Anton enjoyed the lunch that he ate from the high-end restaurant but held off his urge to order a lot of food that he could store in his private stash since when the last time he checked, there was still a huge amount of food remaining there. After lunch, he asked the waiter which store had the biggest collection of spells that he could purchase and because of the generous tip that he gave, the waiter was more than happy to name the store and to give him directions.

After a few minutes, Anton was standing in front of the Green Fireball Magic Store. The building that housed the store was indeed very large. When he entered, the whole place was incredibly busy since there were a lot of people inside. He looked for a salesperson to assist him and was a bit glad that the store employees were wearing some sort of uniform.

He tried to see if he could search for the spellbooks section by himself but it looked like it would be impossible without a guide.

Soon though, a saleswoman who was assisting one of the customers was done and her customers left. After that, the girl noticed him and approached Anton.

“Hello, sir. My name is Evelyn. How can I assist you?” The pretty salesgirl said.

“Can you show a list of all the spells that you have up to the highest level that you can show me?” Anton said.

“If I may ask, do you have a permit from the Wizard’s Guild of Homura? If you don’t have a permit and are just visiting the city, the highest spell that we can show is the fifth level,” Evelyn the sales girl said.

“That’s fine,” Anton said.

He remembered that some of the best spells available in DnD were the 3rd-level and 4th-level spells. Anton was then led to an area that had some comfortable seats and Evelyn to him that she would be back with the list of spells.

After a few minutes, Evelyn returned with the spell list. Looking at the list of spellbooks available, Anton was disappointed. Although the magic system had some similarities with the DnD franchise, the spells were different. Some of the spells were similar but it was expected since how would one name a spell that produced a ball of fire that explodes but Fire Ball and that seemed to be true across different games and it seemed true across different dimensions as well.

Most of the spells that he could see were geared toward attack and defense, which was expected since most wizards in the wild tend to prefer wielding their magic to attack their enemies or defend themselves from attack.

The spells that he could see were Ice Beam, Fire Nova, Poison Cloud, Mist Guard, Water Wave, Earth Shield, and the like. Anton didn’t even need to read their description since based on the name alone, he would be able to guess what the spell did.

Anton did purchase some spells like Invisibility, Mass Hold Person, Wall of Stone, Disguise Self, and Floating Disk. He asked Evelyn if there was a spell that would let him create a house and the salesgirl said that useful spells like that were usually in the hands of wizard academies and most spellbooks available in stores were the generic spells.

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The salesgirl was still overjoyed since Anton spent a total of 400 gold coins. After he received the spellbooks, he immediately stored them in his inventory. He then asked Evelyn to show him around where the enchanted items were located. Some of the items were interesting but nothing tickled his fancy so he left the store soon after.

It was still early, around four in the afternoon so Anton roamed around the city to sightsee. He enjoyed acting as a tourist for a bit. He watched some street performers, ate some street food, purchased some delicious food from bakeries that he stored in his private stash in the Rogue Encampment, and finally went to the Adventurer’s Guild.

He planned to check the mission board to see what kind of missions adventurers usually could take but in there he heard some devastating news.

Tiande and Zalnothel had fallen. For a moment, Anton grieved for Zalnothel. It was his home city even though it was for just a short time. The people in the Oak Ridge Manor were his people. He could only hope that they managed to escape.

Anton went to the adventurer who was telling the news to his friends.

“Excuse me, sir, can I ask for more details about the Tiande and Zalnothel?”

At first, the man looked annoyed at Anton for butting in but when he handed a gold coin to the adventurer, the man smiled widely and gave him all the details he knew.

Apparently, the adventurer received the news from a merchant friend who had connections to cities to the south of Homura. The pope of Tiande and his archbishops escaped and left their city to the mercies of the Undead Coalition.

Zalnothel’s powerful mages did the same thing. Basically, they spread the news that the leaders of both cities planned to team up somewhere to retaliate but they were fooling no one. They left their cities and because of that, the Undead Coalition’s power would explode.

There were even rumors that the Coalition had now turned its eyes on Homura. Anton sadly realized that they truly needed to leave this continent to escape the undead. He thanked the man and left the Adventurer’s Guild. He hurriedly returned to the inn where they were staying.

When he arrived there, everyone was already seated at a table in the common room, and based on everyone’s expression, they had already heard the news regarding the fall of Tiande and Zalnothel.

“So you’ve all heard about the news,” Anton said then he sat beside his father.

“We already sold everything. We’ll be leaving the city early tomorrow morning. It’s time for us to decide what we should do next,” Anders said grimly.

“We need to leave this continent and go somewhere else,” Anton softly said.

Nobody voiced any disagreement. They knew how terrifying the Undead Coalition was and the fact that they conquered the powerful cities of Tiande and Zalnothel meant that they had still underestimated its might.

Anyone in the group could argue that they could continue running to the East but the only place left was the coastal city of Whaling. They had little hope that if the Undead Coalition conquered Homura, they would stop there and not go on to turn their focus on the city of Whaling.

“When we reach Whaling, we’ll try to learn more where we could go,” Anders said.

After that, they ordered food since even though they received news that caused them to lose their appetite, they would still need the energy to start their travel to the coastal city of Whaling. They all knew that their journey would not end in Whaling. They would probably brave the terrifying ocean to truly escape the might of the Undead Coalition since the undead were like the plague that had the intention of reaching every corner of the continent.

When their dinner ended, they all went to the room they had rented and everyone would try to get some needed rest so they would have the strength to continue what seemed like a never-ending journey.