Chapter Sixty one

Artha could see the wonder of having more skills in the arsenal. He was noob through and through, having never played such games. Inspite of the book knowledge (cough, cough , guides and walk alongs in other games), he still needed time to assimilate it and correlate with what he was playing.

Yes, he knew before that great skills = great player, varied skills = versatile player, but to see it first hand and understand... priceless. It was something like learning that there are different cells in the blood and seeing them under microscope. That moment, when knowledge and first hand experience collides and creates the miracle, the brain would be like yeah, yeah, this is it, this is what I had learnt, so that's how it is etc.

Artha had those moments yesterday. Unfortunately, he could not appreciate much because half his brain was wondering about his real life exam results but he had seen the effect. He had seen how fast the monsters were cleared and how different was the way of grinding them with extra skills. He had lots of time to collect yesterday as he could not kill many monsters, they were massacred by others far early, even before he got his mana ball moving.

So when he passed by the mentors, he still had to try, try better. Maybe he would get a skill which would complement him better. The mentors would have lots of spells and skills in their arsenal and it's their prerogative to show the blessed immortals which ones could be learnt. The closeness to NPCs comes into effect in such situations. If the said NPC had good impression of you, you could get more options, better options.

Today it didn't look like they wanted to chat with him. Sigh. As he walked past, he wondered why these two always struck together and why there was only one big hall meant for mentoring. Not for long. He jogged to the map where his regulars were assembled and already playing.

Was there something in the air? Why did he feel everything a bit different? Was it really because his mind was free of worries?

Sela was pulling the aggro, the swordsman and thiefs hitting the monsters in melee combat. The archers, mages taking them out with ranged attacks. The healer was good enough to not forget the comrade in arms and concentrate only on melee players.

The team was very good. Some minor changes and they could rival the reserves of great guilds. This was just work of playing some time together for less than a week? No wonder, the guilds which last longer are stronger. Soon they cleared and area and the team dispersed to do their own things. Artha started his collecting work, how much ever he collected, he still didn't mind, he still wanted to do more. But soon he had to stop as he got some business.

Sela and Roman were his customers today. Roman was good healer, thus always in demand. He was like a flirty beauty who maintained many relationships without hurting any. If Artha was spiteful, he would have cursed Roman of having so many sugar mummies and sugar daddies.

No idea how he looked in real life but inside the game, he was strikingly pretty among the pretty and boring faces. Even his demeanor was gentle (cough, cough, green tea). Coupled with his class as healer, he was ever popular. So he had the sidegig of middleman.

Sela became middleman accidentally, after few of her teammates boasted her of getting better price for the gloves. She never divulged that she sold it to Artha. So she too got queries and commissions to sell few items once in a while.

Today was big day. Both had items to sell. They were level 5. One was boots and other a bow. Boots could have been sold in stalls in the village as there was huge demand for level 5 and beyond items but the player wanted credits and fast. Even if it was in coins, a whole team had to chip in to get it. It was that costly. The bow seller wanted to be anonymous but still get top price, so of course, he had to find a good middleman.

A- The requested price for the boots are too high.

R- Come on, brother! You do know that there is only demand for level 5 items and no supply.

A - If there is only demand, you can put a stall in the village. Better yet, you can purchase it yourself. As a healer, you should have ability to run away faster to save yourself. Even better would be seller holding it. It's a great investment, helping in leveling up faster or running away faster.

Roman flushed. Curse you, game avatar makers for making this man look so pretty. He felt as if he had hurt a pitiful yet beautiful person. It tweaked his heart. Or it would, if he had a heart.

R - My friend needs credits fast or he wouldn't have decided to sell it. This is the highest level item he has that can be sold. I'm not even taking any commissions from this gig, that's how big a mess he is in.

Artha scoffed mentally. Just a sale of this type of item would net him few more commission jobs. The friend too would use him as intermediary out of gratitude for long time. This can't be counted as money as this was even more precious and rare. Of course, a good friend would not take commission credits in when the other is in the pit.

Then Artha had to hit himself mentally. Focus! Situation might be exactly what Roman said and Roman might not be thinking of getting name and fame through this. Why should he be cynical? To think further, why should he care about all that? Roman was a middleman, so was he. No need to think much.

Sela and Roman didn't mind Artha standing vacantly. They were even thankful that there were no bizzare movements to show the person was idle, doing something else (using the status board, calling, messaging etc). In the last few games, the gave characters would wave around lightly to denote the player was checking through status page. That was just creepy!