Free Web NovelChapter 22: Money Will be Made
Julius opened the system after he finished eating. It had given him a new skill while he was hugging Yumiko.
He had glanced at it, then dismissed it to check later. Mudgob had also brought food, and Yumiko had fallen asleep while leaning on him, so he had to tell Mudgob to come in.
He recalled the grin on the goblin’s face as he set down the food. Julius would have a hard time convincing him otherwise after this.
The goblin had also written a note after he set the food down and handed it to Julius. The note said his contact would be free to meet with Julius in three days, the one that would serve as a temporary party member.
That solved the one-week deadline but also increased the urgency of getting money. Mudgob had said his guy was pricey. Additionally, he had to pay his goblin landlord enough to keep his inn open, and he needed money for his daily life in this world. freewebnovёl.ƈom
Julius didn’t know the specifics of how money worked. He knew trade was done with coins made of copper, silver, and gold, among other things. But he didn’t have the hassle to keep track of prices.
One thing was certain. He needed to make money, a lot of it, or at the very least, enough to get by on average. He realized the most efficient way to do that was to use the system.
He pulled up the notification from earlier.
[Skill Unlocked: Mend]
[Restores structures to a fixed state via tactile contact]
[Iris’s note: This skill works on structures. It doesn’t work on living beings.]
Julius wanted to test it out, but there was no prompt. A part of his brain itched, and he wondered. What if...
He activated the Eye on instinct. His vision blazed to life as the world reshaped into a blue overlay of outlines. He looked around the room. There were various pop-ups with "Mend" written on them.
He went toward one of them — a crack in the wall, barely noticeable. He could see the outline of the crack as blue grids arranged to show the structure.
He placed his hand on it. He could feel the crack. It matched the shape the grid formed.
[Wall - Mend?]
He acknowledged the pop-up. The grids reformed instantly and glowed. The Mend pop-up disappeared along with the glow. He felt a little bit of drain from the action, but when he felt for the crack, it was gone.
Woah, he thought. He tested other parts of the wall and the floor and found they were all mended. The drain from each action was relative to the size of the repair.
With this newfound ability, he had ideas. But before anything, he decided this was a good time to test the limitations of the Eye before he deactivated it.
He looked around the room — at Yumiko, who was still sleeping, at his own body, and out the window.
From this, he deduced: fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
The Eye was a short-range perception ability that couldn’t see through structures or people. It highlighted structures in blue. People in green. Red seemed to be for animals or corrupted ones, he wasn’t sure yet. There was no color highlight or overlay when he looked at his own body.
Julius also noted the stinging sensation wasn’t there anymore — or so he thought.
The moment he stopped using the Eye, an intense pain filled his eyes, and his vision blurred. It felt like his eyes were on fire.
The pain was worse than previous sensations, and from there, he was able to deduce that the longer the Eye was used without stopping, the more intense the pain after it was deactivated.
An intrusive thought made Julius wonder what would happen if the Eye was used for a longer amount of time, but he wasn’t masochistic enough to find out.
He sat down on the bed and rested for a few moments until his vision returned.
He willed the inventory to appear — the Draft, as the system labeled it. The pelt, logs, and firewood were there. Mending the wall hadn’t added anything to the inventory.
The system had a 10x multiplier on items he extracted, but it didn’t apply to things fixed with the Mend skill or things made with the Processing skill.
He had tried to use his Processing skill on one of the pelts, and it was cut into different parts. He didn’t understand how it worked fully, but for now, it seemed all the skill did was cut stuff.
The Extract skill could turn trees into logs, bears into pelts. It was safe to say he could mine precious metals and other valuable items.
Right?
The system confirmed his thoughts.
[The Extraction skill is within such parameters. You can extract precious metals like gold, silver, and Arcanium, among other things.]
Julius didn’t know what Arcanium was, but he was interested in the other two.
The 10x multiplier applies to them too, right?
[Yes.]
"That’s it? I can just... mine gold?" He said.
[Yes.]
"Why didn’t you say that earlier?"
[You didn’t ask.]
That satisfied Julius. Money problems were solved.
A dark thought crossed his mind: could the system could turn off the multiplier? So he asked.
The system gave no response.
Oh well. Money will be made. He thought. Maybe this alternate world isn’t so bad if this is how...
He stopped his thoughts. He didn’t want to jinx himself.
Money wasn’t something Julius had much of. From the jobs he did and the work his aunt did, they made enough to live by and cover the college fees for his brother.
It was easier since Vincent had won a scholarship and tuition fees were covered.
Julius laid back on the bed. He recalled the various circumstances he had gone through because of money or the lack of it.
Although this wasn’t always the case, or it wouldn’t have always been the case if his father had handled things differently.
He tensed as old memories began to surface. Memories of his father, Emmanuel McKnight.
