The Auction House

"That's the end of the explanation. Good luck with whatever comes next. I'll see you around."

With that, the woman spun on her heel and vanished at a brisk pace.

The mission-clear message must have popped. Before the regression, Jin-soo had run the newbie-guide mission himself, so he knew precisely what cleared it. Deliver ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the bare minimum of information and guidance, and the clear message rose on its own.

First, a place to stay. There was a great deal to do on Floor 50 of the Tower.

His footsteps fell in a steady rhythm as he left the street of half-collapsed, shabby inns and arrived on one where the buildings were comparatively neat.

The door creaked. The moment Jin-soo stepped inside, every Player seated in the first-floor tavern turned as one.

"Who's that? Never seen the face."

"Right? A newbie, maybe?"

"Could be."

"Then he'll disappear on his own before long."

The Players snorted, laughter thick with scorn. Jin-soo ignored them and headed for the counter.

"A single room, please."

"Two hundred points a night."

Four times what the rundown inns charged.

"I'll pay for ten days up front."

"Ten days in advance? Then I'll take ten percent off."

The clerk — regarded as little more than an NPC — beamed as he said it, and Jin-soo paid 1,800 points for the stay.

"Look at him burning through points."

"Must be sitting on a decent stash, huh?"

Whatever they muttered, Jin-soo paid it no mind. He took the key, followed the clerk's lead, and stepped into the room.

Same as ever. A short laugh escaped him. He had used this very inn before the regression.

"Haaah..."

He let out a long breath and dropped onto the bed. It's been a while. The give of the mattress and the softness of the blankets were luxuries he hadn't felt in ages. Work first.

Jin-soo opened his status window and brought up the auction house. It could only be accessed inside a safe zone, and the listings inside were a jumble of goods of every kind, set out in no particular order.

"Activate search."

Jin-soo pressed Yes.

"Search: Shining Longsword."

The words had barely left him before the Shining Longsword rose in the auction window.

Thank goodness. He had worried it might not be listed at all. Fortunately, the Shining Longsword was there. Hasn't been up long, then. An auction ran for thirty days at most.

Buy it now.

He didn't hesitate. The chance to purchase Baekcheonsingeom — the blade that, paired with his Heukcheon Demonic Sword, had been called the strongest sword before the regression — for a mere four million points was as good as getting it for free. Waiting out the twenty-eight days might have saved him a million, but going without the Shining Longsword for that long would have cost him far more. More decisively, he had no idea when the person who bought it before the regression had actually won the auction.

No need to gamble just to pinch a million gold.

Light flared, and in the midst of that bright cluster the Shining Longsword took shape before his eyes.

Good. Jin-soo broke into a bright smile and lifted it. The options are ordinary. Self-repair, increased cutting power, increased durability — that was all. A price that felt outrageously steep not only beside the four-million buyout, but even beside the three-million minimum bid. It's a growth type, but judged coldly, even two million points would be expensive. No wonder it had lingered so long as dead stock in the auction house.

Then let's start shopping.

He began by searching for items he had used, or at least known, before the regression. As expected. Nothing comes up. Activating search did not mean he could browse every listing. Points are what matter. Without at least as many points on hand as the minimum bid, you couldn't even look at an item. Lucky I secured the Shining Longsword. With what he had left, he couldn't buy the things he wanted. He couldn't even search for them.

For now, go for value. As for classes, Blood Demon Swordsman and Flame Battle Mage were enough for the moment. And buying a class-change tome with the points I have now would be terribly inefficient.

Most Players treated obtaining the finest possible class-change tome as their highest priority. The reason was simple. Class level, and class-skill level.

Change into a lower class, then claw class level and class-skill level up into the thousands. Raise your stats to suit the class. Buy skill books, learn common skills and skills exclusive to a given class, tune them to synergize with the class skills, and push those into the thousands as well. And then, if a better tome for a higher class fell into your hands, could you simply change without a second thought?

No matter how fine a higher-class tome you get, abandoning everything you've built to make the switch is never easy. Changing upward didn't automatically make you stronger, either. Set aside existing class level and class-skill level, and you still had to weigh the synergy with the stats you'd accumulated and with the common skills and class-exclusive skills you'd leveled. And no matter how low-tier a class skill is, you can't ignore its level. Among Players, the saying that level was king was something close to gospel. On top of that, higher classes grow their skill levels at a brutally slow pace. The higher one's level, the more of a gamble a change into a superior class became.

Not that it matters to me.

Jin-soo couldn't raise class skills, common skills, or class-exclusive skills through training or monster hunting anyway. He was locked at level 2, without exception.

The problem is locking skill levels. Right now he had fixed the class-exclusive skills of Blood Demon Swordsman and Flame Battle Mage at level 22. What happens if I change into a higher class? A change upward erased the class-change skills of the old class. Does the blessing's level-lock vanish along with the destroyed skill? Or is it granted again?

He needed to test it.

In truth, as the blessing grew, the number of skills whose levels he could lock would keep increasing, so one might think it wasn't a serious problem. Even if a skill fixed at 22 vanished, he could simply lock a better one at 122 or 222 and be done with it. But thinking optimistically is far too dangerous. The number of skills he could lock might be capped. Or perhaps growth wouldn't let him designate new skills at all — perhaps the ones already fixed at 22 would automatically rise to 122.

Let's find out.

At present, the number of items he could lock at level 22 was two. I already used one on the Ring of Revival, so I've only got a single spare. He meant to spend that spare on this test. From his subspace, Jin-soo drew a level 7 longsword.

This ought to do. A so-called junk item, not even worth listing at auction. Take it to a blacksmith and I might get a few points of scrap value. Nearly worthless — even if it was destroyed, he would lose nothing that mattered.

He turned the level-lock born of the blessing upon the level 7 longsword.

The longsword's level locked at 22. A level 22 item isn't much use to me anyway. Even if this cost him one of the blessing's level-22 item locks, he could live with it.

Jin-soo drew the Shining Longsword, poured mana into it, and brought the blade against the level 22 longsword.

No reaction. His face tightened. It doesn't grow the way the Heukcheon Demonic Sword does. That sword advanced by devouring other items. The Shining Longsword, it seemed, did not. Then what does it need in order to grow?

He couldn't know yet. Not every growth-type item advanced the same way. Some, like the Blood-Sucking Sword, grow by drinking the blood of living things. Others take a share of the experience from monsters their owner kills. Still others fed on rare metals such as mithril, or on points. And in extreme cases, a weapon grows by draining its owner's life force. The most common method, though, was the Heukcheon Demonic Sword's — devouring other items of a lower level.

I'll have to take my time figuring out how the Shining Longsword grows. He had a feeling it wouldn't be the common way. Look on the bright side. If growing it had been easy, its previous owner would never have dumped it on the auction house so cheaply. Growth-type items commanded enormous prices. But if the owner didn't know what they held? They get treated as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠junk and sold for a pittance, just like the Ring of Revival and the Shining Longsword.

Jin-soo looked at the longsword now sitting at level 22, gripped it in both hands, and bore down. The steel shrieked and twisted. Cracks crept across the blade — and then the edge shattered outright.

So what happened? He checked the blessing's information.

Damn it.

His expression crumpled. The item locked at level 22 had been destroyed, and still the blessing's charge did not return. Once the blessing bestows a level, that's the end of it. From now on he would have to grant it far more carefully.

What a waste. It wasn't the loss of a single level-22 charge that stung. How is the blessing going to grow? If growth let him lock a new item at 122, there was no problem at all. But if it raises the items I already locked at 22 up to 122, I'm in trouble. Then he would have permanently destroyed what amounted to a level 922 item. There's no way the blessing's growth ends at 922. He might have taken an even greater loss than that.

It's fine. There had been no choice. The test had to be done. If I'd waited, the damage would only have been worse. For now, learning how the blessing worked came first. The result is disappointing. Its level-locks were single-use.

Common skills such as Inventory were fine. Every class line could learn them. Class-change skills and class-exclusive skills — I'll have to be careful about locking those. Skills gained through a class change vanished the instant one changed into another class, and that held true even within the same lineage. At least class-exclusive skills learned from skill books can be kept. And only if the new class belonged to the same line. The moment a warrior changed into a mage, every warrior-line skill — whether earned through the class change or through a skill book — was wiped away.

Just in case, don't use it unless I truly have to. The wise move was to wait until the blessing grew enough to lock items and skills at level 122. Lucky that on Floor 49 I locked Purification Flame at 22, and not Flame Storm.

Flame Storm was a skill gained through class ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠change. Change classes, and it would vanish. Purification Flame, however, was not. It was a mage-exclusive skill learned from a skill book. So long as I keep my holy-affinity class as a mage, I can keep using it.

That, at least, was a relief. Common skills he intended to keep using could have their levels locked without much burden. Even so, I'll still have to choose carefully. Going forward, he meant to keep the dark affinity as a warrior and the holy affinity as a mage. But variables had a way of appearing, didn't they?

For now, back to shopping. Jin-soo still had an enormous number of items left to buy.