Chapter 273: Antiques of the Mauryan Empire (1)
Ian, who managed to arrive at the Altar of the King, was able to accomplish his task much easier than he thought.
He went to the location that the Chief of Secretary Sikh had given him and presented the 20 fleece, and a series of system message had come up.
Tring-
[Offering ‘quality wool’ items at the Altar of the King.]
[You have completed the quest for The Citizens.h.i.+p of the Empire of Maurya.]
[You have obtained the ‘Citizens.h.i.+p of the Empire of Maurya’.]
[Earned fame of 10,000.]
An old man with a long white beard that came down till his waist—slowly approached him.
The old man seemed to be the caretaker of the Altar, he came close to Ian and spoke.
“I guess you are Ian…”
“Yes, that is right.”
“Congratulations on becoming the citizen of our Maurya Empire. It is usually not possible to get as much quality wool in this short time… you have really worked hard…”
At these words from the old man, Ian began to mutter under his breath.
‘It was laborious work. Especially when the drop rate of this fleece was scarce…’
But of course, Ian spoke the complete opposite.
“Not at all, old man. It is an honor to be a Citizen of the Empire of Maurya.”
“Haha… it truly is a glorious feeling… being a citizen of the empire of Maurya.”
After that, Ian who was able to share a few good words with the old man had received an old wooden ident.i.ty card.
Ian, who had received it had a bit of frowned expression on his face.
‘This is… This looks somewhat similar to the one that I got in Tobolldae…?’
Just a few days ago, Ian had received a humiliating status card, a D- ranked soldier.
‘Is this also specified with a D?’
But the situation here is very different when compared to that of Toboldae.
At that time, Ian was involved in the Dimensional war of Toboldae, in the northern continent to fight the monsters.
And Ian had more self-esteem than to accept that rank.
But in the Empire of Maurya, Ian was a perfect stranger.
And even if it is first cla.s.s, that user would have been a commoner, and this situation wouldn’t be so bad.
Ian had opened the information regarding the wooden item he had received from the old man.
— –
Maurya Empire Citizens.h.i.+p –
Category: General
Cla.s.sification: Goods
Citizen Rank: Sudra
Rank: D
This is proof that you are a citizen for the Empire of Maurya.
If you have this citizen card, you can maintain the basic affinity with the people of the Empire of Maurya.
This item belongs to the user ‘Ian’. This cannot be transferred or sold to other users, and won’t drop even if the user dies.
—
Ian carefully read the contents of the ident.i.ty card by lifting it up.
‘Umm…? What is this? The ranking is a bit unique in here.’
Ian moved his gaze towards the part of ‘citizen rank’ which had “Sudra”, and his eyes opened wide.
‘Huh… this is a word that I have heard quite a lot about…’
Though the game felt strangely uncomfortable, Ian thought that it was better to be a commoner than a soldier, and he put the ident.i.ty card in his inventory.
‘Now… What is the gate for the test…? Should I go there?’
Ian was relaying the information he had received from the Chief of Security in his head and left the Altar of the King.
As Ian came out of the stone building, Kaka who had been waiting for him in the front called for Ian.
“Master.”
“You have waited for so long.”
Kaka was sitting on the rocks which were floating in the air.
“No, It wasn’t that long… but, there is something that I’m curious about.”
“What?”
Kaka fluttered his small wings and flew to the front of Ian and asked in a low voice.
“Did you succeed in receiving the ident.i.ty of the Maurya Empire?”
Ian nodded his head.
“Yes, I was successful.”
Kaka asked once again.
“By any chance, did you get any rank attached to it?”
“Umm… this was the first time I saw a rank of that sort.”
“Well, originally the ranks in the Empire of Maurya are a bit unusual, master.”
“What was it, was it Sudra…? I don’t know much about it, but it doesn’t seem like a good thing.”
And as soon as Kaka heard the rank, he couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
“Phuagh…! Puahah…! Keukkk…!!”
Ian had an uneasy expression at this sight.
“Yah! What is it? Is something wrong? Why are you doing that?”
Something felt very unkind and ominous!
Kaka had laughed alone for quite sometime and spoke to Ian.
“Master, do you know who a Sudra is?”
Ian frowned on his question.
“You punk, you seem to be gaining a lot of confidence lately? You are at a level where you are looking down on your master, you slave?”
Once Ian was done, Kaka began to smile and then it turned into laughter once again.
Kaka laughed and laughed for a while, and was barely able to speak.
“Keuh! Master, now you have to be friends with me. Keuh!!”
‘Sudra’, it was a word that was used to refer to the lowest cla.s.s of people.
It would be easy to say, that the ‘Sudra’ of the Maurya Empire could be considered as slaves.
And in the Maurya Empire, there were people who didn’t belong to any caste and were considered as ‘untouchables’, but this wasn’t that great either.
So, in a sense, Kaka’s words weren’t much wrong.
Ian, who felt disgusted for not knowing what a Sudra meant, looked at Kaka and mumbled to himself.
‘Should I… check it on the internet…?’
And the time for Ian to log out had come. And he thought that this would be a great opportunity to search about this before re-connecting into the game.
* * *
‘Ahh… I’m a slave! What the h.e.l.l…’
Ian was angry.
‘Does it make sense for a game that is based on money to create such ranks?’
However, there wasn’t much that Ian could do even if he was angry.
This was a G.o.dd.a.m.n neighborhood with a guard who had a level over 350.
‘Huh, but… need to see if this quest will be able to change the ranking system.’
Indeed, it would have been nice if the caste system was properly implemented, but the rise of status was the most impossible part.
However, this was just a scenario in the game, and only the name of the cla.s.s was similar to the caste system.
It would be easy to process if it was considered as a form of ident.i.ty presented to Ian, a user rank that was very commonly used in the Empire of Maurya.
Depending on the status, and the affinity with the NPC’s it would change, and the quality of the quests will also start to change.
And this is basic, depending on how a user plays, it will impact on how great the chance he will get to ascend.
“Yah! Kaka. Stop laughing.”
Ian threatened Kaka who was still laughing.
“If you continue being like this, I won’t give you food. I won’t give you meatb.a.l.l.s anymore.”
However, Kaka responded with confidence.
“I’m not Bbookbbook, master. I’m not scared, not even the slightest.”
At those words, Bbookbbook went stiff.
“Bbook, don’t ignore the meatb.a.l.l.s bbook!”
“…”
Even though Bbookbbok had evolved, it’s love for meatb.a.l.l.s hadn’t decreased, not even a bit.
And Ian, who was walking on the street, had managed to get downtown towards the ‘Kapila Castle’, a huge city in the Empire of Maurya.
The castle of Kapila was on the same scale as the empire of Luspel, this wasn’t even a tiny bit smaller when compared.
Ian, who was just walking around by observing his surroundings, suddenly had a different line of thought.
‘By the way, how many people does the Kailan have in the development? These hidden areas are so ma.s.sive and meticulously designed, they have a wide view of the world.’
Like Ian had thought, there was no place that could be hidden from the eyes of Kailan.
Ian was still in admiration.
‘This will be the first time for me to play a specific gaming content for such a long time. This is getting very interesting.’
If the LB’s planning team would have heard Ian’s thoughts, they would have fallen down into a slump.
Ian was needed to go straight towards the Gate of Test to proceed with the quest, but he had decided to take a little detour and look at the town.
‘Quests are very important, but I need to look at these places once. Who knows what hidden items reside in these places.’
And in the downtown that Ian had entered, there was a small antique store right at the beginning.
* * *
Ian didn’t like the word ‘Temple’ that much.
But it didn’t mean that he dislikes the nice items that it held.
Having a powerful equipment played a vital part in being a top-ranked player, and Ian was very concerned with that part.
But, the word ‘Temple’ that Ian disliked meant, ‘No gaming skills, just have good items’.
In that sense, Ian had never considered himself as a Temple user.
Rather, Ian thought that he was at a level where the item was not measurable compared to his skills.
‘The Judgement of the Spirit King was a great destruction weapon. Hmm, but even then…’
Ian and his endless amount of confidence!
And the reason that Ian had moved to the other streets was because he wanted to get a good item.
Ian looked at the antique shops with attentive eyes.
‘Hmm… just a thing would be nice…’
Inside Kailan, the antique shops were called as, ‘Luxury Gambling stores’.
Probably because the information about the item buying cost will be confidential, and the item would be sold at a price that is 10 times higher than those of the general stores.
But the good thing about an antique shop is that the users can look up the information and judge the items within.
In a gambling store, the payment of the items will be fixed in a random manner, and the shop will be buying them from users…
However, in an antique shop, they look into the appearance of the item and then purchase it.
At least a hundred thousand gold was needed to buy a ‘Rusty iron sword’ or an ‘Old leather armor’.
‘Hmm… this is the first for me to come to such a town, there should be a lot of amazing and interesting things in here, right? It could be a bit expensive but…’
To be honest, the price of the goods didn’t matter.
And these days, money wasn’t a problem for Ian, plus he had a lot of resources.
On top of that, due to being the first to discover the Empire of Maurya, Ian could enjoy a swooping 30% discount from all the stores in the Empire.
As he was looking at the items in the antique store, Ian’s eyes began to s.h.i.+ne.
And just behind Ian, was a creature that was looking at these items with excitement that was thrice more than Ian’s.