Time passed quickly, and Kairos had used the three days properly to arrange the setup of a smithy, a pharmacy, and a restaurant in his shop.
Fortunately, he had chosen a shop outlet that is rather big for a medium-sized building and could easily fit multiple facilities.
The building itself is separated into different floors, at the first floor, patrons can have their lunch in a beautiful environment while they look through not only the food menu but also check out the stocklist for the different pills that Helena created or the weapons that Siegfried crafted.
Any items they purchase will be brought to their table by the people that Xuan Xian had assigned to properly run the shop.
Should the customers wish to peruse the selections themselves, they can climb up the spiral stairs and visit the second floor to see Helena’s pharmacy or the third floor to see Siegfried’s armoury.
Besides Laksa’s restaurant on the first floor, Xuan Xian had also opened a counter on the same level.
When the customers are done with their meal or their perusal, they may make payments at her counter. This allows one person to do the daily accounts of the shop and send it to Kairos every month, freeing him from the need to micro-manage his business.
With this arrangement, finally, the families have a means of supporting themselves.
Of the profits to be made daily, Kairos has arranged for it to split up fairly between all that have participated, depending on effort. A sum from the profit will be set aside each month as a rental fee which they pay to him.
In this regard, he had no heart to rip them off and only wanted a minimum amount that is enough for the Snowdrifts. However, hearing his words, Siegfried made a huge fuss, claiming that each person should earn whatever they deserved, and the others readily agreed to cut out a huge fifty percent from the profit to pay Kairos.
Even though the old blacksmith has explained that most shop rentals take up over seventy percent of the craftsman’s profits, Kairos vehemently refused such an amount from the families of his old subordinates. The profit which he actually wants to make is from selling weapons refined from Uncle Siegfried’s weapons.
Within the three days that he worked on the preparation of the shop, he has also refined the first batch of weapons from Siegfried’s crafts.
This batch is all infused with either the fire dragon or the frost dragon Ki. However this time he gave the sentient beings very strict instructions.
It would be dangerous if the dragonlings once again ate other metal and reconstructed its vessel.
After making sure that the business can run on itself, and handing Xuan Xian the accounts and logistics management, Kairos finally left the venue to meet his brothers.
The six had arranged to meet up at his room.
Before going to the market street, the lot of them sat in a wide circle around him as Kairos made the shopping list. He pulled out the current items that they have for tabulation, grouping them into three sets:
The bounties leftover from the exam.
The bribes from Principal Gai
And, the items purchased during the trade fair.
The bounties they had left were pathetic in number after they had either used the loot for cultivation or given out most of it to the other Snowdrifts members and for the eleven families.
The bribes from Principal Gai is much better in value. Besides the medical pills, herbs and thousand-year ores given to Siegfried and group, there are still many spirit stones, demon cores and crystallised essences left over.
However, it is the items purchased from the trade fair that are the best of the lot so far.
Each of them has received a soft armour made of strands extracted from the thousand-year undying silkworms. This armour which could be worn underneath their clothes will help protect them from slashing attacks that are ranked B or below and is something that they found at Alucard’s booth.
Although it prevents cuts and to some degree stops the wearer from being easily skewered, it does little to nothing in absorbing impact due to its thin material.
Besides that, they have bought many weapon enhancement materials like the Frost wolf fang, the wing hawk talon and the lightning wyrm’s tooth. Besides that, Kairos found a rare beast ranked herb called the spirit lightning flower that will help a practitioner to be better attuned to the element.
Fortunately, he found a time-space ring early in the day to keep all those items.
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These rings are artefacts made from high-level enchantments created from the twin-transcending elements of time and space. Because very few artisans could craft it, few could afford. Even though Kairos’ ring only had the space of a large wooden chest, it already cost him a bomb.
Regardless, it was indeed exceptionally useful. It helps compress a larger space into a small ring, allowing the wearer to keep bulky or heavy objects on him without fuss. Since this space is a separated dimension, it will only weigh as heavy as the ring is.
Besides these, they also managed to find a few other interesting artefacts6 from the trade fair. A small rod made from the south countries which could absorb about ten percent of any natural elemental attacks.
The Natural elements, Frost, Lightning and Wind, are the most frequently used offensive Ki, preferred for their powerful effects.
In comparison, the elements of creation, Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth, are more versatile but less powerful in aggression.
Although, depending on one’s creativity and talent, the strongest element in a fight remains to be debated.
That said, this small rod artefact that could only absorb some power from the natural elements is already a useful protective item.
Lastly, they purchased some cultivation pills, a Xuan grade skill book, a mysterious wrist beads which Aisa advised to purchase and an ancient looking jade slip.
The jade slip itself seemed empty, but Kairos instinctively felt something is odd about this object. When he tried to insert some energy into the jade, the object itself rejected his infusion and appeared to be already filled. He had purchased this item merely to fill his curiosity, but for the moment it sits uselessly in his time-space ring.
After consolidating all the items they have gathered so far, they realised that the amount is still insufficient to satisfy their needs.
“Alright, it looks like we need to stock up on cultivation resources. Unfortunately, Helena’s stock is still not ready for purchase. We need to get enough to last us for six months… and also, I’ve been thinking of getting a contract beast for each of us,” he added the last part after much thought.
Everyone’s eyes blazed with excitement. Contractual beasts!
Contractual beasts are extremely loyal to their master, but the cost of having one is also extremely hefty. If not due to the recent funds they had raked in, Kairos wouldn’t dare to think of it. After all, not only the initial payment, they have to continuously fork out money to raise the creatures.
In fact, the running cost is no lesser than what a practitioner needs. At least, until the beast has enough strength and loyalty to hunt by itself.
Not only that, it is an exhausting task. The young ones will need time to grow, and the adult ones need a period of time for taming and adjustment to human touch. The decision to purchase these contractual beasts was no doubt a large one.
Heading once again into the busy market street, this is the first time they are here to make big purchases.
They quickly gathered the cultivation pills each of them needed. Jones who had given his own cultivation pill pouch to them received more than double in return.
Afterwards, they looked for weapons for each of them. Purchasing only the highest grades available. Unfortunately after shopping awhile, they realised that Kairos’s weapon is too rare and when they asked about for Alan’s weapons, the shopkeeper laughed and exclaimed, “No one even uses such useless things.”
This reply was like thunder striking through Alan, he mumbled unbelievingly, “Rea… really?!”
The counter attendant immediately realised that this is the boy who had chosen to use such ridiculous equipment and his face immediately turned into one of pitying.
The rest of the brothers turned grey instantly. Not from surprise, but because they are almost dying of suffocation by stopping themselves from bursting out in laughter.
Tonfas might be very good for subduing opponents without harming them, but weapons are meant to harm the opponents. These pair of sticks originated from a peaceful country in the east and is used together with a specialised set of martial arts generally only for self-defence and subduing foes.
For a grand state like the Saint Empire, especially one which focuses on war even to the point of making twelve years old students participate in a mock battlefield exam, such weapons are highly unpopular, and, impractical.
In the end, they have no choice but to place an order for Kairos’ Swallow and Alan’s Tonfas from Siegfried. The material grade for those two weapons is naturally requested to be the highest possible.
The old blacksmith promised to deliver it to them just before the holidays start.
After making sure they have everything they might need, the group headed towards the magical beast shop. Their last stop of the day.
High above them, a pair of eyes looked at everything that happened in the city. Its irises are glowing golden, and its pupils are black like the abyss, as it viewed every minuscule thing that occurred in the city without fail, including the group of young kids walking towards the magical beast shop.
“Are they getting contract beasts? Looks interesting.”
At this moment a few invisible strands of power spiralled down from the sky towards the city down below, disappearing into the shop that they are headed towards.
Everyone has completely ignored the things that happened and even that pair of gigantic eyes which is covering the sky.
In fact, it was not hidden from view, but somehow even when someone sees, the image merely go into the tiny lapses of their memory and become forgotten.
It must be said that even if the immortal, Old Ye, is here, he will also be unable to recall this pair of eyes that is in plain sight in the sky.
Not just him, but even Aisa, the Primordial One, did not react to all the remarkable things that are happening and remained blissfully within Kairos’ robes.
Under the pair of intensely watchful eyes, they finally reached a huge barn-like pet shop which smells like a mixture of wild beasts and hay.
An assistant that was seated by the door saw their approach and walked towards them with a great smile on his youthful face. Even though the assistant looked to be several years older than them, around seventeen or eighteen years of age, he still treated them very politely and earned friendly smiles from the group.
“How may I assist you chaps,” he said cordially while warmly inviting them into the shop.
“We are looking for battle-type contract beasts,” Kairos said simply, but his eyes are already wandering around the shop.
Many beasts, great and small, are resting in their allotted spaces within the shop. The area within seems to be much larger than they had expected when they viewed the shop from the outside, and many greater beasts even have an entire room to itself.
“We have adult beasts, infants and eggs. We also have all of them categorised in demonic beasts, magical beasts and spiritual beasts. Since this is the first time seeing you in our shop if you want we can recommend you a few kinds that are friendly for beginners.
We also have very good selections if you would like to choose those with the potential to become divine beasts, but those will be much more difficult to tame.”
Although the attendant said there are potential in becoming divine beasts, it is impossible to happen without a miracle. For thousands of years, not even one was found in the lands of Gaia. Still, having such possibilities meant that the creature’s bloodline is incredible and stronger than other beasts of the same stage.
Kairos, choose those with better potential! Aisa will be bored if they cannot play with meeeeee.
The tiny white dragon’s singsong voice entered his mind, and immediately an idea formed in his head. This dragon might not be able to help him in battle most of the time, but being a primordial dragon, most beasts will bow their heads down at it. This evidently means that the taming process will be much easier just by having the tiny little dragon around.
Even an ancient dragon is already the lord of all beasts and Aisa is a primordial dragon who is above that. An emperor among divine beasts.
“Okay Aisa, tell me which are the strongest ones.”
After sending a mental message to the dragon, he looked at the shop assistant and asked, “Let’s look at the demonic beasts first. By the way, what are the differences between the three kinds of beasts?”
The assistant gestured for them to follow him to where the demonic beasts are, and he started introducing the types of beasts on the way.
There are actually four types of beasts, the demonic beasts that boast of powerful fighting and regenerative abilities, the magical beasts that can easily control great forces of nature and creation elements and the spirit beasts that have powerful bodies and often comes with very unique abilities. Besides them, there are the divine beasts.
All these four types of beasts have their own inheritance memory, passed down by their bloodline, and can be used to strengthen themselves, slowly become stronger and allowing them to evolve into a higher form.
Those beasts with talent, regardless of what type they are from can one day turn into divine beasts that have superior attributes compared to any other kinds.
The divine beasts, the fourth type, is a higher form of existence that can control the transcendent elements easily, creating miracles that are otherwise impossible.
Of course, his explanation on the divine beasts was largely for the boys’ curiosity. The Mortal Realm itself can hardly provide enough materials to incite a beast’s bloodline and turn it into a divine beast, potential or not.