MMO: Pierce Heaven Til' It Breaks
chapter-70

Chapter 70: Unique NPC

Li Yi was riding a white horse as he went around Shattered Frost City.

Although his Reputation with the major cities had reached Recognition, he insisted on doing Reputation-related quests every day as he wished to achieve the Worship status as soon as he could.

There were ten large-sized major cities from the humans and Shattered Frost City was one of them. Human players were free to choose one of the major cities as their hometown and the way to go about achieving this was rather simple. One just needed to appoint their Return City Stone that was gifted by the system at level 20 to their desired city.

One would obtain additional benefits once they had appointed a major city via the Return City Stone. For example, they would obtain slightly more Reputation Value and EXP when they finished a quest.

There were no more quests that could be obtained from Archer Skill Mentor Raoul. Since collecting the Mysterious Treasure Map Fragment was a quest open to all classes, one would be able to continue the remaining quests from the other class mentors within the city once they had obtained the Treasure Map Fragment.

While one obtained Recognition from a major city, it did not mean that every NPC in Shattered Frost City would be in a state of Recognition. Instead, a minority of NPC was not affected by the Reputation Value at all.

The indifferent Taka, the raging Kelly, and the Sorrowful Timmy. These three NPC’s personalities would not change no matter how high the player’s Reputation Value was.

There were similar NPCs in every major city and players had been trying to obtain a favorable impression on them in every way possible. However, they would never give out any quests and they had no idea where to begin to change their impression towards them.

Li Yi, who had been playing King of Pantheon for eight years in his past life, knew the importance of these unique NPCs better than anyone else. Naturally, it was a walk in the park for Li Yi to maintain a good relationship with them.

The merchant NPC Taka who was located by the shop entrance always had the Indifferent status towards all players. However, he could be impressed when one gifts him money.

As he never rejects any players who would gift him money, it was a study on its own.

There were a few players who had nicknamed Taka as the black merchant. It was because he would show no emotion no matter how much money was given to him. There would be no notification. This caused people to misunderstand that there was no difference in giving him money because he was just an *sshole.

However in reality, once a player’s Reputation Value had reached Recognition, they would obtain the unique NPCs’ hobbies through the word of mouth from the other NPCs. It would only be a matter of time in obtaining a good impression of them from there on.

Li Yi walked towards Taka the merchant and gave him one Silver Coin.

Taka would think that he was a miser if he were to give him less than one Silver Coin and considered him a person who would buy a pig in a poke if he were to give him more than one Silver Coin. Hence, he persisted on giving him just one Silver Coin every day so that Taka’s impression towards him would turn for the better.

Li Yi counted the time and he realized that he had been going at it for more than twenty days now…

Taka played with the Silver Coin in his hand as he spoke out of the blue. “What’s your view towards a merchant?”

‘Finally! I’ve got you, profiteer.’

Li Yi felt extremely ecstatic but he kept his emotion to himself as he responded. “I don’t know much.”

Taka pondered for a moment before continuing. “Do you want me to teach you the way of a business?”

System Notification: [Accept The Way of a Business from Taka?]

Accept!

“The way of a merchant lies in sincerity, intelligence…” Taka started speaking and Li Yi did not understand a single word of it.

System Notification: [You’ve obtained a certain level of knowledge in The Way of Business after the guidance from Taka.]

‘That settles it!’

Li Yi had got on to his horse and left while Taka was still speaking without any sign of stopping.

Li Yi went to the Shattered Frost City’s property manager and bought ten deeds with 1000 Gold Coins.

One would not be qualified to buy a house deed without Taka’s guidance. Many players did not know about this and had remained single in the King of Pantheon for a few years as they did not possess a house. The system was incredibly realistic as it had indicated that players were not allowed to marry without owning property.

Li Yi took out a piece of deed and a system notification appeared. [Create Level 1 House? 100 Gold Coins required.]

“Create!”

[Please select the house site.]

The map of Shattered Frost City appeared right before his eyes with countless red dots on it, indicating the locations that properties could be built upon.

“Here, here and here.”

In one breath, Li Yi built the houses on the most valuable lands in the Shattered Frost City.

He used up all ten deeds and finished building everything. Li Yi had planned to build all of his houses on the golden spots if the system had not limited ten houses per player in the early phase.

Ten houses appeared out of the blue in the Shattered Frost City and this had gathered suspicions and guesses from other players.

Li Yi summoned the maids that were available for rent and a list of NPC names appeared right before his eyes. The hardworking Atao, the enduring Adai, the virtuous widow Zhang, the pretty and intelligent Mihua…

There were hundreds of them and the price for each NPC was different, ranging from 1 Copper Coins per day to 100 Gold Coins per day. The difference between prices was so big that it was basically heaven and earth apart.

If there were no maid to manage the house in the King of Pantheon, it would automatically collapse and all the effort would be a waste when the system had taken away the property.

Each NPC had their own reputation and the number of times that they were hired. Li Yi simply chose ten maids that were cheap and had a reputation value above 50, which cost him only 100 Gold per year.

Since the other players did not know the benefits of owning a house at this point in time, he was able to simply choose any NPC maid that he wanted. At the end of the game, it would cost a minimum of a hundred Gold Coins for three months to hire a reputable NPC.

Li Yi originally planned to sign a contract with these ten NPCs to work under him for ten years. Unfortunately, none of them agreed and his plan to cheap out had been foiled.

“Eh?”

A golden maid’s name appeared right in front of his eyes as he was about to close the maid menu.

[White Elf Sif (slave). Hired 0 times. Reputation 0. Employment rate 3000 Gold Coins. Each term of employment is contracted for 3 months. Notice: Please be wary when employing a maid with 0 reputation as there is a chance that she will run away together with the money.]

‘Hired!’

Li Yi was slightly excited as he hired the White Elf Sif. Although one could know by sight that this maid was not ordinary due to her golden name, it would be pointless to hire her if one did not know the secret behind this maid. The system would automatically take it away once three months had passed.

The fee of the maid would increase if the hiring rate of the maid increased, regardless if it were unique or normal NPC maids. It cost Li Yi 100 Gold Coins to hire ten maids this time around. However, when the employments were full a year later, the fees for these cheap maids would skyrocket two folds or more.

The fee increment to employ Unique NPC such as the White Elf Sif would be even more ridiculous. He remembered in his past life that it had increased to an astronomical 10,000,000 Gold Coins just to hire her.

Li Yi had hired Sif before in his past life and was fortunate enough to receive a quest from her. He was rewarded with a gold quality Vampiric Dagger that could grow stronger. The Vampiric Dagger had eventually evolved into a purple quality Vampiric Dagger, which he had been using ever since until his life had been reset.

In the past life, Li Yi had a unique nickname called the Emperor of the Night. It was just a title that had been sugar coated by the system as its real nickname was the Vampire Emperor.

Rumor had it that the Emperor King had infinite HP as the Vampiric Dagger had the ability to absorb other player’s HP!

‘Elf Princess Sif. We’ve met again!’

The edge of Li Yi’s lips curled up as he gazed at the white elf maid in his room.