The almighty Time had claimed five whole months of Apolo's life, yet cruelly, it had given him nothing in return. It seemed that the warnings of the tailor Lionel had not been in vain, for Apolo was truly finding it challenging to find what he sought. In reality, the great problem lay in something Apolo had wished to hear in the past. However, the young noble had never anticipated the consequences that this event could have on his plans. The pleasant news was that the Gururis were terribly cheap, and yet, this magnificent news had turned into a curse for the young noble.
Being so inexpensive, Gururis were used by a wide range of people in the Ring City, including low-income families, novice traders, and artisans with limited resources. So, in reality, it was quite easy to obtain two newborn Gururis.
Despite this seemingly good news, the truth was that what was obstructing Apolo's plans was the fact that, due to their low cost, it was quite complicated, if not impossible, to find an old Gururi that had been used by a wizard. To the point where Apolo had spent a full five months specializing in the Gururi market to expand his chances of success, and yet he still saw no results.
With the budget of a wizard and considering it was a one-time purchase for a lifetime, the general rule was to buy the most expensive option: the Goros. Although their price hovered around 10,000 crystals, they were still affordable for wizards who relied solely on the imperial budget and had no achievements. Such wizards would only need to save for a few years and work a bit in the Ministry of Magic. Nevertheless, if you were a wizard who was somewhat more conservative with expenses and not so concerned about preserving your noble status, you could opt to buy a Gero, priced at around 3,500 crystals.
On the other hand, if you were a wizard who truly didn't want to save or wait and had a budget somewhat consumed by other expenses, you could still obtain one of the older variants, such as the Giri, which were around 300 crystals. And lastly, if you were a wizard and also had the spirit of a miserable rat living inside you, you could opt to acquire Gururis, whose price ranged from 15 to 1 crystal, depending on their age.
This range of accessible prices for everyone meant that practically any citizen of the Ring City could obtain a Gururi, and despite their significant flaws, they were actually very popular among the lower classes. However, a wizard was someone of high status and wealth, so it would be frowned upon if they purchased a Gururi, further diminishing Apolo's chances.
After these long months of research and learning about this vast market, Apolo had become the greatest Gururi specialist in the empire, and that was not an exaggeration. This "great" achievement was partly due to the fact that Apolo was probably the only citizen of the empire crazy and rich enough to spend an immense fortune on obtaining information about these creatures as cheap as three chickens.
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One thing was certain: Apolo was the only citizen of the empire who could treat the understanding of these creatures as a matter of life or death. After what had happened in the Ministry of Magic, acquiring Gururis had become an obsession for the young man. The best way to win the favor of his ancestors was to fulfill their last words to the letter, and at this moment, Apolo believed he needed to have the dead on his side to counterbalance all those he had offended.
In total, Apolo had spent more than 4,000 crystals just to obtain information about these creatures. Which wasn't particularly difficult because information about these creatures was quite abundant, although this "vital" knowledge was scattered and somewhat lost among the poor families of the Ring City. Among his acquisitions were everything from secret books that had fallen out of use over time to anecdotes from an elderly woman who had had a Gururi as a servant her whole life. For Apolo, all information was valuable, useful, and important. Fortunately, the people who had the most information about these strange creatures were the low-income families of the Ring City, who were quite easy to convince and were fascinated by the idea that if they could provide some useful information to this nobleman, they could get free crystals in exchange for an interview.
Already, Apolo had the reputation of being the greatest scrap collector in the Ring City, and now it seemed he was striving to become the grand master of the poor servants' market. At this point, the young noble's name was gradually echoing through the alleys of the Ring City and was becoming a somewhat familiar figure. After all, the lives of nobles and the poor were divided by an immense wall, so the legend of a noble so interested in the lives of the poor was a rumor with the potential to spread like wildfire. For his part, the young noble also spent crystals to increase this fame, and above all, the goal of his search. In the end, the more people knew what he was looking for, the more likely it was that someone would voluntarily approach him to try to sell it.
As for today, Apolo was heading towards one of the regions of the Ring City where supposedly the most important slave market in the empire was located. Although the creatures the young man was looking for were not considered slaves, there was still the possibility that they were sold alongside the slaves, as their use was very widespread. According to rumors that had reached Apolo, there were some slave shops that traded in these creatures.
Given the complicated distances in the Ring City, Apolo had not returned to his mansion for five months. During these long months, the young noble had spent his time sleeping in the carriage or in temporary hotels, depending on the duration of his stay in the area. Fortunately, the carriage was quite large, and he had already prepared another carriage to carry the belongings he would use from time to time.
Apolo was one hundred percent sure that he must be the only noble in this empire willing to endure such torture as living in a carriage so close to his mansion, but there was a problem that prevented him from returning and sending other servants to investigate for him.
The reason was mainly that the knowledge to analyze a Gururi was quite complex to explain, and the second reason was that there were too many people trying to deceive him, and he had already been deceived several times. Therefore, the young noble had to personally verify each Gururi he purchased to see if it was indeed the coveted Gururi that had belonged to a wizard or if it was just another scam from some scoundrel.