World Online

Clang!

Clang!

The smell of hot iron and sweat that defined this smithery wafted to the new customer that had arrived.

This was not a well-known place. After all, who would know to come to the outskirts of the city, where the blacksmiths toil to make equipment if instead players could buy the same equipment for a little higher price, but a lot more convenience?

"Father! Someone has arrived!" a young boy ran from the entrance and into the depths to call upon the master forger of this smithery.

A middle aged man, bulky as can be, which a short and stout build, along with the trademark beard and moustache, stepped out of the furnace and came to the front.

Looking at the young man who arrived, and forger was all smiles. This was the first customer who had come here in what felt like forever!

"What can I do for you, customer?" the forger asked.

"You don't get a lot of customers here, do you?" the young man silently said, looking around, judging the products that were up in display.

The face of the forger fell. He knew of the difficult times that had come. He couldn't sell any of his products no matter how good they were. They couldn't ship their goods to the houses of commerce, which would give them too little that they would have to eat a loss.

And yet they couldn't sell, so they still had to suffer.

"I will give you guys a job. A gold coin a week at first. If you are able to get enough products out, then you will earn more and more." the young man said.

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"Who are you? What will you do with our products?"

"I am the guild master of Bright Horizon. We have recently put up shop in the middle of Diffast. It is a prime location, and you can get a lot of customers, as long as you put forward enough products." he said.

"You wish to hire us to be your blacksmiths?" the forger asked.

"Yes." the young man nodded.

"One gold coin a week?"

"I can give you a month's worth in advance if you can sign a contract." the young man said.

"Deal." the forger said without any hesitation.

"Oh, I forgot to mention. This is one gold coin per blacksmith. So if you have friends, or people below you, then bring them all as well. This is a mass hiring." the young man smiled.

And who was it, other than Jake?

He started his biggest plan so far.

With this, he would no longer have to worry about money, as long as it worked. And it should work. After all, which player didn't need equipment? And not a lot of NPC commerce groups sold affordable equipment.

Now, he was going to give it to them.

"How many blacksmiths can you hire? I have a lot of friends looking for work." the forger asked, his breath haggard.

"Hmmm. I need to give you guys four coins right now, so one hundred. One hundred will be best. I still need to buy you guys the material to work on, right." Jake said.

"We have a lot of items here that we could not sell as the commerce groups said that the margins were too small. Is it possible for you to sell these as well?" the forger pointed at the multitude of items that stood on the shelves.

These were not bad items by any means. But they were not profitable to sell for the commerce groups of these NPCs.

And for a new comer like Jake, he would take anything to fill his stock.

"Of course. I will take whatever you have." Jake nodded.

"..."

Two hours later, Jake was at the town hall again.

"How may I help you, respected Baron?" the receptionist this time was much more respectful. It was obviously because of the title that he received.

"A Baron is slated to receive protection for his residence, is he not? My residence is in the central street, in the guild quarters of Bright Horizon. Please send someone to guard that area." Jake said.

"As you wish, Baron King." the receptionist said.

[His name is Shadow King, so his last name is technically 'King' in the game]

Jake nodded and walked back to his shop. The street was lively, but everyone was looking at the newest addition to the street.

When a three story building suddenly appears, everyone's attention would be towards that.

"What do you think happened? A new merchant group entered the city?"

"I thought that the NPCs were already in place before the game was opened to the public."

"Well, the game is so smart, it should the AI working its magic."

Jake smiled at all these presumptuous takes and walked in.

Someone tried to stop him.

"There are guards blocking everyone!" he warned, but why would the guards block Jake himself?

The moment that the two guards at the entrance looked at Jake, they knelt.

"We welcome the Baron." they said.

The jaws of everyone dropped on the floor. A player was a Baron? How was that even possible?

"He is a hacker. Definetly a hacker. He hacked the game." someone muttered.

Jake could not bother about those people and entered the building. The first floor was supposed to be the main shop. It was where all the items would be in full display.

And surprisingly, the shelves were all stocked. The best items, which were in the rare class, were put up in glass columns at intervals of the store, while the sole Epic Item, which was as treasured master piece of the first forger that Jake met, was at the very center, stealing the spotlight.

Sure, the Flying Pavilion had many Epic Grade items, but who could afford them. And who could even enter the Flying Pavilion?

This was a good collection, and not many shops in the street had three stories.

They were all small shops by independent NPCs.

"Good. Everything is perfect. We should be able to go public in an hour." Jake nodded.

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