I went to the mall.

I’d contemplated waiting until I was out of the city to get new gear, but considering that my current plan was to catch a transport ship to Haux, a godless town ten hours west of the Desolation, there was a chance that I might not find what I was looking for and have to settle for subpar gear. Here, I knew I’d be able to get something for my level, though it was almost a certainty that I’d have to have it custom made. Stores would buy gear, so there was always the chance of finding something used that had been refurbished, but usually weapon and armor stores would keep unenchanted Items at 1, 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50, then level the items up to where the Adventurer wanted them to be and apply the requested weapon enchantment.

The mall was pretty lively considering it was still the middle of the day. Most Adventuring teams would be in one of the three Dungeons in Tres at this time of day, so I hadn’t expected the stores to have too much traffic, though the Dispatchers would limit how many teams were allowed on each floor and some teams would rather just take a day off if they weren’t able to secure a slot on floor twenty five, twenty seven, or thirty six. Those were considered event floors because they had higher spawn rates than the other floors. They would also spawn an event boss once the team had killed even monsters, making it a good way to get loot. The forties only had floor forty nine as an event floor, making the jump from forty nine to fifty much easier than the grind through the forties, but there wasn’t any event floors in the fifties, which meant that most Adventurers who were pushing their level would peter out somewhere in the lower fifties if they even managed to make the climb through the forties at all. The number of level sixty-plus Adventurers was so few that there were less than a hundred in the whole world and most of them were fairly well known. There was only one Tier Six Adventurer in the Cathedral Ward and he’d holed himself up at the Cathedral where he taught.

I walked into Bright Weapons and nodded at the milky-skinned, blonde-haired, green-eyed woman behind the counter.

“Good afternoon!” The fifty-nine year-old clerk smiled at me. “I’m Nancy Bright, is there anything I could help you with today?”

“Hi Nancy, I’m Viskor Heema.” I caught her reaction and tried to ignore it. The Heema were painters in town and while my family thought of themselves as artists, we were nowhere near as good as the Jass from Juel, who made a point of swallowing up any blossoming young talent into their family. That meant that the family was almost always broke and we weren’t known for pushing any of the higher floors either. My name alone meant that she likely wasn’t going to be making much.

“I’m wanting to get back into Adventuring, but I sold off all my old gear a while ago.” I began walking over to the Tier Four section. “My weapon of choice is a longsword…” I tried to think of what type of monsters were in the Tine Dungeon. “Maybe you have an uncommon one that you could enchant with Rock Piercer and take to level forty-eight?” I began looking through the generic swords until I found one with a black blade and silver crossguard.

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I tested the sword in my hands with a few simple slashes, then looked at the price tag. It was level forty four and was listed at forty thousand All. The level-up cost was listed as one thousand All per level and the enchantment cost was going to be thirty thousand All.

“I would love to work on that for you!” The older woman came around the counter and took the sword from me. “If you want to get checked out, I can start on this right away.”

“Sure…” I looked around. “Do you sell elemental powder here too?”

“We keep that in the counter.” The blonde walked back over to the counter. “Are you wanting a specific element or a case?”

If you were farming in a specific Dungeon, then getting a weapon that had a specific element would be the way to go. In the long run, it’d be cheaper, but I wasn’t sure what I’d be running into, which was why I got the Rock Piercer enchantment. It wouldn’t do for me to go up against a monster with a hard shell and not be able to damage it. By using elemental powder, I could give my weapon an elemental property for a few hours. I looked at the prices that she had displayed on the screen at the counter. A case with five crystals of each element was going to run three thousand All, which would bring my total to seventy seven thousand All. I still wanted to buy a crossbow and needed a full set of armor, but boots, gloves, pants, a jacket and a helmet were only six more items, which I should be able to get for under half a million. That would leave me with a decent amount leftover.

“I’ll take a case.” I cued the trade screen on my CB and waited for her to put everything in the register.

“That’s seventy-seven thousand All.” Nacy finished putting everything together.

I completed the transaction. “When can I pick it up?”

Nancy looked at the schedule by the register. “The smiths have a few other projects, but we should have this done by morning. Is there somewhere you’d like it sent?”

“I’ll be by in the morning to pick it up.” If I had it sent to the palace, then it would leave a trail that I knew Sipher was smart enough to have followed. Sending it to the Heema estate wasn’t really an option either, since I hadn’t lived there in sixteen years when I’d gotten my mantle. I wasn’t part of the main family branch, so I rarely went back, and given my job as a palace guard, there wasn’t much expectation for me to help expand the family’s interests, not that there were many.

“I’ll leave it with the holding crystal at the front of the Mall..” She smiled at me. I could see the look in her green eyes that she had made a lot more right now than she had thought she would. “Have a blest day.”

“You as well.” I walked out and moved the elemental crystals to a different tab on the inventory menu of my CB. It was time to get the rest of my gear.