Second World

With nothing better to do, Jack returned to the business district. He didn't feel like spending the hard-earned merit points to rent commander Quintus' training ground.

He went to Ellie's restaurant to check on them. Also, the day before was the day when he could pull out the weekly profit of the restaurant. The place was still bustling like the last time he visited, if not more. Jack went inside the kitchen and was greeted by a very busy scene. Ellie and Bill were fully focused on their cookings.

Jack stood at the side didn't want to break their concentration. After a while, Ellie finally saw him. She asked an NPC cook to take over before she went to him.

"Hiya, boss!" She called out with ardor.

Jack nodded as he was still admiring the NPCs which were still busying about.

"It's a kitchen, man. There's nothing much to see," Ellie remarked.

Jack chuckled. "I can see business is doing good," he said.

"Very good, very good. Words of mouth travel fast. Not to mention we are the first outworlders to own a business place, many of our kin came here to support us. We might need to expand soon. Otherwise, this place won't hold with its current popularity."

Jack made a cringe face and said, "I'm not sure if I can gather 150 gold coins that fast." That was the amount needed for the second upgrade of a shop.

Ellie agreed, "that's true. That was indeed a lot of coins, but the profit last week should help. Have you taken them?"

Jack shook his head.

"You can use the interface at the cashier to cash them out. It was quite an amount, even after the expenditures and the 20% tax," Ellie informed him.

"All right, I will do that," Jack said. "Before that, I want to inform you about a friend of mine."

"What friend?"

Jack then told him about Dylan Fairdeal, about how he had made a request for him to search for the Rosemary ingredients. And that if he found any, he would bring it to the restaurant for her.

Ellie nodded, "okay, I will keep an eye out for him."

She returned to the stove where she was cooking before, there were still many orders to be prepared. Jack left them to their work and went to the cashier. There was a lady NPC staff manning the device. She recognized Jack as her employer and was about to move aside to give him access to the device, but Jack waved for her to stay.

Jack stood beside the device facing her, he could still activate it from the side. If the restaurant customers look in his direction, all they saw was another customer making payment or having a chat with the beautiful NPC. They could not see the holographic interface that floated above the cashier.

Wow, Jack made a comment in his mind as he saw the number indicated under the tab of the owner share. It said there that the profit of last week which he could withdraw was 26 gold coins.

This was after deducting expenditures and tax? It almost doubled from what he got from Amy's Bakery. But then again, he was only an investor in Amy's Bakery while here, he was the owner. So it made sense that he received more. Also, the scale of customers here was also bigger.

He clicked on the withdraw button and took all last week's profit into his storage bag. His stash of gold coins almost went back to the amount before he attended the auction.

Now that his matter here was done, he exited the place. He looked at the time, it was not much longer before it went dark. If he went out to farm for experience, he would have to spend the night in the wilderness.

After thinking for a while, he asked Peniel, 'Peniel, how is runecrafting work?' He had seen the category under the support jobs in the auxiliary skills section. He didn't pay it much attention before, but he was reminded again when duke Alfredo mentioned that the fragment pieces needed Scroll-making and Runecrafting jobs in order to be able to make them complete again.

He had heard the explanation of Scroll-making from Peniel, he had no intention of trying that job out, as he already did blacksmithing and cooking. Trying too many things would just convolute his focus. While runecraft was under the support jobs together with lockpicking, detect and disarm traps, and inspect. He had done lockpicking and inspect, these two support skills had been helpful on his journey.

The detect and disarm traps he had no doubt was essential as well. He had not met any trap but he was pretty sure his God-eye monocle could help in the detecting department, the disarming though, was another story. So if looking at the other three skills under the support section, the fourth one, runecrafting, should serve a helpful purpose as well. Hence, his interest.

"Oh, you are finally interested in it? All right, I will enlighten you," Peniel said in his mind. "In the meantime, ask one of the natives for the direction to a runecraft shop."

Jack proceeded to ask, and then walked in the direction told by the native.

"Runecraft is a support skill that can be used as support for many activities depending on the runestone you possessed. The one you can get from the shop is the most basic ones. In fact, there are only three basic runestones available, and all of them were mainly as support for the other auxiliary jobs."

'What kind of support?'

"The three basic ones that you can buy from the shop are the Runestone of Probability, the Runestone of Enhancement, and the Runestone of Duration."

'What did they do?'

"Runestone of Probability increased the success rate when you do blacksmithing, alchemist, scroll-making, lockpicking, and disarm traps. Runestone of Enhancement has the chance to increase the quality of items produced by artisan jobs. Runestone of Duration affects the products made by alchemists, cooking, and scroll-making, but only on products that give effect with duration. It will increase the length of the duration of these products."

'So it really is only for support? Not really very useful to me then, as I have no intention to focus on the artisan jobs. Except for that Runestone of Probability, it can help when I do lockpicking of a treasure chest, and also so that I don't waste too many materials when I upgrade my equipment.'

"You underestimate runecraft too much," Peniel said. "There are also runestones that can support your battle prowess, but they are very rare to be found. You can only depend on luck if you are to get them."

'Oh, I have a high luck stat if you haven't noticed,' Jack said.

Peniel pretended to not hear him, she continued, "there are also runestones for multiple occasions. What you can do now was practicing using those three basic runestones. So when you get the other rare runestones that are suitable for your use, your runecraft skill will not be too low."

The shop that was informed by the NPC Jack had asked, was not too far from Ellie's Restaurant, so he had arrived before long. The shop was rather small. If the entire shop only sold three types of runestones, he could imagine that it didn't need a big shop for that.

He entered the shop and saw a clerk behind a counter. There was also another glass display on the side that displayed gemstones.

'Oh, I remember. You said that gemstones can also be used for runecrafting. I have some in my bag, so can I use them with the runestones then?' He asked Peniel.

"We will talk about the gemstones later, just ignore them for now," Peniel replied.

He did not think too much of it since Peniel said so, he went to the clerk. The counter in front of the clerk had a glass display. Inside was multiple oval-shaped stones. There were a lot of stones, but they were divided into three sections, and the stones in each section were identical. He presumed those were the three types of runestones that Peniel had informed him on their way here.

"How much for these runestones?" Jack asked.

"Each one costs 1 gold coin," the clerk answered flatly. There was no smile or any emotion. Jack figured the fellow didn't get many customers here. Probably when many players learned about runecrafting then this shop would be busier.

1 gold coin was quite expensive for average players, but not for Jack. He took out 3 gold coins and gave them to the clerk.

"I want each one of them," Jack said.

The clerk received his coins and took one stone from each section. A total of three stones were placed in front of Jack. They looked ordinary. Jack took them and inspected one of them.

Runestone of Enhancement (uncommon runestone)

Empty. Required will to activate.

"Huh? Will?" Jack blurted after seeing the description.