Finally the dungeons were open in Artha's village. But why was he beseeched with purchase list? Granted that it was only one person handing the list currently. But he had a bad hunch that all of his customers would request a lot. If the angry looking lady from Bloody Rose guild gave such a long list, he wondered how long the list of black hearted, always smiling money god, aka, Sun Lord would be? After all, he had given such lists before too. What Dragon Slayers? They hoarded items just like dragons themselves.
This was indeed a good opportunity to make money. But Artha no longer felt the desperate need. He got exemplary results and could name the price for his salary. Even the mountainous student education loan didn't look that big in the face of his future earnings. He could just give up playing this game. That was one of the reasons he didn't accept the list readily.
He walked towards the map where Dragon Slayers were grinding. What a shock! Even they hadn't gone for dungeon clearance. If he had read novels before, this situation would have shocked him even more. In novels, everyone would give up all they were doing to do dungeon diving.
The situation he was seeing was entirely different. The initial dungeons were just a fast way to get more equipments including weapons and obviously getting XP faster. The experts actually got XP faster out in the maps though. They would do dungeons to get name and fame. After all, most dungeons would have names of players who cleared it first or who cleared it fast. But the typical thoughts should not be used in this game. Who knows. Maybe the game AI will announce the name of every time dungeon cleared regardless of timings if they paid for it. Or maybe the AI will not announce fastest dungeon clearance at all, thus limiting the way to spread the name only through first dungeon clearance. If it was the latter, there would be blood bath near every dungeon entrance. If a noob like Artha can think of it, others, veterans might have a inkling too. However, they continued their routine, only faster and more brutal.
It had to do with knowledge though. In other villages, even those in which dungeons were discovered the earliest, the dungeons were yet to be cleared. The completion rate hovered over 50%. Clearly, dungeon completion is no easy game. Once the cannon fodders went in and found few clues, the reserves would go in. Then it would be elites turn and finally experts. Experts were not weeds. They had their own ways of doing things. Accomodating others few times is expecting too much from them.
Not that these experts were snobbish and didn't like to team up with others. If it was like that, these elites and reserves would have some strong words to say behind their back. No, the problem was with others. Experts did everything faster and they planned and implemented faster. They might have started fighting the monster by the time others noticed them. The mismatch in damage output would become disastrous, especially in dungeons. So unless required experts never ventured into simple dungeons at all. Another fact was that not all experts were great team leads. The main thing in dungeon raids is always team play. The dungeons were great way to bond. Or become irreconcilable forever.
From the looks of it though, Artha might get a shot at attempting dungeon raid. The Indies and normal guild players were cannon fodder. So he might get a chance.
Artha had cleared much of his stock at Zoya's, so he had lots of space to collect. That's what he did when he had to rest and recover the stamina. The guild members were already used to his behaviour, so they didn't spare another look at his direction. It was only when he felt he had destroyed enough of natural landscape that he decided to stop for the day and retire. He still had to make rounds with other NPCs.
Artha got ready to leave, feeling a bit relieved. No list presented itself to him. So far, so good. He apparently thought too early. Even before he was leaving the map, the money god sent the list. A single look and he knew that the other person was shameless and thick skinned. What? He wanted to have monopoly over the potions and scrolls? The requirement was astronomical. Artha just swore and sent the same reply he had given to Bloody Rose. Equal response to same tier customers. Have to maintain the standard.
Thanks to opening of dungeons, there were lots of tasks. Even the mentors gave him few tasks. Artha had nickname for them- stinky masters. But after looking at the tasks and rewards, he felt bad and decided to remove stinky part, temporarily. The tasks given by menyors still felt surreal. It felt as if there was a huge change in cosmos. Imagine, a Scrooge gifting few credits out of his own violation.
The stalls were sparse. Obviously. He had seen the mob hawking their selves to be part of groups to enter dungeons. Heck, the impromptu market there had more items than here in village.
He had some talks with Sela and the healer. Right now, they were the only people who could get their hands on monster drops from dungeons and sell them to him.
He made another outrageous request too. Less told about it, the better.
Finally got some time to talk about the cleaner job. The practice rooms were where apprentices trained and learnt the craft. Unfortunately, the completion rate of apprentices was horrid to say the least. As the points in apprenticeship increased, this rate also slowly raised, along with efficacy rates, time taken etc. Side effect of having lots of apprentices, loads of garbage and waste products.
Artha had a wacky idea while he was grinding mindlessly. He wanted to see if the idea worked. Thus foray into training rooms while apprentices worked. The training hall had dedicated NPC manning the desk, where he was incharge of payments. There were over 10 rooms for level 0 potion making. They were the cheapest rooms. If you were ready to pay a bit extra , you could go to next floor for higher level potion making rooms. These places had not just better ambience but the fire used, cauldron used, the instruments used all were a notch better, thus increasing the completion rate and efficacy. But not many opted for this pricier rooms. Come on, even the guilds winced at the amount of resources and raw materials these apprentices had to go through to increase their level of lifestyle jobs. Who would spend extra? Who had coins to spend like that?
So Artha didn't have to run up and down while collecting rubbish and waste products. Atleast, not now.
Now, to test his theory. Will his conjecture prove true?