Once I finished lunch and logged in, both Lolita and Lulu were already online.
They sure eat fast, don’t they? Am I late?
Well, either way, we still went to the street with many stalls in them, and each of us started looking over the stalls on our own.
The three of us want to buy materials, but as the items we’ll make are different, and so are the materials we are looking for.
So, even if we are on the same street, the three of us are acting separately.
Our inventory space is also limited, so we chose to look over the stalls near the Guild, where we could use our personal warehouses.
Or rather, I guess it’s the same in all countries. The streets with the biggest number of stalls are the streets near the Guild.
Convenience is important, after all.
And what was being sold were basically compatible materials to the ones already available in the Zabrina Kingdom.
However, different countries have different field areas being developed, and harder areas drop higher rank materials usually.
In other words…
“I found a stall selling a 5* version of a material that is compatible with Ratrat Snow Skin!” Lolita exclaimed.
“I found a material called Salted Sugar that was compatible with Thorny Sugar… But this one was of a higher rank…” Lulu commented.
“I didn’t find a compatible version of it, but I found Royal Steel for cheap.” I told them.
“Isn’t that a boss drop!?” Lolita asked.
“Different countries have different distribution volumes…” Lulu said.
“This makes visiting other countries worthwhile for sure.” I commented.
I was shopping mainly to play around with the compatible materials, since they’re still new materials anyways, but I was surprised to see a fair amount of materials that are rare in Zabrina being sold for cheap over here.
Depending on the order at which field areas are unlocked, it may become easier or harder to find certain materials in one country over the other.
Due to that, some of the cheap rare materials of the Zabrina Kingdom are being sold quite expensively in the Ljungsmelis Republic, but at the same time, some expensive rare materials of the Zabrina Kingdom are being sold for cheap here.
Not to mention how we can sometimes find things of a higher rank than what we can find in Zabrina, even if other materials are of a lower rank than what we’re used to.
And well, as the Merchant skill allows us to see the price of the material in all countries, it becomes easy to notice how big the price difference is.
So, right now it’s possible to make a pretty good profit from doing a simple buying and re-selling on different countries, but it should only be a matter of time until prices normalize.
And well, while we can use the Teleportation Gate to instantly move between countries, we still need to pay a fee of Magic Stones to travel through it, so it will become harder and harder to make a profit from re-sales as the prices of the materials start stabilizing between all countries.
But I guess this is part of the charm of being around near the beginning of the update.
As a crafter, I’m certainly very grateful that some rare materials are easier to obtain in this country.
Though well, as the price of the materials drop, it will also reduce the price of the final product, so my profits might not be that big, but that can’t be helped. That’s still much better than not getting those materials at all.
Especially for something like the Royal Steel, which is really hard to obtain in Zabrina and nobody had been able to process so far. In Ljungsmelis the item probably lost its novelty already, so it’s being sold at a low price.
It’s a high-tier rare material, but it’s also worthless if nobody can process it, so I guess it’s sold cheaply because nobody wants it, especially if they were able to start obtaining it fairly early on.
On that note, I actually tried to process the Royal Steel, and I was able to make it into an ingot.
But unfortunately, I had no recipes to work with, so the result was a 2*ingot.
If it isn’t at least 3*, then the performance will drop drastically, so this was a complete failure.
I did stay a while in retirement, but I guess I’m still at the top of the craft-focused player Pioneers.
But even my skill level doesn’t seem to be enough to properly handle it, so I don’t think there are many players in the other countries who can handle Royal Steel.
Or well, at least there should be none in Ljungsmelis Republic, otherwise it wouldn’t be sold this cheaply.
It’s still a good material though, so let’s buy it as much as I can! There are plenty available at the stalls, after all!
******
After doing plenty of shopping on the stalls and storing everything we bought at the Guild’s warehouse, we decided to go sightseeing.
It seems like combat-focused player Pioneers are exploring the field areas of the new countries and enjoying the battles against mobs that they never fought against before.
Mika, Hime and Rush all seem to be doing that.
However, as the three of them are quite strong, they’ll probably be able to manage whatever comes at them.
Mika and Hime seem to have already reached the hardest field areas of the new countries for one.
Rush didn’t reply to my messages yet, so I don’t know about him.
But for craft-focused Pioneers like me, Lolita and Lulu, we’ll just die if we try exploring the field areas, so our sightseeing will be limited to the city itself.
And well, as Capital Melis is also a starting point, it’s about as big as Capital Sabrina, so there is plenty to be seen.
We can’t go inside the castle though, or rather, inside the parliament building, as it’s not open to the public.
We can enter most other places though, except stuff like the houses of NPCs and players, of course.
And just like what we thought when we first entered the city, Capital Melis certainly gives off a sense of unity in all its buildings.
Even if we go farther from the Guild, the townscape still looks unified.
The color scheme is the same everywhere, and so is the architectural style.
Of course, each building is still different, so we could enjoy the sightseeing even if everything gave off a similar feeling.
We took a carriage to go around Capital Melis, and the uniformity of each area felt like something straight out of a painting.
Lolita even started drawing something on her sketchbook at some point, so she must have been inspired by it.
… It was a bit surprising to see a sketchbook, but I guess it’s only natural for those to exist if we already have paper.
Though is that a pen? It’s pretty cool, I wonder where she bought it.
******
In Capital Melis, it seems like the NPC shops have the same schedule as the ones in Capital Sabrina.
As in, most stores close after it’s 8pm in-game.
What’s left are basically taverns and bars.
And of course, the Rental Production Facility and the Guild are always open.
The basics don’t seem to change in any country… Which well, makes sense, as it wouldn’t be fair otherwise.
The temple and its Teleportation Gate are too, of course, also open 24h a day.
So, after we were done with sightseeing, we went to the temple to teleport back to Capital Sabrina.
We can now go back and forth between the Zabrina Kingdom and the Ljungsmelis Republic at any time we want.
That said… Even if we were ready for it, the fee to use the gate is very high.
I mean, it makes sense when considering that it takes five in-game hours to travel between both countries, but still…
Well, we’re not gonna spend another five hours going home, so we’ll use the Gate anyways.
After all, the three of us are top-tier craft-focused player Pioneers! So even this high cost is affordable for us!
Also, if I can make 3* armor with the Royal Steel I bought this time, then I should be able to make gear that surpasses the performance of steel, which would mean even higher profits!
Though well, it probably won’t be able to compete with steel items with useful Options in them, but this still looks very promising.
I’m sure there must be recipes for Royal Steel somewhere, but I have yet to hear anything about someone finding a full recipe for Royal Steel on the forums.
However, people did find something that may be of use to me.
Recipe Fragments.
They were apparently added with this new update, but they’re not the kind of thing where you need to collect various fragments to get a full recipe.
It’s more like a recipe hint instead.
Until now, recipes told us everything, going from materials to the exact process to create the item.
But Recipe Fragments only give us a bit of the information, so you have to fill out the rest by yourself.
It’s essentially a way to make it easier for you to create Original items, I suppose.
I guess the dev team does want to give more support for original creations, that’s probably why they created this system of Recipe Fragments, since it’s pretty hard to create originals from scratch.
It was probably a good idea to lower the hurdles of making it by giving us a few hints.
Recipe Fragments seem to have a low drop rate, but appear in various areas.
They seem to be primarily dropped by bosses, and they seem to have a bias according to the difficulty of the boss.
As in, hard bosses drop Recipe Fragments for equipment that require high-tier materials, while easier bosses drop Recipe Fragments for equipment that require low-tier materials.
From now on, I guess I’ll need to start purchasing Recipe Fragments myself.
Well, I have Mika, Hime and many other reliable friends, so I shouldn’t have much trouble obtaining the Recipe Fragments.
And with their help, I should be able to make some nice items with Royal Steel.
Then, let’s send a message to everyone about how I’ll start buying Recipe Fragments.
I’ll piece all the clues together and start making even better items!