Arcane Knight: An Epic LITRPG Fantasy, page 25
I stopped retreating, dodging around a pair of guards as I walked back to the family. “I’ve never heard of Sherats before, but I do think I’ve heard of a race of shifters that live in Elven lands, though I admit I only read that in a book and don’t know firsthand. My name’s Caldor, Caldor Miles. Sorry for disturbing your day.”
I held out a hand and the man shook it, the most curious look on his face. “I’m Beshara and this is my wife Teland, can you tell me how to reach these elven lands you spoke of?” Beshara asked.
“Just head West, can’t really miss them,” I said, chuckling. Surely he was joking. Who didn’t know where the Elven lands were, even in the most general sense? “Where did you say you were from?” I asked, just as they began to turn away to leave.
“We didn’t,” Beshara said, leaving me with a smirk on his lips.
The strange encounter left me puzzled and the rest of the way to the Mana Shrine passed quickly. The guards, as they had tendency of doing, waved me right through and I found my way to the back gardens where the Mana Shrine stood.
The runes covering it glowed more intensely than usual, meaning that within a week or two it would be time for another Awakening. Another trickle of people leaving their old lives behind and taking up the mantle of being an Adventurer. The area was clear, this early in the morning I expected nothing less, so I walked right up to it and placed my hand on its surface.
One moment I felt the smooth, slightly warm surface and the next it was washed away. I was in a dark room, a small amount of ambient light filling the space.
“Not much power to reach out, so listen and let me speak,” Arb said, his voice had a strained quality to it. “You’ve done well to have slain the lich and I am rewarding you with essence, 100,000 to be exact. Use it wisely.”
I felt the sense of a quest appearing and completing all before I could even latch on to the exact verbiage used.
“Someone has taken up a Sword of the Ordu and tainted it. This goes beyond the work of Chaos; such an act is pure evil. I am updating your quest to include searching out the wielding of the sword and taking it from him. It will take a great deal to purify but bring it to me and I will do what I can,” Arb’s words began to fade away at the end and just as swiftly as he’d come, I felt his presence leave.
The dark room flickered away, and I let my hand fall off the stone. Checking my quests, I found the class quest he’d updated.
Restore The Balance Part 1
As a Defender of the Balance, it falls onto your shoulders to investigate and restore the planet’s equilibrium. To do this, you must first understand why it is out of balance. Seek knowledge and understanding anywhere you may find it.
Seek out the wielder of the Tainted Sword of the Ordu and you will find the being that is throwing the world out of balance.
Objective: Discover what has unbalanced the forces of Order & Chaos. Bring the Tainted Sword of the Ordu to a Prime Mana Shrine for purification.
Rewards: 200,000 Essence, New Class Ability ‘Restoring Light’
What an odd experience. I hadn’t known that the Arbiter could appear like that when the Mana Shrine wasn’t at full power, or that he would continue to communicate with me past my Awakening. It took me a solid minute or two to gather my wits about me and make another go at assigning essence and searching for new spells.
With only the smallest amount of hesitation, I reached out and placed my hand on the Mana Shrine again. This time I got what I expected, being able to call up lists of spells and skills on command.
Because of the influx of essence from the quest, the skeletons, and now Arb, I had enough to go for my next level. But before I could do that, I spent the upsettingly large amount required to raise my Endurance from base 40 to base 41. Every attribute counted. I wanted to maintain the 3 natural attributes plus the 3 additional for as long as I could, but a part of me wondered if the singular additional attribute would really be giving me much of an advantage over others. I pushed that voice aside and focused on my task at hand.
Paying 28,800 Essence, I pushed myself to level 16 and was rewarded with 3 free attributes to assign. On my last big level push, I’d increased my Strength, Concentration, and most recently Endurance. With my abundance of attributes, it really made sense, to me at least, to keep them as balanced as possible. That would be my plan up until passing my second threshold, then I’d allow myself to specialize more as hitting a third threshold would be a far-flung future event.
I placed my 3 free attributes into intellect, bringing it to a base of 40.
From the studying I’d been doing lately, the thresholds made you far more capable of benefiting and using what attributes you had. Someone with a strength of 24 against someone with a strength of 25, though only a point difference, would have a significant boost in strength. And the thresholds had been laid out in a book I read as being 25, 50, and 150. With most of my attributes being close to 40 I was fast approaching the 2nd threshold.
Doing a bit of math, I let out a sigh of frustration. If I kept to the 6 attribute gains per level that meant I’d be level 28 before I hit all my 2nd thresholds. It would be vastly faster than anyone else, but still, I yearned to push myself faster and harder. Pulling up the menus, I took a look at what it would cost to raise one of my Paragon attributes more than the normal 3. I set my sights on Intellect and found that raising it just the normal 3 would cost a total of 41,175 essence, one third of my remaining amount.
Increasing that to 5 additional attributes cost an additional 47,461 essence. Before I committed any essence fully I wanted to see how much it would take just to throw caution to the wind and raise my Intellect all the way to the 2nd threshold of 50. I barely got to soft locking in 7 additional attributes before I couldn’t go any further as my pool of essence would be depleted.
I decided to trust my original wisdom and spent only 41,175 essence, raising my total to 43. Focusing on locking my choices in I felt the familiar pulling of my body and mind. There was a certain serenity that came with bringing my intellect closer to my strength, they were within a single point of each other now. Seeing as balance was required for my class and abilities, it made sense. I decided to, as best as I could, keep my base intellect and strength equal.
All said and done, that left me with still a little over a hundred thousand essence to work with. Spells and skills weren’t so expensive that I’d need that much, so I looked at how much essence was required to reach level 17. It was 30,600, so very doable. Before I committed to that I wanted to check out the cost of additional perks. My next free one wasn’t until level 20, so it might be useful to buy some extras.
I had to mentally scratch my head as I didn’t see any essence values when I looked at the list of Perks. It took another minute to figure out what had happened. When I was level 9 I picked two perks, Long Lived and Toughness. Then when I hit level 15 I took Arcane Asylum, which meant I’d never spent my level 10 perk point!
Moving my eyes down the list I found several that I’d tagged, focusing on the perk that increased how I benefited from my Intellect attribute and selecting it. The perk was called Keen Mind and increased the per attribute value gains from a straightforward 1 to a 1.25. I was a bit upset that my Mana pool didn’t increase, but I did notice that the mana requirement for my spell went down by a few points.
Now I saw the essence values listed on perks and my jaw just about dropped to the ground. The perk that increased your Concentration attribute value gains cost 85,000 essence, while another one I’d tagged called Rubber Joints cost a ridiculous 140,000 essence. If these values increased the more extra I took, which was my understanding, then I’d hold off on getting any extra just yet.
I paid my essence level requirement and was gifted with an additional 3 free attributes. Focusing on bringing Concentration up to 40, I spent nearly all the rest of my essence just for the usual 3 additional points, leaving me with only 9,931 essence. I hoped it would be enough to buy a healing spell or two.
My options were limited but I settled on a spell called Mending Touch that was only a two second cast and healed 150 health at once and an additional 150 over 15 seconds. It had a high casting cost at 250 Mana, but it was the best I could find.
Looking over skills I decided to upgrade my Force Wave skill, bringing it to Rank 2. At first, I wasn’t sure if that would count as keeping my two classes’ balances, but it solidified a second later without any issues.
Mending Touch: For 250 Mana you can send a small surge of healing energy into a target. It heals for 150 Health, then an additional 150 over the next 15 seconds. Cast time is 2 seconds with a 15 second cooldown.
Force Wave (Rank 2): For 150 Stamina you can project a wave of force from your weapon’s edge. It does base weapon damage times Rank as slashing damage at the target. Cooldown 7 Seconds.
Finished with spending essence and feeling a bit out of sorts as my body grew accustomed to the changes, I decided it was time to visit Gilfoy’s Emporium.
CHAPTER 29
SHOPPING
A moment after entering, the monotoned Runeforged gave his spiel. “Welcome to Gilfoy’s Emporium, Lord Caldor. We aren’t currently running any discounts. Thank you for being a specialty member, how may I assist you?” I made sure not to touch it, while scanning the room for Ena, the elf that usually helped me with my purchases.
Instead of a beautiful elf sauntering up, a dark-haired boy—he couldn’t have been more than fifteen—marched right up to me.
“Can I help you find anything?” He asked, then looking a bit sheepish he added. “Oh right, name’s Fin. Are you a member?”
“Lord Caldor has an active membership under House Variyn,” the Runeforged said.
Fin jumped as if he didn’t expect it to talk and pressed the back of his hand against his forehead. “That thing is so creepy. Can’t imagine why they’ve sold so many. Sorry, Lord Caldor was it, what can I help you with, bud?”
I took a few seconds to just regard the young kid and I didn’t need anyone to tell me that he was new, it was written all over the way he acted. “I’m just looking to browse, but maybe you can point me in the direction of bows and arrows?”
He scrunched his brow and concentrated hard before he perked up, lifting a finger in the air. “I think so, follow me!”
As it turned out, he didn’t know where he was going and had to ask another employee before we found the section with inscribed bows. I bid him farewell and began to look over the selection. Several stood out to me immediately.
One had a durability enchantment and a fire damage enchantment, meaning it added a small bit of fire damage to any arrows shot from it. That would be nice to get a little magic damage when needed. However, I didn’t see a way to fire an arrow without applying the fire damage, so if I wanted to use this bow for normal hunting it would potentially ruin the hides.
The next one I saw was unique but seemed likely to fail if I tossed it about too much. At first glance it looked like a thick handle, but when you pressed it firmly, the two ends extended, and a magical bow string formed. I gave it a test draw and was surprised at the heavy resistance. Checking the card beside it I noticed that the draw strength would adjust based on the personal attributes of the wielder. How nifty.
In the end, I put my sights on the final bow and decided it would fit my needs. It had the look of a short bow and the draw of a heavy combat bow. The wood was stained black and the grip wrapping had the natural look of lightly stained brown leather. The string was black as well, but with an iridescent sheen that I’d grown accustomed to, meaning it was enchanted in some way. Several areas on the bow had gem slots, small ones, that could be used to add attributes. The string and bow were enchanted with a rather cool ability.
If the string was drawn back without an arrow in place, an arcane arrow would form, taking the smallest amount of mana from the user. But if drawn with an arrow it worked as a normal bow, well mostly normal, as it still applied a force multiplier to both arcane and normal arrows shot from it. It had a good weight and I decided this would be the one I needed.
It felt good to have a bow again, and I picked up five dozen arrows because I knew they’d stack in my dimensional storage. Before placing them inside I needed to pay, so I got the new guy’s attention.
Lifting the bow and arrows up I said, “I need two more items.”
Fin jumped, he’d been staring out a nearby window, probably daydreaming. “Right, what items do you need?” Fin asked.
Leaning in I told him the two items I wanted, thinking I’d likely have to return later for them and was surprised when Fin knew where to find them without assistance. He showed me to a counter and unlocked a cupboard, pulling out two spheres with six notch-like buttons cut into them. He told me the price of the bow and the two additional items.
I flinched at the price. I hadn’t even looked when picking a bow, instead focusing on the best bows I could get with my new level of 17. It wouldn’t do to get worried about gold just yet, as I had plans to spend many thousand more before the day was out. “I’ll pay now,” I said, following Fin to a back counter.
I paid and tried not to think about the fortune it really was, instead focusing on still having well over 350,000 gold coins, or at least the platinum equivalent. Leaving behind the stillness of the store, where most seemed to treat it like a library, I set my sights on information gathering.
Seven pubs later and I finally had a lead on someone who might be able to help me with my next task, finding a building to house Regina and my experiments.
“I’m here to speak to a Mr. Barley about purchasing a building or warehouse within the city limits,” I told the cute receptionist with her blonde curls and sparkling blue eyes.
“Who can I tell him is here?” She asked, barely looking up from some paperwork she reviewed.
I probably shouldn’t get used to using the title, but I wanted to get her attention. “Lord Caldor Miles of Blackridge Keep.”
It worked, she perked up and seemed to see me for the first time. “I will get him right away, Lord Miles. Thank you for your patience,” she said, pushing herself up and out of her chair, before disappearing to a back room.
The building I’d been directed to sat cozily between two Guild offices, one a guard’s guild and the other a merchant guild. Each building had a gated off area in front and finely crafted pillars depicting one scene or another. I’d been told that Mr. Barley and his associates were the ones that handled the majority of the real estate in the city, though from what I’d been told they weren’t an official guild, but instead run as a business outside of guild mandates. Something about avoiding certain taxes by the Lord of Variyn, which is why I’d thought to throw my title in to get things moving.
“Good afternoon, Lord Miles,” a gruff voice sounded behind me, and I turned to see. “I’m Mr. Barley, what can I do for you this day?”
Mr. Barley was a plump man with devious eyes and a thin smile. His black long coat, a style I hadn’t seen much around town, swayed loosely around his gut. He wore a traditional style tight vest buttoned up to his neck and sturdy looking slacks that, while clean, looked fit for a worker. In all he was quite the confusingly dressed man.
I finished my examination of Mr. Barley before speaking. “I’m in need of your services,” I said, giving my best genuine smile. In return, Mr. Barley turned up the corner of his lips in what might be considered a smile, but I honestly wasn’t sure.
“In search of a building, what type of business or use do you need from it?” Mr. Barley asked, then added a moment later, “So I can best help you. I’ve got several clients that need tending today, but I think with a bit of work we can find you something pretty quickly.”
“I need a space, preferably gated, with rooms that could be set up for overnight sleeping as well as a large warehouse area and several workshops. Privacy and security are important, if that helps,” I said.
“I can think of a dozen that will fit that bill, what price range do you feel comfortable with, some of these buildings can go for as much as a thousand platinum, plus there is the property tax to consider. Depending on the size it can be as much as a platinum a month, but as you are a Lord I’m not sure if it applies to you,” Mr. Barley said. He leaned forward as if expecting me to answer him how taxes worked for nobility, but I hadn’t the slightest clue.
I considered my response and nodded my head. “Money isn’t an object, finding the right place is all that is important to me.”
It would hurt to spend a fourth of my funds on a building, but owning land was something that held certain value beyond its initial purchase. I’d always be able to sell the space if I needed.
A greedy glint appeared in his eyes, and I feared I hadn’t chosen the best way to say that money was no object. Rubbing his hands together, Mr. Barley turned and grabbed a thick book of loosely bound items from the secretary’s desk. “I have a booklet made up for each space, take a look and pick two or three. I’ll be free in about an hour, and I will take you to each, so you can make a decision,” he said, handing over the booklet.
I took it and had a seat in a green velvet chair to my left, sitting opposite of the secretary’s desk. The booklet had easily thirty or more listings, each with a price, information of layout, prior uses, square footage, and sketches of the external and internal areas. Mr. Barley leaned down, his bulk pressing uncomfortably against me all the while, and showed me which ones he suggested.
I wasted no time, looking at each listing, while Mr. Barley disappeared into the back and his secretary returned, sitting quietly across from me.
The first one had been an industrial bakery, it had three kitchens, dozens of ovens, and a small warehouse area for staging the bread before delivery. I looked, but couldn't find the name of the place, whatever it had been I was upset I hadn’t had a chance to try it. Such a large operation for making baked goods would likely have driven down the general price of bread and bakery treats down, making them more affordable.
