Nightingale's Exploitation

Nightingale took out a pouch that was slightly larger than Shin's. Nightingale seemed to be idle from Shin's point of view, but Nightingale was browsing through his inventory.

"Alright, here it is!"

Nightingale took out a brilliant gold-tinted jewel about the size of a finger.

"This here is an amber lustre!"

---------

[Amber Lustre]

[Enhancement Material]

This jewel is used to enhance your weaponry up to +5.

---------

"This... is what everyone is looking for. This jewel is the beginning of getting stronger. Aside from leveling of course." Nightingale explained.

"I'm assuming we're going to do some kind of duplication exploit or something along the lines of that?" Shin pondered.

"Well, I haven't quite gotten there yet. You know damn well that I would have already made hundreds of these and put them on the auction house if I knew how to duplicate these!" Nightingale exclaimed with jittery excitement.

"So, I did some digging... figuratively."

"What'd you find?" Shin asked.

"This jewel can be found in slain monsters. But you can also find these jewels in the ground by mining and refining stone." Nightingale pointed towards the ground.

"Normally, I would say 'let's get some pickaxes and start digging around the mountainside!' or something like that but magic got us covered." Nightingale was fidgeting with his codex in his lap.

"Let's see what you got then."

Nightingale invited Shin to a party. They made their way out the north gate of Levendale; the same way Shin went to hunt slimes and goblins. The two of them passed by some other adventurers as they got closer to a cliffside beside a forest and a river. The sounds of horses and carriages on the gravel road came and went disturbing their idle chatter.

Upon reaching the cliffside, it became immediately clear that they weren't the only ones there. Wagons lined the cliffside as adventurers with pickaxes swung away at the stone and moved the fragments to their respective wagons. Clanking sounds and the occasional grunt grew louder as they approached.

"They seem to really be going at it." Shin said.

"To nobody's surprise. I expected it would be rather busy here. We're gonna go to the quieter part of the cliffside to keep our technique a secret." Nightingale replied while pointing toward the far right side of the cliff.

The river that the road was beside flowed down the cliff from there and crashed into a larger pool of water about 40 meters down. Ahead of them was a large expanse of empty plains with spiked boulders interlaced between the greenery.

Nightingale took out his codex. While he was preparing it, Shin took a closer look to examine it.

---------

[Potentia Codex]

Crafted

[Specialization: Artificer, Savant]

[Attributes]

Intelligence: 10

Magic Attack: 32

[Required Attribute]

Intelligence: 15

(?) - Attributes of this weapon are reduced by 50% when equipped by a Savant

---------

Nightingale was at a much higher level than Shin was. He was already level 11 and probably has access to greater magic spells than just the fireball that Shin witnessed Omen perform. Nightingale grinded out levels during the first two days that Shin didn't play.

Nightingale's codex flipped open floating in the palm of his hand and magical green energy began to encircle his arm.

[Wind Slicer]

An unexpectedly small slice of wind came forth from the codex and cut through a piece of rock, which separated it from the cliffside.

Nightingale took out a magic blue cube with his left hand from his pouch and moved it closer to the rock. Suddenly, the rock disappeared into the cube without a trace.

"This is a storage cube." Nightingale said while handing Shin the cube.

"Certainly beats lugging around a heavy wagon." Shin replied while glancing at the other players.

"You can have this one, I made one for you in preparation for this." Nightingale replied earnestly.

"Thanks." Shin responded with a smile.

---------

[Storage Cube]

[Pouch Item]

Stores resources and materials from Mythalgia earth

---------

Shin thought about following in Nightingale's footsteps of breaking away chunks of rocks. He took out his weapon. Forgetting that he had a dagger, Shin thought about how he could use it. Typically, a sharp edge from a rookie dagger wasn't going to cut away at the solid rock.

As he was about to put the dagger away, Shin remembered [Enhance].

[Enhance] - Focus your mana to apply a strengthening effect to an object of your choosing within a short radius.

Shin imbued the rookie dagger with [Enhance] and reverse-gripped it and slammed the hilt into the rock. A large chunk of rock chipped away. Shin caught it with his storage cube before it hit the floor.

"You got the idea!" Nightingale looked over to Shin with thumbs up.

They collected rocks until their storage cubes were full and brought them back to Levendale.

+++++++++++++

Hours passed and the streets of the small town were lit up with lanterns alongside the path. The night sky was littered with stars. Nightingale and Shin made it to the entrance of the guild hall before moving to the secluded corner of the building.

"Shin, I took a look at your skill tree when I did my first data mining session. I saw that you have [Efficiency]. Do you think you could go into the guild hall and take up the manufacturing profession from the front desk?"

"Yeah, I think I know where you're going with this." Shin responded.

Without asking any questions, Shin went inside the guild hall. He talked to the front desk and learned about the manufacturing profession. As usual, a panel opened up in front of him and displayed his profession skill and what he was capable of manufacturing. Luckily, amber lustres were a beginner item that Shin could refine even at level 1 manufacturing.

Nightingale traded all of the rocks collected in his storage cube and combined them with Shin's inventory. From the menu, he pooled together 252 unrefined rocks and began the refining process.

[Efficiency] - When consuming a resource or ammunition, there is a 15% chance that the cost will be refunded back to you.

There was a 50% chance that refining rocks yielded an amber lustre. Luckily for them, Shin's skill was able to activate at a higher-than-average rate than expected which yielded 161 amber lusters.

They went straight to the auction house and talked to the managing NPC, the auction panel appeared in front of them.

Upon thorough examination, Shin found that players were able to directly trade resources and silver for real-world money directly from the auction house.

Nightingale and Shin looked each other straight in the eye but Nightingale broke the staring contest and looked down.

"I know you're thinking about the money. I definitely was too. But you kno-"

"We can't sell this for money quite yet" Shin cut Nightingale off.

The first thing that came to his mind was paying his rent and keeping the house afloat but there was an order to everything. The most important thing to Shin was to become stronger. He thought that the stronger he was, the faster he could make money.

"You read my mind." Nightingale said.

"Come on man, we've been through this dance more than once" Shin answered.

Shin listed 140 amber lustres on the auction house. Surprisingly, the NPC took out a large sack of silver and handed it to them. The listed amber lustres immediately sold out.

Shin split the sack of silver with Nightingale.

"I'm gonna go back to training nearby Freila! I'll see you there when you get to around level 10!" Nightingale waved goodbye while running toward the northern gate.

Shin waved back before went going their separate ways. Shin decided that he would use the rest of his silver at the armory since he didn't get any armor the first time.

+++++++++++++

---------

[Character Page]

[Nickname: [Shin] | Level: 5 | Specialization: Savant | Profession: NONE]

[Attributes]

Strength: 11 | Agility: 11 | Intelligence: 11

---------

This time, Shin had all the silver to purchase whatever he needed. However, when he entered the armory, he found an NPC running the front desk in place of the player that was once there.

"Even NPCs get a shift, huh?" Shin thought.

Shin bought some new equipment and enhanced them with leftover amber lustres that he saved.

---------

[Potentia Shortbow +5]

[Specialization: Ranger, Savant]

[Attributes]

Agility: 25

Attack: 71

[Required Attribute]

Agility: 10

(?) - Attributes of this weapon are reduced by 50% when equipped by a Savant

---------

[Ogreclad Chestplate +5]

[Formidable Woven Tunic]

[Ogreclad Greaves]

---------

Shin went back to the hunting grounds outside the north gate.