Chapter 7: Notorious Scammer Strikes Again! Florida Man Attempts to Sell Fake Guns to His Grandson for $8,000,000!
Felix left the cave, unable to stand the smell any longer. Outside, he inhaled deeply, but the forest's purple mist was just as foul as the bear's urine and excrement inside the cave.
"I can't live here," Felix decided. "I'm going to look elsewhere. Oh, by the way, what happened to my quest?"
Reminded of the main quest, Felix glanced at his system menu. Jessica revealed a faint smile and informed him.
<You have completed the main quest. You have obtained Super Democracy Pass - Class F and 99 boxes of slugshot shotgun ammunition.>
<The pass is a key item. It will not be stored in your common inventory slot but will appear in your status menu.>
"Oh."
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Name: Felix Ariel
Bloodline: [Unknown]
Element Affinity: Fire, Metal, Void
Authorized Level: Super Democracy Pass (F)
Level: 5
Energy: 35/260
Mana: 260.25
---
The pass still sounded weird. Felix turned to Jessica and pointed at his screen in confusion.
"What can the pass do again?"
<You may treat it as a gun permit. You may craft a better weapon or ammunition by using the Armory of Freedom menu.>
Thinking of the built-in crafting system, Felix recalled that he hadn't finished today's daily quests yet. As he had reached level 5, he explored the menu to see the new quests.
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Daily Quest
- Increase mana credit by 10.
- Create one firearm of any type using your system feature "Arsenal of Freedom."
- Create 10 cartridges of any type using your system feature "Arsenal of Freedom."
- Purchase any item from your system feature "Florida Man Online Store."
---
Aside from purchasing an item from the system, no other daily quest appeared. Felix was slightly disappointed. He thought he could farm free daily items or rewards, but it seemed that freebies were limited. The first quest was automatically cleared for today, and the reward had already stacked on top of the first supply crate he had.
Felix opened the Arsenal of Freedom tab and checked the new craftable items. The new additions appeared.
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Craftable Firearms
- Makeshift Peashooter x 1 (10 Energy)
- M1903 Springfield x 1 (100 Energy)
Craftable Ammunition
- 9mm Round x 10 (1 Energy)
- 7.62×63mm Round x 5 (1 Energy)
---
"M1903? An ancient WWI rifle?"
Unfortunately, he didn't have enough energy to create the iconic relic of World War I. Instead, he crafted another peashooter to finish the quest and another batch of 9mm cartridges.
After securing a lesser energy potion and a lesser healing potion, Felix glanced at the Springfield rifle's name and made a mental note: he would create one tomorrow for sure.
Shifting his attention to the "Florida Man Online Store" tab on the left of the system menu, Felix pressed it to explore the new feature. Instead of opening directly, the system popped up another floating monitor screen, displaying an online shopping website.
The home page featured the face of a handsome middle-aged man with bright white teeth. However, the presenter had an unusual number of teeth—eight fangs instead of four.
[Choose Florida Man's General Store! We Sell Weed!]
The slogan made Felix cringe. He scratched his head, wondering if the owner of this site was sane.
"What the hell is this shopping site?" Felix was flabbergasted.
Jessica sighed deeply and shrugged.
<As I said, like ancestor, like descendant.>
"What are you talking about?"
<Never mind. Just buy something cheap and be done with it. You will use this shopping site a lot in the future, so get used to it.>
Felix smacked his lips and browsed the website for the cheapest item to buy. When he noticed the category of items, his fingers instinctively pressed the guns & ammunition tab first. The website changed to show the guns and ammunition section. A long page displayed a hundred firearms at once, with a total of 69,420 pages!
Felix's jaw dropped. The trending items appeared first, and he saw the price tag of an AK-47-like assault rifle painted in red.
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[AR Anti-Sage Model 777]
[Price - 5,000 Soul Stones or 5,000,000 Years of Lifespan]
[Capable of killing any sage in one shot!]
---
Felix frowned. He didn't understand the currency.
"What are soul stones? And what the hell? 5,000,000 years of lifespan?! Who the hell can live that long?!"
Jessica crossed her arms and shook her head, warning Felix not to worry about it.
<Those are high-end weaponry designed for combating cosmic entities. All weapons on the website require top-graded resources that can't be found on this planet. How about limiting the search filter to mana as a currency?>
"…"
Following Jessica's advice, Felix adjusted the search filter, limiting the currency to mana. The catalog changed, dropping the number of items to three:
- HG Black Rock
- SG Fluff-Off Prototype
- AR PULL-UP MF X1
The prefix abbreviations were easy to understand: HG for handgun, SG for shotgun, and AR for assault rifle. All models resembled firearms from Earth, but their obnoxiously bright orange color made them look like toy guns.
Even though the weapons required mana as currency, Felix couldn't purchase any of them. The lowest entry point was already too expensive:
- [Price - 666,666,666 Mana]
- [Price - 777,777,777 Mana]
- [Price - 888,888,888 Mana]
The price tags reminded Felix of trolls in online games during the 2000s. Players who wanted to brag about their items usually set up market stalls and put absurd prices like these.
Felix rolled his eyes and complained, "Who's gonna buy those? Those are too expensive!"
Backtracking to the general section, Felix readjusted the search filter and checked for other common items. At long last, the shop showed items that matched his interests:
- [Medium Healing Potion] - 1,000 Mana
- [Minor Healing Potion] - 500 Mana
- [Supply Crate] - 100 Mana
- [Clothing Crate] - 10 Mana
The lowest price was 10 mana, which led to another question: Would Felix lose mana permanently if he purchased an item from here? As if Jessica could read Felix's thoughts, she revealed a faint smile and addressed his doubts.
<The mana that you've been accumulating is the currency here. Once you purchase anything, you will lose that mana. However, your level will never drop even if your mana decreases to zero. In addition, your energy will remain the same.>
"…Wait. I thought mana would permanently stay with me? It's not?" Felix was taken aback.
<No. Mana is a pure energy that everybody can gather and accumulate inside one's body. However, you, as a mortal, can neither produce nor regenerate mana. The only energy form that you can regenerate is Qi, aka inner energy, which is the byproduct of accumulating mana inside you.
As for the system, it automatically corrects your breathing methods and blood circulation so that you don't feel any discomfort or pain in daily life.>
"…Wow. I don't get it."
<I don't expect you to understand everything. Well, long story short, mana is a currency and EXP that you need to level up. The more mana you gather, the more inner energy you have. You need those energies to craft weapons and ammo, right?>
Felix nodded. He finally somewhat understood the differences between energy and mana. "In short, I need to stack mana as high as possible to raise my level?"
<…Yes.>
"Cool. So, I'll just spend my mana conservatively."
Felix hummed and purchased a clothing crate, advertised as basic clothing sets that matched the trend of any mortal world. A large wooden box appeared in his inventory.
Taking the crate out, Felix checked the content and found a dozen sets of tunics, pants, and rough wool clothes. Seeing the ancient clothing design, Felix dryly laughed and put on a medieval peasant uniform, changing out of his casual wear. He put the crate back into his inventory and left the house.
Disliking the forest, Felix returned to the road and headed north, traveling toward the city like he should have done long ago.