After logging back in, Yushin is walking around Red Clay City while waiting for Aurei and Bitter Cat. In a few days, there are already some changes in the city. Some players started to go into the City Guard, form their own guilds and even go around as merchants.

The merchants are mostly peddlers since it is still difficult to open a shop in the city. Players first need to acquire capital, then invest in materials to resell or find a constant supplier. To this end, some guilds are working towards supplying a single merchant with their goods and rushing their crafting skills. But things are not going as they want.

Raw materials are in high demand, and crafters are still beginners, so production is low and the quality is still lacking. Also, there is a lot of waste since people still didn’t grasp the system. With this, the biggest profit goes to the City Lord, who controls most of the NPCs stores and crafters in Red Clay. Therefore, he will make sure to at least rope in any potential good merchant or crafter through bribes.

This also affects the trade as a whole, because every NPC needs to be equipped with weapons and they also have durability and quality. Since there is no fixed supplier, if a city in the game is lacking in materials it will affect their equipment output. Imagine a city where the population is often engaged in exploring and hunting and the commerce generated from it. This also determines a city or kingdom edge in weapons. If one is vastly superior to the other, how can they defend themselves in case of an attack?

The City Lord, while having less power than the Three Big Guilds, is also a powerhouse and has many businesses and guards. He is constantly at risk of assassination, so is always protected at all costs by strong bodyguards. Secretly, he is recruiting players to form the backbone of his kingdom, that can protect him in case anyone tries to rebel and take his life.

Unlike PCs, NPCs only have one life. The system is well aware of this, so The City Lord and its influences will not be careless. In the game, the population is based on several factors, and the generation of new NPCs, as considered a [NPC Reproduction System], is key to the survival of kingdoms.

At the same time, Golden Rose is growing in power and even taking a few new player guilds under their influence. Even if The City Lord has control of most of the profits from merchants and stores, the three big guilds have their own connections and also profit from the same sources, in a silent war for resources. Right now, The City Lord has 30% of the profits and the other guilds only get 10%, if they are involved in the business at all.

But, the biggest profit, is from [Pottery]. Red Clay has no big mines or other discerning industries. Financing explorations, taxing guilds and trade, and exploring access to their Magic Dungeons, those are all secondary in face of [Pottery Trade].

Red Clay City exports pottery not only to Vavell but to the nearby kingdoms, bringing huge profit. Even though pottery is a luxury product, NPCs also need luxury in their lives, so the market share is huge. This alone makes vying for the city control a risk worth taking.

If all the other endeavors together can bring ten gold coins per day, Pottery brings fifty. For this reason, most of the City Lord’s resources are allocated to protecting pottery trade, even going as far as making deals with guilds in other cities for safe travel and protection. However, the biggest factor to consider is, the King of Vavell is a big fan of Pottery!

With the Royal Family blessings, few dared to mess with the pottery trade. Pottery in Tales is also not simple, full of mysteries Yushin doesn’t know. But seeing how the guards take [Pottery Trade Protection Duty] very seriously, this trade will definitely be a focal point of wars to come.

Yushin walks around seemingly without a purpose, but he is busy studying the entire layout of the city. Its inner workings, choke points and weaknesses. If he were to attack the city, how would he do it? What if he was to defend it? Who controls the underworld in there?

Of course, where there is regulated trade, there is always some form of illegal trading and market. Since the City Lord regulates permit it could not be different, and the system even encourages rogue actions by allowing people to create guilds and alliances that are not in any kingdom’s sphere of influence. As a second-class city and the third biggest in Vavell, Red Clay is not an easy target, but also not impregnable.

He also takes note of the buildings. Which ones are available for housing, which are rented for new guilds and stores. Every territory has a fight for dominance, and it is clear this dominance in Red Clay is separated into four forces: The City Lord’s Mansion, Golden Rose Guild, Red Clay Guild and Free Forest. There are also nobles, but in face of those four giants, they can only fall under their sphere of influence.

While waiting for Aurei and Bitter Cat, Yushin suddenly comes across two known figures of interest: Red Leaf poor duo! That is, Red Bird and Red Clown. He smiles and decides to follow them in secret, see what they are doing, find and tag their contacts. Their confined time should already have expired, but they are still walking around. Above everything, more info is never bad!

The Red Leaf Duo has no idea they are being followed again. If they knew, tears would certainly drip down their faces. They meet a few people and exchange items. Some look like NPCs, other are definitely players. Yushin tags them all with appropriate comments, even though he doesn’t exactly know who they are. But since he knows Red Leaf is up to no good everyone that comes in contact with them are also suspicious.

Maybe what they trade are even stolen goods. Yushin follows them into a certain street and a common house, very well hidden. They stop there and go in, but he can only tag and not follow, this may be some kind of hideout but there is no good spot to hide. He doesn’t want to risk too much so stops here and turns back, decides to follow the other tags around, but finds nothing much.

He keeps following one of them, this one enters Red Clay Guild! He also traded items with the duo before, so is highly suspicious, but too early to conclude anything. Not seeing anything interesting going on he turns around to leave, but the sight almost gives him a scare.

A few players are looking angrily at him, even with killing intent flowing freely. Yushin notices those are the guys that he trashed with the help of the Monarch Bear to help Rain Falls. It’s obvious they hold one hell of a grudge!

The trio consists of the Dual Wielding Daggers Man, the Red Haired Swordsman and Calm Bow and Arrow, who wished they could kill Yushin on the spot. He made them lose a great prize, a rare, permanent, and mobile dungeon, even die and be set back a lot of player and skill experience.

Now Red Clay spies passed on the news, the player that obtained that dungeon is very lucky, rose fast inside Free Forest, is currently the first candidate for Guild leader. They think that should be their honor, their spot.

“...You bastard!” Man Wielding Two Daggers is mad, even wants to slay him right away but there are many guards around. If it was outside, they would definitely cut to kill, but in Red Clay, it would end up with them being branded criminal. There is a good chance of not even being successful in killing Yushin before getting arrested or killed.

“Fancy meeting you here, coward, are you done ambushing people and hiding behind woman’s tails?” He keeps cursing Yushin, wishes to make him angry and try to get him to strike first, but no success.

Yushin smiles, is very polite and bows slightly. He has no reason to bear a grudge, their behavior is not very honorable, but in the end, it was their loss. Shin acquired much from that dungeon run, besides experiences loot and even became acquainted with Gadras and Rain. He is also disinclined to trade insults.

Both the man with two daggers and the red hair sees this behavior, are very angry and insulted, almost to lose their minds completely and disregard any consequences. The calm man sees this and goes forward.

“How about we settle this grudge with a small duel?” In his mind, a duel is a perfect choice since the target is inside the city. The City Guard won’t interfere in a personal duel and the grudge might be settled satisfactorily.

“Yer afraid now, kid?” Teased the Red Haired Man.

“ Agree if you have the balls!!!” Said the angry man with two daggers.

“Sure, but it will only make you angrier, you know…” Yushin smiles, this time a smile that soared the flames of rage inside his opponent. Now he is deliberately trying to make them mad. He is not a shallow person, but very prideful, will not tolerate disrespect.

“This bastard, let’s see you keep this smug smile on your face after I’m done with you! Make it a [Contract Duel], no, even better, a [Slave Contract]!” The Man Wielding Daggers roars.

Yushin smiles again, is still very calm, “What need do I have for a useless slave?”

“...You!!!”

“But, other things, we can definitely bet.” As the alchemist said before, since the Nameless Mage sealed the demonic advance, contracts became a source of power in this world. They are flexible, with many optional rules enforced by a “higher power”. Betting a wide array of things, such as items, money, conditional feels, slavery contract, servitude contract, and even titles and techniques, is possible!

Regular skills and talents cannot be wagered since it would open a way for exploiting. Titles are rare and techniques can also be sold or donated, so they are allowed to be in contracts. Above all things, betting on a contract is dangerous business!

Even if the account is reset, player info stays consistently per person. Which means, by resetting your account, you can restart your character, but certain conditions that were applied during gameplay still persist. Even if you buy another account, this does not mean you can have multiple accounts, as player info stays the same. Each account is codified per person, like DNA, and resets are only allowed because kingdom Corp wanted people to have some freedom.

This means penalties resulting from the contract cannot be erased completely! Even if you lost and decide to reset your account and character, it still would be applied. Even if you bought another account, it would still apply as long as you are the one using it!

Moving to an open space still near Red Clay Guild and designing it as the [Combat Area], Yushin sets up the [Contract Duel]. They both agree on the following terms:

Rules

Contract Duel

Money Loss

30 Silver Coins

Technique Loss

One Random, Restricted

Death Penalty

Tripled

Condition

Unable to attack the other for 1000 hours in-game time

Condition

In game mute for 300 hours in-game time

Victory Type

Fight To The Death!

A loss meant, aside from money and triple the normal death penalty, losing a random technique, being unable to talk in the game for 300 hours and unable to attack the other for one thousand hours in game time!

[System Notice: Yushin agrees to the duel with Sinkred. The Duel will start automatically in one minute.]

In this duel the loss is very harsh, making both parties nervous. The Man Wielding Daggers, whose ign is Sinkred, as per the system notice, is confident in his skill. In truth, he doesn’t know how skilled Yushin is since they only fought for a bit, but he thinks he could only pull that off because of the ambush and Rain Falls.

Yushin is calm, takes out a common spear, breathes in and out. If he wants to be a great player, situations like this are unavoidable. To fight many players, get better and better. He is out of time, has to be bold and accept every challenger. More than anything, putting himself in an inescapable situation will force him to improve.

A crowd forms around them, many Red Clay members and also non-members came to see the fight. It is the first time they see a [Contract Duel], most of them think those two are definitely crazy with such a bet!

“I’m betting Sinkred will win, he is a very skilled player, maybe top three in my guild.”

“Who is the other guy? Someone from Free Forest?”

“Dunno, haven’t seen him around, they said in guild chat his name is Yushin. He messed up with some of our members before, this is payback.”

The clock winds down as the system signals for the duel to start. Sinkred’s equipment didn’t differ much from Yushin’s, as he was also wearing light leather armor. His short blue hair wavered slightly, and he definitely looked angry while rushing forward as soon as it started!

Yushin was at a distance of three meters, and his long spear held advantage in the beginning. Sinkred was stopped by well-timed thrusts every time he came forward. Avoiding any hits, he still couldn’t get close to his target, while Shin maintained the distance with ease.

“You bastard, don’t think you can keep doing that for long!” But obviously, the reach of the spear was much higher than the daggers. If Yushin was a less skilled player, then Sinkred would be able to close in with his speed, but it was not so. It took all he could to avoid getting hit by the spear.

Yushin breathed in and out, his body starting to pick up the pace, his rhythm becoming stable and fluid. His [Flow Of Soul] passed through his body with a warm feeling, as if just touched the depth of an incommensurable power. No matter how much Sinkred tried, he was but prey caught in the spider’s nest.

Yushin pressed forward and his attacks now became much more aggressive. Sinkred was so fast his skills would definitely not hit, but he controlled the flow of battle, and so was also not in any danger. Soon Sinkred stopped for a few seconds, in silence, and a thin veil of mana enveloped his body.

‘Flow of Mana…? Does he also know magic?' Yushin is surprised, he didn’t even see a [Cast Time] or [Incantation]. When Collapsing Snow cast [Fireball] or [Ice Strike], there was always a bit of time involved, and she needed to say an incantation. In Sinkred’s case, there was nothing like it.

What Yushin didn’t know is, in fact, Sinkred is a pure soul character, he cannot use magic. If Yushin’s had a greater magical affinity, he would have been able to see the flow of mana coming not from the enemy’s body, but a few meters from him, on the side of the crowd. One of his fellow party members cast a [Magic Buff] on him!

The power of magic has been lowered, but support and buff magic are still among the most effective types. What happened is that Sinkred received a second rank magic called [Buff Agility]. It temporarily increased the target’s stats, reaction time and speed.

All of a sudden, Sinkred dashed forward much faster than before, so fast that Yushin missed his control. Dodging dagger strikes from close range is a difficult job, even more so when the opponent is buffed. So the dagger found its way into Yushin’s chest, hurting him for the first time in the combat.

[Quick Stab]!

Sinkred activated his skill and Yushin could only block, damaging his spear. Parrying fast daggers with a spear is something difficult to pull off. He took several steps backward trying to put himself in a position to counterattack, but of course, Sinkred wouldn’t allow it. He kept pressing Yushin with a flurry of strikes. Deadly strikes.

From Yushin’s view, the enemy’s power-up could be from many things. He possibly had access to buff magic, even if it is weird he didn’t cast it. This early in Tales is impossible to know what each player can or cannot do. Now, it feels like he made a mistake by being confident in this duel.

In the crowd, a woman wearing light silver skin armor and carrying a six-stringed wooden instrument with a long neck, similar to a smaller tanbur, twisted her face in disgust.

She has metallic silvery blue long hair, carries a bow and quiver in the back, and a square-shaped cute face with round, pink cheeks. She is also a rank two [Buff Magic] user and already able to sense the flow of mana!

Even though she thought Yushin is too naive falling for a simple trick like that, the dishonorable scene playing now is something she cannot stand. Her nimble and jade-like fingers start to slide down to the strings of her instrument. Even if Yushin did not ask for it, she is willing to make things even on her own anyway!

But, before she could start playing the melody, her eyes opened wide. Yushin, in the middle of this predicament, suddenly smiles!