The Flying Emporium

The tug on his conscience was still a very unusual feeling for him, catching him off guard. It caused him to wonder how the class-bearers in this world perceived their inventory and if they had stat and character panels and the like. For now, he couldn’t think of an appropriate way to ask those questions without drawing unwanted attention.

The thought disappeared as quickly as it came when he willed the System Screen open and noticed the indicator next to the Quest-log menu icon.

He quickly tapped the menu open, again via the mental connection. He tried to be as subtle as possible, not wanting to be seen wildly fidgeting with his arms in thin air.

[A Business Opportunity

Quest description: The customer demands an Identification Service. You will provide it.

Identify 10 items.

Quest reward: The System will reward you with the ability to adjust the ratio of Personal- Income to System-Income (very limited).]

A new quest had appeared, and, even though he didn’t like the tone, Severin was positively surprised.

The System hadn’t provided him with much assistance recently.

For one, his other quest was still stuck. Even with Xander’s appearance, the counter showed a depressing 4/10 unique customers.

For another, he just learned that his latest System-provided product turned out to be a bit of a letdown.

So now, he wasn’t only reminded of his (Identify) skill, that he had already forgotten about without using it even once, but he was also presented with a concrete quest reward.

‘Doesn’t that mean I can give myself a raise? Then maybe I will finally be able to afford that bedroom.’ The prospect of that somewhat eased the pain of the recent disappointment.

His eyes focused back on the person in front of him.

“Actually, I could identify the gear for you guys if you want me to.”

“Oh? You can inspect items? The skill isn’t that common around here. Then again…” Samuel had already convinced himself that Severin was a foreigner a long time ago. Not only because of the lack of at times common knowledge but also because he was sure that Severin’s class wasn’t something that could be acquired around these parts. Whatever that class might actually be.

Severin double-checked with the skill menu and mumbled more to himself. ”Identify.”

“Say again?”

“The skill says identify, not inspect.” This time a bit louder.

Samuel raised an eyebrow in astonishment. Despite his rather broad knowledge regarding all things related to adventurers and their classes, he never heard it being referred to as ‘identifying’. At least not by the skill itself.

Then again, he was more concerned with combat-focused classes and skills.

He hesitated a moment.

“Mind telling me the skills description? Only if it’s not too much to ask for, of course.” While a lot of skills and their effects were somewhat public knowledge, it was still considered rather rude to directly ask for anything more specific, especially if it wasn’t directly linked to coming up with a group's battle plan or the like; In these situations, people tended to be more forthcoming with their information and willing to share knowledge.

Now, a skill that Samuel hadn’t even heard of was most likely not public knowledge whatsoever, at least not on Galira. And it couldn’t get any more specific than asking for the actual skill description. And it most certainly was ‘too much to ask for’ in almost every context. Of course, Samuel was well aware of that, but the way he judged Severin’s personality made him ask anyway.

Such behavior was very out of character for him, but it emphasized the importance he put on that information, for whatever reason.

Severin paused. He strongly suspected that something was up and that this was indeed something one would not commonly ask about in this world. Not least because of Samuel’s strained tone.

For what it’s worth, it was also a well-documented trope in certain fictions, not much unlike unspoken law concerning the random identification of other people’s gear; One of the reasons that Severin had pretty much forgotten the existence of his own version of the skill, as he wasn’t too keen on offending the [Berserker]. And not only because he was his first customer.

In the end, Severin came to the conclusion that it didn’t really matter in his case.

Most importantly, because it wouldn’t concern his safety. As it wasn’t a combat skill anyway, it wouldn’t diminish his non-existent defensive capabilities in the slightest. He wasn’t revealing some hidden, lifesaving technique.

On the other hand, he might further deepen his relationship with this apparently powerful adventurer, which surely would come in handy at some point in time.

It might even serve as some kind of advertisement if the skill managed to prove its usefulness.

‘What’s the worst that could happen?’

“Well, so it’s called (Identify). And it says, ‘You are able to identify all items’ and ‘You may choose to reveal the resulting tooltip to other people.’” After a moment, he added with a serious expression, “I think a good Shopkeeper should always know what items he is dealing with”.

At this point, the old man had already stopped paying attention, much to Severin’s displeasure as he thought himself very funny when he cited the skill’s flavor text.

Not that he would’ve got the joke anyway.

Samuel just nodded with an absent mind, deep in thought.

But only for a moment. He gave Severin an intense look as if trying to judge him, before turning around and excusing himself.

“I’ll have the two come to find you.”

With that, he walked out of the store, leaving Severin somewhat dumbfounded.

He decided against calling after him.

‘What was that all about?’

Choosing to ignore Samuel’s strange behavior for the moment, he made his way over to the counter. He leaned his forearms on it and opened the System, looking at it as if it were laying there like a book or a newspaper.

‘The System message and the promised quest reward reminded me to check something else I was curious about.

The experience I get for selling stuff should be dependent on the item price, no? It would only make sense. Let's see.’

Up to now, all products were priced at just 1 gold coin. So now, with a more expensive product, Severin thought it would only be right if the experience points gained from those sales would rise in proportion to the price.

He was reassured to find that selling the two small bottles to Xander had indeed granted him the same amount of experience as 40 of the jelly potions.

“Let’s just hope the guy has an ongoing need for those things…Might speed things up. Especially if I can get him to try the potions.

Damn. I really should’ve tried harder to sell him on these. If only he wasn’t that annoying.” His previous confidence that Xander would return, had evaporated into thin air after Samuel’s analysis of the product.

Still, his positive outlook on the things to come wasn’t affected. He knew he was in it for the long run and things weren’t looking too bleak.

‘Not only have I already managed to set foot out of here, but some of the upgrades in the shop look pretty exciting as well. It’s all just a matter of time.’

The shop page was coincidentally the other thing he wanted to check out while waiting for Miriam and Timothy.

The moment he had bought the plot of land in front of the store, he had already noticed a change in the shop menu. At the time he decided to ignore it and investigate the issue later since he was too excited at the prospect of leaving the hut.

‘Let's catch up on that now.’ He navigated to the System’s shopping section.

‘So, what are those brackets? And why do they only appear behind some of the items.’

After a few taps, this time with his hand, he quickly realized what the round brackets, and more importantly the number inside them, represented.

“Buying the land was basically a down payment! The price gets offset!

All the buildings will need their own plot of land, I take it. And that’s already included in the listed price.”

Severin didn’t regret the purchase, but since then, he had a slightly bad conscience because of it. With the knowledge he had at that time, it just wasn’t the smartest choice to spend the money like this.

So now he felt relieved and even had an excuse if he wanted to further expand his territory.

But Severin could further enjoy his discovery, he was torn from his thoughts.

“Hey, Sev. What are you looking at?”

“Hello, mister! What are you doing there?”