Reign of the Hunters

Chapter 121: The Young Appraiser

After she made arrangements for Carnivore, Ye Ci decided to go clean up her warehouse. She took out all of the items she stole from the Steel Blooded Battle Spear that she felt like would be best utilized for the guild's purposes.

When she was clearing out the warehouse, Ye Ci noticed a Mysterious Map. Upon closer examination, she remembered that this was one of the loot drops from the Sandstorm Scorpion. She had reported the Sandstorm Scorpion bug right after and had forgotten to appraise the map. It was left in her warehouse, and now that she thought of it, it was a waste to leave it there.

She took the map out and decided to go get it appraised. She took some materials out of her warehouse before leaving and handed them to Remote Depths in the guild encampment. She then headed to the Red Lake City Appraisal Hall.

Appraisal Halls were always lively in every game. In Fate, most of the equipment had visible stats, but there were some special equipment and items with hidden attributes that would only show up after they were appraised. There were a lot of big guilds, but there were more smaller guilds than there were big guilds, and the number of solo players greatly outnumbered the small guilds. Guilds tended to favor dungeon clearing. while it was more common for solo players to grind their experience in the wild. Almost anything dropped in the wild needed to be appraised. Thus, the Appraisal Hall was always crowded no matter what happened.

Ye Ci entered the Appraisal Hall, looked around and made a beeline towards the youngest looking Appraiser who was sitting in the corner.

Of the 20-odd Appraisers in the Red Lake City Appraisal Hall, this Appraiser's booth was the most unfrequented one. Although technically they were in a game, people would still tend to apply their values in the real world to the gaming world. In real life, people would prefer to look for an older individual, as an older person might have more experience.

For example, old Chinese traditional medicine practitioners, older masters, etc.

Youths, in comparison, gave people the impression that they would be inept at their job. That was why all the older Appraisers' booths were swarmed with players who clamored for their services, whereas this younger Appraiser had no more than 3 customers.

However, Ye Ci knew something that the others do not.

In the future, Red Lake City would be able to attract a large population of players. This would not be solely due to its good geographical location, but also for another reason: The city was home to Dalayar Continent's one and only Grandmaster Appraiser. The aforementioned Appraiser was none other than this very youth who appeared to be unreliable: Tick.

Of course, all of this would only happen in the next two to three years. At the current stage of the game, Tick was nothing more than just a Medium Tier Appraiser.

Just like players, the various NPCs in Fate are also able to level up by honing their skills. Appraisers could level up by appraising a huge quantity of items. There was, of course, another way: appraising a rare item. This would greatly raise the proficiency of an Appraiser.

Appraisers started their career at Medium Tier mastery. Compared to the other Appraisers, Tick's proficiency lagged behind by a large margin, as many of the players refused to let him appraise their items due to his young appearance... Even if he was approached to appraise something, they were usually low value items. As a result, his proficiency progression was stagnant. Quite a few Appraisers had already increased their mastery to High Tier.

An NPC would be penalized by the system if they were unable to raise their proficiency level. This was something all NPCs wanted to avoid.

Besides, Tick had a good personality compared to the other Appraisers who were all bad tempered. Although it was really hard to level up, he did not let the frustration show. Instead, he was cheerful and made sure he was on his best behavior when he was serving his customers.