Inventory is the fucking best, and the weirdest, Skill of them all. Let’s start with the weirdness. Your Class Items may or may not go into your Inventory when you store them. No one really knows. They store just fine when the rest of your Inventory is full, they don’t cost anything to store or retrieve, and the process happens much faster than with anything else.

  You already know that it takes much longer to retrieve anything from Inventory than it does to store it. You have to stay focused, or the retrieval will fail and you’ll be left grabbing at empty air like a soon-to-be-dead fool when you really needed that healing potion. Belts were invented for a fucking reason, people!

  The best way to think about Inventory is that storing something is like dropping it into a deep, dark, magical hole. You just open your hand and ‘whoosh’, it falls in the hole. When you want to get it back, you have to climb down the fucking ladder, hunt around in the dark, spank a monster or two, and then climb back out lugging the Wasted thing. Forget any fancy bullshit you’ve heard, Inventory is just a magical hole.

  This analogy also helps explain why it’s more efficient to store and retrieve items in bulk rather than individually. Packing up a bag and storing the bag can save you a substantial amount of mana or stamina compared to storing each smaller item individually.

  Some Classes will eventually learn supporting Skills for their Inventory. Gathering Classes, like Miners and Lumberjacks, for example, usually get significant multipliers to their capacity when storing ore or lumber. This is both useful in the regular world and absolutely essential for farming dungeons, since you can only take out of a dungeon items that you are physically carrying or that are in your Inventory. Unfortunately, these types of Skills are much rarer for combat Classes.

  - Delver’s Guild Handbook, Section 8.3 – "Inventory management”

  I swallowed nervously, worried about my limited funds.

  “I’m looking for some armor and mods, mostly. I guess it depends on how much everything costs.”

  “And what weight of armor are you looking for?” Billings asked.

  “Medium-light, though I guess light would be OK for now.”

  He frowned. “Those are the two most popular weights, and I’m afraid I sold through most of my stock of Level 0 and Level 1 items yesterday. If you’ll come over here, I do have this Level 2 leather armor. I realize you can’t use it just yet, but surely traveling with the Guild will have you at Level 2 in no time.”

  “Actually, that won’t be a problem,” I said, pointedly ignoring his surprised expression.

  The whole town is going to know about the Advanced Tutorial anyway. I just have to get strong and come back before Yuna turns eighteen and goes into the Tutorial herself! I’ll be able to talk her out of following in my footsteps. Yeah, that will definitely work… That’s four years away, I can do it!

  I followed him over to the row of basic wooden dummies holding sets of armor, mostly in different weights of leather. Some of the town Guard wore heavier armor, but they had it made to order by the Blacksmith. There were actually a couple of empty dummies at the start of the line, and the set Billings pointed out was the first one after that. It was labeled ‘Level 2, Cured Tri-Horn Leather, Light. 2 eagles.’

  It was dyed a dark green color, which didn’t really appeal to me. It wouldn't blend in very well to the ground either, at least in the area outside of town, which was mostly light brown dirt and rocks. I didn’t have a lot of options though – the next set available was Level 4, and I needed something I could wear now.

  “How much would it cost for everything except the helm and breastplate?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s most valuable as a set, but I can understand that you’d rather keep using the medium-light pieces you have. I can let the rest go for, say, 1.5 eagles.”

  I wondered if he had some Skill that let him see how much money I had.

  No, he shouldn’t be able to do that, and besides, it’s illegal to use any bargaining Skills on someone in Tier 0. He’s a prick, but I doubt he’d try anything with Hassan here. Anyway, there’s not that much he can do with the price book right there. That’s what it’s for, after all.

  “Hassan, do you think I should get the set, or should I get less armor and see if I can afford a mod or something else?”

  “Depends,” the purple-eyed Archer answered helpfully. “How much are you charging for mods?”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Billings sighed and directed us to a set of shelves. The mods were just sitting there, up against little rails to stop them from rolling off the shelf. The top shelf was labeled ‘Level 5’ and had just a couple of orbs. I assumed anything higher than Level 5 was kept separately. The Level 1 shelf was empty, and there were only a couple of Level 0 mods left. Unlike the ones I’d found in the Tutorial, and the ones sitting on the higher shelves, these mods were a dull white, not glowing at all.

  “As you can see,” Billings said, “there are only a couple of dregs left for Level 0 – both armor mods – and I’m out of Level 1 mods. I’m sure you understand there were a number of new customers yesterday afternoon.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense, but what do you mean by dregs?” I asked.

  “You’re aware that in order to see the effect a mod will have on your equipment, you have to attune it first, right?”

  “Well, yes,” I replied.

  “Once a mod is attuned, it must be stripped of that attunement before anyone else can use it. Merchants like myself have Skills specifically for that purpose. However, stripping an attunement degrades an item. If the process is repeated enough times, the mod will stop glowing. Stripping it again will reduce it in Level. In the case of a Level 0 mod, that will destroy it.”

  “But it would work fine, as long as you don’t strip it?” I asked.

  “That’s correct,” he agreed. “The reason a so-called ‘dreg’ is less popular is two-fold. First, some people believe them to be unlucky, since prior owners found their effects unsatisfactory and wished to sell them. Second, any dreg has reduced resale value because it’s about to lose a Level. In the case of Level 0 dregs, the resale value is zero. Of course, when you attune a mod to yourself for the first time, it can have any effect. There is no proof that the effect a mod had for the last owner has any impact on what it will do for you, dreg or not.”

  “OK, so all of that means the dregs cost less, right?” I asked hopefully.

  Billings’ laugh was as annoyingly fake as his smile. “Of course, of course! I charge an eagle for a Level 0 mod, two eagles for Level 1, and so on up to Level 4. But a dreg is available for half an eagle less, so these would only cost you five talons each.”

  I looked at Hassan. “What do you think? If I buy the full armor, I won’t have enough left over for any mods, or really much of anything.”

  Before he could reply, a notification popped up.

  Incoming Transaction:

  Bryan Block wants to send you ten eagles.

  Accept yes | no?

  I jumped in surprise, looking around. Block was standing innocently over by the counter, looking smug. Billings started as well, so at least I wasn’t the only one that had missed his entrance. Then I re-read the notification, and my jaw dropped.

  “Block! This is too much,” I objected.

  “Don’t worry kid, it’s just a loan to get you started. You’re going to want some other things too, probably a jacket, gloves… You can pay me back after you’ve got a few Levels on you – standard Guild rates.”

  “Standard Guild rates?” I made it a question.

  “20% interest per year, one year minimum, or 10% per Level, whichever is more.”

  “Per Level? You mean, per Level that I gain?”

  “That’s right. So, if you didn’t gain any Levels, you’d owe me 12 eagles in a year’s time. Or, if you’ve gone up say, five Levels by then, you’d owe me 15.”

  “Why do it like that? It sounds complicated.”

  “Well, lower Leveled people gain Levels more quickly. Leveling lets you earn a lot more from the System as you start killing higher-Level monsters. This arrangement makes it more attractive for higher Levels to lend, since it gives you a reason to pay it back before too long. Otherwise, you could just wait, assuming your income will keep rising. Then you might go and get yourself killed before I could collect.

  “Of course, you could go to a bank and get a proper loan from the Banker’s Guild, they offer all kinds of different terms. Not that you’d find them in a little dump like this. Anyway, there’s enough informal lending within the DG that the Guildmaster set up these rules to keep it fair.”

  “Still, this is a lot. I really appreciate it, and I’ll pay you back soon!”

  “Ha, not too soon I hope. Wait a few Levels at least,” he said with a grin.

  I accepted the transfer, feeling a bit overwhelmed. Suddenly I had more money than I’d imagined possible in such a short time. Hassan gave Block an unhappy look.

  “You’re too soft on the recruits, Block. They should keep what they kill, not get handouts.”

  “You’re really a grumpy old man for someone called Kitten,” Block responded with a grin. “Do we really need to have this conversation again? It’s an investment, you heard me tell her the terms.”

  Leaving the two Delvers to their bickering, I headed downstairs to pick out some new clothes.