Swamy was astounded.

He did not get a chance to read the forums recently and that's why he hadn't known. The first time he heard about it was when he was having lunch with his four sorta friends. Like usual they were talking about Long Island.

"Hey hey did you check the forums?"

"Yeah I did!!"

"Me too, ooh I am really excited now!"

"Hahaha yeah....that's something alright!"

Usually by now Swamy could make sense of what they were saying, but today he was getting lost.

"Um...what are guys talking about?"

"What!! Swamy didn't you say you played Long Island? Didn't you see the forums then?" asked Rajan.

"Oh I am sorry, I have been a bit busy lately. So what did I miss?"

"HAHAHA what did he miss he asks!"

"Only the most amazing thing that happened." Sneha added.

"Oh come on, don't tease the poor guy already! You see there is this player who finally got out of the city."

"Really!! who?" said Swamy suddenly interested.

"An amazing guy. It is said that he became the student of one of the most important person in the village. And then he got to go on some mission outside the village."

"Really that happened?" Swamy was worried. Did the silent ones finally forego their silence and come out with another post.

"Yeah!"

"Oh oh do you know who he chose as his teacher? The head of battle school itself. Quite a guy!"

"Oh totally! And its said she refused every person as her student. Maybe because she already had him! And he's graduated from battle school as well. Wonder if she will take a new student now? Maybe she only takes one student at a time!"

Swamy suddenly felt uncomfortable for some reason. Did another person graduate from battle school on some island. 'Shit' he was being overtaken again.

"Yeah we are in Gurrow village. What do you think are the chances for us to become her student?" asked Himali.

"Slim to none I guess. We haven't yet joined the battle school even, trying to learn magic weren't we?!!" Manish said smiling.

"Hahaha true that! I wonder if we can go back to join the battle school, we can get Lady Altia teaching us too. Oh, Swamy she is the head of the battle school in Ilmentia island" she said looking at Swamy's strange look.

Swamy simply nodded.

"Hey what was the guy's name again?"

"Wait a second.....yep it's Raka! Hey maybe the guy's Indian. You know I think we had a really old comic series by that name."

"Did we! Must have been quite old then. This guy, wouldn't he be quite old if he read that stuff?"

"Could be...I only know of that because its in one of dad's drawers where he keeps old books. He said he used to be a fan of those in his childhood!"

"Oh my! So this guy is like your father's age..."

"Yeah....and...to"

Swamy zoned out. How did this happen. When did this happen. How much was known already!

'What a pain!' Its not like Swamy didn't want to get famous, but for completing a great adventure or achieving a high reward. He wanted to be famous after he got strong. After all everyone targets the famous guys in order to beat them. Whats more, he also didn't want to be mugged by crowds of people asking questions. He didn't want more people overtaking him.

Back home, he quickly checked the forums. Yeah, there was a big talk about him going on. He found the original post and started reading every reply. Soon he relaxed. First time he was glad of people's overarching imagination. Ofcourse some of them had been right about some stuff, but with so many things people had assumed, he thought it didn't matter. No one recognized him for sure which was more than enough for him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raka lifted his head at the sound of bells.

"Welcome, how may I help you?", said Neona who was standing beside him at the counter of the food shop. The old lady who came in had a cloth or leather made, he wasn't sure, shopping bag with her.

"Hi, please give me 2 stones of blackfruit, half a stone of bluebird eggs and a half stone of baylise leafs. Oh this pie looks nice, is it blueberry, then I will have one as well!"

"Yes, Raka could you wrap up the pie for her. I will get the other things" saying which she started measuring the stuff on a balancing scale. Raka wrapped the pie in paper and waited for her to finish. Soon after, she got the lady's bag and placed all the items in it.

"Thank you for coming. Have a nice day!" which Raka repeated after her as the old lady customer left the shop with another tinkling of the bells.

Raka was enjoying his time working at Neona's store. The atmosphere was excellent and most of the customers friendly enough. The best part was he got to learn about so many new things about the island and the world in general.

Stones were a unit of measure of weight and almost half a kilo, according to his estimate. Blackfruits are actually black and are found growing on trees in the forest, on the south side of the village. Only strong hunters went there to hunt, and brought this fruit. Seems it was quite a delicacy and so a bit expensive. Bluebirds were blue sea birds which traveled from island to island and often nested on this island. The birds themselves were fierce and strong slightly larger than the two headed wolf. But their eggs were delicious. They could not be hunted as they were always found nesting in groups of hundreds. Neona reckons she once saw a group of almost 500 flying together. But they had this tendency to leave unhatched eggs behind when it was time for the group to leave. People waited for them to leave, and quickly collected the eggs, before other animals could find them. It happened more than once, that even animals were waiting for the birds to leave and the hunters had a fight on their hands. She said while laughing.

A gold coin equals 100 silver and a silver equaled 100 copper coins and seemed to be the adopted currency in this world. However there were some countries far away which dealt in a different currency as well.

The people in the north of the island tilled the land and grew apples, oranges, blueberries, wheat, rice, cacao, baylise leaves and other things. By the way baylise leaf tasted like bay leaf.

The closest island to Ilmentia is Brittanica to the north, Khardoum to the east and Dalmund to the south. The west sea was too dangerous and people who traveled there didn't return alive so no one knew what lies there.

'Dalmund, so that's the other starter island.' Wondering if the other starter islands were close by as well, he asked about Fedora and Singoor, the other starter islands. "Oh Fedora is the next island after Khardoum about 50 leagues east and Singoor is east of Dalmund not far from it." she replied. In real life one league is a little over 5 kms. Hoping the developers had made the same use, 50 leagues would be around 250 kms.

Raka was surprised at the amount of information he gained by talking with Neona, but he supposed it was natural for a resident of the island to know about its geography, history and other stuff. Especially when you were a merchant like Neona who dealt with a wide variety of people, hunters and merchants who traveled the seas. As she said, having the right information is paramount in her job, as setting prices requires one to know how much it costs in the first place. Thankfully the island had a bustling trade and lots of merchants came from different lands. Being friendly as she was, she could soon get the merchants talking with a few sweet words and probably some alcohol about all the lands they traveled and things they saw. Her curiosity about all things related to stories of adventure was unquenchable. Ofcourse she found facts, prices and other things about how things are found or grown, just as interesting.

She explained that she didn't have enough money when her mother left her this shop. But she was trying to earn enough, so that she could join a merchant guild and travel the seas. It was a tough life being a merchant of the sea, she said. There was always a chance that you could lose your life. The sea monsters were trouble enough but there were pirates as well. But the most dangerous were the storms. Some storms were ok enough, but there were some which were known as devil storms. They hit suddenly, and caused waves to rise hundreds of feet. There have only been a handful of people who ever survived these and they say that the devil himself set them off. Once surviving that, they left the sea altogether, not having courage to sail again. It gobbled entire ships within its waves. Over the ages, some of the smaller islands have been swallowed whole by the storm, existing under the sea now. It is what makes the west sea so dangerous, the devil storms are more frequent.

The likelihood of devil storms happening near the islands is low though and as you move east it becomes much safer. Infact the last time a devil storm occurred near this island was like 200 years ago.

This was the other thing which surprised Raka. The residents did not talk about history, like the system had made it up. They talked about it as if their ancestors had lived it. For example, Neona talked about three generations of her family like its not only a memory. She remembered her mother and grandmother. Her grandmother had died when she was still small, but she could still tell stories of her and her grandmother. Her mother told her, that her grand grand parents had come to this island from the east in the times of war.

These were not only facts, but memories with feelings as well. It was almost as if, the people of this world had been 'living' before the players came. Raka calculated that the npcs had been living in this world atleast 300 years.

'But that's impossible. Even considering that 1 to 3 time difference, 300 years would mean 100 years in real life. That couldn't be possible, unless this game was made a 100 years ago. Was there a way to speed up time then?" He could come to no conclusion on this, but decided that this would make a good topic for a paper for one his classes.

Today, she decided to visit the warehouse after working hours to meet with some merchants. Raka asked and got to tag along. It was still evening and Neona explained that the merchants would be more willing to negotiate as they would have to stop for the night anyway.

They soon reached the warehouse, which was a large building next to the east gate. Raka entered and found a place filled with immense smells and sounds. There were loud auctioneers shouting out bids, people who were quietly making deals here and there, a few stalls which seemed to be filled with paper, perhaps with orders written on them. And the smell of a thousand kinds of food, fish and spices. Some other stalls in the far corner were stalls having bags with all kinds of metal, and metal products, armor and weapons, something which looked like coal, etc. And then a few more carrying all sorts of things which boggled Raka's mind.

Looking at it from the outside, you would never have believed that this place existed inside. Neona was in her element. She soon started going to specific merchants, haggling prices of stuff, placing orders or turning up her nose at the prices. She checked the food before buying them, sometimes even cutting of a piece to taste. Ofcourse Raka followed her eagerly as she gave him a bite to taste as well asking for his opinion on some of them. Raka could not say he had a good palate but he still gave his honest opinion about its taste. Neona nodded sometimes, smiled sometimes when he made a strange face on some of the weird ones and in general talked to him about what everything was or complained that this merchant was pricing it too high.

Raka quietly listened, making a mental note of everything she said, about prices, about specific merchants, about the different kinds of food, and other stuff she was interested in or recognized. She even looked at the metal stalls for some reason, looking at the prices before nodding her head with some thought. He asked,

"Neona, what are doing at the metal stalls?"

"Oh, as a merchant I am try to keep track of the prices and the quality of all items coming to this town. It helps as practice, you know. Also being able to estimate a things true value is the sign of a good merchant!"

"You can do that with even metal?!! Don't you run a food shop?!"

"That's just for now, you know. Who knows, maybe in the future I will deal with metal. Know about everything! Thats my motto!" she said excitedly as she moved, observed, noticed, tasted and smelled her way across the warehouse.

'Hmm, this could be a useful thing to know for the future'.

"Neona, could you also teach me your skills? I would also like to learn the things you do to know the value of things."

"Why?! so you could become my competition in the future?!"

"Um...no that is not my intention...but if that's what you want, I can try to do that!"

Neona looked cute as she puffed up her cheeks. And then they both laughed.

"The cheek of this guy. Well you better learn well, if you wish to compete with me" She teased.

Skill Estimation: You can now learn the skill Estimation. There are millions of different things in the world, both natural and created. Merchants trade with a lot of them but also learn about more all the time. Estimation of its true value, thus becomes important and is decided based on information about it and/or rarity and/or usefulness. It is different from the market value of the item which may include transport, taxes, risk or any discounts/overcharging. Neona has agreed to teach you the skill.

Requirements: You must impress Neona by estimating without her help.

"Well take notice here, see the metal bended like that..." they started where they stood, in one of the metal dealer stalls. "This bending is often caused because of not properly tempering the heat. So this makes it a manufacturing defect. It causes this area to become brittle. Hmmm, lets see it seems to be made of a mix of steel with a little bit of silver for the linings. This is just to increase its price, I suppose. And the price says about 1 gold and 20 silvers. Expensive! Hmmm..reducing 10% for the defect, and 30% for the silver which has absolutely no use here. Also taxes on the island are like 8%, and it comes from Dalmund which isn't far away anyway. I would say its true value would be around 40 silver."

"Hey, how much are you going to offer this armor for?" she asked the stall owner.

"Price is written down there!"

"Yeah I know. But how much are you going to sell it for?"

"Miss, the price is 1 gold 20 silvers. Please look at the exquisite quality of the armor. Its made with high quality steel and silver has been added for more protection."

"Don't give me that. Silver is only on the linings. It gives no protection whatsoever. Whats more, you see this. Its a bend showing manufacturing defect. I am not going to pay more than 30 silvers for this!"

"Miss, please don't try to cheat me. Even the taxes on the island will make it more than that."

"Really! Now don't you blame the taxes, alright I will give 31 silver."

"No no, its too less. I cannot sell for that!"

"alright 32....no...hmmm 33...still no eh!"

"Tell you what! I will give you 45 silvers but just because its made of steel. The linings are useless and this thing here..will just break. Sorry its my final offer. I believe its a fair price for your trouble! Do you sell or not?!"

Neona started walking away, but then..

"Hold on Miss! I will sell for 50 silvers. I need to make some money too!"

"Hmm...46 no more or I walk!"

"Ok deal! You are a tough lady aren't you!"

Neona smiled a beautiful smile, which buried all the negative emotions from the other party. Raka picked up the armor, as he was being the luggage porter for this trip.

"Wow! You sure know how to haggle don't you!"

"Hmph! Trying to cheat me! Well if you know the true price you can always haggle successfully."

'Oh could it be a skill as well!'

"Neona could you teach me how to haggle as well?"

"No can do. You learn that from experience. It cannot be taught. However I can give you tips for any trades you make."

And so it went on, with Neona talking about different things she used to determine true value, pointing at defects, how much to reduce prices by when evaluating, base prices of different places,etc. In short what will make him a great merchant like her. Hearing all that, Raka's head started swirling with information overload. It was not the information she provided, but rather the things he had to find out by himself to actually be able to estimate. What was awesome was her observation skill. She could find defects with a glance. Ofcourse her palate was awesome as well, she could tell the degree of food spoilage just by taste.

Raka sighed. It would take years to get to her level. Not that he didn't try. He looked at the same things she did, trying to spot differences, but not having known armor, or weapons or some of the foods in the real world he could not actually make a good comparison. He simply followed Neona's explanations noting it down in his mind.

Spending almost 3 hours in the warehouse, they headed back to Neona's place with Raka carrying all the bags of stuff she bought. Most of them was food but what would she do with the armor, he wondered.

"Neona, what are you intending to do with the armor?"

"Sell it ofcourse. Blacksmiths can repair it and sell to other people."

Back at the shop, Raka was relieved of putting down all the stuff. And then began the job of sorting through them and putting things in shelves and noting it down on the books, etc. Raka was the one who did all the lifting and running around though. Neona simply kept noting things down in her book and ordering him around to weigh this and put that there.

"Thank you very much. You can rest for a bit, while I check the accounts!"

"If its just about calculating stuff, I can help. I am pretty good at math." Raka offered.

"Oh really! That will help, thanks! By the way would you like to learn accounting?"

'Well it should be easy atleast' Raka hoped and agreed.

Skill Accounting: You can now learn the skill Accounting. It allows you to keep accurate records of your income, expenditure and totals. A necessary skill for merchants, it also allows you to write down records to make books. Neona has agreed to teach you the skill.

Requirements: You must impress Neona by applying accounting without her help.

Neona started telling him how she does her accounts, the columns and rows, etc. It was a basic accounts book.

'Its easy. I can do this in my sleep.'

He asked Neona to let him do the checking and soon found and corrected a couple of errors he spotted. He also suggested a couple of ways to make it better, which Neona liked. Soon,

You have learned the skill Accounting.

Skill Format has been learned.

Skill Formula has been learned.

"Skill description, Accounting, Format and Formula"

Accounting (Beginner lvl 1: 1%) : Ability to keep records of your income, expenditures and totals. Essential if you wish to be a merchant. You can also record your accounts on writing surfaces. Writing it also allows you to show or share your records with others. The skill increases according to your actions and/or equips.

Format (Beginner lvl 1: 1%) : Required skill Accounting. Formats are designs which enable you classify your incomes, expenditures and totals. Ability to make formats on writing surfaces. If you share or give your created formats to others, they can use it to record and manage their own accounts without having accounting skill. The skill increases according to your actions and/or equips.

Formula (Beginner lvl 1: 1%) : Required skill Accounting. Formulas are mathematical relationships and rules expressed in symbols and help in making complex calculations. Ability to make formulas on writing surfaces. You can also attach formulas to formats to enable automatic calculations. If you share or give your created formulas to others, they can use it for automatic calculations without having accounting skill. The skill increases according to your actions and/or equips.

'A bit complicated. Perhaps it would make more sense when I try' thinking that he asked for a bit of paper, made three columns, putting an x and y on top of the first two, and then adding x+y at the end. He added a line to make a row and wrote 1 and 1 under x and y. The number 2 appeared in the third column.

Accounting increases by 1%.

Format increases by 1%. You can save the format. Do you wish to save the format?

"No"

Formula increases by 1%. You can save the formula. Do you wish to save the formula?

"No"

'That's convenient, but where would I use it!' Raka thought for a bit and then gave up. He then went and helped Neona with her cooking.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raka was in front of Neona's shop where he had worked the last two days he had logged in. Ofcourse considering he only logged in every third day in the game, already 8 days had passed in the game till today. Today, he would get to meet Lady Verina, if she had kept to her schedule and returned already.

He started to walk towards the magic institute hoping for some luck. He had changed into the washed up toga, which Neona gave. It wasn't much better but atleast it didn't look as ragged as his old one.

Raka entered the Magic Institute and rung the bell. Hopefully he will be lucky and meet Lady Verina, but who came out was Cynthia again.

'So much for luck!' as she looked at him and remembered him.

"You again! What nerve to show up here! And where did you steal these clothes? I should report you to the guards!"

Was the greeting Raka got.

"Hello again, Miss Cynthia. I am here to meet with Lady Verina! Is she here?!" Raka spoke adding as much eloquence as possible to not anger her again.

"Hah! what are you a stalker? or did you fall in love at first sight? for you to be so obsessed with Lady Verina!"

"Um..no. I just want to meet with her, if its possible, please!" Sill keeping his indignation at check.

Cynthia made a look of pure disdain. Raka sighed. Was his luck going to run out today too!

Just then, "Ah hello Raka, how are you?" came a voice from behind him.

He turned to look behind and saw Lady Verina approaching from the front door carrying a small bag. Cynthia immediately bowed,

"Welcome Lady Verina. I hope you had a good trip!"

"Thank you Cynthia. Yes, the trip this time was fruitful."

Raka also bowed and greeted.

"Hello Lady Verina."

"So Raka, you are back which means that you completed Altia's training did you?"

"Yes Lady Verina! I came here to receive your training."

"Well, come inside will you." and Raka followed her inside while Cynthia watched absolutely flabbergasted.