2 Quirky Sarah, its features and The peddler Jack.
While he was walking towards the market he checked the features on his system. He first decided to open one of his 2 new gift boxes.
[Ding....!Congratulations on opening your 1st gift Box of level 1 World Development System]
[+1 Reward for opening the first box of level 1 authority.]
Came the voice Sarah which seemed female rather than the previously androgynous voice. It seemed like a voice from a mature woman.
Sarah chooses one of the famous voices from the plethora of databases of the world it came from.
The information of John's world and Sarah's world had been integrated inside John.
[Congratulations on obtaining various blueprints on soap making. As the owner of the World Development system and WORLD'S BEST A. I. Host needs a plethora of resources to develop this world and for these resources, he needs finance and money. Sarah hopes that the host uses this information wisely and carefully so he can develop his own forces economically and politically.]
Sarah's Voice seemed rather arrogant and playful this time when she said it was the world's best A.I.
Suddenly came a flow of information inside John's brain, this time he didn't even feel an itch, unlike the last time where he fell unconscious. It seemed that John's brain activity had improved by millions of times. Which he still didn't seem to realize it. While his body too developed in resistance, unlike the last time.
The latter part wasn't really needed, thought John as he irritatingly heard the notifications after confirming on opening one of the boxes.
Then the next reward of +1 opened.
[Ding...!Congratulations to Host on receiving a very useful thing from the WDS. The useful thing is...
Host is Advised on learning Martial arts from this world as they would be useful in improving the physique as well as the safety of host from malicious elements. Because when one earns too much money you can't keep making the eyes of wolves closed forever.
P.S-This one can help you in improving the martial arts. Well you can anyway do it yourself, you won't need me]
"Fucking Bullshit"
John almost puked blood when heard the next notification as cursed out loud. The people in the surroundings looked rather strangely at John when he cursed.
Some thought with pity that he rather misses his hometown and hence cursing in irritation as he doesn't know where he is. While some thought he had rather gone insane after coming here. Most of the people in the village knew about John's situation.
After numerous cursing inside his mind, he stabilized himself and headed towards the Peddlers market in the town.
There were quite a few peddlers there who were selling the goods which were in demand in the North-frontier town.
Things like rock-salt, Clothes, weapons, and livestock were there.
Each particular merchant sold their own specialty so they don't compete with each other.
Clothes here were sold at 50 coppers. Affordable for people if they saved money for some time. But they were rather low-quality. Mid quality was sold at prices of 1 bronze coin to 5 silver coins while some high-quality ones sold at 10 silvers to 1 gold coin as well.
John inquired to quite a few merchants before he came to a stall which sold a plethora of unique items. This guy seemed rather middle-aged but a little bit younger than Sam.
After inquiring john got to know his name. He was called Jack Snake.
People usually didn't have surnames in this world. Only people with statuses mostly had surnames like Military generals, Nobles, Great Knights, Mages and Rich Merchants who bought Aristocratic titles
This guy sold Rock-salt as his main item but also sold other things. There were some expensive books there. Plus some different kinds of metals which seemed jewelry.
When Jack looked at John he was quite interested in this guy. As this guy seemed rather different from others. From clothes to behavior everything seemed different apart from his local face and physique.
Jack looked at his clothes and he seemed quite interested in the designs of his clothes. There were buttons on him and the tailoring was quite well made. It seemed perfectly made for the guy who was wearing it. The clothes seemed to have a new idea and were thought creative by jack. However, he tried his best to hide his surprise and not show it on the face.
John came to Jack and asked the prices around his stall.
Rock-salt was quite expensive if it came to commoners. However, people still bought as they were one of the needed items. it was priced at 1.5 bronze coins for 1 kg. People usually earned 20 coppers to 50 coppers daily to which 1.5 bronze seemed rather costly.
and then there were a lot of books ranging from martial arts, magic and history, and culture of the continent.
John was more interested in martial arts and magic books and maps if Jack had one.
The prices of books ranged from 50 bronze to 10 gold coins.
Magic books being the costliest. There were some martial arts books on the stall which had a range of 1 silver to 100 silver. These only improved the martial arts and body, they weren't the immortal cultivation techniques.
There was a basic body refining book which was sold at 1 silver. It was a very basic book which people had access to from the ancient times, it was unknown who wrote this book.
There was a Six Senses body refining book which sold at 10 silvers. The user needed Herbs and animal parts to completely make utilization of this book.
There was a book named Flower Sword technique which was at 15 silvers.
There was also a one sword style.
There was a fencing sword style for Knights. Aelius Military Boxing, Hunting, Archery, Trap books and other techniques which were available.
John was pretty much interested in all the books over there along with magic books.
He first made an offer to Jack "Jack for how much would you buy my clothes if I were to sell it to you?"
To which Jack made his first offer "Well they are quite unique, I think I can buy it at 1 gold coins"
After bargaining for a few minutes, Jack agreed to buy his clothes at 10 gold coins after looking at them carefully. Since this was pretty much his bottom-line as he didn't know the market prospects of this new type of clothing but he still believed that they would be quite popular with people. People usually didn't have buttons or use belts or small ropes on their pants on their clothing to make them fit, he intended to research these buttons, sewing method and zips to make the most value of these clothes.
Then John bought out his wallet and showed jack trying to get more money out of him. This time Jack bought his wallet at the price of 5 gold coins. He believed that Aristocrats would anyway spend money on good looking and unique things.
John had lost his Cellphone and Suitcase when he got sucked in the black hole. However, he still had his wallet and handkerchief inside his pockets. So he thought of selling his wallet after taking out its contents.
Then John bought all the Martial arts books from Jack. Jack was quite surprised by John when he bought all of these books. He thought people would at most buy 2-5 books to learn martial arts.
However this guy all the martial arts 15 books once for 3 gold coins.
John then bought a set of local clothes from Jack for the price of 20 silvers to replace his old clothing.
John then started inquiring about other information from Jack.
He got to knew that this was the domain of Baron Mendez however he pretty much ignored North-frontier town as there wasn't much yield or commerce. He usually sent his knights to collect taxes every 3 months from people living here.
He owned 2 big towns in the south of northern frontier town and 5 surrounding villages at the south-east and south-west of the North-frontier town.
While there was also a Port town at South-east but it was hard to maintain because of the frequent beast and monster attacks.
So Baron had 9 places under his control. Taxes were pretty much exorbitant according to John, Taxes here were 80 percent of yield and profit on sales.
Kingdom would usually take 50 percent from its vassals while vassals were free to place their own taxes which was between 15 percent to 40 percent.
Baron charged 30 percent as he knew if he charged 90 percent taxes. Masses would pretty much come in revolt and he would be in jeopardy politically so he tried to squeeze as much as possible from the masses without touching their bottom line.
The aristocrats usually charged the highest 40 percent taxes i.e 90 percent in their big cities though.
The kingdom retained its control over its vassals via its Order of Knights and Order of Mages and its court magicians who were Arch Mages.
The hierarchy of Aristocrats was from low to high,
Baron
Viscount
Count
Marquis
Duke
Grand Duke
And then there Honorary titles as well as titles for knights and mages who did meritorious deeds in wars.
Aristocratic Titles could be bought as well from the kingdom and its vassals by merchants.
Baron Mendez's domain was just a small part of Aelius kingdom. The kingdom was 500 times bigger than Mendez's domain.
The total area of Baron's was quite good at 20,000 Sq.Km
People here usually exploited land via Farming, hunting or fishing.
And the Main focus of their research was in Magic and Arms. Country Allotted most of its funds on Magic and Arms as they thought it was more important to retain power.
The country had a Sea-shore at its northeast and Southeast side. However, Sea was only exploited for its fish like in rivers. or there were small maritime trades to reduce traveling times or bypass poll taxes at borders of other aristocrats, the sea was rife with pirates. Most of the time it was privately hired by aristocrats whose personal interests were infringed by other aristocrats or sometimes they were looking to target merchant vessels to make a quick buck.
As Jack was talking he warned John he should be aware of Aristocrats if he made too much money and was unable to protect himself as he knew about these things from his Family experiences. Jack had a policy of making relationships as it was always helpful when it came to the future. So that's why he gave him the warning.
John understood that he meant well from him so he nodded his head.
later John asked Jack about prices of magic books,
"How much for the basic magic books of Water, fire, wind, earth"
"it would cost you 3 gold coins. However, you should first determine your magic elements before buying these books." Said, Jack
Jack thought it was better to make a good professional relationship rather than a one time profit from his customer so he advised him against buying all these books.
Magic had various elements.
They included
Fire Magic
Water Magic
Wind Magic
Earth Magic. These were the basic magic elements. Then there were unique elements as well.
They were
Spatial Magic
Light Magic
Dark Magic
Ice Magic
And Time Magic.
Fire Dark and Wind and Ice magicians were mostly used in Military.
While Water, Light and Earth magicians were used as support for the main force where it came to healing scouting or engineering of castles and strongholds.
However, Since John insisted on buying these books so Jack didn't mind selling them to John.
From John's perspective, he would anyway gain knowledge about the other magic even if he couldn't master them. So he bought them. There were spatial and time magic books as well. However, they were very expensive at the price of 12 gold coins and 20 gold coins so thought he would buy them later on.
From Jack's Description Time magic was usually used to predict future unlike his preconceived time travel from the fantasy stories of the earth.
"It's all Bullshit. Stop Daydreaming" rebuked Sarah in John's mind from behind
There was no time-travel in this world. It was all Bullshit from his fantasy ideas was what Sarah said to him.
Sarah's Background Commentary further irritated John. This time he controlled himself from cursing, unlike the last time.
He thought Sarah quite a talkative A.I with an annoying personality.
Time magic was used to determine and manipulate good and bad fate people, events and countries. However, they weren't always accurate as there were many unknown factors on some people who couldn't be fated like kings or strong people and people with space magic. Plus they were quite rare.
However, they were useful in determining the general direction of events where they were going.
He then bought a normal Sword and a Health recovery potion for 2 gold coins and some knives if they come in use later on for 20 silvers.
Jack gave him a free Poison Vial as he felt good about John. This was his Family's own bred poison modified over the years by generations of his family.
Before leaving Jack said to John "If you have other unique things then you can over to look for me I would give you the right price for your goods. I come every 5 days in this town today I will be going back to restock my goods from the south's town of Dolores"
Meanwhile Sarah,
[Ding...!Congratulations to host for earning 82 Points from 700 experience from the following trade with a potential business partner]
So he concluded his business with Jack and headed to other peddlers to buy ingredients for making various types of soaps. He was going to use both Animal fats, lye, Vegetable oils and potash for making Soaps this time with a lot of flavors.
He confirmed here that soap making was quite a lucrative business with each soap selling for more than 50 silvers to 1 gold.
it was mostly sold to rich men such as rune-masters, officials, magicians, Knights, rich merchants, and nobles etc.
Soap making was quite crude here in this world.
so he used 3 of the 100's of methods available from the blueprints inside his brain.
1. Melting and pouring method
2. Milling Method
3. Hot process.
He decided to make lye by himself so it doesn't get discovered others. He then went to the towns blacksmith to buy molds for the soap.
He also thought of branding his soaps so it doesn't get copied by others easily so he told them to make a design of a Flower from his previous world. It was Rose as he thought women would like such type of Soaps so he the design on a paper and showed it to them to make it.
Meanwhile, he earned 60 more points and 500 experience points from other trades.
[142 points collected, 1200 Exp]
After two hours he returned to Jay's house.
And started looking towards features of WDS.
Inside Menu there was
|WDS Shopping Mall
Buy
Sell
Exchange
Upgrade Features
Others|
Inside Upgrade features- he could upgrade his authority and use it to analyze certain things faster.
In Buy- He could buy technologies available at the moment.
In Sell - He could sell his experience gained for WDS Points*.
In Exchange - He could buy go for gambling features i.e selling experience for a gift box. But sometimes he could get a dud. So it was pretty much gambling. It had small, medium and big gift boxes for 1000, 10,000 and 100,000 experience respectively.
In WDS Shopping Malls - There were special time-limited offers which sold Restrictive items at exorbitant prices.
For example, there were gun blueprints for the exorbitant price of 10,000 WDS points.
In the normal buy option, it was at 5000 WDS points with a restriction tick of required lvl 2 authority.
For lvl 2 authority he needed 10,000 WDS points for up-gradation.
However, after looking at the technologies available inside, he was quite excited. There were cars, weapons, modern luxuries, and home appliances, there was also future tech which was not there even in his own world as well like VR and simulation system or Helium 3 reactors. They required various levels of authority.
After that, he decided on learning all the martial arts techniques which he bought from Jack snake.
Out of all the techniques
1. Body refining technique and
2. Six Senses body refining book was the most useful.
It coincided with the fact that his body's analyzing and reaction speed was very superhuman.
These were very common techniques in this world as they did only little improvement to the body however it was quite useful for his body. he still needed to buy or gather herbs for Six senses body refining technique.
He learned all the theory of sword, hunting, fencing, archery, traps or knives techniques. All he needed was training.
As he was learning the techniques system sounds beamed inside his head.
[Analyzing Body refining technique 1%.....100%]
[Analyzing complete. Improving the technique based on modern research.
Simulating probabilities done 1/156713, 2, 3, 4, 5]
After 10 mins all the simulations were done and the best selection was given to John by Sarah.
[Simulation complete 156713/156713. The best method has been presented to the host. Host can continue training the new body refining technique with some ingredients and a herbal medicine]
The Same thing happened to Six Senses body refining technique and it was improved.
However other Martial arts techniques were quickly learned with few improvements as it didn't require medicinal pastes or potions. It only improved it technically via various simulations.
And hence he later started practicing and improve his timing of techniques executed whether it was boxing fencing or martial arts, he was improving at an extremely monstrous speed which he didn't realize while he thought it was quite slow because his physique limited his training speed.
While he was training he didn't realize that 3 hours already passed and it was an evening at 4.
Jay came in after his daily hunt as he saw John training. He was quite astonished by the moves executed by John as they seemed quite proficient effective and flawless in his eyes. The little changes which Sarah and his brain made were quite while he thought, wasn't it obvious to change and improve flawed parts.it actually came from john's instinct which John didn't realize. It may have been the effect of XL-380 integrating with John.
As Jay came in he asked John "you are training quite enthusiastically today. How did your day go in the market"
"Well, I sold some of my belongings to a trader named Jack Snake. He gave quite a reasonable price."
"So you met Jack. Well, he is quite a good merchant. He mostly believes in forming relationships with customers and potential business partners. However, he doesn't do a trade where he loses money he has quite a good sense of the market. Well, most people don't like to do a loss-making deal. Well, I mostly buy poison from him for special situations. I use it when I can't deal with certain beasts in the wild."
Jay was quite astonished by the fact he learned all the techniques he bought today from Jack.
Jay believed him after watching all the books he bought today. He didn't practice anything which was different from the said martial arts. He also learned that John had improved some techniques where he thought there were some flaws and hence improved it and practiced it.
From Jay's Point of View,
John was a monster because many people spent years just to improve some flaws in the techniques however he did it in just quite a few hours for almost all the techniques he bought. John even taught him his improved Hunting technique and this stemmed jay's thinking that this guy was quite a monster.
Footnotes:
1. Points have been converted to WDS points so there won't be confusion in the future if I sometimes use Exp points instead of Exp gained so as to avoid confusion.
2. WDS - World development System.
