The Darkmoon Faire here was just an ordinary circus, putting on acts like lions stealing peaches and elephants dancing. To its credit, entertaining the public was what a circus was supposed to do...
Just then, the profiteer Luxiu emerged from the circus's yurt-like tent. The show must have been pretty entertaining, judging by the satisfied look on his face. And Aige had spent so long looking for him...
"Luxiu, Luxiu, over here!" Aige hurriedly waved him over. With all that gold dust and those candles in his pockets, he had asked around everywhere, but no one was buying. Only by finding this guy could he exchange them for silver and copper coins. Times were tough...
"Oh, Aige! Well? Did you get the goods I was interested in?"
Luxiu was excited too. To put it bluntly, he had stayed in Goldshire to buy Kobold candles and gold dust. But the town didn't have many adventurers to begin with, and even fewer were capable of or interested in killing Kobolds. Aige was one of the more reliable ones-in other words, his god of wealth...
To be honest, Aige didn't want much to do with him. The guy was obviously a profiteer. When he looked at Aige, it was like he was looking at a lamb waiting for slaughter, and he didn't bother hiding the naked greed in his eyes. But if Aige didn't sell to him, who else could he sell to?
"Sixty-six Kobold candles and fifty-five portions of gold dust. At the rate we agreed on before, one copper per candle and three copper per portion of gold dust, that's two hundred and thirty-one copper in total. Since it's a bulk deal, make it two silver and thirty copper. Payment on delivery."
"Huh? That many..."
Luxiu was shocked that Aige had produced over a hundred units of goods in one go. How many Kobolds did he have to kill to get all those drops? "Did you raid a Kobold den? Or did you hook up with a female Kobold and make her your mistress?"
"Trade secret! Two silver and thirty copper, please!" Aige really didn't want to say anything more. He was obviously the fat sheep here, so a miser like the young master naturally wasn't in a very good mood.
"All right, all right, here!" Luxiu handed over a small pouch with a lecherous grin. This was a big deal, and it was all thanks to his keen eye for talent.
Aige grabbed the money pouch and left, not wanting to say anything more... A word from the narrator: please don't look down on this guy for deigning to do all that work for just a few silver and copper coins. Many readers may be used to large transactions in gold coins, with millions of them being squandered in one go. Imagine holding a piece of gold the size of a one-yuan coin-in the usual sense, a gold coin would be a size larger. Would it be valuable?
Even a lump of gold of the same weight should be worth quite a lot. Those things that come in the millions or tens of millions at a time-were they really gold coins? Wouldn't that many gold coins crush someone to death?
It wasn't like that on the Azeroth Continent. Two silver and thirty copper was already a considerable fortune. Think of it this way: one copper coin was equivalent to a one-yuan coin today, perhaps enough to buy a steamed bun; one silver coin was worth a hundred copper coins, equivalent to a hundred yuan, a Chairman Mao banknote; one gold coin was equal to a hundred silver coins, or ten thousand copper coins, equivalent to ten thousand RMB. So gold coins here definitely weren't something you found everywhere. An ordinary commoner might never even see what a gold coin looked like in their entire life... Aige had saved up about twenty silver coins so far, giving him the purchasing power of roughly two thousand yuan.
(Note: The Azeroth Continent had no such things as crystal coins or diamond coins. Gold coins were king.)
Aige headed straight for the inn he knew. He had barely taken two steps...
"Want to make some more money?"
He turned around to see that punchable Luxiu grinning smugly again...
"Spit it out!"
"Deliver a package to Stormwind City for me. Find Lok Wildhammer in the Dwarven District and hand it to him. Sign an agreement, and if you deliver it within seven days, the quest is complete. The reward is one silver coin. Just ask Lok for it."
"Damn! I'll take it!"
One trip within seven days would earn him a silver coin. He had been planning to visit Stormwind City soon anyway, so this quest just meant moving the date up a little...
But the most urgent thing right now wasn't the quest. It was helping Sally fulfill her wish and find that unfortunate uncle of hers, Kodot Beech!
It was only now that Aige noticed Goldshire's big inn had a name... The Lion's Pride Inn. Pretty imposing, wasn't it?
It was also only now that he noticed a strange structure in a corner by the entrance...
It looked a little like a streetlight, but much shorter. On top was something resembling a card reader, and below was a thing like a trash can... All right, yes, it was a mailbox!
There were mailboxes in the game, one outside every inn. If you thought they were only used to deliver letters, you were wildly mistaken, though delivering letters was one of their most important functions...
An adventurer dressed in a full cloak looked as if he were afraid people wouldn't know he was a great combat professional. He was dressed like a killer, complete with a trench coat; all he lacked was a pair of sunglasses... He was obviously a human rogue adventurer. Right now, he was operating the mailbox...
Huh? Had he just inserted a bank card?
Huh? Why did it seem to spit out a bag of coins?
Huh? How could he pull out a steel helmet too?
Holy crap! When had this lousy thing acquired such fearsome abilities?
The cool killer finished collecting his things and prepared to leave. Aige hurried forward to stop him. "Hey, big brother, could I ask you something?"
Perhaps because he felt the young man in front of him had a good attitude, the rogue stopped. "What is it?"
"Well, I'm an apprentice mage, and I know a few little tricks, but yours is incredible! I saw you put in a little card and take money and equipment out of there. How did you do it?"
The rogue laughed. "Want to know?"
Aige nodded repeatedly like a chick pecking at grain. "I do."
"But I don't want to tell you!" The rogue turned to leave...
"A large mug of dwarven firewater, plus a few side dishes? Would you do me the honor, sir?" The young master chuckled.
"You catch on quick, kid. Lead the way!" The killer coolly tugged at his cloak...
Dwarven firewater cost twenty copper a large mug, and the young master ordered two at once. The house specialty side dishes cost ten copper a plate, and he ordered three at once. With free food and good liquor being served to him, the cool rogue soon told Aige everything he wanted to know...
"I can tell at a glance you're a little mage who took up the profession halfway through, right? Never been to Stormwind City?"
"Know about SI:7 in Stormwind City? At SI:7 in Old Town, there's a place where adventurers have to report in. Register there as a combat professional recognized by the kingdom, and you can get this adventurer identity card."
"The requirements aren't high. You just have to give your name and age and use a combat professional skill, and you can get the card. It's really important, and you can use it in a lot of places."
"Take this mailbox, for example! Don't underestimate the continent's high technology. You can find mailboxes like this in all the major cities and outside inns in major towns. Whatever you want to send, you can use your identity card to do it: write letters, send money, even send small pieces of equipment. Big ones won't work. Anything larger than the mailbox's capacity won't fit. For those, you have to go to a post office in one of the major cities, where they have the spatial equipment to pack them."
"You saw me using it just now, right? With coins and equipment, once you insert your identity card for identification and confirm collection, you can take them straight out of the spatial pocket underneath the mailbox. Shame you can't take the pocket itself away, or I'd be rich!"
"It's not just mailboxes. You can use this card at auction houses and banks too. At the bank in particular, you can deposit a certain amount of gold coins on it. Take an unfortunate beginner rogue like me, for example. I'm only a little above an apprentice rogue, and I can store a maximum of ten gold coins on my card. After that, the limit increases tenfold with every rank. An intermediate rogue, for example, is rank three and can store up to a hundred gold coins... But who the hell has that much money to deposit?"
Huh? That was great! Could he send Milly a letter?
"Then can I send a letter to someone who isn't a combat professional?" Aige asked.
"Don't get your hopes up. This world has never been fair, especially to weak commoners. Commoners aren't even qualified to get an adventurer identity card. Did you forget the requirements I mentioned? You have to use at least one combat professional skill to qualify for the card. So commoners have no chance to use mailboxes. Banks and auction houses are available to them, of course, but they can't use identity cards for special operations. You'll learn about that later."
"Brother, we adventurers might look like we're showing off, but this world is actually too dangerous. There are traps and enemies everywhere, and one careless step can mean utter ruin. You saw the helmet I took out earlier, right? That was a piece of white equipment I'd put up for auction, a rank-two iron helmet that professions wearing mail armor or heavier can use. Good equipment is hard to come by these days, and the shops only sell rough gray stuff. Life's tough for combat professionals too!"
"Unfortunately, I might have set the price too high this time. Nobody was interested. Next time I go to Stormwind City, I'll lower the price. I'm sure it'll sell quickly. I haven't gotten any quests these past few days, and I'm almost unable to put food on the table..."
"Didn't I see you take out a bag of coins too?"
"Fuck! I worked my ass off practicing skinning and sold some light leather. You know what? A stack of twenty hides only sold for two damn silver! For fuck's sake, had all the leatherworkers died? And they charged me a five percent handling fee! If I'd known, I could've sold them to a shop for five copper each!"
Aige quickly did the math in his head. Twenty hides for just two silver meant they could sell at auction for ten copper each, which was indeed a little better than selling them to a shop... But this guy really was living a hard life, wasn't he?
"Say, you're a rogue, a leather-armor profession, and you've already learned skinning. Why not just learn leatherworking too? You could make leather armor for yourself."
The moment Aige said that, the cool rogue's eyes filled with tears...