Jack's face was dirty with clay from wiping his brow with muddied hands. He was starting to get the hang of this. His speed couldn't be compared to Jenny's, but he could get one pot molded in five minutes. Since pots only took 20 minutes under the sun to dry, the first one had dried when he finished molding his fifth.
At first, working out the kinks in his pots was fun, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn't perfect his technique. When he reached the tenth pot, the pleasant sensations from a little earlier faded, diluted by tiredness and frustration. He felt like changing tasks. His attention was beginning to waver. Repeating the same task over and over was starting to wear on him.
It had taken him almost an hour to mold ten vases, earning him 50XP in [Pottery] but no new levels. His frustration simmered. Did people really expect to spend countless hours doing this mind-numbing work just to hit level ten? Jack rubbed his eyes, trying to ignore the familiar urge to quit. I know I'm supposed to be patient...but seriously?
It wasn't that he felt disgusted about the clay anymore or that creating pots wasn’t satisfying. But the idea of repeating this monotonous work for days on end made him shudder. Although bearable for now, it wasn’t something Jack could see himself doing forever. Thankfully, he had other things to do to get a break from pottery.
It was time to start a fire. He picked up the bits of grass he had left to dry around him and reached into his inventory to grab more, arranging it all into a pile. Even though it wasn't much, he was sure it would be enough to fire ten pots.
Now that he had prepared the fuel, he only had to kindle the fire. He opened his inventory, and his eyes widened. How could he have made such a rookie mistake? He didn't own a tinderbox yet! The one he had used earlier was Saul’s!
Where could he get a tinderbox? Did he have to buy one? He only had 1 silver, or 100 coppers, in his wallet. He didn't even know where he could buy such a thing. Was there another way to make a fire that didn't involve buying a tinderbox?
Jack massaged his temples. It was time to turn to his wisest friend for help. “Let's go, Internet.” He opened the browser, graying out the hill around him and the town beyond. “Where to get a tinderbox in New Earth?” he typed.
The answer to his query came almost immediately.
You can buy a tinderbox in any basic shop in a beginner town. Alternatively, you can collect the flints yourself and ask a tinkerer, smith, or recycler to get you some firesteel. I would just recommend you buy a tinderbox from the store for what it costs.
The information he needed wasn't a big secret. Thankfully, New Earth had been online for over four months, and these little things were considered common knowledge. Hopefully, the game would stay easy to figure out for a while. He’d played games before where finding basic information was a grind, and solving everything on his own had felt like pulling teeth. It was always easier when someone else cracked the code.
Jack studied all his unfinished creations and was unsure of what to do for a moment. He had only spent one stack of clay to make these ten pieces, but each drying pot would occupy one slot in his inventory. He didn’t know if finished pots stacked, but unfinished ones didn’t. He couldn’t just leave them here. Any passerby could come here and take it away, wasting all his hard work!
Sighing, he tossed ten stacks of clay to the ground and stored the bone-dry pots in their place. Even though it felt wasteful to leave so much clay around, the truth was that there was a lot of it in the harvesting ground Jenny had shown him. He could always pick up more if he needed to.
As he ran away, he looked over his shoulder and caught sight of a couple of players in gray clothes approaching the scattered lumps of clay and dry grass on the hill. They squatted, trying to grab them, but seemed unable to gather the resources. A grin spread across his face. Rookie mistake—they needed a miner skill to pick up those resources!
After walking these streets a few times when checking out majors, Jack already had a rough idea of where a beginner shop was. He turned right at the fountain and located a house with large windows. He remembered asking the shop clerk where he could find soldiers; this location had stuck with him. Players entered and left the store, making it one of the buildings with the highest traffic in town.
The ones going in looked excited at the prospect of buying something new, and those leaving appeared to be downcast and pale, an aftereffect of leaving all their hard-earned money behind. The big signboard reading ‘Shop’ removed any doubts. This was the place where he could buy a tinderbox.
The nicest adjective Jack could think of for the inside of the beginner shop was ‘clean.’ It was a seemingly empty home. There wasn’t even a counter, but only a table with some different wares on it. Why it was so packed with players baffled Jack. The rusty wares on display were hardly worth such commotion.
When Jack approached the plain-looking table to try to understand why it was so crowded here, a window automatically opened.
Marketplace
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- Buy
- Sell
Jack opened the buy option, and a never-ending assortment of items appeared. There was a shiny, flaming spear for sale at 100 gold and an intricately carved bow for sale at 60. As he scrolled down and saw some of the price tags on the other items, Jack gulped. He only had 100 coppers to his name. Why could he already see these high-level items on display? Were beginners supposed to have access to these?
Above the different listings were a series of filters and a search bar. Jack wrote ‘tinderbox,’ and several results appeared, each priced at a few silver or gold. Seeing how expensive these were, he fiddled with the controls and sorted the results by price.
The cheapest one available cost 83 coppers.
Rudimentary Tinderbox (Common)
Crafting grade: D
Item description: A very simple box containing a piece of pyrite and a piece of flint. It can be used to start fires.
Item effects: Can start low-temperature fires using common materials. Requires [Kindle].
Durability: 8
As Jack debated whether to buy this one or look for more options, he saw the listing disappear, giving place to a different listing for the same item at a slightly higher price range. This one cost 92 coppers.
Rudimentary Tinderbox (Common)
Crafting grade: C
Item description: A very simple box containing a piece of pyrite and a piece of flint. It can be used to start fires.
Item effects: Can start low-temperature fires using common materials. Requires [Kindle].
Durability: 8+2
Jack tried to understand what he was seeing. He had read online that this game had a player-based economy and that players could craft everything. If his guess was correct, all marketplaces were linked into one massive global store. That’s why he was presented with impossibly expensive weapons when he first opened the trading window.
The price difference between the tinderboxes was that the first had a D crafting grade, lowering the listing’s price. The second cheapest had higher durability, perhaps because whoever had crafted it had gotten a better rating.
Jack waited a few moments, and a new listing hit the market. Someone had placed ten tinderboxes with a D crafting grade. Each of them was priced at 83 coppers. Why was it worth the same price as before? Did the system make the final pricing decision?
Out of curiosity, Jack checked how much the items he was crafting were worth. He wrote ‘Gardening Pot’ on the search bar.
Earthenware Gardening Pot (Common)
Crafting Grade: E
Durability: 2
A simple pot that can hold some dirt and a plant.
Effects:
You can keep level 1 plants in it. Plants grow 5% slower.
Cost: 8 coppers.
Earthenware gardening pots with an E rating were on sale for eight coppers, causing Jack to grimace. That wasn’t a lot of money.
He scrolled down and saw that as the crafting grade improved, the prices also rose. For example, a [Gardening Pot] with an A rating, similar to the one he had fired for Jenny earlier, was sold for much more money.
Earthenware Gardening Pot (Common)
Crafting Grade: A
Durability: 10
A simple pot that can hold some dirt and a plant.
Effects: You can keep level 1 plants in it. Plants grow 20% faster.
Cost: 60 coppers
The difference was massive. Out of curiosity, Jack also checked the prices of crafting materials. Both materials he had collected were considered practically worthless. [Earthenware Clay] and [Grass] sold for two coppers a stack, and [Dry Grass] wasn’t much better at three coppers a stack
As an experiment, Jack wrote only ‘pottery’ in the search bar to see how expensive ceramics could get. Thousands of listings appeared. He sorted it out by price from most expensive to cheapest. The most costly ceramic for sale wasn’t a pot.
Porcelain Warrior (Rare)
Item description: An astounding sculpture that will inspire soldiers and strengthen them. Grants bonuses if placed inside your house.
Effects:
+100hp;
+5 constitution;
+1 strength
Cost: 100 gold
When Jack saw the price of a [Clay Warrior], his heart practically leaped out of his chest—100 gold! Was there such an item too? He was led to believe he could only make pots, but that wasn’t the full story. 100 gold was a lot of money! He opened the auction website and found that some of these sculptures were on sale for prices ranging from 50 to 60 credits. If he could make just ten of these, his rent would be covered for months. He grimaced as he looked at the picture in the store and how delicate the sculpture seemed. Right, let’s not get ahead of myself. First, make some decent pots without messing them up.
Happy that there was some future for his minor, Jack hurriedly bought the tinderbox. He had to start firing his dried pots and come here to sell them. After some thought, he tried putting one stack of clay for sale.
10x[Earthenware Clay] will be sold for two copper. Are you sure you want to put this for sale?
As he had suspected, he had no control over the price. The system set that up. He wondered if there was any way around that. Could he trade directly with players, for example? If one could auction it for real-life money, there was probably such flexibility, too, right?
He put nine more stacks of clay for sale. If anyone bought all this clay, he would make 20 coppers. He didn’t need to be burdened by a full inventory. At least this way, he could recoup some of his investment. Nothing happened after he put the clay up for sale, and Jack just shrugged and left. He probably had to wait for someone to buy his clay. As he was almost on the hill where he was crafting, floating text appeared, notifying him of a successful transaction.
You sold 100x[Earthenware Clay] for 20 coppers.
With a deeper knowledge of the game’s inner workings, Jack returned to where he had been earlier, his ‘crafting station.’ The grass he had yanked to form a clearing had grown back. Had this been the real world, there was no way that grass would regrow so quickly, but he recognized the spot because of all the clay tossed around. No one had picked it up. Now knowing that it was worth some money, Jack scooped it all up.
He yanked grass again, threw it to the side to dry, and grabbed all the dry grass in his inventory, recreating the pile he had formed earlier. He then grabbed his new acquisition.