"Wow, where did you get these?" Seth asked excitedly.

Materials with an affinity to fire and earth were great stuff for him. It was a shame that obsidian was very fragile, unlike the he had used for his cuirass.

This meant that these materials were more suited to be used in jewelry, than as armor or weapons. Of course, he could also use them as nuclei for enchantments on weapons or armor. Those were mostly needed as a power source for semi-permanent enchantments.

Seth did never have a need to use this method, since it was mostly to hike up the price, in his opinion. He admitted that semi-permanent enchantments were better for regular adventurers, but as the person making the items, it was a waste of time.

Even without this method Seth never had a problem selling his items and he himself had no need for it since he had .

Nonetheless, he could make some great jewelry from this obsidian, and maybe he could use some of them in the items for the auction later on when the average item quality rose. It was a cheap way to make a rare rated item and here were a lot of obsidian shards.

"One of my cousins is a miner. He was part of a scavenger squad looking for rations when they came across a giant battlefield. It must have been a fearsome fight between giant beasts. He described the buildings were toppled and crushed. The ground was turned upside down with deep trenches and holes everywhere. He found these with . At that time, they were scattered all over the place."

Seth was not a scammer, so he truthfully relayed what these obsidian shards were to Bart.

"If it's true what you say, then the fight must have crushed some ore vein. Hehe, even if he had found the vein, there's no way he would have been able to mine it. I saw the light in your eyes, do you want these?"

"Yeah, but I don't think I can give you anything that rivals their worth." Even so these shards were good, Seth was not really willing to part with anything rare rated he made himself. It would break the balance too easily and fasten the progression of others. On the other hand, offering them money or system money also made little sense, since they had no possibility to use it.

"Hmm, what can you offer us?"

Seth contemplated and offered them all the loot from the bandits they killed. There were a lot of good common and uncommon items among these. At least good enough that Seth thought of selling them in the city. He didn't consult the others this time, as this was merely a question of money.

Seth brought out several boxes holding the armor, weapons, and accessories they had looted from the bandits and their base. It was no small amount, but for Seth, their value was vanishingly small compared to a full box of rare minerals.

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Bart's eyes widened when he saw all the items Seth offered for the box of glass shards. He had heard what Seth had told him, but to him, they were still relatively useless glass shards. Where would he get someone that could process them?

But here his trading partner offered him a whole armory of supposedly good equipment for it. This was a fantastic deal in his eyes. The power boost this would give their stronghold would permanently improve their living conditions and chances of survival in case of an emergency. Bart reigned in his enthusiasm.

He sent for someone who could appraise the items, to make sure they were real. Seth nodded to show that he was not offended. It took only a short while for someone to arrive.

"This is my cousin Art, short for Arthur, his class is Trader, so he has a universal appraisal skill."

Art nodded as a greeting. He was not a man of many words as he immediately started checking the gear. He may not speak a lot, but his expression easily betrayed his thoughts, when he looked at the items. The trader confirmed that they were all common or uncommon items with mediocre to good effects across the board.

Bart could not hide the twinkle in his eyes as he hurriedly sealed his deal with Seth. Seeing the other so happy, he had no scruples about this deal and stashed away the box of obsidian.

In the box were roughly 50 pieces of and 15 pieces of . It was a shame that he could not make pure armor out of these, but they would definitely turn into some great items in his hands.

At the thought of making some great items, he remembered something.

"Oh yeah, would you be willing to give me that storm orb? I could offer you these."

He brought out the boots and greaves he had made to wear before he ended up making his "Disruptor Boots". As Art was unable to appraise them it was clear that these were also rare items. When Seth explained to them the basic enchantments of Agility and Endurance +35 each their eyes went wide. Although it would cost them mana to activate, it was a tremendous boost.

It was a phenomenal deal for the stronghold. They switched a ball that only hurt people for some boots and greaves that could be used as-is. Seth packed away the red box with the orb. And thus, their deal was concluded. The stronghold's people had gotten a massive power-up. With these items, they could equip all their fighting personal and resist even stronger monsters.

And the party had gotten a truckload of more materials to train , and even cooking. Seth still needed some time to come up with a plan for what he would use the obsidian, but he already knew what to do with the sphere.

The important part of the sphere's description was that it was not only a finished item but also a crafting material. Seth could use this orb as the nucleus of staff for Alison. A mean one at that. They stayed in the stronghold for a night before setting off again.

Link had asked Evee to set up wards before they left, but the party decided against it. Learning from Evee's experiences, it was not a good idea to own the only safe zone in a lawless monster-ridden world. At least not, if you lacked the strength to defend it.

They entered the great highway again and had a more or less quiet journey back to civilization and they soon met up again with the mercenaries from the church. It looked like they had no trouble staying at the edge of the safe zone for the week the party was away. But everyone was happy to finally return as the party entered the wagon and they got on their way back.

The party mostly slept on their way back. Not to mention Seth and the others who had kept running around for several days, Evee who had not slept for almost a year had a lot of sleep to catch up on.