Ding!
[Congratulations! You have killed the Rock Golem and earned the First Kill reward.]
A badge materialized in front of Alexander, intricately designed with dragon patterns and two crossed swords at its center.
[Congratulations! You have obtained the [Beginner Hunter] badge. Wearing this badge grants an additional 1% experience bonus.]
Alexander's eyes lit up.
An experience bonus? That meant he could level up his talents even faster!
This was a fantastic reward!
With a grin, Alexander quickly equipped the badge and turned his attention to the massive corpse of the Rock Golem. The area around the body was glowing faintly with golden light, indicating the loot it had dropped.
Alexander walked over and picked up everything, storing it in his backpack.
[Earth Element *5]
[Earth Heavy Armor *1]
[Earth Hammer *1]
[Stone Fragments *8]
[Gold Coins *5]
Quite the haul!
Just the 5 gold coins alone were a nice bonus.
Alexander inspected the Earth Hammer.
[Weapon: Earth Hammer]
[Quality: D-grade]
[Level: 25]
[Attack: 15-30]
[Attribute: +6% Critical Hit Chance]
Alexander shook his head. The weapon had decent stats, but it was heavy and didn't suit his style. He decided to stash it away and sell it at the auction house later.
"Time to keep grinding and leveling up," Alexander muttered to himself. He needed more beasts to provide him with experience.
As if on cue, a herd of wild boars appeared in the distance—at least twenty of them.
Without hesitation, Alexander charged forward.
These boars were only level 13, making them easy targets.
In no time, Alexander had dispatched the entire herd. The boars dropped various loot, and thanks to his talent, killing the 23 Prairie Boars granted him 2 additional attribute points, which were automatically allocated to his Defense stat.
However, Alexander was starting to face a new problem—his backpack was nearly full.
He decided it was time to head back to the city, sell off his loot, and see if he could find a larger storage bag. He didn't want to waste time constantly traveling back and forth between the city and the wilderness.
On his way back to the nearest town, Alexander encountered a few more beast packs, which he quickly dispatched, completely filling his backpack.
Soon, he arrived at the main city and followed the signs to the auction house.
The auction house was the central hub for player transactions, and every major city had one.
Inside, there were also numerous NPC merchants. If players couldn't find what they needed on the auction platform, they could always buy directly from these merchants.
Alexander emptied his backpack, listing everything he could on the auction platform. The system would evaluate the items' worth, and he could adjust the prices accordingly.
This was a way to balance the market. If a player set a price higher than the system's valuation, the platform would take a percentage of the sale as tax. The higher the markup, the more tax was taken, preventing market inflation.
After several minutes of sorting through his items, Alexander finally finished listing everything. However, some items were bound to him and couldn't be sold, though they didn't seem to have any immediate use.
Alexander sighed in frustration.
Constantly returning to the city was a waste of time, and he didn't want to spend his precious hours running back and forth.
Time was everything, and he needed to solve this problem.
Alexander began browsing the auction house for items that could help him increase his efficiency.
He needed a larger backpack or a tool that would allow him to quickly return to the city. Otherwise, he'd be wasting too much time on travel.
As he scrolled through the listings, the first item that caught his eye was a weapon—a staff.
It was an E-grade staff, priced at 1,000 gold coins.
And that was just for an E-grade item.
As he scrolled further, he found a D-grade greatsword listed for 22,222 gold coins. He couldn't help but exclaim, "What the hell? Are they robbing people?"
Alexander's shock was understandable. He hadn't realized that in Oracle, equipment drop rates were notoriously low.
And since the drop rates were spread across all equipment slots, weapons were especially rare.
As a result, even a weapon with mediocre stats could fetch a high price.
Gold coins were hard to come by, but they were still an achievable goal. However, getting a weapon was entirely dependent on luck.
So, despite the high prices, players were more than willing to spend their hard-earned gold on weapons.
Looking at the few gold coins in his wallet, Alexander realized for the first time just how poor he was.
Weapons were expensive, but maybe backpacks, as common items, would be cheaper?
Alexander focused his search on return scrolls and backpacks.
Soon, he found a large, 1,000-slot purple-gold backpack. But the price was astronomical: 36,999 gold coins.
Alexander blinked, closed the page, and opened the listings for the items he had put up for sale.
The system's valuation had come in, and it was much lower than he had expected.
After some thought, Alexander decided to increase the prices by 20% over the system's estimate.
Then, he clicked "Sell All."
Within a minute, the auction house was buzzing with the news of a large batch of new equipment being listed. What excited the players the most was that the prices were far below the current market rate!
Even better, the stats on these items were slightly better than what was currently available.
It wasn't much, but it was enough for players to see the value.
The result? A buying frenzy.
In less than ten minutes, all of Alexander's items were sold out.
Immediately, complaints started flooding in.
"Why was there so little stock?"
"I just saw that spear! Who bought it?"
"I need a weapon! I'd even take an eggplant as a weapon at this point!"
Alexander watched as his gold count jumped from a few coins to five digits, feeling very satisfied.
However, he was still a bit short of the amount needed for the large backpack. So, he bought a return scroll and left the city, heading back to the plains.
Three hours later, he returned with a full backpack once again.
This time, the items sold even faster than before.
Alexander had raised the prices by 30%, but everything still sold out in an instant.
Afterwards, he purchased a 1,000-slot backpack and headed back to the Howling Plains.
For the next two days and nights, Alexander stayed in the plains, grinding non-stop.
Finally, on the evening of the third day, his talent experience reached 100% once again.
A new talent was just around the corner!