Chương 355: New Boost

The following day, after sending Elicia to his parents and his normal exercise, Damion let Phil out to roam and headed to Argentum. His goal was to trade the Shadow affinity cores for as many common cores as he could. He opened his Portal to the outskirts of the city as James Picard and headed towards Calm Sea.

He felt that as James Picard it was best to disassociate himself from places of business that Damion Wells frequented, hence going to the artificer shop run by the Caplan family instead of Teft Artifacts and Adventurer Supplies. Of course, the fact that the Caplan family likely had more cores on hand than the Teft family was an added bonus.

"Welcome to Calm Sea," Afifa Caplan greeted Damion when he entered.

"What can I help you with today?" The Caplan family store clerk looked the same as she did last time he was here for a trade. Damion had considered going to one of the other noble family shops, but he liked the Sorin and the Thorn family even less than the Caplan family and the Moretti family shop, Fire's Hammer was much further away.

"I am hoping to trade some rare affinity cores for common affinity cores."

"Certainly. The common cores we have on hand are Fire, Earth and Water. What rare affinities are you looking to dispose of?"

"Shadow affinity."

"That is a rare one indeed," the woman responded.

"We are willing to trade three of our common cores for each Shadow affinity core."

"My cores are all C Rank, and one B Rank, would it be possible to trade four to one?" Damion asked. He knew the value of his cores could potentially get him five to one at the right shop, but he did not want to appear greedy.

"Four to one? All C Ranks and one B Rank, give me one moment to check." Afifa Caplan spoke into her communication tablet for a moment before turning back to Damion with a smile on her face.

"Do you have a preference on which type of common core you are seeking?"

"No. Just looking to get the maximum number of cores I can. Affinity is not an issue."

"Are you by chance going to be using these cores as trades for the artifact optimization services of Mage Damion Wells?" The question was a bit of a shock to Damion. Learning that word of his services had reached the White Zone was a surprise. Judging by the sound of the question, the Caplan family was not entirely thrilled with his service.

"No, these will be used for my own profit. I'm a Spatial mage, so I travel a lot, and I have a good market for the more common cores. Besides, most of my gear is already B Rank, I've heard Mage Wells can't enhance B Rank artifacts."

"Is that so?" Afifa Caplan said, eyeing Damion closely. While she was looking him over, Damion noticed on her finger an artifact, which True Sight identified as a lie detection ring similar to the one Headmaster Sorin had. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"It's what I've heard. I trade my cores to a specialty shop and not to anyone else. Is Mage Wells causing problems for you all?"

"Not exactly. It is just a situation we are keeping an eye on. What shop do you trade with?"

"You can't expect a middleman like me to give away my best trading partner," Damion told her, receiving a snort in response. Damion was slightly relieved by her answer, however, knowing that they were keeping an eye on him, was still somewhat worrisome. If the Caplan family was keeping an eye on him then so were the other noble families.

'Wait. What am I worried for? They've always been keeping an eye on me,' Damion suddenly realized.

'This new scrutiny is probably because they are trying to determine how much money I am costing them.'

"Well, I have 147 C Rank Shadow affinity cores," Damion told her, taking the spatial stretching box holding them out.

"And of course, the single B Rank core."

"Odd that there are not more lower Rank cores," Afifa Caplan said.

"All the cores come from Shadow Rend Bats, a whole nest of them. I killed the B Rank without even noticing."

"Is that so. Very well. In exchange for your 147 C Rank cores, here are 588 C Rank cores, split evenly between Fire, Earth and Water. And for the B Rank core, here are 4 Fire affinity B Rank cores."

"Excellent," Damion said with a big grin on his face. He quickly stored the boxes of cores in the Magic System Inventory and started to head out the door.

"Might I ask if you will be returning with another batch of rare cores in the future?" Afifa Caplan called out to Damion before he could leave the store.

"I'm not really sure. Coming across those Shadow Rend Bats was by chance. Perhaps I will have more in the future, but it is hard to know for sure." Before the store clerk could ask him anything else, Damion was out the door. He quickly rounded the corner of the block, cast Portal and was gone. He moved quickly since he was worried someone might try and follow him. However, even if the Caplan family did send someone to follow him, they would not have been able to follow him through the Portal.

Once Damion was safely back in his underground house, he was ready to collect his credits.

'System, convert the cores I received today to credits.' {Affirmative. Converting 592 cores to 298, 000 credits.} The new cores bumped him above 3. 5 million credits for the Magic System Shop. Seeing the increase made him want to go on a shopping spree. But the only thing he could think he should really purchase was more magic regeneration. He wanted to be able to keep a domain spell and a mastery spell active at the same time, right now he was quite a bit short on having the regeneration to do so.

'System, purchase Increase Magic Regeneration.' {Affirmative.} {Increase Magic Regeneration purchased for 168 Credits.} {Magic Regeneration has increased by 35.}'Not enough,' Damion thought. He needed to get up to 350 magic regeneration if he wanted both spells active, and that was just those spells. If he wanted his passive spells active or other spells, he needed even more regeneration.

'System, purchase Increase Magic Regeneration.' {Affirmative.} {Increase Magic Regeneration purchased for 252 Credits.} {Magic Regeneration has increased by 40.}'Again.' {Affirmative.} {Increase Magic Regeneration purchased for 378 Credits.} {Magic Regeneration has increased by 45.}'One more time System.' {Affirmative.} {Increase Magic Regeneration purchased for 567 Credits.} {Magic Regeneration has increased by 50.} The four purchases granted him an increase of 170 mana per second for his magic regeneration rate. Combined with his base of 212, he now had enough mana to keep both a domain spell and a mastery spell active at the same time. He was tempted to keep purchasing mana regeneration upgrades, but he knew he would need time to familiarize himself with his new power.

No matter if it was an insanely high mana regeneration rate, like he had, or chugging mana potions to recover and cast more spells, there was only so much the body could handle before it would succumb to exhaustion. Damion had just raised the bar of what his core could do, now he needed to acclimate his body to it. Over time, his body would become more capable and able to handle more and more mana flowing through it without the threat of mana exhaustion looming over him, but it would take time.