Walking inside the inner city, Sammuel could feel the palpable change in its surroundings. Residents here wore higher-quality fabric and donned expensive jewelry. Order was enforced to a greater degree, mainly overlooking visitors with a keen eye.
Sammuel’s boorish appearance made him stand out quite a bit. There was even a city guard that came to oppress Sammuel yet he managed to get out of this predicament after paying a single gold coin.
Even up here, corruption still runs deep.
A certain shop that dealt with clothes came up. There was a small logo of an F and M placed above it. It was a small establishment compared to the rest of the other buildings here but the cozy feeling inside it was enough to warm someone’s heart.
Sammuel opened up the glass door which caused a bell to ring out.
“Welcome to… Sammuel?” Marie ran out to greet the customer when she ignored everything and jumped at him. She gave him a big hug. He returned the sentiment. “You have to make it up to me, leaving without telling me anything! Hmph!”
Marie grabbed Sammuel’s neck and refused to let go. It needed Fian’s intervention to get Marie off him.
“I expected you to arrive a little sooner and a little later.” Fian brought Marie off and made her get her measuring tools. Sammuel’s clothes were a little roughed up so she could guess why he came here.
“I have a big day tomorrow and I can’t be seen wearing this.” Sammuel took off the outer layer of his clothes and rubbed over the tattered parts.
“You can’t be seen with something Marie worked so hard for? Marie, what do you think? Does he deserve to get another handcrafted work from you?”
“No, he doesn’t. Unless he pays a lot of gold coins for them.” Marie closed her eyes and crossed her arms. “Or he plays with me for the entire day… no, week!”
Sammuel smiled. As the first set of people he grew to understand in this world, they held a soft spot in him. “How valuable are your specifically tailored suits now?”
“10 gold coins.” Marie playfully answered. It was 100x more expensive than what they usually sold for.
“That’s really expensive. What if they break apart during combat?” Sammuel started taking out his pouch filled with coins.
“Then you just need to pay again.”
Sammuel rubbed her nose and faced Fian, “Your daughter’s really greedy. I wonder where that comes from?”
“That’s enough for now. Let’s get you something better to wear for the time being.” Fian was already prepared for when Sammuel would return. She already made another set of clothing that looked identical to what he wore before but was made with even greater items.
Changing his clothes, these were much better than what he had worn before. He could tell that these were leagues better than his old clothes. Just like him making progress in becoming stronger, Fian’s skills had similarly explosively grown with material to actually practice with.
“I actually want to hire you to make something a little more formal. Do you have the time for me?”
“We’re not that swamped with work. We can make time.”
Sammuel took out a special silk from a certain spider. Once Fian saw Sammuel take this out, she couldn’t believe that he could actually acquire something of this material. This was essentially worth its weight in gold if not more.
“Steel Silk? Did you steal this or something? Just how in the world could you get this? It’s even decent quality!” Fian shoved Sammuel aside and started admiring the thread in her hands. “Coming from a rare Feral Steel Spider, you’ll have to find the rare time frame where it would nest itself. You must’ve spent a fortune.”
Sammuel had already known this bit of information. After all, he specifically went out of his way to get this during his week-long venture. If he had sold this back then he would’ve been well over 100 gold coins rich.
“I got lucky. Can you make something with that?”
“I can but it’s not a good idea to make something that’s only made of Steel Silk. It’ll be too heavy to wear around casually. It’s best to pair it with lighter threads that are slightly less heavy. Plus it just wouldn’t look as good.”
Sammuel trusted her words. “Then you can keep the rest. I don’t need it anyway.” Of course, Sammuel could forcefully choose to make it entirely out of Steel Silk. While he’s using [Ego: Runic Bear] or any similarly strong [Ego], he wouldn’t be weighed down at all but if he ever needed to use something as weak as [Ego: Goblin] then he would be shooting himself in the foot.
One could argue that Sammuel could just not use something so weak, he knew better than that. Every single [Ego] had a use. The versatility of [Ego] was exactly what Sammuel’s strength was. Restricting himself was one way to meet his demise.
Taking out 10 gold coins, Sammuel placed in on the counter. “This is for my current clothes.” Sammuel then took out another 10 gold coins. “This is for the next one. I have a feeling that I’ll be needing that in the future.”
Marie shook her head in disbelief. That was 20 gold coins on the table. She was still struggling to understand how valuable a silver coin was while there was something even more valuable there. “That’s a lot of money.”
Even Marie felt bad about taking this much from Sammuel. Although she did say it was 10 gold coins, it was only a joke. She didn’t expect him to actually take it this seriously.
“That’s too much.” Fian couldn’t even bear to take a single gold coin. The extra Spider Silk alone was more than enough for her to make this transaction very profitable.
“Believe it or not, I’ve found someone that’s willing to pay a lot for my skills. I can splurge a bit here and there.” Sammuel’s current way of finding rare treasures was something only he could abuse due to him being able to find harder-to-spot items. “Besides, I have a few questions I’d like to ask you. I have some very important questions that I would like answers to. If you don’t want to answer then I can just take my payment back.”
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Fian mumbled, “How important?”
“Enough to sway the future.”
“Marie, go out and buy some meat from the marketplace. It’s been a while since we’ve had dinner together. Are you free for the night, Sammuel?”
“I would love to.” Sammuel took out a small red vial and placed it on Marie’s hand. “If someone tries to do something to you then just open the cork and splash it over them and run away.”
Fian saw this and realized just what exactly it was. She didn’t say anything at all. This vial was filled with a Hemorrhaging Bat’s blood. It was safe to say what would happen if it touched anything at all.
Marie nodded her head and kept the vial. She then ran off with money in hand to buy something tasty.
“Hemorrhaging Bat blood? That’s something difficult to acquire, especially with how corrosive it was.”
“I somewhat expected you to stop me. It’s pretty dangerous after all.”
“It is but the world is just as dangerous. Marie’s a smart kid, she’ll figure it out.” Fian then gestured for Sammuel to enter deeper into the store. She shut off the blinds and closed the shop. There was no need to welcome new guests for the day.
Within a darker room, Fian started brewing some tea. From the looks of this place, it was smaller than the library but their current lifestyle was much better than before.
“Let’s get to business. Let’s catch up later during dinner when Marie’s here.” Fian poured Sammuel a cup.
“I want to know more about the Reuge Institution and a person named Xeril Earlstein. What’s the connection between them?”
“That’s… Xeril’s here? I guess that recluse has finally shown himself. If anything that man is willing to do anything that revitalizes his fallen family. Seeing that you’re asking about him, you’re acquainted?”
“That’s right.”
“He shouldn’t have any money at hand to pay you off. I guess he’s trying to recruit you because of your ability to make money?”
“I didn’t think you would be wrong. This is actually hilarious to me.” Sammuel smiled. He took a sip. “He’s actually scouting me because of how strong I am.”
“Strong?” Fian placed her hand up to her face. She was confused. From what she had seen, Sammuel might be decent but he shouldn’t be anyone Xeril should be looking at with that kind of mindset.
“I’ve grown pretty strong since then. After all, I’m the one who got that Steel Silk.”
“It seems like I’ve underestimated you once again. Regardless, as you might have guessed, this world has many magical creatures evolved by mana. Mana also has an interesting implication for humans. Once you reach a certain accumulation, you could give up the majority of your strength to become even more talented. A kind of regression.”
Sammuel understood this point. He had [Evolution Condition] that turned Colorless to Bronze at the cost of losing all his levels. That made it so that his base Combat Power and growth was proportionally higher.
“Xeril’s a madman that has done this numerous times, pushing himself again and again but this could only work for so long. Eventually, you will reach a point where you won’t be able to accumulate enough mana to regress. You’ll have to break through to the next stage to refine your talent. I’m guessing Xeril has reached the point where he could no longer refine his talent.”
When Sammuel heard this, he understood this in simpler terms. He kept refining his Card Quality from Colorless up to Diamond whilst accommodating the ever-increasing difficulty of the [Evolution Condition]. From going through the [Evolution Condition], Sammuel clearly knew just how difficult it would be.
For Xeril to push and refine his talent to the Diamond level only made Sammuel understand that Xeril wasn’t the type of person that got to where he was by being born with it, he had worked tirelessly to build up his foundation.
“If sources I’ve heard from before are correct, his path to becoming an Ascendant should be clear. His rise to the top is certain now that he has finished building up his foundation. And Sammuel… I understand you are strong but Xeril is one of the people who will dictate the fate of the world.”
Sammuel understood this clearly. A Colorless Card could only reach the limit of a Star Quality of 1., the Mortal Stage A Bronze Card from his observation could break through this mold and reach a Star Quality of 2, the Awakened Stage.
How did Sammuel learn of this? It was simple. [Ego: Hemorrhaging Bat] had told him.
[Assimilation Requirements:
Breakthrough Condition: Awaken to Mana using [Ego: Hemorrhaging Bat] with a Bronze Card Quality or higher| Reward: Reach Star Quality 2
Evolution Condition: Parasitize the blood of 10 different live creatures with 50 Combat Power or higher | Reward: Bronze to Silver and Level Reset
Condition: Defeat 10 creatures with 50 Combat Power or higher | Reward: Increased Card Rate
Condition: Awaken to Mana | Reward: Increase Mana Affinity
Condition: Gain 5 Bronze Ego (4/5) | Reward: Ego Delegation
Ego Delegation: Change EXP Gain and Affinity Level based on chosen [Ego]. Does not affect inherent stats]
Sammuel didn’t see [Breakthrough Condition] back then when he only had a Colorless [Ego]. Now that he had a Bronze Card reach the level limit, this had shown up. Whether he wanted to break through and reach the Awakened Stage or continue on and refine his Card Quality to an even greater degree.
From the looks of it, [Evolution Condition] would make his very base core stats increase while [Breakthrough Condition] would only increase his limit. Both lead him to becoming stronger but there was an inherent difference between them.
Sammuel understood that if someone wanted to have their path be unhindered, they would need to try and increase their talent when they were weak so that they wouldn’t have to waste their time maxing out their level first.
Xeril had done this optimally which meant that until Star Quality 6, or as Fian has called as being an Ascendant, his path would be unhindered. He was sure to rise to the peak.
“Xeril also has a morally upstanding character. He’s a hot head but he knows what’s right though he gets impulsive from time to time. If he’s interested in your skills then I suggest sticking to him.”
“What about the Reuge Institution? Anything I should know about that place?” Sammuel’s current plan was to understand his options. Money wasn’t an issue at all since he could make a lot of it for the time being. The current greatest weakness he had was the lack of [Skills]. [Flowing Swordsmanship] might be a phenomenal ability but it was only one. Adding more was crucial if he ever wanted to become stronger in a short amount of time.
“A place where you could learn to master all types of weaponry. In my opinion, your [Flowing Swordsmanship] is a cut above the other sword techniques that they offer. So you might get disappointed when you see them.”
“A noble family’s technique seems really strong then.”
“Especially Xeril’s [Point Burst]. The Reuge Institution shouldn’t be your focus but instead learning from Xeril. How you go about it depends on you.”
The doorbell rang on the outside. Marie had finished shopping. “I’m home!”
“Let’s see what Marie brought back.” Fian turned her business mind off. She returned to being Marie’s caring mother.
“I’m starving.” Sammuel also left behind the mindset of growing stronger for dinner. Only focusing on becoming stronger wasn’t a lifestyle that Sammuel wanted. Times like this when he would just relax and enjoy others’ company were one of the joys he was looking forward to.
“Wait, do you mind if I bring introduce someone else? He’s a little odd but he has big dreams.” Sammuel’s mind recalled someone who he thought would appreciate some company.
Fian was a little apprehensive about the thought but Marie seemed to like the idea. Sammuel went off and brought Lawrence here against his will. His hair was a mess and his posture was unhealthy.
It took a while before Lawrence became comfortable but through Sammuel’s convincing they started talking about similar topics. As it turned out Fian was a lot more knowledgeable than Lawrence expected. He grew to respect Fian’s words as he inspired him in his current research.
After the night ended, three different paths had collided. Oddly enough, they all seem to have something in common with each other. It was a great night where everyone enjoyed their time.