Chapter 45: Let Go of That Lord!

If there was any big news in Sea Realm recently, it would definitely be the shop that had sprung up out of thin air on the prime piece of land near the exchange post.

What was completely different from the shops usually opened by the officials was that this was a player-owned shop through and through.
Moreover, its business content was very special, specializing in providing appraisal services for players.

It was said that the shop owner was the first hidden profession in Sea Realm, and also the first player to successfully gain enough of the lord’s favorability to become an official citizen.

People who often played online games were somewhat familiar with the profession of an appraiser, but it was generally not opened to players by the officials.
Instead, a certain special NPC was given the talent of [Appraisal] to provide help to players in need.

As for why it wasn’t opened to players… wasn’t it because this talent was too useless?
It didn’t have much growth potential.
With the time spent on improving one’s appraisal ability, it was better to add a combat skill to one’s skill bar, and then spend a little currency to find an NPC.

An item without any description—give it to the appraiser—get the skill description.
Everyone had slowly gotten used to this process.
When they saw the promotional flyer for the newly opened shop, most people just thought, “Oh, so the official tool person has appeared.”

But they didn’t expect that even the appraisal setting in Sea Realm was different from others!
When the first player to eat a crab walked out of the appraisal shop with his improved recipe in hand, dizzy, he couldn’t help but say, “Holy cr*p, can players be that awesome now?”

Ten reputation points for one appraisal, which was basically free after rounding up.
What kind of unparalleled philanthropist was this!

With the first, there would be a second.
When almost everyone who went in with a recipe and came out with an appraisal report made an improved finished product, this small shop was surrounded by players, inside and out, crying and shouting to get a love number plate in advance, so they could improve their hopeless recipes.

When Sykes walked on the street again wearing his alternate account’s vest, although he still had that unremarkable appearance, he clearly felt that he was receiving more attention than before.

“Mr. Appraiser,” a player said with the heavy posture of entrusting a child, “Please be sure to keep the shop open!”
As he spoke, he even forcibly stuffed an octopus leg from his own stall into his hand, and didn’t even ask for a single reputation point.

“How can I take your reputation points? You helped me perfect the recipe for octopus rings before. I can’t thank you enough.”

When Sykes passed by the players’ market, he would always receive a large pile of enthusiastic feeding from the players, walking out with a full armful of things in a daze.

Speaking of which, one should mention the players’ market.

The players’ market was an area where players spontaneously set up stalls to sell things.
The area wasn’t large, mainly concentrated on the street where Sykes’s appraisal shop was.
Ever since they saw that players could also open shops, the idea of “if only I could open a shop too” had popped into their minds.
But the lord’s favorability was not yet full, so what should they do?

At this time, a witty player thought of a solution—wasn’t the ancient and fashionable street stall, commonly seen in alleys and corners, great?
The street stall economy is the eternal god!

With this, the combat-oriented players and the players who loved to live a leisurely life were completely separated.
To the left of the appraisal shop were the combat-oriented players who had returned from exploring the outer lands.
They displayed the gains from their exploration on their stalls—all kinds of sea fish, strange plants, and so on.
Occasionally, there would be a few nondescript stones, which the stall owner firmly called “Long Aotian’s exclusive stone” and sold at a high price.

And to the right of the appraisal shop was naturally the world of life-skill players.
They mostly sold the fruits grown in their own vegetable gardens, wild plants that were specialties of the merman lord’s territory, dishes with various attributes that they had cooked themselves, and so on.
Some inspiration-type players with strong hands-on skills even sold tableware such as stone pots and stone bowls that they had made themselves.

In this way, the combat-oriented players didn’t need to spend every day on the daily tasks of moving bricks and chopping wood.
They could use what they had gained from their exploration to exchange for food that would allow them to explore further.
And the life-skill players didn’t need to face ugly monsters.
They could peacefully do what they liked, planting vegetables and cooking.
When they had nothing to do, they could also wander around and enjoy the scenery.

After being in closed beta for so long, this game finally felt like it was on the right track.

Many players, especially the first batch of players who had joined the game, felt a sense of trance when they saw such a lively scene—it seemed like just yesterday was the server opening period, where aberrant titans were crawling everywhere and even swimming was a problem.
In a blink of an eye, it had turned into such an orderly state.
There was a silent sense of gratification, like watching a child grow up?

However, the closed beta was not over yet, and there were other serious problems in the game.
For example, in terms of skill learning and upgrading, the instructions given by Sea Realm were extremely vague.

In terms of skill learning, although getting the skill… but “learning” also had a gap between a top student and an underachiever.
The same fire-type skill, some people could… chain-fire fireballs, but some couldn’t even start a fire.
It would just light up for a moment between their fingers, then suddenly extinguish, only left a trail of smoke when scattered by the water flow.

How should skill proficiency be improved? When the players asked the officials, the response they got was—”use your heart to feel the magic,” such a roguish phrase to the extreme.

Then how do you level up in magic? Some players didn’t believe it and asked the official who else changed his brand again, and replied, “Please figure out the first ten levels by yourself.”

…

Still the familiar recipe, still the familiar taste, still the Sea Realm that willfully replied to fans just because it was fun!

Alright then.

Actually, it wasn’t that Sykes deliberately had Ella reply like this, but that he really could not reach the level-one magic level.                                                                      Why couldn’t he feel the difference in thinking between fish and humans?

The players only treated the game as a game.
In their understanding, wasn’t a game skill just a click-to-use thing?
And as for leveling up, experience points…

How could anyone truly use their heart to feel their own magic, to feel the operating principles of a skill?

This contradiction could not be reconciled for a long time.
So when the first player broke through level one and became a glorious level-2 magician, it attracted the attention of both the players and Sykes.

This lucky player was none other than Ge Feifei.

“How did I break through?” Ge Feifei covered her face in embarrassment.
“Maybe it’s because when I was grilling white fruits that day, I suddenly felt much more skilled and said, ‘I’m really going to become the goddess of magic!'”

So that’s how it is. Sykes had a sudden realization.

He had been in a misunderstanding all along, treating the players as normal creatures, which was a big mistake.
Of course, this was not to belittle the players, but in the literal sense—players were not complete biological individuals, but a more mysterious form of consciousness.

Just like the famine incident before, when the players realized they were hungry, even without a digestive system in the true sense, they would still be so hungry that their claws would itch.
And when they realized they could level up, if they had enough magic power in their bodies, they could naturally succeed in leveling up.

Sykes looked at Ge ‘older chuunibyou’ Feifei, who was still fantasizing about being a magical girl, with gratification.
He very generously gave her a full five favorability points.
So, after Scott, Ge Feifei became the second official citizen of the merman lord’s territory.

With a countermeasure, it was convenient to implement the plan.
Sykes mercilessly kicked all the players offline, had Ella upgrade the game system overnight, and introduced the classification of experience points—experience gained from fighting monsters was increased according to the skills used and the understanding of magic, so the stronger the monster, the more skill combinations were needed, and the more experience points were gained.
Experience gained from exploring outside was because they subconsciously enveloped themselves in magic power.
The longer they stayed, the more experience they gained.

With this change, the players were satisfied, and Sykes was also satisfied.

The players were satisfied, one, because the game system had returned to a familiar state, and two, because the officials had timely adopted everyone’s opinions (mistake), which was a historic breakthrough!

The merman was satisfied because it solved the players’ leveling problem and also made the players subconsciously accept the ethereal matter of stepping into the palace of magic.

Everyone was happy.

After the matter was resolved, on a certain day when the players had generally reached level seven or eight, and the top players had already reached level nine,

Sykes sat comfortably in his study, picked up a book, and was about to enjoy a rare moment of leisure—ever since the players who made the fish worry had settled in the territory, he hadn’t been able to relax like this for a long time.

The talkative Tom had also packed up his shell and rolled far away a few days ago.
Of course, it was in the true sense of rolling far away.
He should have set off much earlier, but he was so addicted to certain delicacies made by the players that he couldn’t extricate himself.
The whole snail looked much fatter.
Only then did he reluctantly pack a large pile of attribute food into his shell, planning to keep the delicious ones and sell the not-so-delicious ones at a high price to some rich, unlucky person.

Speaking of which, after the runemaster he had promised to bring arrived in the territory, the players would have their own profession change mentors, right? Sykes thought.

[Master.]

Ella popped out from somewhere, interrupting the merman’s thoughts.

“What’s wrong, Ella?” The merman’s voice sounded so light and cheerful that Ella didn’t even know if she should continue.

It hesitated for a moment, but still reported truthfully, [The players… that is, the 123 team, they brought back a creature with weak but very powerful magic power, and seem to want to keep it as a pet.]

Weak but very powerful magic power?

Sykes became interested.
He opened the magic mirror at his side and looked at the current state of the 123 team on it.
To be honest, beast taming was actually a good way to increase one’s strength.
If the players could succeed, then it wouldn’t be impossible to open a pet system…

Impossible!!

Sykes’s pair of gilded eyes widened, but his pupils shrank to a very narrow slit.
For the first time in his fish life, he felt what it was like for his heart and lungs to stop.

That pink and blue little octopus that was being held by Yan Shuangwen’s two fingers and was about to be thrown into the pot, wasn’t that the octopus lord from the neighboring territory?