Nick let the corner of his lips curl slightly as he mentally estimated how much the location of the Pandora's Box vending machine would sell.
Giddy with the prospect of achieving such fortune in v-points, Nick switched from the Leaderboard tab to the Marketplace in the blink of an eye.
Of course, Nick was greeted with a very populated interface, unlike other tabs he had visited so far.
[Marketplace]
[1] Tier-2 Talent, Cooking.
Seller: PointerC9B2.
Seller Description: "Get this talent and instantly become an intermediate (D-Grade) in cooking, foregoing the beginner (E-Grade) stage."
Duration: 21 hours, 35 minutes.
Starting Price: 100 v-points. Current Bid: 138 v-points.
~
[2] Tier-2 Utility, Top Idol 2.0.
Seller: Pointer72G8.
Seller Description: "This is the app update, which gives you access to special discount utilities, has many other functions, and has an overall smoother user interface."
Duration: 1 day, 10 hours.
Starting Price: 30 v-points. Current Bid: 45 v-points.
~
[3] Tier-3 Consumable, Prime BeastMode Energizer!*
Seller: Pointer1A2D.
Seller Description: "THE BEST CONSUMABLE. THIRTY MINUTES OF DOUBLED MAX ENERGY!"
Duration: 4 days, 21 hours.
Price (Fixed): 45 v-points.
Nick swiped up and down with wide eyes at the prices, trying his best to gain a preliminary understanding of how things worked here.
All kinds of items were sold here between pointers. He could see there were different types of trades, with different types of prices, with some fixed and others negotiable, and a few with starting prices instead.
The rectangular listings had a normal silver-white background, while there were also "boosted" items with a different, golden background, represented by the asterisk at the top right corner of the listing.
At the bottom right corner of every listing, was the green "Buy" button, with the bookmark and chat icons positioned beside it respectively.
Nick didn't need anyone to explain to him what the icons meant, but he still clicked on them for the interface to briefly display their meanings. And of course, the bookmark icon meant "Add to Watchlist," while the chat symbol meant "Message Seller." However, the option to message the seller wasn't given on all listings and only showed on listings with negotiable prices.
Nick rubbed his chin and muttered, "I wonder if it's only Irregulars that are here."
The items sold here weren't that much of a surprise to Nick. Considering their tiers, they were within the bounds of what Irregulars could possibly get their hands on. But nothing more. This meant that, if he was going to sell the location of the Pandora's Box vending machine and ask for information about it, his listing would only be shown to Irregulars.
Nick's eyebrows furrowed at this thought of his, two lines emerging in the middle of his forehead. 'How disappointing. They won't have the appropriate amount of v-points worth this type of information. And neither will they even know anything significant about the Pandora's Box vending machine.'
At the bottom of the current tab interface, Nick saw there were three other subsections of the Marketplace—apart from its main hub—which were Watchlist, Sell, and Messages, represented by the bookmark icon, the plus sign, and the chat icon respectively, with bolder and more defining designs.
Nick clicked the 'Sell' plus icon and was shown a smaller version of the inventory, with the same nine squares in a three-by-three grid. However, it was unsurprisingly empty. Nick had nothing after all.
What Nick wanted to sell wasn't an item, so right beside the new 'Sell' button at the bottom right of the miniature inventory, there was an inconspicuous 'Skip' button, which he clicked instead.
"The sell option shown in the Inventory tab when one clicks their item is probably for easy access to this," Nick muttered thoughtfully. Thinking about it this way, along with his other observations of the Top Idol app, although its interface looked like that of older applications, its functions seemed well thought out.
'I wonder how the 2.0 version is,' he thought, referring to one of the listings he perused.
After Nick clicked 'Skip,' he was shown two empty panels, the one above was slim and rectangular, while the other below was larger and seemed more squaric. Of course, this was where he was to put the title and description of his listing.
He quickly did so, titling his listing "Location of a Pandora's Box." He refrained from specifying it was a vending machine because he felt that would be giving too much information.
Then, he put the description as "Get access to a Pandora's Box. Benefits untold." Nick himself didn't know the benefits of course, but he still put it there to draw the intrigue of potential buyers. In addition, he imagined such a mysterious object guarded by an admin was surely immensely useful.
After, he clicked next and was given two options: Auction or Sale.
From what Nick had seen so far, and as a former business student, he could already deduce that choosing 'Auction' would have him place a starting price on his listing, allowing pointers to bid for it. This would be wise if he was selling something he knew the exact worth of and was given access to a 'richer' audience. But no, if he took his chances and set the starting price as 250 v-points, he most likely wouldn't get any bidders. And worse, since auctioning didn't give pointers access to message the seller, he wouldn't be able to request information on the Pandora's Box in exchange for a fraction of the price.
With this in mind, he clicked the sale option and took a moment to think of the most reasonable price for pointers of this caliber.
'I should try to be generous.' Nick wasn't greedy, so he set the price of the listing as 300 v-points, over the 500 v-points he originally had in mind, and chose "Negotiable" over "Fixed."
Moving forward, he was given a warning that said he wasn't allowed to place a listing that had nothing pertaining to Top Idol and its components. Nick didn't feel the warning applied to him so he ignored it and looked down at the lower right corner that said "Place Listing." However, his eyes widened at the smaller text written below that said "−1 v-point."
"I need to pay to place the listing? What if it's deemed as something not of Top Idol? Will they give me back the v-point?" Nick's forehead wrinkled slightly, and after a few seconds of thought, he canceled the entire thing and went over to the Attributes tab.
[Attributes]:
Strength — 12.
Perception — 24 [MAX].
Endurance — 12.
Charisma — 6.
Intelligence — 16.
Agility — 13.
Looks — 8.
Nick rubbed his chin. 'I should probably invest some v-points in more physical—or should I say combat—oriented attributes like strength, endurance, and agility. But…'
Nick immediately clicked Intelligence and invested 3 v-points in it. 'I rather not face Boss Falco and his goons in a fight. Even if I max out everything, that'll still be suicide.'
With that, he finalized the investment and saw his Intelligence increase from 16 to 19.