Threat (Part 1)

Two days later, Amalia opened Red Espiritual Net, and a series of urgent notification sounds chimed incessantly, like a relentless reminder.

She turned off the notifications, and the world instantly became quiet.

Amalia was puzzled as she saw that all the messages were private messages.

She had just opened her shop two days ago, so why would so many people send her private messages?

Upon opening a few of them, she realized they were all berating her for being obsessed with money.

After tracing back to the source, Amalia found the initial post that had triggered it all, and everything became clear in an instant.

Official certification?

When she had applied to open her shop, Red Espiritual Net hadn't indicated that she needed any official certification.

After reading for a while, she finally understood that this certification wasn't actually necessary.

Amalia didn't bother delving into the extensive discussions that followed.

She closed the post, opened the message panel, and began deleting the private messages berating her.

Among the hundreds of messages, only less than ten remained, including one that caught her attention.

"Shopkeeper, I don't have that much money. Could you lower the price a bit? Two million is indeed quite high. Also, may I ask a question? Why don't you get your artifacts officially certified? If you're busy, you don't need to reply right away."

Amalia noticed that the other private messages seemed to be probing, but this person appeared genuinely sincere. She replied, "What's official certification?"

Carlos hadn't expected the shopkeeper to respond so quickly.

He had prepared himself for his message to be ignored. After contemplating for a moment, he decided to send it without any changes.

Amalia read the response and fell silent for a while. It seemed quite troublesome.

"However, in the hundreds of years since Red Espiritual Net was created, there have only been a dozen or so cases of counterfeit incidents. They were dealt with promptly afterward. The most recent one was seven or eight years ago. Those people who are talking about you are ultimately just jealous," Carlos added. "But to avoid trouble, you'd better consider getting officially certified."

"Oh, why do you say that?" Amalia replied.

"Have you seen the original poster of that thread? His rank on Red Espiritual Net isn't low, and he has a history of targeting shopkeepers. Most of the time, he argues with reason and evidence, but the most important thing is that he's skilled at manipulating the narrative."

"Ordinary users rarely doubt him, and many shops have suffered from his actions. There was once a symbol shop with high sales that he single-handedly ruined."