Identity

"Unable to get anywhere?"

Aige shook his head, recalling Raul's earlier advice... Sure enough, wherever there were people, there were these pointless divisions of status!

After taking his leave of the guards who had faithfully stood watch at the city gate, he went straight into the Trade District, the busiest part of Stormwind City. It was like entering another world. The sudden clamor made the young master's head spin. There were shops everywhere, crowds everywhere, and hawkers calling out their wares everywhere... How was this anything like the deserted place in the game?

Aige had barely had time to get his bearings and decide where to go when a fellow carrying a wine bottle stopped him and shoved a flyer and a coupon into his hands...

"Buddy! If you haven't been to the Oak Tavern, you can't say you've been to Stormwind City. I've got a coupon here, and we only give them out free to friends visiting Stormwind City for the first time. You can use it at the Oak Tavern to sample a free glass of authentic Northshire wine from a famous winery. Also, your first purchase is half price. You have to go! There's a map on the flyer. It's over in historic Old Town, easy to find!"

The young master had plenty of wine, but after hearing the fellow in the suit and waistcoat, he was a little interested. The famous Northshire winery he mentioned had to be his wife Milly's winery, right? And it was in Old Town, where he had to go anyway, so he might as well take a look at his wife's business first...

For some reason, he suddenly felt it had been a long time since he'd seen his dear Milly, and he missed her a little. With that on his mind, Master Ai followed the crowd at a brisk pace and easily found the Oakwood Tavern... He arrived in high spirits and left disappointed! First of all, the fellow handing out flyers everywhere hadn't lied to him: there really was a free glass of wine. But the quality... An ordinary person might not have noticed anything wrong, but the young master's palate had been spoiled by Milly, and he was used to fine wines. To him, this was definitely the lowest grade.

That alone would have been forgivable. Since the place also sold wine from his wife's winery, he'd planned to spend a few silver and copper coins here. But he'd barely ordered two dishes and sat down at a table in a corner to eat when something disgusting came over...

"Country bumpkin, get out of the way! Can't you see Viscount Xiqi has honored us with his presence for a meal?"

Two noble lackeys stood behind Aige, glaring fiercely at him from either side. Their master, meanwhile, stood there pretending to be a gentleman, leaning on a walking cane and stroking his mustache with a white-gloved hand... All of them wore looks of contempt, and that "country bumpkin" was aimed squarely at Aige.

It was probably mealtime, and he'd run into a local Stormwind City noble. But there were clearly empty seats all around, so why had they singled him out?

"Look, there are plenty of other tables around. Is there any need to throw your weight around?" Aige said flatly, cutting off a piece of beef and putting it in his mouth...

"Oh? You're obviously a country hick, and this must be your first time at the Oak Tavern. The regulars here all know this is where Viscount Xiqi always sits. You dare to disregard a noble's dignity, boy?"

Aige stood up and picked up the plate holding his medium-well steak with one hand. "What a waste of a fine steak..."

With a smack, he slapped it straight onto the lackey in front of him, who was behaving like a ridiculous clown...

Under everyone's stunned gazes, Aige walked slowly up to the so-called viscount, whose face had turned pale. "Listen, you'd better keep your dogs under control from now on. Don't let them bark at random, and especially don't let them call a mage a country bumpkin. Otherwise, I'm afraid I might lose control and kill you..."

A ball of blazing flame appeared in Aige's right hand, the prelude to casting Fireball. For now, though, he held the explosive flames firmly in his palm... Yet the raging heat had already singed the ends of a certain noble's much-treasured mustache.

...Aige watched the petty noble, who had gone from arrogance to deference, flee in embarrassment with his servants, but felt no satisfaction at all...

"Would a commoner be unable to get anywhere?"

He understood what Raul had meant now. In a place like Stormwind City, where nobles gathered in droves, anyone without the appropriate status would face discrimination everywhere. Today, someone dared call him a country bumpkin; tomorrow, someone would dare tell him, "No Aige or dogs allowed"... Although there was essentially no difference between people as long as they respected themselves, being constantly looked at with prejudice was definitely not something to appreciate.

"Should I get the identity card sorted out first? Then I can go to the Mage Quarter and get that so-called certification. With the status of a junior mage, I won't be discriminated against, but wouldn't that be a little too conspicuous?"

He reconsidered and shook his head. "I still can't settle for being an apprentice mage. That status is too low. Junior mage is just right. Ordinary people wouldn't dare casually discriminate against a junior mage who has already opened the doors to the halls of magic."

Old Town's population density wasn't as high as the Trade District's, but it still had plenty of people. Most people in the Trade District were transients, while most here were permanent residents. Aige even saw a sales office specializing in real estate on his way...

Don't think there were no houses for sale on the Azeroth Continent. In fact, as the largest human capital city, Stormwind City's real estate market was no less heated than Shanghai's in later times...

Aige wanted to go in and have a look, but before he reached the entrance, he saw the doors pushed open and a commoner shoved out. The saleswoman's mouth was full of nasty remarks. "A lowlife like you, earning less than ten silver coins a month, dares come to a high-class place like this to look at houses? You know what? Even if you worked hard all your life, you might not be able to buy even one square meter of a toilet in a commercial apartment in Stormwind City!"

Master Ai sensibly stopped in his tracks and turned toward SI:7...

"Fill out this form first! Only your name, age, and profession are required. The rest doesn't matter. Fill it in if you want, and forget it if you don't!"

The young woman at the front desk, responsible for collecting information for combat-profession identity cards, handed him a form without even looking up...

Aige didn't feel slighted. Honestly, this kind of work was rather dull: sitting there dealing with all kinds of people every day. Efficiency came first, so how could she take other people's feelings into account? Although the young woman was rather mechanical, at least she didn't discriminate against people like that saleswoman had... In her eyes, perhaps everyone was equally unimportant?

Since I only need to fill in my name, age, and profession, I'll just fill those in. There's no need to write more. The more I write, the more holes there'll be! That was what Master Ai thought, and what he did...

"Aigel Stoke, eighteen. Huh? A mage?" The young woman in glasses looked up for the first time. "Most of the people who've registered recently have been Warriors, along with some rogues and hunters. There have even been knights and Priests, but hardly any mages."

"All right! Cast a mage skill at that target over there! Any one will do! Commoners can't use magic anyway, and I can't assess your magic level here. If you want certification, go to the Mage Quarter. I just need to confirm that you're a mage!"

The young woman spoke seriously. She really couldn't assess magic levels, so she was indirectly recommending that Aige go to the Mage Quarter for certification, just as Raul had.

"Fireball!" "Bang!"

The target twenty paces away was scorched black by the Fireball... Aige could actually have done better, but as the young woman had said, she didn't need to assess his magic level. He only needed to cast a spell that a commoner couldn't.

After seeing the Fireball, the young woman worked quickly. She entered some information on a typewriter, then inserted a white card into a black box. Before long, she handed Aige a purple identity card with a magical aura...

"That'll be one silver coin for the processing fee!"

"Uh, you didn't say there was a processing fee before?" The young master rubbed his nose...

"Don't tell me an esteemed mage like you can't spare one silver coin? If you really don't have it, I can cover it for you. I'll consider it an investment in someone with potential!" The young woman laughed too...

"I'm not that hard up! Here! One silver coin!"

Honestly, Aige wasn't really rich. The twenty silver coins he had in his pocket so far were only worth about two thousand yuan... Uh! Hadn't he left the Oak Inn without paying earlier, just to look cool? The owner hadn't stopped him either, had he?

Could it be because of this so-called mage status? I'll go back and pay the bill later. If I really do become famous and the owner announces at the inn every day that Lord So-and-so ate here without paying before he became famous... That would be really embarrassing.

The purple combat-profession identity card represented a mage's status. Aige learned from the young woman at the front desk that there were three colors of identity card: red represented blood and melee professions; gold represented the Holy Light and holy professions; violet represented magic and spellcasting professions.

The most common were the red melee professions. The burly rogue he'd met earlier had used a red identity card. These were the most numerous and covered a fairly mixed range of professions, mainly Warriors, rogues, hunters, archers, and so on...

Next were the holy professions, mainly Priests and Paladins. Most of the time they used the Holy Light as a weapon, and they required devout faith and baptism from childhood. They were relatively rare, with a ratio of roughly one to ten compared to melee professions, perhaps even lower...

The most valued human combat professionals were spellcasters, mainly mages. There were also Warlocks, but those odd fellows who dealt with demons usually weren't welcome in human kingdoms. Their ratio to melee professions was even smaller; one in a hundred was a generous estimate...

Other professions like Druids and Shamans had never been passed down among humans at all...

As for the hidden profession of death knight, and Pandaren Monks, could I say that version hadn't been released yet?