Chapter 270: 270
Draco was suitably astounded . A system merchant? Such a thing existed? Wouldn't that mean…
Suddenly, Draco's breathing became rough and his body shook . He re-read the details of the World Merchant and suddenly understood exactly what this entity was .
Boundless was a hyper-realistic sandbox game with an ever-evolving world . As such, certain mechanics it possessed broke away from traditional RPGs of old .
The first was the market . Instead of selling to the system and buying anything from the system as long as one had the money, players had to trade with NPCs or other players in a realistic fashion .
You couldn't go to a random kiosk and buy a Legendary item even if you had the money . You would have to compete with others to find it and purchase it at a competitive price .
Two vendors might be right next to each other, but the item you could find in abundance in vendor A's shop would be drastically different from what was in vendor B's shop .
As such, it came down to the player to find the best shop which had the items they needed .
The second was infinite trading/money . Most RPGs in the old days had vendors who could buy everything and payout its price endlessly .
That was to say, one could bring sheer infinite 999 stacks of Aether Crystals and trade them all away to get a game breaking 100 trillion platinum, assuming Boundless was an RPG like that .
However, Boundless' vendors had a limited amount of funds they could use to buy your items . It varied with each vendor based on their own personal/financial life, just like in the real world .
The third was universal price/interest . In other words, a vendor in an area saturated with iron mines and a vendor in an area barren of them would buy iron ore at the same price in old RPGs .
The price was fixed at a flat amount, and would never change to suit demand and supply . Another part of this was the interest aspect .
Using the same example from before, a vendor near an iron mine would still want iron ore, despite the fact that he might be oversaturated with it . Most real vendors would shake their heads and say they weren't interested .
Boundless dealt with these three things in a real manner, so Draco, a reincarnator, had suffered for it . Because of the scarce ability to earn money from the system - in a bid for the system to keep the economy stable - one couldn't earn too much at once .
Once the maximum wealth was capped, it then fell down to the circular flow of income to keep the economy breathing and healthy .
However, this World Merchant was exactly that which had been described, a vendor of the system that acted like those vendors in those old RPGs that ran on an engine instead of the AI .
Draco first tested the World Merchant by taking out the 500 low-grade Aether Crystals he had earned from slaughtering Void monsters in the Ruined Plains of Deriam .
Was the system trying to rip him off or what?
"How are the prices calculated?" Draco asked the World Merchant, though there was no one inside .
A small pop-up from the World Merchant itself appeared, answering Draco's question prudently .
「World Merchant System
The World Merchant is an entity of the old era, and only appears in prominent locations that existed during that period . As such, all prices are calculated by their values in the old era . 」
Draco slapped his forehead . Fuck, it all made sense now . He - like everyone in the crowd - assumed that the World Merchant had appeared here in response to his direct need for money .
Draco even went further to think that the AI was presenting him with an early dowry, but it seemed like he had thought too much of himself .
If the World Merchant appeared in important locations that were in the old era randomly, then it would - at most - have 4 or 5 places it cycled through .
One would definitely be the Ancestral City of Dragons, and maybe two other places that managed the survive the old era's catastrophe . As such, he had a 20% chance to encounter this World Merchant at any of these locations .
If he hadn't used the Abyssal Trove skill today, he would've missed this chance and it would have moved elsewhere . The World Merchant hadn't magically appeared because he wanted it to be here .
It had been here before he came, he just arrived to meet it . Had he not come, nothing would have changed, it would have continued its cycle endlessly .
Draco frowned deeply . This matter of using the old era's pricing was troublesome . Items that were to kill for in the present era, like Aether Crystals, were common as water back then .
Look at that huge Ancestral City of Dragons he went into during the Dragon King Class Up Procedure . How many Dragons had been alive then? With each of them producing a minimum 1 low-grade Aether Crystal per hour, how many could have been made overall?
As such, there had never been a scarcity for them like there was now . Dragons had no use for Aether Crystals, so they always traded them away cheaply due to high supply and their own pride .
The Ancestral City was the number one city in the world, so what did it need measly income from their magical poop for? Sometimes, they even gave crystals out for free!
Draco took out a medium-grade crystal and checked its price . It was 50 platinum for one!
Unbelievable… something that sold for 10,000 platinum now had only been 50 platinum back then . What tier of inflation even was this?
Draco tried a high grade one and saw that it went for 300 platinum, which was a respectable price when bought in high-quantities, but compared to the current 50,000 platinum price, it was a joke .
Draco gingerly brought out a top-grade Aether Crystal . When he saw its price, he was left speechless . It went for only 5,000 platinum!
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