Only five days remained before the first stage of the tournament would be over.
Since the results from the visiting cultivators would result right after it, only the major powers, citizens and tourists were interested in the second part of the event, where the elders from their respective powers tried to reestablish their home faction prowess amongst the others.
While it was only a hearsay, people believed that by ranking higher in the second part of the tournament, a faction could gain access to the lands richer in energy, allowing for a greater haul of medicinal treasures or even cultivation.
Thinking about it, It could be both truth and a lie. As soon as the balance of the powers was established for the first time, those who got their hands on the better terrain would grow only grow stronger, while those who lacked the strength to secure profitable powerbase, had to look somewhere else.
From what Eve told me, back in times, this city was located on the hunting law, stating that whoever got the piece of land first, would get to keep it as long as he was willing to defend it during first ten years of tournaments.
It was also how this city first came to be. With the settlers rushing to claim free land from a country long gone, they required a place to safely fight against each other, trade and form factions.
As the currents of the history brought some kind of change that resulted in the death of all the countries that local people knew about, this town was already big enough to survive the violent tide of change, ending up as the local point of governance for all the smaller factions that managed to build their power base somewhere too far to actively take part in local politics.
With time, those smaller settlements turned to different sects. Obviously, those closer to the forbidden forest had it easier, with the abundance of medicinal herbs and natural treasures boosting their growth. On the other hand, the low number of communities located further inland only showed how formidable they had to become to shoulder the burdens of living away from such a great location!
Being a history freak, as soon as I made the decision to ignore all the sects, I turned to history to make an educated guess about the best possible location for our both main base and forward one.
While I still kept true to my initial plan of creating a mage's tower, there was simply too many impracticalities fixated to this idea. Even if one would be able to overcome them with strong enough magic, I decided to go with a more pragmatic approach.
After rummaging for the entire night through the shelves in Bogner's store, I managed to find enough varying spells that would let me not only create a nice place to live, but also a proper centre of the operations. Even if the cost's of some of the abilities was steep, that was something I had to expect when considering how insanely usefull they were.
Stating that there was no form of teleportation in this world would only make me a damn frog in the well. No matter how powerful I was just by the fact of being an enriching essence expert when one looked at the true potential of cultivation, it was just like a baby being proud of crawling few meters right to its parent's arms.
I had not even the slightest idea what was possible to experts just one level above me, not to speak about the saints or even immortals. But this didn't change the fact that as long as we remained in the areas reserved for spirit cultivators, I could safely assume that teleportation was either just a myth or extremely rare ability or technique.
That's why when I saw a warping spell that was able to connect two points marked with a special rune, it's the price of five thousand points almost made me laugh!
With this, as long as I created my main tower even in the most desolate place imaginable, all I had to do was to create a forward base to which I would teleport every time I required something from the civilisation!
"I would like to see your wares."
With how much money I had on hand, it would be a waste to keep myself contained to the normal districts of the city. Set on the idea of creating the tower, I had to make sure to buy enough materials to either craft all the necessary tools or at least buy them straight from the shop.
"That won't be a problem, but what is a respectable young master looking for? Our shop is known for its wide reach with various types of valuables!"
With all the commotion that my auction brought to the city, it was unavoidable that everyone on the streets would recognise me on sight. I even wondered if there was some kind of memo spreading through the shops in the city aimed to make them rip me off.
"Since I can't be bothered to waste my time, I want you to prepare everything from this list. For now, show me what kind of ores do you have. As for the others, I don't care how will you procure them, as long as you will be able to do it and won't cross my bottom line with the price, you can be sure that I will buy them out in one go!"
Passing a small note containing things varying from medicinal herbs of both the low end and highest quality, tools for almost every occupation I could think of all the way to the books containing the basics of the respective crafts. While I didn't admit to it, I still had two more lists like this, but with content in an entirely different field.
After all, I couldn't expect the traders dealing through ages with metals and rare ores to suddenly become knowledgable about spices or the quality of the nappies!
"Immediately. my lord! I wouldn't dare to let you wait!"
Clasping his hands a few times, the doors on the side of the portier instantly opened, letting through two attendants. The male had both the attire and the look of a strictly disciplined professional, perfectly knowledgable about his field, while the other being female, with her looks… not leaving much for the imagination.
I wonder if the way portier clapped was some kind of predecided sign, tuning the importance of the quests for the sake of fitting reception. It was hard to believe that if some poor but important noble came here, he would receive the same treatment!
"This way, my lord."
Looking at how the girl, maybe around twenty of age, instantly wrapped herself around my arm while pushing her impressive assets against my side, I suddenly sighed with relief. Between the heaven and the earth, while I preferred to keep myself to Eve and only occasionally Lucia, the feeling of the brand new body during such a fleeting encounter was a pleasant experience. Or maybe the fact that I could safely ignore the chirping of this little bird that started as soon as she got close enough to make her voice intimate was the reason behind how relaxed I was!
"Since we don't know what your lordship requires, let me begin with the standard quality ores."
This caught me quite by surprise. According to my knowledge of medieval times in Europe that was the source of the most fantasy stories set, calling a commoner with a noble title was a capital offence! The moment a true titled person heard such a thing, it was a straight way for the gallows for not only the offender but the person allowing such behaviour as well! There was a reason why for example in Poland, to confirm one's nobility there had to be at least three respected nobles vouching for him!
"As your esteemed self can see displayed on this shelf, we have orichalc.u.m, mithril, Vebbe Eue, and Bolonium. All of them are available in big amounts, but for the sake of clarity we are showing only the examples."
No matter how much I racked my brain, the only use of the Bolonium I remembered from the stories I read was to create an alloy with yet another fantasy ore, that had miraculous effect of being absolutely invisible to attacks… of mice!
Contrary to normal people's expectations, this only meant that this was one of the most interesting materials I could ever get my hands on! If it could bring such ridiculous effects by mixing it with other metals or materials, there were bound to be some nice surprises for me in it!
"Moving on, we have Moon Iron, Sun Iron and Blood Iron. While we still have a rather substantial amount of them, we sadly have to limit the amount each customer can obtain each month. This ruling was forced on us by the city hall, hence we can only ask for forgiveness on this matter."
At this point, I was already lost. I had no idea what was the specification of those ores, but with my ability to separate every element and even conjure a perfect list of it, I instantly thought of the countless appliances I could find just by indulging in the testing for long enough.
Thinking about this left me stunned.
How I couldn't think about this before?!
The most important thing that I should look forward while building my tower, was the ability to slow down the passage of time in it!
"As for those pieces there, they represent how much we have in stock. Starting from the left, Jibari rock, Dragon's extremum and Solidified Ethernal essence."
Just one look at the prices left me flabbergasted.
One thousand arena coins for just a fist-sized lump of multicoloured stones? How one could be so rich and dumb to even consider wasting so much money on buying them?
"Starting from those three, I want everything up to the limit of fifty thousand arena coins. I need them packed and delivered in a storage ring to my lodgings in one day. Can this be done?"
Chapter end
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