Afterlife Dream

After the Dai City Party Quest that was available for players to take between level 10 and 15, the next party quest was in Paradise Island. Paradise Island Party Quest was reserved for players between level 60 and 75. It not only gave good experience gain upon completion, but it also gave each player a coconut token. Coconut tokens were worth a lot in the market. Why? Because the coconut tokens could be exchanged with level 70 gears and weapon, altogether known as the Native Islander set.

I was sure that you could guess from the name that this set was neither the best-looking set nor the most powerful one. It was, nevertheless, quite decent for someone who was about to do the Third Job Advancement Test. Most importantly, it was free if you spammed the party quests every day.

Even for someone like me who would love to get to 120 as soon as possible, it was necessary to slow down during the period just to make sure that I got all the necessary coconut tokens before I reached 75 and could no longer do the party quest. Judging from the difficulty to level to 75 alone, I should be able to gather all the coconut tokens that I needed to complete the whole set.

After "rethinking his path" for seven days and clicking impatiently at the balloon-selling NPC to give him the balloon, DragonTalon finally passed his Second Job Advancement Test on Saturday. He was ecstatic about it. So ecstatic that he bought a Skill Reset Scroll from our guildmate, Lolita, for 110,000,000 gold. Don't ask me where he got the money from. All my friends were excellent money-makers. In my defense, I had been spending my previous life on a sickbed. Naturally, my grasp of moneymaking was not as profound as other children's.

Other than selling items in personal stores where the sellers literally had to sit on their asses in the market while opening their stores, there was another method to sell items while still being able to move about freely. This feature was known as "Guild Store". Guild Store was naturally only available for transactions among guildmates.

In the Guild Store menu, all guildmates could put up items for auction purposes. The bidding time was adjustable between one to three days. If the buyer was impatient, there was a 'buyout' option where the buyer was required to pay three times the initial price to get the item immediately. Not many buyers picked this option unless the seller put a relatively low initial price for the item.

The Guild Store feature had some pros and cons. The pros were obvious.

First of all, not everyone had time and energy to browse one personal store after another while on the look for one specific item in the sea of thousands of other items.

Second of all, if you were trying to sell an item anyway, why not sell to guildmates? Making your guildmates stronger can only be beneficial for you.

The cons were not very obvious.

The first con would be that if you were not part of a rich guild, and you had something very expensive but very popular to sell, then you were most likely going to have to sell for less.

The second con would be the lack of prospective buyers. If your guild mostly consisted of the "citizens" instead of "players", then you might not find the right buyer for your item. I should mention that some players did not have enough conscience to refrain from buying items from guildmates at cheap prices only to resell those items at much higher prices in their own personal stores. We typically referred to this kind of players as "merchants".

So, going back to the Skill Reset Scroll...

Lolita was lucky enough to loot a Skill Reset Scroll in one of her Love Dungeon runs. She immediately put up the scroll in the guild store at the initial price of 60,000,000 gold. As soon as she announced that she put a Skill Reset Scroll in the Guild Store, there had been a silent but heated bidding war going back and forth among the guildmates. I would have participated if I had enough money. Unfortunately, I only had 20,000,000 gold at that time. Most guildmates stopped bidding when the price reached 100,000,000 gold, but DragonTalon and ArrowRain bade against each other fiercely. Both were clearly down to their last gold coins when the bidding amount started to differ by only 50 gold coins.

Eventually, DragonTalon decided to go all out and placed 110,000,000 gold as his last bid. ArrowRain caved, and DragonTalon won.

"I had to win," he told me after he finished resetting his skills and we met each other at the Paradise Island Party Quest waiting area. "I completely screwed up with my first job skills, putting points in random skills carelessly. This is the main reason why I sucked so much during my first Second Job Advancement test."

"Oh? So how is it going now?"

DragonTalon grinned at me. "Now I am decently strong. Watch, you will be in awe."

"I hope you don't get too confident again and use all your skill points on your second job skills. Else you will have to reset again for the third job."

"Oh, no no no."

DragonTalon wagged his index finger in front of me while clicking with his tongue.

"I will never again make that fatal mistake. I have thoroughly planned my skill build until I am done with this game."

I grinned at DragonTalon. I was so close to telling him "I told you so", but a good friend should not kick his friend after said friend paid 110,000,000 gold for one bloody skill reset scroll.

"So, what element are you going for? Fire or Ice?"

"Fire," DragonTalon said confidently.

"Ah."

"Antares, I am ready for my Fire Golem Helmet now. Do you think you can take me with you?"

"Hmmm. I have not run the Fire Golem raid ever since I got my helmet, but I know a few people who are still looking to earn their helmets. Are you interested?"

"Oh yes. Definitely. Hook me up."

I opened my user interface screen and sent Livina a message, asking about the next run she was leading. While waiting for her answer, I mindlessly scrolled through my friend list and stumbled upon KittyXOXO.

Kitty and Wolfhound. I had not met with or talked to them for ages. The four of us used to play together in the past. Now that DragonTalon already passed his Second Job Advancement Test, it was a good reason to get together again and catch up. I saw that both Kitty and Wolfhound had reached level 50.

"Hey Kitty, how are you?" I typed.

The answer came promptly.

"Hey Anty! Long time no see!"

I smiled to myself.

"Indeed. Hey, listen. I think we should catch up. Can we meet somewhere? Are you planning to do your Second Job Advancement Test soon? DragonTalon and I can give you two some pointers."

"Oh... sure!"

"Fairy Forest?"

"Anty, we... set up a farmhouse at Marsh City. Why don't you come to visit us?"

I frowned. A farmhouse? I scratched at my head. Not that I did not expect it. I knew that Kitty and Wolfhound were most likely to be "citizens" instead of "players" in Afterlife Dream. I just did not expect them to start a farmhouse.

"Um... yeah! Give me the address."

I tapped DragonTalon on the shoulder.

"Dude, we have not met with Kitty and Wolf for weeks. Why don't we meet up? All four of us, to celebrate your new job as Fire Wizard?"

"Of course!" DragonTalon quickly agreed.

"How are they doing anyway?"

DragonTalon opened his user interface screen and checked their levels.

"Man! Why are they still level 50???"

I laughed.

"They set up a farmhouse in Marsh City."

DragonTalon cringed. I knew that he got what I was trying to say.

He shrugged.

"It doesn't matter. We are still friends. Let's go over and say hi."

"Tomorrow?" I offered.

Before DragonTalon answered, a message popped up on my screen. It was Livina.

"Hey, Antares! Yes, gladly! Why don't we go for a run at 10 AM in three days? We can do the Fire Orb quest together tomorrow and finalize the formation."

As soon as DragonTalon read that there would be a Fire Golem raid run in three days, he quickly pushed back the reunion with Kitty and Wolf down the priority list.

"Let's meet them after we finished the run," he suggested. "Okay, Antares??"

I knew that DragonTalon would not be able to relax until he got smacked by the Fire Golem personally, so I agreed.

"Fine, let me just send the message to Kitty."

While I was in the middle of replying to Kitty's message, the party before us entered the dungeon instances. Next was our turn to go into the Paradise Island Party Quest.

We did not fix a full party consisting of six people, so naturally, we were matched with four other random people.

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