Chapter 28 – NPC.

Since there was no longer use to keep information about the hidden dungeons and quest to ourselves and before anybody have chance to discovers them, the group decided to sell the information while it was still possible.

The one who volunteered to do the job was Kitty and Quicy. Apparently, they had idea what to do.

Kitty and Quicy left some news online about selling the information about the hidden quest and hidden dungeons, they also left some posters near each city gate and on some hunting grounds where players often hunt. When the time came, tons of people gather to hear about the info. I wasn't expecting that many people to gather. Of course, all people who gathered needed to pay in order to hear the news, we made sure that nobody was eavesdrop on us as well.

We did ended up leaking the info about hidden dungeons as well as hidden walls and other things, but in the end, we manage to earn massive fortune of the money.  It was kind of worth it.

The group decided to give me the bigger share, since I was the one who found. Honestly, I thought about refusing at first, but I kind of used almost all of my money recently, so I kind of had to take it.

Thanks to that and selling weapons, armor and accessories to the group, I manage to earn back lot of money.

(Welp. I earned money faster then I though, so now I should try those things, the white iron, black iron and green iron. I was planning on trying them out as soon as I earned enough, but there is no longer reason to wait. I should slowly start experimenting with them and see how useful they are.)

(I also should think about going for hunting soon. I want to reach level 90 to get both [Engineer] and [Mystic Crafter] to level 10, to see what else they have to offer.)

"But for now, let's just go and buy those ingots."

Forge left his smith and heeded towards crafting district inside of the city.

"Welcome." – said the muscular male NPC to Forge when he entered the shop.

[Green Iron Ingot]

[White Iron Ingot]

[Black Iron Ingot]

[Item tier: 15]

(Hm… This is bit problematic, no matter how I look at it. Normally the materials item possess lower item tier compare to the equipment, but those have quiet high tier. Won't I end up making items with the high level restriction with these?)

(I should only buy a few this time and do some simple experiments like making basis normal sword, to see how different it will be from the others materials. I should also restoke some of steel ingots while I'm at it.)

"I would like to buy 20 of the white iron ingots, black iron ingots and green iron ingots. I also want 50 steel ingots."

"That will be 500 gold for each ingot black, white and green ingot and for the steel ingot will be 200. The total will be…. 40 000 gold." – said the human male NPC.

(Single one of these ingot cost a way more than steel ingots, but I have to see what they have to offer and if they are really worth the price.)

"Here is the money." – said Forge

"Thank you for continue your patronage!" – said the male NPC with a smile.

(Hm? Weird. He usually says "Thanks you for the purchase.", just like other NPCs. Did they changed his voice lines?)

After buying the ingots, Forge left the shop and as soon as he did that, he could feel something hitting him.

(?!)

Forge quickly turned around, only to see a kid collapsed on the ground right next to him.

"Are you alright?" – asked Forge while extending his hand towards the kid.

(Wait, he has a green square icon? He is NPC?)

Forge helped the kid get up from the ground.

"Y-yea. Thank you, mister scary bug!" – said the kid while running off with the other kids.

"…."

("Mister scary bug"? That is new.)

(But anyway, what was that?! That never happened before.)

Forge beginned looking around himself, observing the NPCs around him.

(They act different. WAY different compare to before.)

(Before NPCs were acting quite "Dead" like a machine, but now they act like a people?)

(I wasn't expecting that at all. They are now laughing and everything. Is it because of that update? It did said that they are updating the A.I and all, but holy shit.)

(I won't lie, this feels weird.)

(It took me some time to get used to them, a person but acting like total machine, but they suddenly change that, for fuck's sake.)

(Before NPCs felt like a objects to me. NPC would not interact with the players, if the players didn't interreacted with them, but those kid literally just interacted with me.)

(Isn't this too big of the change?! Why they bloody didn't do it at the start?)

Meanwhile at the Star Fall company building.

"Why we bloody didn't do it at the start?" – asked man in the suit with bald head.

"Yea. Why we now are updating the NPCs A.I? Shouldn't we done right at the start or with a big update or something? This bloody doesn't make sense to do it after game being only online for 2 weeks." – said the woman in the suit with a ponytail.

Many worked as well as company officials were discussing why the game suddenly updating NPCs. Everybody was in total confusion and chaos.

"Okay, calm the heck down all of you for the moment. I can bloody explain anything if you are talking nonstop over each other."

[CEO of the Star Fall company.]

The CEO of the company was middle aged man wearing glasses with black hair.

"Our original plan was to update the NPCs intelligent and conscious level after it adapted enough, so the A.I of the NPCs would work correctly. It was supposed to gather the remaining key data by observing the players inside. The Aeno and technical team expected to finish the process around 2 to 6 months after the game got released." – said the CEO.

"However, the Aeno system adapted faster than predicted and because of that, we could no longer suppress A.I consciousness. That is the main reason why we need to update the A.I in the game instantly. If we didn't do that, it could had caused some damage to the A.I, we literally didn't had any option in the first place right now."

Aeno is a special made A.I and program that servers as the hearth of the game. Without it, the New Earth Online would have not existed or worked.

"Wait, but didn't it needed to learn and study more? Even the predictions made by the Aeno was between 2 and 6 mouths until it could do that. This do not make sense." – said woman with ponytail.

"This is because of how many people are playing." – said the main game lead designer.

"We predicted that game will became big hit and all, but it became bigger than any of us though, even Aeno didn't predicted that at all. Way more people than we thought are playing this game and even more will be. Because of how many people are playing, the A.I programing got finished way faster than anybody could predict, it was totally out of control. Right now, there is even problem at the beginner area right now, we increased that area when the game got release so people could safely hunt monsters, but now? There is slowly problem irrupting with not enough room for hunting for people."

"There is also a fact that more people reached level 80 before the update than we though."

"In short – We fucked up badly and we need to take actions instantly. We already increased the max level to 100 for the players, but I guess we will need to increase it again soon, considering how fast people level up. We also have to do something about starting area ASWAP or people will literally start killing each other there."

"Hm… This is indeed bad news. Okay, we will increases the max level again soon. We also have to re-adjust some of our plans considering our current situation." – said the CEO.

"And about the hunting area for the beginners, I think we should discus right now about what we do about it. Any suggestions?"

[Back to the game.]

(Okay, that was weird like hell. The entire city is now lively unlike before. I saw other players acting weird as well, not knowing how to act.)

(Won't end up making everything bit chaotic right now?)

"Hm? Wait a second. How the relationships with NPCs works right now? Are they still affected by favorability? How does that work now?"

Favorability – Simple put it's a stat that represent your relationship with specific NPC. Good thing can happened if it's high, but if it instead low, then NPCs will have hostile relationship towards you. Usually having good relationship with various NPCs is necessary.

For example, the NPCs can give you special discount when buying stuff or they can attack you on sight apparently.

Honestly the reason why I was mostly scared about kobold base quest was because of the decrease of the favorability with all NPCs in the city. This could have hurt me like living hell and maybe would have forced me to change the city if it was very badly.

"Tch. Let's forget about for now and just focus on testing out these irons."

Moments later.

[Black Iron Sword]

[Attack Power: 140 – 180]

[Restrictions: Minimal User Level 70.]

[Item Tier: 18]

[White Iron Sword]

[Attack Power: 100 – 135]

[Restrictions: Minimal User Level 70.]

[Item Tier: 18]

[Green Iron Sword]

[Attack Power: 130 – 155]

[Restrictions: Minimal User Level 70.]

[Item Tier: 18]

"Hm. That is quite interesting."

Sword made from black iron possess extremely high attack, even though it's simple sword. However, it literally possess mana affinity value of 0. Usually, all the weapons I made that weren't spellcaster weapons haver extremely low mana affinity value, but never 0. I guess black iron just like in the description isn't working well with mana.

It's also heavier than other two swords that I made. Because of how heavy it is, it will probably increase the performance of the weapon. Warriors and weapon class users will have nice time using weapons made out of those.

Next the white iron sword. This weapon is definitely better than sword made from steel and it also possess good amount of mana affinity. This extremely good material for making spell caster weapons and armor. I can probably try with this make something like a sword with a mana carvings. It will be obviously not as good as the normal spell caster items, but obviously you can literally wild a sword. Probably a people like Hype who both uses spellcaster and weapon classes would benefits from those kinds of weapons.

Lastly, the green iron sword. It's definitely way lighter compare to the other 2 and it also possess high attack power. It's not as powerful as the black iron or has high mana affinity as the white one, but because of how light it is, it can be used for making agility based characters armors and weapons

The average normal weapons like sword, axes, spears and other stuff that I made for people with level between 70 – 80 had attack power between 90 – 130. Not including giant swords or the great crossbows and other nonstandard weapons.

Those swords have quiet high attack power, even though I literally made the most basic sword version. I can kind of see now why each one of them costed a lot. 

Overall, all 3 of those irons are way better than steel and each one of them is extremely good in something.

"They were indeed worth the price, but it's still lot of money. I could try selling some equipment to the others, but I like to first experiment bit more and see how much those are different from the regular metals."

(On top of that I need to get both [Engineer] and [Mystic Crafter] to level 10, maybe they will offer some skill that can influence crafting greatly.)

"So, the only answer right now is to go and hunt again. Well, it's not the bad thing in the first place. I have to hunt some new monsters to get their materials. I will level up, earn some money and get new materials. One stone, two birds. Well, technically one stones and three birds."