Tesilim and Lili left the arena when they got a message from Alyx. The gnome had been able to sell the Rock for 1500 gold since its purity and attunement were higher than expected. In addition to the nice extra gold surprise, Tesilim realized that there were message spells and was resolved to learn one, though he was curious why not everybody was using them.
They met up with Alyx at Lili's shop and were a bit shocked when Rose and Jasmine weren’t there. However, the gnome told them that he would pass by their abodes later in the evening to give them the gold. In fact, the gnome didn't even stay for long, and as soon as he gave them the gold, he left, saying he had other things to take care of. However, he did tell them that he had a mission in mind for the following day but didn’t give any additional details.
After the gnome left, Tesilim ran into a problem that he did not expect to run into. The small pouch of holding where he kept his dice stated that it could hold up to around 500 gold pieces. And now that he had reached a total of 528 gold, not all of it wanted to fit inside the pouch. In a way, the problem pushed Tesilim to do what he had been meaning to do, and he decided to go buy a bag of holding. Lili attempted to convince him to buy better armor or a tent for camping instead but he was dead set on getting a bag of holding.
Thankfully, spatial items were so common in this world that getting a bag of holding wasn't that pricey. Well, at least the ones on the lower end of the spatial distortion weren’t. There were bags of holdings that could hold a whole carriage inside, albeit a dismantled one.
Not wanting to spend too much gold, Tesilim ended up getting a bag that could comfortably fit something like a washing machine inside. To be precise, it had the space to hold the washing machine, but the opening would not fit a washing machine through it.
The bag ended up costing him 175 gold, which he had brought down from the original 200 gold price. Now, even though he called it a bag, it wasn’t a normal bag; it was more like a string backpack that was made of thick leather. Like a string backpack, the top opened up, and he could easily fit his entire upper body through, which would let him easily pack his bedroll, among other things. Of course, the other important thing the backpack did was reduce the weight of items placed inside. This particular one only reduced the weight of things by around 25%, which wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. It’s not like he was planning to fight with it on.
After getting the bag, they went shopping for armor. His current armor was honestly garbage. It had no protection enchantments on it, and monsters could easily tear through it. In fact, they did tear through it. So, this time around, Tesilim was looking to get something a bit better. However, it was only thanks to Lili that he got any decent armor at all. She let him borrow some gold, saying that he genuinely needed some better armor, especially if they ended up going to the incoming raid.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
Enchanted Leather Chest Plate - Item Rank: Uncommon - This enchanted leather chest piece is rather basic and often worn by starting adventurers. The armor provides a simple, self-fitting enchantment designed to be used by a wider variety of individuals. Additionally, much like most magical items it is enchanted with self-repair and self-cleaning. Finally, the armor piece has been enchanted with basic defensive enchantments used to reduce most forms of physical damage.
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Pretty much every single piece of armor that he got had the same description, and unlike his last armor, it did feel a bit more magical to his senses. Whereas the last one was barely enchanted with anything, this one gave him some protection other than the leather, which was basically nothing against monsters. One thing that Tesilim wondered was why it was marked as uncommon since they were very common when used by adventurers, but maybe magical items were just a step above normal things. Either way, he was not going to go down that rabbit hole.
When armor was purchased, he and Lili decided to return to her shop. She wanted to do some alchemy, while he wanted to read his magical tomes. He was still working on some spells and also wanted to keep exercising with his presence and will usage. In particular, though, he was trying to recreate the fireball spell that he had seen Lili and Alyx use. He was ashamed that he had yet to actually cast a proper fireball and had to fix the issue as soon as possible.
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Alyx visited her early in the morning to warn her not to go and recharge their mana without him. She still wanted to go and do it but knew that it was best to wait for the gnome. That way, he could get information from the experience. To that extent, Alyx told her to relax and that he would come by later after he finished selling the fey rock.
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So that's what she spent most of the day doing. However, she didn't do it by herself as Rose came by to check on her, and the two spent the day together. They went out to grab a bite to eat, and like old times, they visited Keepers Keeper. The store was probably the only one so far south of the Five Kingdoms Archipelago.
While in the store, Rose was convinced to buy a simple bag of holding in order to help her store camping supplies. This was mainly brought on by Jasmine pointing out that if they did go on the expedition to the further reaches of the island, it would be good for her to have it. The bag was a simple thing that cost around 200 gold pieces and was attached to a leather belt she would wrap around her back for easy carrying.
After Keepers Keeper, they traveled around the city trying out various food stands and even watched one of the shows at the theater, which used a mix of realistic magical illusions and on-set actor interactions to play out all sorts of different plays. The one they watched depicted a classic story that could have played out many times in real life. It involved a prince saving a princess from some dastardly monster.
Rose liked the idea of fighting monsters and saving people, and she could imagine herself coming to the rescue of her own princess. Meanwhile, Jasmine just liked to see stories with happy endings, hoping that hers would end in a happily ever after as well.
Later in the afternoon, they finally got a message from Alyx saying to meet up at the city gates. The two split up, heading to their own places of rest to put on their armor, knowing there would likely be some fighting. Meeting up at the gates sometime later, they headed out into the forest with Alyx in tow. As they walked, Alyx gave them the money from selling the fey rock while giving them an update on the possible plans for the next day, which involved helping him and his church with something. The two didn’t complain upon hearing this. For one, Rose was contractually obligated to help, while Jasmine understood that they were gaining extra gold from their endeavors since he didn’t take his fair share.
Now, she was happy to help, but she wasn’t that altruistic either and knew there was a give and take in all relationships.
They didn't walk for long as they looked for a somewhat secluded spot. Once they found a decent enough spot, Alyx took them by surprise when he popped open his magical door and asked them to head inside.
“Jasmine, please lay on the bed. I want to start by looking at your soul again if you don’t mind.”
Jasmine was a bit weary, but remembering the contract that was in place, she was soon lying on the bed. Much like Jasmine and uncaring of the contract, Rose watched the gnome’s every move; her presence and will extended even if she couldn’t sense much. They were effectively in his domain and she was unsure of how much power the gnome actually had over them inside.
Alyx noticed Rose and gave her a warm smile, trying to reassure the redhead. Then he activated the magic in his eyes and peered past the physical into the beyond. Unlike last time, he wasn’t going in but simply wished to observe.
Sure enough, that spot at the center of their soul was essentially empty of mana. It was something extremely strange, and it baffled him how it came to be. However, now that he had confirmed it, it was time to move on to the next thing and have the twins use their power.
They all headed outside, and Jasmine summoned a monster from one of her rings. It was a wood wolf, much like the ones he, Lili, and Tesilim had fought a while back. The wolf was almost dead, and it collapsed on the ground as soon as it appeared. Then Jasmine moved forward. She placed her hand on the monster, and on the outside, nothing much happened except for her eyes going black. However, Alyx wasn’t watching the process from the outside but was instead paying close attention to what was happening within.
As he watched, the dark mana found within Jasmine’s soul extended via the pathways her soul had, which helped release and dilute mana. The darkness moved forward as a whirling mass. Alyx would have been worried about what it would do, but it did not harm Jasmine. Instead, it moved forward, following a path very strictly. Then, it transferred over to the monster via the physical connection and headed straight for where its soul was. There, the monster attempted to put up a defense, but it was simply too weak and low on mana itself, and the darkness tore apart its will and washed over its soul.
That alone wasn’t too crazy. The power had just simply made it to the soul. What was crazy was how it dug into it, leaving channels behind and doing some small amounts of soul damage. Then, instead of consuming the mana, it began to siphon it out. Alyx watched as the blueish substance that was mana traveled backward via the established connection until it eventually trickled into the twin’s own soul. It was fascinating.
After the process was complete, the monster was basically dead. The trauma had been too much for it, and it had passed out when the process began. Then, once the process had been completed, Alyx watched as the slightly damaged soul slowly lost its connection to the body and floated upwards as it followed the usual cycle of unclaimed souls.
The gnome had to admit that it was surprising that the dark mana and its power didn’t somehow corrupt the soul, transforming it into some sort of dark shadow entity. Overall, the process was fairly clean yet extremely dangerous and interesting. Alyx definitely had many experiments to run.