662 Chapter 662 - The Worried Brother Assis (1/2)

”The price of items in Parallel World has been adjusted as well? This currency update was very thorough implemented indeed!” Brother Assist had not expected such a change to happen right from the start and had rushed off in a hurry to join Sword Demon in an effort to study the monster drop rates in detail. In the end, before he even stepped out the city gates, Brother Assist decided to make a quick detour and quickly slipped into one of the established stores by the road when he heard about this.

It was a system-operated weapon forge, so the items sold inside were nothing spectacular. They were mainly white tier weapons, yet were still rather expensive. Usually, nobody would be bothered with them, treating them as a recycling bin for rubbish. This was the place where people would end up off-loading their random miscellaneous wares that no players would buy. Yet, it was the repair services that the blacksmith in the weapon forge offered that experienced a more booming business, as players would get their equipment repaired whenever they passed by every day without exception.

Brother Assist entered the forge and discovered that the store was packed, with a huge number of players squeezed inside. He almost had no place to stand inside at all. Before Brother Assist could even be amazed, another player just outside had already entered and pushed him further into the store. The place was now a crowded mess, and he could hear players yelling non-stop, ”It's my turn, my turn!!!”

”Just what in the world is going on here?” Brother Assist was confused, asking the player who was trying his best to squeeze his way forward.

”Trying to earn coin, of course!” That player answered without even turning to face Brother Assist.

”Why are you blindly joining the crowd if you don't know anything!?” another person turned back to look at Brother Assist when he said this, disgruntled after hearing this exchange.

Brother Assist had grown up in Parallel World facing such witheringly disdainful looks, so he ignored those words as he continued to shamelessly ask, ”How are people earning coin?”

There were, of course, kind-hearted people around, so someone answered, ”By doing the requisition orders that the Blacksmith issues, collecting the ores necessary!”

”Weren't Blacksmiths already accepting them before the update?” Brother Assist wondered out loud. The weapon forges in the game had always been collecting all sorts of mineral ores, just like how the armor forge would collect all sorts of cloth and leathers as well like the tailor did. This was nothing new.

Someone immediately threw a scornful look at Brother Assist's lack of knowledge as a result, ”Are things anything like before? Have you not heard the rumors? Such quests would also be limited from here onwards.

”That's just the gossip spreading in the forums!” Brother Assist said. How could he not have been aware of what was being discussed and all the information that was being tossed around on the forums? There would still be quests that would reward in-game currency, but it would be limited; this was the conclusion of the discussion that a poster came to on the forums. Most people agreed with this assessment as well. In truth, the officials had never mentioned anything like this, and it was all conjecture thus far.

”It was just rumors yesterday, but it's no longer rumors anymore,” another said.

”What!? Is the number of quests available really limited?” Brother Assist asked.

”We still don't know that for certain, but the weapons that this weapon forge would produce have already been reduced in quantity,” That person affirmed.

”Is that so? Let me take a look!” Brother Assist struggled as best he could to squeeze to the front. Nobody would fight with him to purchase equipment from the weapon store side of the forge, so when they saw that the person was not trying to compete in grabbing the quest, the crowd made a path for Brother Assist to pass. He made his way over to the front and queried the owner of the forge. The crowd was right! The weapons that were previously sitting on the weapon displays were for all to see and would be generated limitlessly once bought. As long as someone wished to buy it, why would the system not sell it? But it was no longer the case now; the weapons placed in the displays were just what was being shown, and nothing else. Brother Assist was very astonished. Even if nobody wanted to buy these items, was there a need to be so absolute? There were only three to five weapons on display here, so if someone were to be bored and just buy everything out, would it not be too much of a joke once the weapon store was left empty?

Brother Assist pondered about this as he asked the NPC merchant manning the store about the price. Indeed, the cost of these weapons had dropped just like the liquor prices in the tavern, but it had not been reduced ten times like the liquor in Parallel World, so compared to the original price… Brother Assist could not compare them, as he was unaware of the original price. This was because nobody had ever taken note of these white tier weapons or the price of these items. People merely glanced over them and knew they had become cheaper, but there was no way of telling just how much cheaper they were.

Brother Assist was contemplating over the matter when he casually took a look at the weapons on display, before he croaked, ”Blue Tier? Gold Tier? F*ck, there's even a piece of Purple tier equipment here!”

Everyone scoffed at Brother Assist's ignorance, ”Tsk. It's a Purple tier, do you dare to buy it?”

There was a single-handed Purple tier sword on display; one side of the blade had a sharp edge, and the other side was serrated. The sword's name was 'Black Sawblade', and it gave +15 to both Strength and Endurance, +5 to Agility, 35% Attack Enhancement, a 20% chance of causing the Bleed effect on attack that dealt 25% bleed every second over six seconds according to the attack damage that cannot be cured.

”It's even a weapon with an effect!” Brother Assist continued to exclaim. Players before had divided weapons into two categories: weapons with inlaid skill, and weapons without inlaid skill. The prices of weapons with inlaid skills were incomparably higher than those without. But as the variety of equipment became more abundant, players slowly realized that the weaponry found in Parallel World had three major categories. The first category was weapons with skills in them: in addition to the additional stat points it provided, these weapons would all have a skill that players would be able to utilize once equipped, as long as they met the necessary equipment constraints. The second category were weapons with effects, which were weapons that would apply special effects when they attack. This type of weapon was already in existence in the early days, with traits that grant effects like additional attack and fatal blow. But most players had treated them as normal because they had seen plenty of them, so they were mostly ignored. It was only until the types of effect became more and more varied, that the players noticed how this type of weapon could be considered as a weapon category by themselves; As for the third and final category of weapon, they were the sort that had no skill or effect. These were just weapons that only had additional stat points to them. In the beginning, players had thought that these sort of weapons were worthless, but they later found out that weapons without inlaid skills or effects would have increased stats points or attack power to them, and they would be the strongest out of the three in terms of the weapon damage alone.

The Black Sawblade had the additional Bleed effect, dealing 25% of the damage every second for six seconds. Furthermore, players were unable to cure the damage dealt in this manner, meaning that as long as this effect was triggered with an attack, a rather powerful 2.5x damage would then be dealt, and the 20% chance of that applying was not low. The Twilight Blade that Brother Assist had was also a weapon that had a Weaken effect, but there was only a 10% chance for it to trigger.

A piece of top-grade equipment that was useful would actually be sitting there grandly for sale in a system-operated store. This was not Parallel World's style. Brother Assist was surprised even as he came forward to ask about the price. 2000 gold coins.

Had this been the price of the weapon before the latest update, it would be rather affordable, and it would have most likely have caused a panic buying. However, everything in the game had lowered in price with the recent update, yet this item's price remained at that level. Furthermore, given how everyone had no idea where they could earn back the money if they spent it now, who would dare to mess around like this? Besides, it was 2000 gold coins. Even if it was before the update, there were not many people who could have pulled out that many coins for it.

This was why the crowd did not take any exception to Brother Assist's exclamation and were just waiting to see how the person would react after seeing the 2000 gold coins price tag.

2000 gold coins… Brother Assist muttered to himself. Had this been yesterday, it was not really a number he would balk at. But today, if they were to take the unit of measure that Young Master Han had discovered with liquor between then and now, that meant the weapon would have cost 10x before.

Brother Assist was a very cool-headed person, so even though his wallet was sufficiently stocked coin wise, he would never be reckless with his spending. But in this instance, he could see the entire crowd in the forge were glancing at him with a taunting leer as if they were just waiting for him to turn around and become a laughingstock.

The always composed Brother Assist suddenly felt a sort of impulse; the look in everyone's eyes told him that they were waiting to see Brother Assist make a joke out of himself when he ended up not buying the weapon due to the price despite having made so much noise about the weapon. Brother Assist had always been very pedestrian, but he suddenly had that impulse of wanting to make others do a double-take. Turning around in a swift motion, he knocked on the countertop, pointing toward the Black Sawblade, ”Bring that over. I want that.”

The merchant was still the same person after the update, responding to the players' needs without a hint of qualms, so the NPC immediately reached to retrieve the sword that Brother Assist had asked for. Brother Assist very casually tossed out two pouches of coins onto the counter, turning round to glance at the people, elated: Flabbergasted? You've never thought that this master here would dare spend the coin huh!

So it turned out that sometimes, spending money was not just to buy the item in question, but to gain that moment of euphoria that came with the act of purchasing!!! Brother Assist was feeling utterly satisfied, taking the sword after having made payment and unhurriedly walked right out of the weapon store under the gaze of the dumbstruck crowd, all slow and purposeful.

Of course, it might have been quite an ostentatious act, but Brother Assist had not missed the very detail that he wanted to take note of. He saw that after he had handed the coins over and took the sword, the weapon display no longer had the same weapon on display, and the merchant took a weapon from the forge side of the establishment and placed another sword in its spot. This time, it was just a normal white tier weapon.

It's gone after it's sold… The white tier sword that the merchant had brought out could very well be part of the stock that this update had ready. But no matter the case, the stock would surely run out eventually, so would the weapon store just be empty then? Would the system have allowed for the game to become such a huge joke?