Stygian Mage

After getting the specifics for the type of spells that Soren wanted to look at, the old man once again filtered the options and handed the crystal panel to Soren.

With the panel in his hand, Soren went through the list and checked out the spells up on display. Although he was planning on buying several spells, he wasn’t going to just mindlessly choose them all. And so, he first focused on the water type spells which he had wanted to buy for some time now; creating spells of another element than his own attributes was quite a hassle so he wanted to rely on the market for them.

[Waterball: Basic Water Element Spell. It creates a sphere of water that can be used for different purposes. Limit – 11. Cost – 1 Low-Grade Crystal.]

Of course, Soren didn’t want this spell for combat purposes; he had other spells for that, better ones. He wanted this spell precisely because he didn’t like creating water by melting his ice spells using <Fireball> all the time; he wanted something more efficient. And while this spell was also available in the towns that he arrived at before Bellfalls, he didn’t buy it then as he was planning on buying a bulk of spells at once when he reached a more developed town; like right now.

After selecting the <Waterball>, Soren once again started looking through the list. This time, he didn’t have an exact target and was just going through the details to figure out which one he wanted to buy.

Running his finger on the display and scrolling through the list, he spotted a spell that intrigued him quite a bit.

[Rainfall: Basic Water Element Spell. It creates rainfall over a certain area for a certain span of time depending on the caster’s ability. Limit – 10. Cost – 2 Low-Grade Crystal.] 

This spell was very different from the ones that Soren was used to seeing. This spell seemed like it didn’t have any use in the combat. From this, Soren remembered that not all Initiators fought and killed for resources. Many of them liked to live in peace and hone their skills and crafts; these types were generally called Lifestyle Initiators. While the path they chose did depend on the type of Soul Form they created when going through the Initiation process, it was mainly because of the mindset of these people. These Lifestyle Initiators preferred to farm, create pills, create potions, make weapons, craft different items, etc. And although it wasn’t a rule, most of the combat type Initiators respected these types and didn’t try to harm them if possible; after all, they needed these Lifestyle Initiators to create various things for them like pills, potions, etc.

Looking at the details of this spell, an idea came to Soren’s mind. He still needed to check it out, later on, to see if that idea would work or not but for now, he bought the spell; the idea was related to this spell, of course.

After selecting this spell, Soren once again started scrolling down to see if there was another spell that he liked. He was looking for the spells that would combine well with his current arsenal and would be useful in different scenarios. As for common offensive spells like <Water Cutter>, <Waterfall>, <Water Serpents>, <Water Whip>, <Water Bullet>, etc., he was not going for them right now. These spells were standalone offensive spells that would fit well with an arsenal made of Water-type spells, but his arsenal was different; it was made of Ice-type and Darkness-type spells.

[Water Bubbles: Creates bubbles made of pure Water Element. It causes everyone in the targeted area other than the caster to become drowsy. Limit – 7. Cost – 9 Middle-Grade Crystals.]

As Soren was scrolling down, the effect of this spell caught his eye. This was the first time he had seen an actual Illusion Spell; not to mention, of Water Element. Not only that, but this spell was also a Rank 1 spell. Albeit, it wasn’t much powerful; hence, the low cost. Going through its details one more time, Soren decided to buy this one too.

…..

Soren went through the list once again but this time, he didn’t find any spell that he wanted to buy right now; the Water-type spell was done. So, he moved on to the Ice-type spells now; he had intended to buy a few which could fit his arsenal as he didn’t have many Ice spells. Compared to the Water Spells, Soren was much more familiar with the Ice spells. So, for the Ice-type, he had already decided what kind of spells to buy before coming here.

[Ice Spikes: Upon successful casting of the spell, a bunch of ice spikes will jut out of the ground with an intense and abrupt force. The origin point and the angle of the spikes can be adjusted according to the caster’s will. The size of the area of effect and the range of the origin point will depend on the caster’s ‘Intelligence’ stat. Limit – 6. Cost – 21 Middle-Grade Crystals.]

[Snow Blades: Creates snowfall consisting of extremely sharp snow crystals over a certain area for a certain amount of time. Does sustained physical and freezing damage. Limit – 5. Cost – 26 Middle-Grade Crystals.]

[Ice Wall: Upon successful casting, the caster can create a defensive wall made of ice to defend themselves. Limit – 9. Cost – 15 Low-Grade Crystals.]

[Ice Chakra: Creates a spinning chakra made of ice that cuts the target with its razor-sharp edge. Limit – 6. Cost – 19 Middle-Grade Crystals.]

Quickly going through the list, Soren selected these four spells and handed the panel back to the old man. For the spells’ part, he was done now.

Next, he asked the old man if they sold Storage Pearls there. And much to his delight, they did sell it; though, the space inside them wasn’t big. But even so, Soren bought ten of these one cubic meter Storage Pearls for a total of 10 Middle-Grade Crystals; after adding these to his Soul Form, the space inside his Storage Pearl would increase to about fifteen cubic meters.

Done with that, he moved on to buying the ingredients and the tools that he needed for Potioneering. Although he wasn’t planning on creating potions before the Beast Tide ended, he at least wanted to be prepared. So, he bought a basic set of tools that were vital to Potioneering before handing the list of ingredients that he needed to the old man; he had created a list in his communicator before coming here. The recipes that were in that compendium were all of common potions; albeit, they weren’t available in the open market. As such, he didn’t really see the need to hide the ingredients. Of course, as a basic precaution, he wrote down every ingredient that was needed for the potions in the compendium and mixed everything up.

Given that the ingredients were pretty common and that the shop ‘Myriad Items’ had a huge background, Soren was able to buy a few sets of everything on the list.

…..

With that, he was finished buying everything that he had planned to buy before coming.

“Will that be all, Sir?” The old man asked after calculating the total price of all the things that Soren had just bought.

“For now, yes,” Soren nodded and replied.

“If you don’t mind, may I recommend a few items? They will definitely come in handy for the Beast Tide and even after.” The old man politely said with a friendly smile on his old face.

“Go ahead,” Soren agreed as he had nothing to lose in just checking out the recommended items.

“This is a new model of automatons that our shop has developed recently. It can do all the menial jobs for you. It also doesn’t need too much energy and maintenance. It’s a perfect item for someone who likes to do things alone.” After getting permission from Soren, the old man quickly brought out the details of the new automaton model in his panel and showed it to him.

This so-called ‘Automaton’ was basically a puppet which ran on Mana. Although this specific model could only do some normal daily jobs, there were some that could accompany an Initiator into a battle; they were rarely sold in the open market though.

Usually, the ‘Automatons’ ran on Mana Crystals only. But the model that the old man was showing to Soren had a different setup. While this one could also run on Mana Crystals, it came with a Mana Card attachment. This meant that this Automaton could run on the Mana Card and the owner only needed to charge the card with the crystals. In other words, they didn’t need to change the crystals every time it ran out of energy and could just charge the card with as much energy as they wanted. Of course, the automaton came with the feature which allowed one to transfer the energy from a Mana Crystal to a Mana Card, so it wasn’t a hassle to do this every time.

Checking out the details of these ‘automatons’, Soren became quite interested. For someone like him who liked to do things alone, this was truly a good match. Apparently, the old man had quite an eye to notice that fact about Soren and recommend this to him.

“How much is it?” Soren asked, planning on buying at least one if he could afford it.

“The actual price is 99 Middle-Grade Crystals,” The old man replied, feeling quite satisfied with himself that his recommendation was taken well.

After hearing the price, Soren quickly did some calculations in his mind and realized that he might not have enough crystals to pay for everything. So, he first decided to sell the things that he was planning on.

“Actually, I would like to sell some things first. Can we do that before this?” Soren said.

“Of course, I will definitely give you a fair price,” The old man had also dealt with such things many times before, so he easily adjusted his attitude and waited for Soren to take out the things he wanted to sell.

Strength-Ring, Skill Book – Shield Rush, Skill Book – Aura Blast, Skill Book – Wind Slash, Skill Book – Treading Wind; these were the things that Soren took out to sell for now. Although Soren knew that the skill books would not sell for much, he decided to sell them anyway as they were useless to him.

After the old man checked everything, he calculated the price and set a final amount of 30 Middle-Grade Crystals for all the items; the price was this high only because the Strength-Ring was a Rank 1 Enhancement Artifact and had a price range of 25-30 Middle-Grade Crystals in the market. Before, when Soren was in Eastwood Town, he didn’t have much experience with things like market pricing. But as his knowledge had increased quite a lot, he now knew the basic value of a Mana Crystal. Based on that, he could easily calculate an approximate value of something, given that he knew the characteristics of the said item.

So, from what Soren knew about the items that he had taken out, the price that the old man had given him seemed fair. As such, he agreed to it and sold the items; receiving 30 Middle-Grade Crystals in return.

Counting these 30 crystals, Soren now had a total of 219 Middle-Grade Crystals with him; if the amount of 600 in the Myriad Item’s card was not calculated in that.

“So, how much is the discount going to be?” Soren asked while silently thinking in his mind about which item to give up if he didn’t have enough crystals to buy everything.

“The limited-time discount that our shop is giving to Initiators like you who are going to fight in the Beast Tide is 40%. But if you register for our shop’s card, this discount will increase to 50%.” The old man replied politely, not forgetting to mention the benefits of registering for the card of their shop.

“I already have a card of your shop,” Soren simply said, taking out the Myriad Items’ card from his Storage Pearl.

Seeing the card of their shop, the old man delightedly received it and inserted it into the slot by the side of the panel.

“Apart from this, I would also like to recommend something. I can assure you that it will be very useful to you.”

……….

After buying everything, Soren went out of the shop while feeling a little dejected upon seeing the number of crystals he was left with. But, nevertheless, he was ecstatic in his heart about getting such useful items. One of those items that he bought was a pair of black gloves that he was now wearing; its name was Mana Touch. This item was the last thing that the old man had suggested. It was a very simple item that only did one thing; it made it convenient for the Initiators to absorb Mana from a Mana Crystal. It had a slot on its backside which allowed an Initiator to fit a Mana Crystal in it and then absorb Mana from it without having to hold it in their palm during a battle. Given this characteristic of this item, Soren had bought it without any hesitation. Although he was not a Warrior type Initiator, it was still quite inconvenient for him to hold a crystal while fighting.

Now that he was done with his shopping, the only thing he could do before the Beast Tide was to practice his spells and increase their mastery level.

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