Still level 15 — and yet today’s attributes were nearly triple yesterday’s. Where his overall stats had once lagged behind an ordinary player of the same level, they now vastly outstripped them, by more than double, putting him above even ordinary players at level 20 or 30. Put bluntly — and he knew this perfectly well himself — the abilities his class conferred had shattered the game balance of the World of Fate outright. This was a class that should never have existed.

But as Long Moya had said, dragons were the mightiest and most exalted of living things; in strength, in body, in ability, they far surpassed humanity, so why should they trouble themselves to stay level with humans…? At that thought Ye Tianxie’s expression checked, and he gave a slightly self-mocking laugh. He was a flesh-and-blood human being, one among hundreds of millions of players. Was he really going to start thinking of himself as a dragon just because of a class?

He strutted around his heaven-sent mansion in circles, getting a proper feel for the layout and structure of his new home in this world, and only then, thoroughly satisfied, walked out and headed for the City of Stars’ commercial district. Players could purchase their own residences in the cities, but with an enormous player base and a finite amount of urban land, the prices were, unsurprisingly, astronomical. Very few people had the means to own a second home in a game world — and with currency exchange not yet open, it was more impossible still. And the mansion Ye Tianxie now owned couldn’t have been bought at any price.

In the World of Fate, you never had to worry about a stranger walking into your home while you were out. With the owner away, no one could take a single step inside unless the owner had granted them the right. And even with the owner at home, no one entered without permission. Breaking down a door was, in the World of Fate, an absurdity.

Ye Tianxie was headed straight for the City of Stars’ only appraisal shop. Now that he had an extraordinarily powerful class, all that high-grade equipment he’d collected could finally be used. So the first order of business was to get the silver and gold gear in his pack appraised — above all, the level 15 gold-tier item dropped by the Undead Sovereign: the Undead Cloak.

To avoid unnecessary trouble, he removed the Holy Dragon’s Fang and the Demon Dragon’s Fang from his hands and the Hero’s Headguard from his head, and put his old tiger mask back on.

The appraisal shop sat at the far western end of the commercial street. As he approached, he saw a scattering of people standing or squatting on the ground around it. One of them came forward as he neared. “Friend, do you have any equipment that needs appraising? We’ll do it for only 70% of what the shop charges.”

Life professions in the World of Fate came in every imaginable variety: merchant, singer, miner, poet, cook, cuisinier, engineer, designer, tailor, masseur, blacksmith, alchemist, bartender… on and on. Aside from that great and beloved profession practiced by certain ladies, virtually every job that existed in the real world existed here — and plenty that didn’t.

A player could only choose one combat class, but life professions could be picked freely, with no limit on number or conditions. Still, a mind can’t be split in two, and specialization is always better; that much is obvious to anyone. So players who committed to the path of combat generally didn’t waste time on life professions — and equally, plenty of players skipped the combat journey in this world entirely and chose a life profession instead. Those, too, were better off specializing, and generally picked only one or two.

But there were exceptions. Some professions could only be chosen by pure life-players, and combat classes were ineligible. The Appraiser was one of these. Once a player advanced from apprentice into a formal combat class in a city, they could never become an Appraiser. And equally, if a player became an Appraiser and then took a combat class, the Appraiser profession would automatically vanish. It was a special rule established to protect the balance of interests for life-players.

Life professions lacked the thrill of combat, but they required no potions and no equipment (certain high-grade tools aside) — put simply, they were the money-making professions. The equivalent of taking a job in the World of Fate.

The Appraiser was one such profession, and also the hardest to level. Leveling required appraising large volumes of equipment for experience, and the higher an item’s grade, the more experience its appraisal yielded. Given sufficient appraisal material, the hardest life profession to level would become the fastest.

It was also, without question, a profession with no overhead: no tools, no investment, not even any real labor. Cast one appraisal skill and you were done. Compared with a miner sweating in the shafts day and night, a blacksmith hammering himself half to death, an herbalist combing the wilds for plants… the Appraiser’s lot was serenity itself.

But in the game’s early stage, the profession was doomed to misery and could barely put one foot in front of the other. Because at this stage — and for a long while yet — appraisable equipment was pitifully scarce, and on top of that, there was an appraisal shop that could appraise anything competing for the same business. As a result, very few players had picked Appraiser this early. But with a player base this vast, “very few” was still not a small number. And while bronze gear was somewhat less precious than it had been back in the novice villages, silver gear remained a rarity, and gold gear was something you couldn’t have obtained in a dream. Without exaggeration: the number of appraisable items in circulation right now was smaller than the number of players who had chosen to be Appraisers.

Even with far too many monks and far too little gruel, a handful of Appraisers still hung around the shop, watching passersby with hungry eyes, hoping to catch a player with an unidentified silver piece. A successful appraisal meant income… and more importantly, appraisal was the only way they could earn the experience to rise in level.

The young Appraiser who had approached him wore a thoroughly listless expression, without a trace of enthusiasm on his face, clearly holding out no real hope. The only reason he’d come forward at all was Ye Tianxie’s full set of bronze gear, which had made him dare to wonder whether the man might be carrying a silver piece or something.

Player appraisal cost only 70% of the shop’s fee. Even so, Ye Tianxie had no intention of using any of these Appraisers… because if he pulled out everything in his pack that needed appraising, there was a 100% chance of knocking every jaw here to the floor, along with causing exactly the kind of commotion and unnecessary trouble he didn’t want. He waved the man off casually and stepped around him toward the shop — and in the instant he lifted his foot, a strange sensation rose in his heart. His head turned of its own accord toward the source of a gaze that had just fallen on him… as though some indescribable force were pulling at him, making him look there without his consent.

His eyes passed over several people and found a slender figure standing alone, leaning against the wall in a corner easy to overlook. It was her casual glance that had provoked that strange reaction in him. From the first look, Ye Tianxie was drawn in by the quality that figure carried — faint, and yet it wound itself firmly around his heart, making him want, despite himself, to know more about her.

A very beautiful girl. Hers was the kind of delicate, fragile beauty that stirs tenderness and protectiveness. But her beauty alone wouldn’t have stunned him, still less struck him as otherworldly. It was the quality about her that moved and unsettled him and would not let him go, until his feet were carrying him toward her almost without his permission. Her eyes were very bright, and within their softness was a longing he couldn’t read but very much wanted to understand — and beneath that, buried deep, a sorrow she didn’t want anyone to touch. Perhaps she didn’t even know it herself, but those two fine, dark brows of hers were faintly, perpetually drawn together.

She was the second woman Ye Tianxie had ever committed firmly to memory on a single glance.

The girl stood there alone, and gazes kept roaming across her, plenty of them carrying an unmistakably lewd cast. But perhaps the World of Fate‘s protections for women left them helpless to act on it — or perhaps something in the girl’s bearing made them instinctively shrink back — and no one had gathered around her. As Ye Tianxie walked toward her, she looked up at him with a faint surprise.

“Excuse me — do you have any equipment I could appraise for you?” The girl seemed timid; she took a barely perceptible half-step back and asked it tentatively. She, too, was an Appraiser. She, too, was hoping for something to appraise.

Her voice was very soft, and within that softness was a nervousness that could not have been faked. It moved something in him… That was the emotional register of a person who is wary and slightly afraid of the people and the things around her, of the whole world — and people like that are usually people who have been badly, repeatedly hurt, and badly frightened.

How very like I was, back then… Is that the feeling that drew me to her?

And more than that, he sensed instinctively that she needed money. Needed it badly. But perhaps reality had disappointed and frightened her, and so she was probing, feeling her way toward getting what she needed in this world instead.

Ye Tianxie was not a man of any simple kindheartedness. But that indescribable, hazy feeling set his heart lurching beyond his control, and left him fiercely wanting to do something. He snuffed out his plan to visit the appraisal shop and nodded to her. “I have some equipment that needs appraising. I’d like you to do it.”

As he said it, he distinctly saw a beautiful light kindle in her eyes… and it told him that she truly, urgently needed money. At this stage, currency exchange wasn’t yet open — which was exactly why gold was so extraordinarily precious. The great guilds, who treated money as though it were nothing, would trade Huaxia currency for in-game gold at ratios far above 1:1 in order to grow their power. Just as with the gold Ye Tianxie had once extorted out of the Red Leaf Pact — every coin of that had been exchanged at an outrageous rate of several dozen to one, in the Pact’s desperation. In the City of Stars, quite a few guilds had people stationed in certain spots as “exchange points.”

(End of Chapter 121)