HC:Pacifist | Ch. 124 - Jack of all Trades (Patreon)

"Hello, Roth.” H was still in the same cubicle in a library. “What's going on over there? Are your former friends still outside the lab?"

"Yes, I'm stuck here for the time being. I'm trying to keep myself busy. Do you need any help with the rescue library? How far along have you gotten?"

"Let me show you." H nimbly moved his hands in the air, and shortly after, Roth was looking at a part of H's screen. "As you can see, I've been through everything related to classes, races, and quests. I've created two folders. One is where we put the information we want to sell. The other is to keep.

“I'm going through the material and comparing it with what's available for free on the forums. If it isn't available for free, I look for paid guides to see how much they charge for the information. I then add the price tag and put the relevant post in the 'for sale' folder."

Roth followed H’s method of work with ease. He had done very similar research already in his search for information on the game. "Very well, I wanted to read what they have on titles. Would that be OK?"

"Sure. Right now, I'm going through their dungeon guides. If you could do titles, that would be a big help."

"Very well. I'll let you know when I'm done." Roth hung up. Now that he had something to do, he found it easier to resist the urge to look at the screens showing his friends desperately hunting for him. He shuddered at the memory of them hurting him repeatedly.

He opened the rescue library and moved to the part that focused on titles. The introduction to the guide wasn't anything new. He had read similar information for free.

Introduction to Titles

Titles can be unlocked by special achievements, as a reward for a quest, or for a specific set of actions. If you unlock information on a new title, the guild is willing to buy that information from you. We'll only pay you if the title isn't in the guild's library yet.

Common title: 1,000 credits

Uncommon title: 3,000 credits

Rare title: 10,000 credits

Epic title: 50,000 credits

Legendary title: 200,000 credits

Roth was tempted to sell the information on titles he had unlocked to these big guilds. This was a lot of money! He scrolled down until he got to the list of titles. It was time to find out how ahead or behind he was from the average Pegasus player.

There was a tab with a list of common titles and also a list of uncommon titles. Anything beyond that seemed to be out of reach for Brian. To access higher-tiered titles, probably only core members of the guild were privy to the information.

The list was neatly organized and divided into different sections. There was a section for PVP achievements, which didn't matter to Roth. He also skipped over the PVE achievements. He would come back and sort through them to help H after he'd checked the complete list.

Finally, he made it to a section that interested him. There was a series of titles related to crafting. Some of them weren't all that difficult to unlock.

Jack of all Trades (Common)

Title description: You know how to do a little of everything, which adds to your success as a handy craftsman.

Title effects: + 1% crafting success rate.

How to unlock [Jack of all Trades]:

Crafts items in three different professions.

What a fantastic title. And it was super easy to unlock. Usually, players would only have access to two different professions. Only if they deleted an old profession to make room for a new one would they be able to unlock this title.

Unfortunately for Roth, although he had access to more professions as a pacifist, he couldn't delete professions once he learned them. It would probably take some time before he unlocked these benefits.

However, this was a fantastic title for the rest of the squad to unlock. He sent a message to everyone, just telling them to learn a dummy profession first and craft the most basic items before deleting it for the professions they would stick to in the end. With the added effect, their crafting success rate would rise to 6%!

Roth kept going through the list and found some other interesting titles, which he copied to his own personal notes as a reminder for him to unlock later. Being in a guild was a huge advantage to a player. The wealth of information they had access to was terrific.

Roth came across a different group of titles he was pretty familiar with. It was a series of titles that came from unlocking relationships with others. In it, there were some titles that he already had; for example, [Bilingual] was there, as well as a [Friend of...] title. Instead of being related to animals, it was related to a faction inside the cities.

Friend of the Innkeepers (Common)

Title description: After staying at different places and meeting the city's innkeepers, you can gain a fine reputation, and they look forward to having you stay with them.

Title effect: 10% discount when staying at an inn. Bonuses gained from staying in an inn last 15 more minutes.

How to unlock [Friend of the Innkeepers]:

Become friends with an innkeeper;

or have a meal at ten different inns.

Ross moved on to another section that had to do with athletics. The swimmer, marathonist, and alpinist titles, we're all here. Funny enough, they didn't know about the jumper title. It seemed that no one had thought of jumping in one place for hours on end.

Going through the titles, Roth realized that he had missed a series of athletics-related titles. They would all stack very nicely with the ones he had already. He copied them to his notes. He'd have to unlock those later.

Once he was done with the titles he was interested in, he circled back and reviewed the titles related to PvP and PvE achievements. He searched the forums for paid guides that referenced them and started adding price tags to those for sale. He put on a different file for the ones that were too valuable and that they would rather keep to themselves.

After he finished the list of titles they had taken from the Pegasus Library, he checked all the information the team had added. Most of the titles had been added by Roth himself. He had discovered more than 20 titles in the game, some of which had significant commercial value. He added a price tag to the ones he was interested in selling but set aside the more valuable ones so that only the team could access the information.

After sorting through all of them, he looked at the clock. Only two hours had elapsed. He contacted H again.

"Hey, H!"

"Roth, are you done with the titles?"

"Yeah. What should I do next?"

"Do you want to get started on professions?"

"Sure. I've read the entries on the tailor and merchant professions already. The information there is worth about ten gold. If it's the same for all the others, we're talking about 300 gold for the whole thing."

"I'll send a message to the gang and ask them to go through the information relevant to their profession just like you did—no sense in having you go through the blacksmith guide, for example. Focus on the professions that none of us have. Perhaps there are hidden professions or something worth a little more money."

"Sure thing."

Roth started reading through each of the professions that none of the people in his gang had. He looked first at the professions that focused on gathering resources. There were foragers, miners, lumberjacks, fishermen, skinners, and quarriers. Then, there were crafting professions that were all taken by his crew. The only ones that his crew didn't have were masons and scroll makers.

Masons worked with stone, but it seemed a tough class to progress in. It was exceedingly expensive and had almost no return. Only guilds were nurturing a few masons, hoping they would show their value later in the game.

Scrollmakers focused on creating consumables such as the [Soothing Scroll] he had often used. It was a hidden profession, and after Roth did some digging, just like H had guessed, the information on the profession could be sold at a much higher price than more common ones. He added 100 gold to the price tag and then moved on to other unique professions. Among the more unique professions were merchants, archeologists, tamers, bards, dancers, geologists, and architects.

Roth was surprised to see that Pegasus didn't reference brokers. They either didn't know about them, or it was information considered too valuable to share with the average guild member. Roth had two professional slots occupied at the moment: [Broker] and [Ecotailor]. He looked at the list and chose two professions that he might be interested in taking in the future. He'd leave the decision for later.

After he had priced out all the different elements, he contacted H again.

"Hey, H. I'm done with professions."

"Thanks a lot, Roth."

"By the way, any chance I could get some of the money you got from selling guides."

"Sure. How much do you need?"

"1000 gold. It's to buy information on how to unlock skill slots."

"Awesome. Let me transfer it to you." Roth waited, and after a few seconds, he received a notification.

'H1380' has transferred you 1000 gold.

"Thanks! I'm going to be doing some things now. I'll get back to you if I get some more free time."

"No problem." H hung up. Roth looked at the 1000 gold in his inventory. H hadn't blinked at the mention of all the money that Roth wanted to use. He sighed. He was fortunate to have such nice people help him.

Thanking the heavens that money could be instantly transferred between players, he located the post he'd seen a few days earlier at the auction house. This post held the secret to unlocking more skill slots. After discovering the synergy between the light affinity, his zoomorph race, and different skills, he had been itching for more skill slots. 1,000 gold was a lot of money, still. He hesitated for a few moments and decided to bite the bullet. In the grand scheme of things, 1k was nothing.

Are you sure you want to purchase this guide for 1000 gold? [Y/N]

Roth clicked yes. He hungrily opened the guide and prayed that his money had been well spent.

"Congratulations on buying this post. This is an introduction to the cardmaster profession. In this guide, I try to combine all my collective experience and the benefits and downsides of being a cardmaster. Hopefully, this will help you determine if this is the right decision for you. Let's start first with the disadvantages. When a player becomes a card master, instead of gaining extra slots, they lose five skill slots."

Roth wanted to pull his hair out and bang his bald head against the wall when he read this. That was not what he had paid money for! He was looking for a way to increase the number of skill slots, not decrease them! "I don't believe it, I don't believe it, I don't believe it," protested Roth. He was close to starting punching the wall screaming but, reminded that people were hunting for him outside, he reined it in and let the rage burn within instead. There had to be something more to this. He continued to read, looking for a way out of this mess.

"...the other disadvantage is that you won't be able to produce any items or make money out of this while traveling or adventuring.”

Roth felt another wave of rage wash over him and banged his head against the wall several more times.

“Now, let's get started on the advantages. Cardmasters have a unique skill which is called [Deal the Cards]. See how cool it is."

Deal the Cards (Profession)

Skill effects: By spending so much time playing cards, you realize how the lost inscription technology used to make them work. You're able to unequip skill cards.

Skill effects. Create up to two decks of five skill cards each. You can switch between decks once every 24 hours.

Ch. 123 - Surprise

INDEX