Hub (2)

Besides selling consumables, the store also bought some raw materials. A sign in the corner clearly made every visitor aware of this fact.

Curious he went to check out the terminal. Currently, there was only one item listed, which was the Goblin Steak he had found in the dungeon before. It seemed as if the terminal would only display the things you had already gotten in contact with before.

What surprised him was the fact, that it was priced at 100 EC. So basically, it had been the most valuable thing he had gotten during his dungeon run. That was except for the things he had gotten from the System directly.

Sadly he had already consumed it, so he wasn't able to sell it. But he didn't feel like it had been a waste. If he hadn't consumed it, then surely, he would have failed to finish the level. So although he would have liked to sell it he didn't feel any regret. Instead, he looked forward to getting another piece and then sell it. Since he knew that it could drop he would look forward to it.

The next store he visited was the weapon store. It too had an extremely creative name called 'Weaponia'. There the sight of a row of counters greeted him. Unlike the other stores, no goods were on display. Instead, screens were used to advertise different weapons.

The weapons advertised seemed to be targeted towards poor people, like every player currently was. On display were mostly cold iron weapons, such as swords, daggers, spears, and axes. There were non of the futuristic weapons one might expect. After all, many other aspects of this experiment were futuristic, so the commitment to more primitive weapons was surprising.

Ivan only took one look at the weapons advertised and instantly knew that he wouldn't be able to afford any of them. The prices seemed to start at thousands of EC. Heck, one sword was directly priced at 1 million EC.

And there was the info that more expensive weapons would be available via the menu on one of the service screens.

He decided to just check if a 'Basic Knife' was being sold. If it was, then he could use the prices here to determine if he could use the blueprint to earn money. Because, if this trip to the hub had made one thing clear to him, then it was the fact, that he would need many more credits.

By using the filter tools, it was easy to get a list of available 'Basic Kinfe''s the store sold. Surprisingly there was quite a list of them, all with different materials. The cheapest was made out of iron and goblin leather, which was the same as the one he had made as well.

It was already priced at 250EC, and as the lowest priced one, it also seemed to have the least stats. It was described as cheap, slightly sharp, and having a bad grip. Although it was described as such, Ivan didn't think the same. In his experience the grip was great and it was extremely sharp as well. It had easily cut through his other knife after all.

He guessed that the shop used a completely different standard than his own. It seemed like the case, where someone thought that something was a treasure while another person might just see it as thrash. Something fueled by different standards, knowledge, and experiences.

Anyway, now that he had checked on the price of the knife the only question was the price of the raw materials. Although they weren't sold, the store offered to buy them. With iron being priced at 80EC and the goblin leather at around 40EC, there was a big profit margin available for him to exploit. He could either gather the materials himself or buy them from other players at a slightly higher price.

Sure, the product itself was only useful for beginners. He was sure that later on, the knife made from those two materials wouldn't be as popular anymore. But he should still be able to sell a lot of them if he hurried.

Of course, for now, he had to first generate some basic capital by farming the materials by himself.

Having checked everything he had planned inside the shopping district, the next and last sector he had chosen to visit was the academy or knowledge sector. From the information, he had, there you could buy knowledge packets and experience. The knowledge you bought would be directly transferred into the brain, so there was no need to learn it. But although you could acquire the knowledge this way, it was just pure information.

What was still missing were experiences and the right ways to use that knowledge. The knowledge also had to be accessed through the mind, it didn't come to the front, like knowledge learned by oneself. One could say, that it was like having a book where you could look something up. It just wasn't the same as having memorized the same book.

This was where the experience came in. This was a method designed to make the knowledge a part of the user. It was said to be highly effective and didn't require as much time as learning in a conventional way.

Of course, there were still things that required even more work. For example, it was possible to get information about combat techniques and it was possible to practice them, but to learn how to apply them correctly and effectively would still require a lot of practice and experience. It wasn't something a simple training session, no matter how well design, could provide.

The academy section was designed similarly to the medical section. Once again there were stations, where one could select the service you wanted.

The available packages were displayed in a tree, just like a skill tree in any RPG. At the top, the skill 'Galactic Common Language Kernel' was displayed. From it, many branches went off into a grey fog.

It seemed like you had to unlock the first skill to even see the other skills. By focusing on the skill it was possible to see a short description as well as the price of the skill.

[[ Skill: Galactic Common Language Kernel

Grade: Basic

Description: The basic language kernel of the galactic common language. This allows you to learn the basics of the galactic common language, which is the galaxy-wide premier language for interspecies communication. It is also the knowledge used for galactic knowledge and science, thus being a requirement for any kind of galactic-level knowledge.

Price: 1.000.000EC

]]

He carefully read through the description and when he got to the price he nearly choked. One million EC for the basic skill, didn't that make the academy section practically useless for the near future?

He hurriedly closed the screen and decided not to think about it. It seemed like there was no need to think about buying any skill in the near future. Instead, he should prepare for what laid before him. And that was another dungeon run.

Today, he would once again run the first floor. He didn't feel like trying the second just jet, so he could only run the first one for now. Maybe he should try to find some martial arts club to learn some combat skills before that?

While he made his way towards the entrance area of the hub, to teleport back to his room, he continued to ruminate over learning martial arts.

Of course, it would seem useful to learn martial arts, but was that really the case? He had his doubts about that. Modern martial arts, which were thought outside the military, did seem to have a different goal than what was required in the dungeon. They were either for fitness or self-defense. They surely weren't about killing non-human monsters.

From this point, they seemed kind of unsuited. This didn't mean that they were completely useless. Learning how to move, to dodge, and also how to hit, would still be of great help during the dungeon exploration. But were they worth the time, he had to invest in them?

He had hoped that he would find something in the academy section but now it seemed he had to make do with what he could learn on his own. Maybe this way he would be able to learn his own personalized style.

And it wasn't as if he did start with nothing at all. He had already realized during the first run, that something in his subconscious had thought him how to fight these goblins. He wasn't sure, where the feeling came from. It also wasn't very direct, it was more like his movements flowed better if he did the right action. While something seemed more difficult if he made a stupid move.

He guessed that this was the work of whoever had started the experiment.