Tigris paled, “What kind of title is First World Eater?”
Jean’s guilt returned. Stammering he got out, “It’s from the confluence essence that I took back. It gave me an essence ability that triggered a race change to Eater of Worlds. But I took it back, so I don’t know why it would have kept the ‘first’ title for it.”
Tigris used his aura to push down into Jean seeking out his intentions. The intrusive drive sent Jean to the ground, curling up into a fetal position. Nearly a minute of probing the heart and feelings later, Tigris stopped the forceful aura intrusion. He held out his hand to Jean.
“Come on Jean, get up. Sorry I had to do that. I just needed to make sure you weren’t lying or that you would not end up eating a world.” Tigris said with a passive voice.
Jean, feeling betrayed, looked up at him. “Of course, I wouldn’t eat a world. You’ve known me for a couple of days. Do I seem like the kind of guy who would eat worlds!” Jean screamed.
“Well done. You restrained your aura while screaming at me.” Tigris said unfazed.
Jean stared at him with daggers, “Don’t do that again, all right? I hate that feeling of vulnerability when you do that.”
“Very well then,” Tigris said before turning and continuing to walk. “You must understand that you are an anomaly. If it wasn’t for your heart, I would have just killed you. Our world needs powerful peacekeepers, not those who would hurt others for gain. And if you still had whatever kind of essence ability from your confluence of terrors… I would definitely have just removed you.”
Jean, still upset, nodded to Tigris, “I… understand.”
The pair continued to walk in silence. Jean wasn’t sure but it seemed like they were going in a different direction from before.
Jean was surprised by the soft tone of voice that came from Tigris as he said, “I want you to become strong.”
“Why?”
“There are too many in this world who become strong only to destroy. I don’t think you’ll do that. Later, if you would let me, I would like to know what your own soul looks like.”
Jean didn’t respond but pondered his words in his heart.
________
Twelve-foot-high double doors swung open to reveal a medieval stone city. The city felt perfectly crafted, with nearly everything built out of hewn stone, with wooden signs jutting out from various buildings advertising their respective names and products. The thing that shocked Jean as he walked in was the astounding lack of people.
“This is the town’s mercantile district. Along the right are weapon and armor and alchemy shops, and along the left are more mundane restaurants and household things.” Tigris said while immediately going right.
Jean followed Tigris feeling like a child in a grocery store following his mom. That is until he started to look into some windows to see goods, then it felt like a candy store.
“You’ll need some basic iron rank gear and a few potions,” Tigris said much like a mom would, as he dug through his purse for chump change. He handed Jean six silver spirit coins, and said, “That should be more than enough to get what you need. Oh, and you don’t have your full set of awakening stones either. Grab a couple more, but leave several slots to fill later. I suggest grabbing a Vast and an elemental awakening stone, each. Maybe a Renewal if they’ve got them at Mykyo’s shop.
A few minutes later they were in front of a generalist's shop for iron rank goods. Above the reed knit door, there was a carved sign that read Mykyo’s Total Prep. Tigris gave him a push forward and began to walk away.
“Wait, where are you going?” Jean said to Tigris's back.
“When you are done, just go to the castle’s front door and call for Cumulon. He will take you back to your cell for the night.” Then Tigris turned a corner and Jean was alone, the only person standing on the street.
Jean walked up to the door and pushed it open. Inside he found a highly organized store with hundreds of weapons, armor sets, potions, awakening stones, and many items that Jean couldn’t recognize. In the far back, there was a counter where a stunning woman was on a stationary bike riding for her life, staring at a glass screen.
“Hold on a moment, and I’ll be right over! I’m on my last lap!” Hollered the lady, presumably Mykyo.
Jean took that as permission to walk about the store. He had no idea what to get. He glanced over at the weapons but figured that he would just use his bone claws and spears as his weapons, so he moved on slowly. His childlike wonder rested on some swords that were radiating power. Jean poked a sword, only to have his arm blown backward, instantly feeling numb. He let out a light yelp but held his tongue, while he embarrassedly scurried to another aisle.
As Jean was looking at a few sets of leather armor, Mykyo, a sweaty mess walked around the corner. She had a messy bun on her head and wore a slim breathable romper. Jean would have guessed her to be twenty but he had recently been learning that essence users didn’t show age nearly as much once ranking up a couple of times, so he had no clue how old she really was. She was dripping sweat and was clearly looking at Jean with pity.
“‘Sup young man, how can a help you?” Mykyo said with pep.
“Hi, I’m about to go north and my master dropped me off to get some general supplies, but I’ve got no idea what I should get,” Jean said quickly, realizing that he very well may have never talked to a woman as attractive as her. Essence users tended to be far more attractive than regular people, considering how essences purged impurities and gradually shifted bodies to an ideal condition. Jean even reached up to feel the light stubble on his nearly bald head out of embarrassment.
“No worries, I’ll hook you up. Let’s go sit down. Tell me, what type of fighter are you?” She asked while grabbing his hand and dragging him to the counter area.
“Well, I’m not too sure. I’ve got some aura abilities, but I’ve mostly used conjured spears and claws for fighting.”
“That’s ok, I’ll pick out some balanced stuff and guess that you’ll be a bit of a scrapper if you are using claws. Can I see them?”
Sitting at a few benches in an open area beside the workout equipment Mykyo was using, Jean shot out his bone claws from between his knuckles. “These are them,” Jean said while remembering how they tore through a zombie’s spine.
“Spooky,” Mykyo said jovially, “I’ll be selective on gloves then. Anything else specifically that I should know before I grab some things?”
“Well, I might be shifting my bone around a bit, but I’m not sure how to do that in a helpful way yet,” Jean said.
“Really spooky, ok, I’ll get some stuff with automatic fitting, so the armor can change with you to a degree. By the way, you have money, right?”
Jean pulled out the six silver spirit coins from a pocket and put them in her hand. “Will this be enough to get me fully equipped?”
“Absolutely. I can get you fully hooked up. Did you need any awakening stones? I’ve got a nice selection, and I’ll give them to you for free if you spend all six silver.”
“Yeah, my master asked if I could grab a vast and a renewal awakening stone. Are you sure you can just give those away? It doesn’t seem like they’re that cheap.” Jean asked.
Mykyo’s face darkened. “I’m not sure where you are from, but we’ve got more than enough awakening stones to go around for those who need them. To be honest, it’s strange to even have a visitor here. Where are you from?”
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“I…I was just brought here by Gabe, the staff monk guy.” Jean said, not wanting to be dishonest.
“Hmm,” Mykyo sounded with suspicion, “Gabe does do weird things. All right, let me grab you some things.” With that she stood and ran around the store for a few minutes, piling things in front of Jean with inhuman speed.
“Wow.” Jean looked down at a table full of stuff. “I can afford all this?”
“Yep, some of it is epic quality, but it’s all iron rank. You know?” She tilted her head, “One of your mentors will get you a fire amulet right?”
“I’ve got no idea. Both people who are looking after me aren’t very good communicators.” Jean said with a shrug.
“Ok, I’ll assume so, but if they don’t you’ll have to save up for a while to rent one. Those things are expensive as you might imagine.” Mykyo said.
Jean sheepishly rose his hands indicating that he had no idea how expensive anything was. So there was no hope of understanding the need or value of a fire amulet.
Mykyo gave him a sharp look in his eyes, then got super close to his face and sniffed, “For Destruction's sake! You’re an outworlder!”
“I…” Jean was abruptly cut off.
“Nope, out of my shop!” Mykyo stood and started to shoo him out.
“But I need some gear and stuff!” Jean protested as he was being pushed out.
“Nope. I’m not having another outworlder take our stuff and die in the wilderness. You can’t save us, and we don’t want you to. Now out!” Mykyo tossed Jean through the door onto the street.
Jean landed hard on his face. Groaning, he rolled over onto his side just soon enough to see the reed door slam. “Now what?” Jean slowly sat up and touched his face to feel the damage. His face was scratched enough to leave blood on his hand and was definitely going to bruise.
She still has the six silver that Tigris gave me.
Standing, he walked over to the door and slowly opened it. Mykyo was sitting on the counter staring at him as he stepped inside.
Jean spoke with steady resolution in the front of the doorway, “I either need the stuff or the coin back. I don’t want to cause you any problems, but I can’t lose what has been given to me.”
The shopkeeper gave him a look of defiance, and within two seconds he was thrown back outside onto his butt, now with a bruised chest. But once again he staggered up and stepped inside. “I really need you to respect your trade, and sell to me, or give me my money back.”
She looked at him with narrowed eyes, stepping up to his face. “If you want the stuff, why don’t you try to take it.”
“I will take the things I’ve paid for if you step out of my way. It’s my right to take what I’ve bought.” Jean stared back into her eyes.
He felt a wave of her aura hit him, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as what Tigris had put him through, so he was able to bare it while standing.
She broke eye contact and turned around to the pile of stuff. “Fine, at least you’ve got some resolve. I’m not giving you the awakening stones though. Instead, I’ll give you a few basic skill books. Real people usually can’t use them anyway.”
Jean tensed as he heard her say, real people, but didn’t want to press what was close to a victory. He followed behind her and sat down once they were in front of the stuff.
“You people around here are really intense,” Jean said while picking up a couple of small potions.
“Yeah, well we have to be. I bet you came from a perfect world with world peace already achieved for a thousand years. We actually have to fight to survive here.” Mykyo said with pain and venom in her voice.
“It’s not like that in my world. We don’t have zombies, but friends and family die all the time from gang violence in my neighborhood.” Jean said while passively touching things.
Mykyo’s demeanor softened a little but she still didn’t sit. After a moment of silence, she pointed at the light brown leather armor. “Let me show you what is in front of you, then you can go. Put these on.”
Jean pulled on the armor which was like a soft leather shirt with the collar going up his neck, and leather pants with buttons instead of a zipper. Jean awkwardly put everything on over the light clothing he was wearing before. Both articles of clothing automatically resized to fit him perfectly.
“That set should last you your whole rank. They are auto repairing and generally resistant. They won’t block much blunt force, but they will be very hard to cut or burn through. These boots and belt are going to be a bit tricky to work with though. The boots have a slow-fall effect and a higher heat resistance than the rest of your armor, and the belt is made from a dragon hide and will give your torso some significant magic resistance, but make sure you don’t wear it in front of a dragon, for obvious reasons; they will want to kill you really bad. That’s the obvious reason if you weren’t catching on.”
Jean felt the tingle of magic around his body when he put the belt on, and as he put the boots on, he nearly fell backward. The moment they were on, they started to float upward.“That’s not very user-friendly. If I fell off a building I’d more likely just land on my head.”
“Only if you don’t get used to them, but if you want, I can replace them with something more mundane,” Mykyo said.
“Yeah, that would probably be for the best, besides, I have claws on my feet. I doubt I’ll use them, but still, I don’t want to tear up better shoes.” Jean explained.
“Oh, that seems spooky, let me see them.”
Jean let his foot claws loose, once the shoes were off, on the bare floor.
“Interesting,” The shopkeeper mused, “It would probably be best if you didn’t wear shoes at all with those gnarly things. Walk around for me.”
Jean felt uncomfortable with the request since he had never tried walking around while they were extended, but he tested it out. Standing, he found that the foot claws weren’t in the way at all, rather they gave a sense of grip to the floor. He took several steps and went into a light sprint down the hall before pivoting with an immediate stop and bursting into the other direction like he was doing soccer drills.
“Woah, that felt natural,” Jean said while testing his weight on his front claws and back.
“Yup, it’s as I thought, they are meant for mobility. Let me see if I have foot wraps for you to use instead of shoes.” Mykyo turned and went into a back room that wasn’t accessible to customers.
She soon came back to see Jean hopping around like an idiot around the store, looking agile for an iron ranker who had never gone out into the field before.
“Come on ya doofus, put these on,” Mykyo said while hiding a smile.
Jean was instantly embarrassed when he realized how he looked, but he was excited to be able to move better than he had before. He felt significantly stronger and lighter on his feet than a week before.
He walked over and Mykyo showed him how to put on the wraps. He was happy that the shopkeeper’s anger at him was fading. Once they were on for the second time after he wrapped it himself he said,
“Thanks. I appreciate you showing me how to do this. I am lost enough in this world, and it’s good to have strangers who are willing to look past their reservations about me. I get that outworlders have caused problems somehow, but I’m just trying to stay alive here.”
Mykyo responded with a hesitant head bob and moved passed the sentiment by addressing the books on the table. “Have you ever used a skill book before? Outworlders can usually use them.”
Jean shook his head and picked up a book.
Would you like to learn Familiar Summoning for Dummies?
Jean looked at Mykyo, “May I?”
She nodded and said, “You might want to lay down.”
Jean followed the advice and lay on the bench before consenting to the mental prompt.
The book vanished from his hands while the letters from the pages seemed to stay for a minute before turning into a cyclone of text and funneled into Jean’s face. The feeling was rather uncomfortable physically, but the feeling of learning an entire book’s worth of knowledge in a moment was the most exciting magic Jean had experienced.
“Woo, let’s do that again!” Jean said with a smile, “Do you know how well I could have done in school if there was one of these for algebra?”
“There are skill books for algebra. Want me to grab you one? I’ll go get one. Take a spirit coin and then go for the next one. It’s a skill book for earth-related rituals and the other is for cloud-related rituals. It’s the basics if you want to live in the city.” Mykyo got up and went towards the bookshelves.
Jean ate an Iron spirit coin that he popped out of his inventory, then settled in to learn about earth and cloud ritual magic.
_______
Jean walked out of Mykyo’s Total Prep. He turned to shake the hand of his new acquaintance with a hand outstretched, “It was nice meeting you and getting thrown out of your shop twice. My name is Jean, by the way.” He said with a smile.
Mykyo shook his hand, “Mykyo the fifth. Don’t go causing people problems ok?”
“I’ll do my best. But no promises, I’m a bit hard-headed.”
“Somehow I don’t believe you in that regard.” With a smile, Mykyo went back into her shop.
Jean left looking like a completely different man. He wore leather and had a splitting bruise on his face. And he had far more knowledge of how magic worked. He would still need to dwell on facts and fill some holes with reasoning, but he felt far less lost.
He was also equipped with a hammock and tent, some basic camping gear, rope, a dozen healing potions, mana potions, and stamina potions. And he also had a few stranger miscellaneous magic items, like a comb to grow out his hair at startling speed, and a brush that cleaned the body and everything else with magical efficiency. He also got a cup that absorbed ambient magic and produced water. That one was a little hard to believe for Jean.
Mykyo didn’t end up giving him any awakening stones, but Jean already had three that he hadn’t used yet, so he wasn’t too disappointed. It was hard enough to come to grips with the powers he already had.
Walking down the still empty street, Jean glanced in some windows and saw a few tradesmen in their shops building things. He lingered at the window of a jewel shop. He watched as a large lioness woman throw magic by the handful across the workshop only to be sucked in by a ring on a stand. When she was done, she looked over at him and gave a wave. He returned the wave with a smile and continued on.
Then he got to the base of the cloud castle and called for Cumulon. Cumulon promptly formed out of the fortress wall and started to walk into the castle. Jean followed him for twenty minutes through the castle to the sky cells. Jean happily entered his cell, as the door closed behind him.
Now, let’s get to those awakening stones.