'This should be the last call for the day.'
As he was walking through the streets of the city, Sato dialed a contact on his friend list.
"Yo, yo, yo. What's up, Sato?" A hipster-like voice sounded right in Sato's ears.
"I'm alright, Matsui." Sato replied with a relaxed tone.
Matsui Yoshi was a cousin of Yato's but from his father's side of the family. His father and Yoshi's mother were both siblings with Yoshi's mother being the younger of the two. After the incident with his family, Yato had relocated over to his aunt's family and stayed with them for a while before he left due to the mistreatment he received from his aunt. Of the cousins he had from that side of the family, only Yoshi was close to him.
Recently, Yato had invited Yoshi to play IR but because he had started out late, he was still in the town. Since he was quite close with and trusted by everyone in the gang, Yato had informed them and Sato had made plans with him in mind.
"So, did you manage to sell them?" Sato went straight to the point.
"Yep, and it came out at a whooping price grand of about 6 gold coins and 78 silver or so." Yoshi with an elated face. This was the highest number of gold coins he had held in one sitting and it made him feel a lot thrilled when he realised that he had played a role in making this much. If he were to expose his name to the [Golden Fingers] ranking, reaching the top spot wasn't a problem since the money he held wasn't tagged as group funds but individual property.
"That's good. You know what to do then?" Sato asked.
"Go to the bank and deposit the money. Don't worry about it. This isn't the first time we've worked together and you should be able to trust that I won't take the cash and flee if you had selected me for the job. Having you make for me weapons for free together with a commission is a lot better." Matsui laughed lightly.
For each piece of equipment he sold, Matsui had a 2% commission fee subtracted from the profit, which was gotten after subtracting materials cost from the final price. While it seemed little, Matsui usually sold off more than 10 weapons, together with an equivalent number of talismans and sometimes potions. All of these were items that cost quite a lot but were very useful to players. As a result, the accumulated commission ends up becoming reasonable especially for a player living in the town.
For example, in this trade, after subtracting material cost, profits would come out at about 2 gold and some spare silver coins. By the 2% cut, Matsui would be earning 4 silver coins or so, and in a novice town, this was a lot of money. Considering that he doesn't do much to earn much, it wasn't a bad deal to work for Sato in Matsui's opinion.
"Alright then. I will forward you your share right after calculating the costs." Sato stated.
"No problem." Matsui replied.
With that, Sato ended the call and began heading to the auction house in a hurry while recalling how he had come about with this idea of making a large amount of money.
Sato's blacksmith skill had already surpassed the level of being able to make under level 10 equipment without any problem. However, the players in the city were all level 0 and above and so won't need such equipment. Only players in town would. But the problem remained that Sato couldn't get to town.
The time needed to get to the novice towns by either foot or carriage was extensive and therefore not worth it. As for going through teleportation arrays, that cost a lot. Normally, the first teleportation array ride players took from town to the city was at a heavily discounted price. When Sato checked for the original price, he felt that it wasn't worth it. There was one last option which was the one Sato currently utilised and that was performing the trade through the official bank of the Fallen Heart kingdom, Bank Of Hearts.
Thanks to a special feature possessed by banks in IR, players could deposit an item in a particular branch and still be able to withdraw it from another branch almost instantly. It was done through miniature teleportation arrays which focused on only teleporting non-living objects hence, the cost of teleportation was a lot cheaper than with a teleportation array station.
This feature was called void transfer and only players with noble titles or high credit scores with the banks could apply for it. With it, they could withdraw an object from any branch of the bank across the world. Relying on this feature, players with high credit scores or low-class noble ranks or equivalent, performed trades with other players. They would charge a small depending on the package size while the sender would pay for the delivery and processing fees as they make use of the account holder's account to send a package. Then a player elsewhere, the receiver, would withdraw the object from the said account after receiving permission from the account holder. This was currently how gold was traded in exchange for real cash with the absence of the official exchange store.
The two parties involved would find a trustworthy account holder and make a deal with them. The one selling the virtual currency would then deposit it into the account holder's account and after receiving the alert, the account holder would inform the party interested in buying. The said individual would then transfer real currency to the actual bank account of the seller. Once the seller receives an alert, they would inform the account holder who would then withdraw the virtual currency and hand it to the buyer right after processing fees, and the rest have been calculated and settled. While there were loopholes to this, it was currently the best system for buying and selling the game's virtual currency with the absence of the official exchange platform.
With the title [Savior of Races], Sato was able to qualify to use the void transfer feature and with the discount on top, it became cheaper than teleportation array fees even after adding bank processing fees. However, he didn't act as a middleman for currency trading but instead focused on sending his goods to towns. Hence, the problem became finding a middle man to get the goods sold.
Since Sato could only deposit the finished products in the account, he would need someone else in Riverdale town, Black Mountain town, Salt Springs town, or any other primary level novice town
Luckily, Matsui had just joined IR and as he was someone they all knew and could trust, Sato made a deal with him. In exchange for selling the items at the trade-house in town, Sato would give him a little commission and also produce for him 1-2 equipment of his choice for free, as long as the materials were provided for.
Since the trade benefited both parties and wasn't particularly difficult to pull off from his side, Matsui had agreed to it without much persuasion.
'Next is to make a customer-base in town. Once we do that, our earnings would rise and we can move forward with some of my plans for the team.' Sato thought as he recalled what day it was.
It was a bright Saturday morning in reality and a similar time in this part of the world in IR. According to recent updates from players who had explored most of the city, the auction house would hold a general auction today which would showcase quality items from both players and NPCs. Unlike the regular auctions on weekdays this one would see a rise in NPC population, which, for production-class, players meant that they could sell off their items at a higher rate, and for regular players, meant that the quality of items on display would be higher than usual.
As this was the very first general auction, a lot of players had made their way over to the auction house in search of something good and for the producing players, as long as their product attracted the crowd's attention today, they won't be lacking customers anytime in the future.
'So, it has to be today.'