Chương 49: The Market

A gentle morning light filters in from the window as I carefully move Luma off my chest. Standing up from the far too comfy bed, I give a stretch so grand that even a cat would be impressed. Today is not a day for lazing about, though. There is a lot to get done, first up being finding a market of some sort to offload some of the shit I have in my storage. I am glad that the smells don't leak out, cause if they did, I might find it quite hard to make friends.

Heck, they would probably chase me outa the city with pitchforks. But if it did, then everyone else's storages would probably reek too… Tabling the horrifying thought of millions of materials slowly rotting away in storages, I gently put Luma in my hood. Dovey crawled into my phylactery sometime last night, and damn did he look pathetic while doing so. Meanie. Perhaps I am too mean to the little guy. He does have quite a personality to make up for his small size, not to mention the magic. Oh right, magic!

I almost forgot that spell scroll I got. Pulling both Dovey and the Spirit Link scroll into reality, I ask Dovey to stand on a table. Then I unfurl the scroll, the process should be easy enough, I just have to read the words on it. They make absolutely no sense to me, yet some fundamental part of my being seems to hum as I look at them, like the knowledge of what they are is burned into my very core. I definitely shouldn't have put this off for so long. But oh well, I have had a bit of shit on my plate.

Surely the goddess will forgive my brief delay.

"<Spirit Link>." Everything goes very strange as I incant the spell. My senses heighten, and it is like I am seeing a completely different world. It all seems more vibrant, alive and real. Dovey especially, it is like he is shining, it is a bit hard to look at him, even. I feel a slight bit of resistance as the spell makes contact with his spirit or whatever.

Then it is like a thread is built, connecting us together, we get physically tugged a bit closer together, ending up in an awkward situation where I am leaning over the table, sort of hugging him. Master, as much as I do appreciate you. This is a bit too much… He says via the link. Woah, this is strange. It is similar to when you are in the phylactery, though. That would be logical. It is just that we are now linked by this thread, rather than me residing within you.

It is far colder out here though, please let me back inside you! Sighing, I turn off the connection by incanting it again. Then I pull Dovey back into the phylactery. To my great pleasure, the usage of the spell cost almost no spirit energy. Though I bet it will get quite costly when speaking over distances. Yet another thing to shove in my later problems drawer. I glance briefly at the notification informing me of now being an initiate spirit mage.

'Ding', New trait gained, {Initiate Spirit Mage} {Initiate Spirit Mage} You have been recognized by that which binds spirits to this plane. As one possessing such power, do be warned that spirit magic is a strange form of magic. Spirit is a force that governs all beings, from the smallest plant, to the grand spirits themselves. As such, its uses are as wide as the realms themselves. However, do be careful. Toying with a concept that is confusing at best, and mind boggling at worst is not easy.

With great power comes just as much risk of losing control. For one to toy with a spirit is not a task to be taken lightly. One could very easily cause serious injury, or even death. As for the worst outcome, let us just say that there are far worse things than death. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Warnings about grave consequences aside, spirit magic seems useful. Though I have a feeling that it is going to be quite hard to learn.

Something about it being a lost magic and whatnot. I can see why though, spirits are bloody strange. The summoning part aside, I can't imagine spirit spells and such are any more reasonable. With all of that sorted, I leave my room and head down to the receptionist. Who then very politely informs me of a local market that should suit my needs. This place does cater to travellers, so he seemed used to the questions. So I ask another.

"Are we allowed to uh, make domains in the hotel rooms?" He smiles at me, "Of course, each of our rooms comes with top of the line mana scrubbing filters. You should find it remarkably easy to do so. Just please do not create any domains with a power level surpassing master, the containment enchantments are only so strong." Well, that solves where I can forge some equipment. Heading out to the market, I follow the directions given and it only takes me about fifteen minutes.

This city may be massive, but that just means there are a lot of smaller markets and other essentials spread about. From what I can tell, the city is broken up into one hundred districts, each one housing around a million or so people. Basically, it is a really big city made up of big cities. I wander around for a bit, finding various merchants that buy all sorts of things. Some only want woods, some want stones, some take all sorts of monster drops, and one even wanted only ancient artifacts.

There are thousands of merchants here, all mingling about. However, when I walk up to a merchant to sell some of my glimmerwood, she gives me an odd look.

"Just use the interface, dumbasss." She says not very politely. When I push for more information she sighs, yet answers anyways.

"This whole place has a market field interface. Just will it to appear and you'll get a fancy menu to conduct trade with, merchants get more options and fancy doodads, naturally." Under her breath she mutters something not very nice. Walking away, I do test it out. Surely enough, with barely a thought, a menu appears before me. It is a bit overwhelming at first, having a bunch of tabs facilitating everything from simple buying and selling, to auctions and even monetary loans.

Naturally, I go to the selling tab and am met with even more information. Millions of buy orders are available, for all sorts of stuff. There is a convenient filter option with many selections that I can make. But handily, there is also an integration with my storage skill. I just have to select the item I want to sell, and it automatically figures it out and pulls up the best options.

Even more convenient is that the moment I sell something, the item just disappears from my inventory, and the money is automatically deposited. Minus some taxes paid to the merchant that set it up, and the city, of course. It would seem that even in this new world, one cannot escape taxes. I gathered up about seventy units of glimmerwood, and each goes for around two silver coins. I am sure there are better deals or whatever I could find somehow.

But I am no merchant, and don't feel like bothering to ask one for help after that one was so rude. So for now I just sell it all to the highest offer, a tidy sum being deposited right into my account. The next few hours I just mull about the market as I go through the rest of my storage. I truly did have a lot of shit in there. Mostly the hides of monsters I skinned, and meats when it was reasonably salvageable. Though I do have a few more interesting things, like mana crystals and what the system calls orbs.

From what I can tell, the orbs are just like the mana crystals, but more refined somehow. I only got a couple, and they sell for quite a bit more, so I presume they are rarer. Planning out some of my next crafts, I do save a couple things. But most of it is quite low quality, so I just get rid of it, earning a hefty sum in the process. Though, now armed with money, the logical thing to do is to spend it! I browse for a while, sorting through the ridiculous amount of stuff.

My primary target is knowledge, primarily books. The market sells all sorts of them, as well as rarer things like spell scrolls and whatnot. I'll hold off on those for now, as they are quite expensive, even initiate tier ones go for at least a gold per–with one gold being one hundred silvers. My eyes bulge a bit as I see a few master tier scrolls going for over ten thousand gold. In the end, I end up buying a few books. One about the basics of crafting, to hopefully learn how to build a proper forge and such.

I also get one about metallurgy and different alloys that I could possibly make. As I look around, a book about dungeon diving catches my attention, and I grab that. Lastly, I grab a history book about Carnia. I figure if I am going to be staying here for a while, I might as well learn a bit about it. Also, as I currently lack equipment and knowledge of how to make more, I buy some more glintsteel bars. They are apparently a fairly common starting metal, and aren't too expensive.

All told, I came out with a bit of extra money. Though admittedly, I did spend most of what I earned… but it is all an investment! All of this knowledge will pay off very quickly, allowing me to become rich in no time. Thus, it is perfectly fine. Plus I could always like, do a photoshoot with Luma. I bet those pictures could sell for quite a bit. Well, presuming I can find a camera that can image spirits. This city is so massive, I am sure such a thing must exist.