After thoroughly washing and enjoying a rest in an actual bed for the first time in a while, I gave a big stretch and went about the start of my day. The only thing that I had that I could exchange in this village was a handful of herbs that I might be able to sell for twenty copper, if I was fortunate.
Given that I currently only had thirty copper to my name, this was somewhat tempting, but I ultimately decided against it. I would be able to make far more in the next city, which was only a solid day’s run away. Potentially, I could go and see if there was anyone running a merchant escort quest that I could join, which would let me get to the city and earn money.
Sadly, such quests typically had a level requirement. Even if they recognized that I was a Fallen, the fact that I was a level one Fallen would mean that I was basically useless to them. At least, in their eyes.
Still, it was better for me to run by myself. With my skills, I would be faster than a caravan, while also gaining experience to further level those skills up. With that thought in mind, I quickly ate one of the loaves of bread in my inventory, and began to run from the northern gate of the village. Despite all of my skills being active, nobody noticed the red glint of my skin, or perhaps they mistook me for a full-blooded orc if they did, thanks to my Stealth.
While running, I didn’t forget to start enchanting my new equipment with the upgraded skills. For my boots, it was the Fast Runner skill, while my pants received Fast Runner, Resilience, and Strongman. In order to make sure that the enchantment was as successful as possible, I channeled them for the enchantment for a full fifteen minutes with each option, taking a total of an hour of my running time.
I still had one enchantment slot left on my pants, but I wanted to save that. If I found a magic skill for either movement speed or defense, I would put it there. For the same reason, I wasn’t enchanting my gloves yet.
With the double speed enchantments, the increase was severe, my agility improving by a total of fifty percent. I could see players running around and fighting various monsters, some even calling out to me as if to invite me to a party when they mistook me for a high level player. Of course, I naturally ignored their shouts, rushing towards Arcanhide.
With the encumbrance of my armor, I was able to cover the distance to the city in just over two hours of non-stop running. Thankfully, I wasn’t all that worn out after the two hour run, so I immediately went to look for the marketplace. There should be plenty of people willing to buy the equipment that I had.
My first stop was the Appraisal Market. Although I could appraise all of my items myself, that didn’t help me when it came to selling them to NPCs. That’s where this market came in. For any loot found in the dungeons, they would appraise it and purchase it at sixty percent of its standard cost.
If you wanted to sell it elsewhere for a higher percentage, you could pay a small fee to have items identified and have the appraised information printed out with a magic seal of authenticity. For me, though… I couldn’t afford to pay that fee for all of my drop items, so I planned to simply sell it to the appraiser directly.
Walking into the store, I noticed a brunette woman with soft blue eyes behind the counter. From what I could tell, she was a pure-blooded human, and had the burnt brand of a Fallen on her forehead. “Hello! Welcome to the store.” She said in a bright tone, inviting me in. “Are you here to sell, or would you just like an appraisal?”
“I’ll sell.” I said with a nod, first pulling out the leather leggings that I had gotten from the dungeon. After that, I began depositing the dungeon drops, as well as those of the vine snakes, obviously excluding the bow. From the dungeon itself, the only ones that I left out were the potion and the skill book.
The woman’s eyes widened when she saw the growing pile of materials. “I see, sir.” She spoke in a more respectful tone, before holding out her hand. “Mass Appraisal.”
A soft light shone out, covering the pile. The items were sorted by type, and she immediately knew their prices. “According to the standard rate, I can offer you thirty-six silver and fifty-one copper. Is that acceptable?” She asked with a smile, to which I nodded. There wouldn’t be many craftsmen this early that would know how to process these materials either way.
“I’m also looking for information on some skill books.” I spoke up, catching her attention as she was counting out the money for me. “I’m trying to find a low level healing skill, as well as a basic mana bolt. Have you heard of either of those items entering the market?”
The woman thought it over for a moment. “There was a healing skill that came in yesterday, but someone bought it almost immediately afterwards. For the mana bolt… I can check the stock if you want? Most of those get resold to the skill store, but common skills like that are sometimes left over.”
Hearing that Mana Bolt was considered a common skill in Arcanhide, my eyes lit up. Arcanhide earned its name due to the large amounts of magically inclined monsters that lived near it. Because of this, magic skills were more common here than they were somewhere like Brita. “Please.”
The woman gave a warm smile, finishing counting the money and turning back to head to the storeroom after collecting the items into her inventory. Now that I had been paid, I was confident that I could buy the skill book that I wanted.
“You’re in luck, sir!” The appraiser called out, coming back to the front with a dusty skill book. “We still had a few copies left over. If you’d like, I can sell it to you with a ten percent discount.”
I blinked in surprise. “Why the discount?” I knew that I wasn’t an important customer or anything like that.
“It’s simple. This is a surplus good. Currently, it is only taking up shelf space, and we can’t sell all of them to the skill store. If I don’t sell it, then I am losing money by keeping it.” She explained patiently, causing me to nod.
“Can I appraise it myself?” I asked, to which she seemed surprised.
“You also possess the skill?” Though she asked me that, she held the book forward, her fingers making sure that the binding stayed closed to prevent me from trying to read it.
“That’s right.” I answered simply, stretching out my hand to place above the book, casting my own Appraisal. Indeed, this was a basic Mana Bolt skill, valued at fifteen silver. Although it was the same type of skill as Fire Bolt, it lacked the elemental properties, causing its price to drop. “Then, that will be thirteen and a half silver?”
“Correct, sir!” The woman confirmed, and I took out a little over a third of what she had given me previously. Handing it over in exchange for the skill book, which I learned on the spot.
“Thanks.” I grinned broadly. With this, I was one step closer to being able to make proper use of the new bow that I had acquired. “Do you happen to have a surplus of arrows, by chance…?”
The woman rolled her eyes with a grin, shaking her head. “Players and guards don’t usually get extra arrows to sell. You’ll need to visit the General Store to get those.”
“Right… can you give me directions to the General Store and Skill Store? I want to see if they have the healing skill I’m looking for.”
The woman gave a gentle nod, and I followed her directions to first visit the General Store, where I found that arrows cost two copper each. Paying two silver, I obtained five quivers of twenty arrows, which should be plenty for me to train with while I worked to master Mana Bolt.
As for the Skill Store… that was a total bust. Although Arcanhide was known for magic beasts, very few of them had a healing ability. The clerk there suggested that I visit the capital city to find such a skill, as there was a holy-element dungeon controlled by the city of Athua.
I thanked him, before turning to leave. Part of me wanted to run back to the Crystal Mole Mine, locking myself in that passage again so that I could practice Mana Bolt without anyone interfering.
Instead, I took the road leading east out of Arcanhide, towards the Arcane Grove, a great forest that occupied most of the road between here and Northerbar. Northerbar was a city located on the edge of a great lake, and regularly sent ships up and down river to trade.
However, I wasn’t planning to visit Northerbar yet. I just wanted to go into the woods to find a quiet spot to train. There were few better places than a dense forest that had largely been cleared of monsters thanks to the new players.
Once I broke off from the path, it didn’t take long to find somewhere to settle in. Crushing one of my two remaining Intelligence Herbs, I worked on enchanting my gloves with Mana Bolt. I was ready to grab my healing potion at any time, remembering the experiences of my previous enchantments.
With my voice low, I offered a brief chant, similar to what I did when placing Fire Bolt on my armor. As soon as I was done, it felt like my arm had been cut open, something bursting from within. I let out a sharp hiss of pain, seeing the bruise forming along my forearm and blood slowly dripping out. All things considered, this was a much smaller price to pay than either of my previous enchantments… though the fact that it failed may have contributed to that.
My face paled, seeing that one of the three enchantment slots on my gloves had disappeared. I waited a few minutes for the injury to heal before trying again, using my last Intelligence Herb. I could always just go walking around to gather herbs again any time. This time, thankfully, I managed to succeed in attaching the Mana Bolt skill to my gloves.
Next, I put a small smile on my face, pulling out the Vine Snake Poisoned Bow and one of my quivers. I nocked the arrow on the bowstring, pulling back with wide eyes. As expected of a bow that dropped from a level thirty-five monster, it had a high requirement to one’s physical power in order to fully draw it.
With my stats, I could only manage to draw the bow about halfway, pointing my finger forward. I fired off a Mana Bolt from my gloves, moments before I released the bowstring. While the Mana Bolt cleanly hit the tree I had pointed at, the arrow fell short, digging into the ground. Well… that’s why I bought a lot of them.
As long as an arrow wasn’t broken, it would be reusable. My goal was to simultaneously train Mana Bolt and archery until either all one hundred arrows had broken, or my Mana Bolt skill evolved. Going by how long it took me to train Fire Bolt, I was probably going to be spending the rest of the day on this…
Still, I probably needed the time to work on my archery anyways. In order to make sure that I could hit my targets, I would need to train to get the Bow Proficiency skill. The fact that I hadn’t gotten Sword Proficiency yet gave me an idea of how tricky weapon proficiencies were to acquire. Once I did get it, though, it would be able to help me adjust my aim. Fireball to deal with crowds, a bow to handle distant targets, and my sword for melee. With this, I should be set for attack methods for a while.
