voice then sounded soft and worried “There’s a small settlement that’s being attacked by forest monsters. Two days journey from here. They need our help Jay, an innocent child has already been killed…” she looked at Jay with her purple eyes, trying her best puppy dog expression.

Jay paused for a moment, thinking to himself “Hmm… I’ll do it. For the sake of the people I’ll do it; but maybe I can squeeze something nice out of her.”

“Why should I help?” tilting his head to the side, Jay began to bargain.

“Uh.. Well, there’s a reward. Sullivan didn’t say what it would be, but that it will be worth it” Anya told a half-truth to Jay, hoping he would accept before adding “Plus, there will be lots of experience. Apparently only one or two of the high level guards would be needed for this, but we can handle it.”

Jay scratched his chin, pretending to be thinking about the deal before accepting.

“Fine, but the reward better be good.”

Anya stopped smiling and her puppy dog eyes returned to normal, with an expressionless voice with a straight face.

“Great. I’ve got other people to recruit. Be ready to leave in one hour.” she sounded professional as ever.

“Creepy” Jay thought to himself, realizing she was a better actor than he was, since he actually thought she was going to cry.

“Ok. I’ll be waiting at the guild.”

“Actually, can you wait at the Snakeraven inn? There’s no point for the others and me to come back up the hill.” Anya said.

“Others?”

“I have to recruit more people or we’ll probably die..” she shrugged. “But don’t worry, we’ll be in separate parties so they won’t see your class, and we can split up from them so they don’t see your skeletons either.”

“Hmm ok. See you later.” Jay waved one hand as he turned up the hill.

“See you.”

Jay kept walking up the hill, thinking about what to do now that his plans have changed.

“Hmm. I’ll need better armour because at some point my skeletons won’t be around, and perhaps a little waist pouch for my teeth – to make casting quicker. A few days supply of food and water. I won’t need a shield or weapon since I have the blue ossein sword, and my trusty sentry.”

Jay chuckled for a moment, thinking that his shield’s glowing skull might scare Anya.

“…Hopefully” he grinned evilly “That by itself will make the whole trip worth it.”

Making his way up the hill, he entered the guild through the floating mana stone gate. Entering reception, Margaret wasn’t there so Jay had to ring a bell. She appeared from a room somewhere behind reception carrying an empty food tray, seeing Jay she smiled warmly.

“Hello dear. How can I help you?”

“Hi. Uh, where do I sell my monster drops?”

“Oh, just go through that door and meet my friend Lilly” she pointed at a door off to the right of reception. The door had a round brass door knob with a window sill under a chest-high sliding panel that one could open up to pass things through.

Without a second thought, Jay opened the door and entered.

Entering the room, it had long wooden benches inside – two in the middle of the room with their backs together, and six against the walls. Looking around, Jay noticed a large, round, dark-blue gemstone embedded into the wall. It seemed to have swirling stars inside a dark mist.

Jay paused, observing it’s beauty for a moment before noticing a door next to it – similar to the door he just entered, with a hatch and a window sill. Wasting no time, he walked through it.

On the other side of the second door, Jay was glared at by a slender, tall woman with long black hair sitting at a desk. She was doing paperwork and eating a jerky of some sort. Her office was sleek and cold, paved with polished black-slate floors, it had a fireplace on one side. On her desk sat a frog covered in fur – a kind of novelty pet among the upper class. It was more like a fluffy rabbit than a slimy toad. It ribbited at Jay, and she patted it to soothe it before glaring at Jay again.

“You’re meant to knock..” she said bluntly.

Wearing a fancy sleeveless leather coat with gold-thread patterns, a red long sleeve shirt and denim pants. Her black hair was slightly wavy and seemed to curl perfectly on each side of her chest. She sat there silently, staring at Jay as if he was being rude. It was clear at this point – she was rich.

“Oh. Sorry. I was told to come through the door…” Jay gestured behind him “I have some monster drops to sell..?” he raised a brow.

She sighed, “Silly margie..” as she put down the jerky. Jay only half smiled from his uneasiness.

“I’m Lillian, this is where you come to buy items and sell drops. We don’t have a teleportation device, so anything you buy can take days or weeks to come via our couriers. When you sell us a drop, we buy it at ten percent off the market buying price.” she pointed to a large round gemstone which seemed to be built-in to the wall – the same one Jay saw from the other room; It was a sphere gemstone which could be touched from either room.

“Touch that and you’ll be temporarily connected to it – you’ll then be able to browse current items for sale as well as how much your monster drops would be sold for. Now when you want to sell something, you give it to me and I’ll pay you. When you want to buy something, I’ll take your details and you give me the gold. Simple right?”

Jay looked around for a moment, piecing together how the system worked in his mind.

“Yeah, I see. I’ll just go have a look then.” Jay went to touch the crystal before hearing a shout behind him.

“Ah Pebbles, you ate my jerky!” Jay turned around to look at Lillian frowning at her furball pet. “Greedy little floof!”

Noticing Jay was still there, and smiling cheekily at her, she suddenly became more composed.

“Well, don’t browse it here, I’m busy. Touch the crystal and you’ll be connected to it for thirty minutes. Come back when you have something to sell… or buy.”

“Oh, right. Sorry… Nice meeting you.. And Pebbles” Jay acted polite as he left the room and closed the door quietly – though still having a smile.

Back in the room with the benches, he realised why they were there now. Touching the gemstone in the wall, he sat down on a bench as he received a notification.

[Trade Platform Accessed]

[29 Minutes remaining]

“Hmm…” Jay waiting a moment until it went down to twenty-eight minutes before touching the gemstone again.

[29 Minutes remaining]

“I see.” he though, sitting down to browse the list.

“Hmm…” he entered the shield section and found another buckler sub-section under it. Going into it, he found out the true price of the old buckler he bought.

“Man, Bertram is one greedy piece of shit.” Jay found the real market price of the items that Bertram was selling.

The price Jay paid after his little discount was 15 gold. The market listing was 12 gold for a similar one. Initially, Bertram wanted 30 gold for it – and then he would trade it in for a miniscule discount on the next overpriced item he sells.

Jay only wondered why no one warned the new recruits about Bertram. The only conclusion he could come to was that they didn’t tell them so that the new adventurers would learn a lesson. While it may seem like a valuable lesson now, it would certainly be much cheaper to learn as young adventurers rauther than later in their journey. Perhaps Bertram would even be a fond memory someday as they bartered with another crafty, cunning trader.

“Hmm. Well, I’ll probably have even better bone weapons and maybe even armour at that point.” he grinned with pride “Time to see how much these drops are worth.”