The Insider System

Chapter 87: Making Money Pt.1

Lake\'s bag was full, so he started towards the alley to sell what he had gotten from the house. It was a pretty long walk, so he had plenty of time to look at his stats, and the details of his new job.

Race: Human Lv.8 ( 5/10 )

Job: Pickpocket Lv.7 ( 58/640 )

Special: The Insider Lv.0 ( 4/5 )

Stats

Health 80

Stamina 80

Mana 200

Strength 43

Endurance 15

Agility 54

Dexterity 54

Perception 83

Intelligence 114

Charisma 23

Free stat points: 72

Seeing how high his free stat points had gotten, Lake knew he should spend them but couldn\'t bring himself to. Deciding he would once it reached 100 he moved on to his new job.

Burglar (U) Lv.0

On level up:

Agility 2

Dexterity 3

Free 3

Exp conditions:

Theft of money or valuables

Bonus Exp conditions:

X8 Theft

Skills from job:

Lake didn\'t really look at it because it seemed to be more of the same, and he would only really be interested once he hit level one and got his first two skills. Seeing the alley Lake walked down it and knocked. He was hoping they were open 24/7 so he wouldn\'t have to find a place to stash his stuff until they opened.

When the door opened to let him in, Lake didn\'t waste any time and walked up to the counter. "I\'m surprised to see you again so soon. Did you not hear the part when I told you to bring more than one thing at a time?"

Lake was also surprised to see the same guy behind the counter. It had probably been about 8 or 9 hours since he had been here, so someone else should have taken over by now, but maybe this guy was like Lake and didn\'t sleep much.

Lake pulled out the tools and jewelry he had stolen, but left the silver ingot. He wanted to inspect it some more before he sold it. "Never mind. What did you rob a house right after leaving here last night?"

Lake guessed the guy thought it was unlikely Lake had done it in broad daylight, so he figured he had used the last few hours of last night to get this stuff. "No, I stole it before I came here the first time." Lake had sort of hinted he had stuff to sell the first time he had come here, so he was just continuing his backstory by lying like this.

"I\'ll give you 100 for all of it." Lake didn\'t know how much any of it was worth so he took the deal. From what he knew about the value of gold 100 was a few months of work for a normal person who wasn\'t willing to risk their life to level jobs, and a few weeks for someone like a hunter.

Putting his money in his satchel Lake said. "I\'ll see you later." This was a joke because Lake knew the guy wouldn\'t think he literally meant later today. Lake started to head towards the Blacksmiths guild while scanning for empty houses. If he didn\'t find one, he would just go and see how much money the things in their store cost.

Finding a decent looking house that seemed empty, Lake did the same thing he had done earlier and broke the lock on the door. While still using his Mana Vision, Lake entered the house. It was really helpful in these sorts of situations, so he was just going to have to put up with the fact that it made it kind of hard to see regular stuff.

Since he could see things through walls if they gave off a lot of mana it made it hard to see all the mundane things around him because all the mana sources glowed like stars, but he figured the magic stuff would be worth more, and that was the whole reason he had come into this house in the first place.

He had seen the massive amount of mana coming from what he assumed was their basement and decided it was worth the risk. Basements were really dangerous because there were no windows, or anything you could escape through if someone came home, so he was being a little greedy, but the basement had made him curious.

Not finding an obvious way down to the basement, Lake headed upstairs. He knew it seemed counterintuitive, but maybe they had a ladder down or something. Seeing six upstairs rooms, Lake went as fast as he could to check all of them. Not finding a ladder Lake still stopped because not a single room had a bed in it.

He found this kind of weird because there hadn\'t been a bedroom downstairs either, and that just left the basement. Lake wondered why someone would live in their basement when they had so much house to choose from. It wasn\'t like the rest of the house seemed abandoned either, it was still clearly used.

Lake decided this was too weird for him to bother with so he went back downstairs, and left through the front door. Turning around Lake marked the building and decided he would come back in a few hours to see if anyone had come home. He thought it might be possible to watch them through the walls using Mana Vision to see how to get into the basement.

Lake just hoped he returned before whoever owned the place did because when they realized the lock had been broken they would rush to check on the most valuable stuff first, and Lake wanted to be able to retrace their steps straight into the basement.

Getting onto the main street Lake stopped someone and asked. "That\'s the Blacksmiths guild right there correct?" Lake pointed at a building with about 50 smokestacks spewing various colors into the sky. When the woman didn\'t answer because of how dumb the question was he asked. "Is there stuff for sale here, or do they have a separate store somewhere else?"

The woman became less judgmental as she said. "Both." This was the answer he had been expecting. He thanked the woman and walked away. The only reason he had asked was he could see them not wanting too many people who weren\'t members in their building meaning they wouldn\'t have things for sale here, but it seemed he was wrong.

They had multiple entrances so Lake figured the one with all the people around it was the store, so he walked in. Seeing there was a line into another door Lake had to ask to keep himself from waiting in a line he didn\'t need to. "Is this line to enter the store?"

"No, the store is on the other side." This made Lake want to know what all these people were lining up for, so he asked. "What\'s the line for then?" He was fine lining up for something if it was cool enough so he wanted to know before he left to go shopping. "They hold a test to join the guild once a week, Blacksmith is a pretty common job, so they only take the best as members for the capital branch. My master said..."

The guy kept talking, but Lake was done listening, so he walked outside to go to the store on the other side. Opening the door Lake saw a warehouse sized room with a massive amount of shelves filled with weapons and armor. Then he saw the guards. There were about 20 of them and they looked kitted out. He guessed that was the benefit of working for the people who made the best gear.

Walking in Lake saw the counter all the way in the back of the store, so he started looking around. Lake noticed a lot of the things already had sold tags on them so this place seemed to actually be a warehouse as well as a store. He guessed people bought stuff then had to travel to get it from the guild once it was done.

From what Lake knew there weren\'t that many strong adventures in the capital because there weren\'t that many strong monsters around, so he guessed the fact that all the good stuff was for sale in the capital really made it a chore for the adventures to come pick up the stuff they bought, and that was the reason so much of it was still here, even though it was already sold.

It could also be a tactic to make him think he needed to buy something he liked before it was sold to someone else. Lake already planned to buy something though, so he didn\'t see it affecting his decision making. Finding the wall with short swords, daggers, and knives, Lake started to look at the prices.

There were plenty he could afford but he wasn\'t too sure how good they were, because they were at the lower end of price. Picking up one he liked the look of, he could tell it wasn\'t even enchanted. Inspecting it to confirm its status Lake realized the knife he had damaged was much nicer than anything he could buy right now.

This made him think his best bet would be to repair the knife Mary had given him instead of buying a new one. Walking up to the counter Lake was about to ask if he could have his knife repaired when the lady behind the counter said. "What can I help you with today?"

Lake didn\'t like the tone she was using, because he could tell she thought he was a waste of time because he hadn\'t brought anything to the counter to buy. Lake pulled out his knife and said. "Would it be possible to have this repaired?" The lady took it and Lake could tell she was inspecting it.

Eventually she said, "It\'s possible, but if you don\'t have it upgraded, it will just happen again." Lake knew she was right, but he just wanted to know how much it would cost first. "How much would it cost?"

"It depends, this is a level 20 knife. Already pretty high, so to have it reforged to level 21 would be about 400 gold." Equipment having levels was news to Lake, he wondered why he couldn\'t tell. When he used his Appraiser job on plants it told him the level.