Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 100

After stepping onto the second level of the Merchant’s Hall, and being patted down by the airtight security, Dante began to browse the items that were out for sale.

From asking, he found out that the second floor had items that were valued below 1 gold. The third floor had items that were valued below 10 gold but above 1. And the fourth and final floor had items that were valued above ten gold. He was told that he wouldn’t be able to go on the fourth floor though, it was restricted unless he was given access from someone of high status.

At first, he thought it strange that the fourth floor was restricted. But apparently those items were sent out to the weekly auction, and were often sold for a higher price than they would be otherwise.

He began to browse items on the second floor, which were all well within his budget.

The majority of the second floor was made up of raw materials. Metals, plants, different minerals that acted as reagents, and parts of various creatures that could be used for different purposes. Occasionally he would come across basic armor or weapons, but none of them were worth even looking at. Unfortunately, there weren’t any essence crystals or other items of similar use. Their demand was too high within the factions of Sloria.

There were a few alchemist potions, but they literally didn’t do anything. The item description said that they were base solutions that could be used to aid the process of making other elixirs.

Other than that, everything else looked like trash. Antiques that were made with precious metals, vases, chandeliers, and even old poems written on paper that was close to rotting.

He did read over the poems. Looking for anything of interest, but most of them were about love, and the rest were frivolous.

After purchasing a few furs that were from creatures with soft hair for blankets, Dante moved on to the third floor.

The third floor had a far larger selection, and the first thing that he looked at were the functional items.

Those included a wide variety of things, but he started with the elixirs. There seemed to be potions for everything. All of the effects were temporary, but they gave things like cold resistance, fire resistance, strength boosts, speed boosts, and defensive boosts among other things. And despite the heavy price of around 5 gold each, the effects were minimal. Equivalent to a single attribute point in the case of the physical boosting elixirs, and the effects only lasted a few minutes. He looked, but didn’t buy any of them.

The artificed items were of far greater interest to him. It was unfortunate that there were so few in number. He was pretty sure that most artificed items would usually belong on the fourth floor.

Of the items, the one he thought was the most useful was a shield. If fed with mana it would hold its position, even if hovering in the middle of the air. He wanted to test its strength in that situation, but the hall’s security definitely wouldn’t allow him to do that.

The shield didn’t really have a use for him though. Given his skills, the mana cost wasn’t worth it when he could likely achieve a similar effect. And although he wanted to buy the shield, it wasn’t worth the 10 gold cost if he wouldn’t really use it. Other than the shield, he found a ring that, when filled with mana, could slow a single projectile. More than one would disrupt it though, so he wasn’t interested.

There was an artificed dagger that he took a 5 gold loss on. Feeding mana into it cause the blade to cool until it froze anything it touched, which would be convenient on a hot day. The description of it was slightly worrying though, it said that keeping the dagger activated for extended periods of time would cause it to ‘discharge’. Which explained the low cost of such a useful tool.

Dante moved away from the artificer section after that. All of the artificed items on the third floor seemed to be there because they were defective in some way. With the demand that all of the people in Sloria created, the useful ones would be valued well above 10 gold.

He browsed the bows that were on display. Testing the strength of more than one of them and checking what the enchanted ones did by reading their descriptions. He decided against buying one though. None of them were of a quality that would be needed for metal arrows.

He had been wanting to try and use a bow with the arrows that he created with his skill. Manipulate Blade was useful, but even when neglecting the mana cost involved there were situations where a regular bow would work better.

After leaving the bow section he also bought another fur pelt, this one was far nicer than the one he got on the floor below. Which was good, because it cost about ten times more. After that, he was basically only interested in the books and manuscripts that were stacked in a far corner of the third floor.

There weren’t really any standard books for sale, almost all of them were old tomes that described historic events. Most of them regarding the escapades of various Warlords that fought for territory within the wastelands in the last 200 years.

The other books for sale weren’t even written in languages he could understand. They all just looked like scribbles and symbols.

Needless to say, he was disappointed.

He was beginning to think that everything in the second and third floor of the Merchant’s Hall worth buying was already sold.

Dante walked over to the rare raw materials that were on the third floor. He spent the remainder of his time inspecting the random metals, plants, and reagents. Reading each description and memorizing their characteristics so that he would recognize them in the future and know their purpose.

That was what he was doing when the same elderly receptionist from earlier found him.

“Excuse me sir, the items that you requested have been collected. They are in loading bay fourteen, which is located in the back of the hall. If you would like, I will collect the payment for your bill and lead you there.”

Dante nodded, then gestured to the stack of books in the far side of the room. “Are there any other books? The selection seems to be quite lacking.”

The receptionist looked at the books he pointed at and scratched his head in embarrassment. “I’m terribly sorry sir, but all the books collected in Sloria are sent directly to the first lady’s personal collection. The exception being those that are considered inconsequential or unintelligible.”

Dante let out a sigh, that certainly explained a lot. “How much did everything end up costing?”

The receptionist answered without giving it a moment’s thought. “After the service charge, 147 gold, 23 silver, and 42 copper.”

Hearing the receptionist’s words, Dante’s eyes narrowed. “How much was the service charge?”

“20 silvers, which includes the packaging fee.”

Dante nodded, that seemed fair. The convenience alone was worth the 20 silver coins. “Lead the way.”

He followed the receptionist back down to the first floor and paid for the goods. After that, he was led down into a ‘loading bay’. The loading bay was basically just a room in the back of the hall that was raised about four feet off the ground. It was made so that the large door could be opened and a cart could be backed up to the bay and easily loaded.

As soon as they stepped into the loading bay the receptionist gestured to the stacks of crates that had his new belongings in them. “Feel free to make sure everything is in order. Do you have your own method of transportation? If not, the Merchant’s Hall has a delivery service you could make use of.”

“There’s no need for a delivery service.” Dante walked up to the crates and looked into them. His enchantment powder and alchemic ingredients were neatly stowed, but all the preservation storage containers were haphazardly fit into their own individual crates. After making sure everything was in order, he looked back at the elderly receptionist. “Everything looks good. Thanks for the help.”

As soon as the receptionist left he began to store his new items. It only took a few minutes, and he even took the crates that they were stored in. He wasn’t sure what he would do with them, but they would likely be useful eventually.

When he finished, Dante left the Merchant’s Hall.

Despite it being late in the afternoon the sun was still high in the sky. Now that he had accomplished everything he set out to, Dante decided that it was better to leave Sloria before any other unexpected complications arose.

Dante first made his way to the Enchanter’s Hall. He had separated from Leah and Candice suddenly, and right after getting himself into trouble with Eric, so he wanted to let them know that he was okay and leaving.

Unfortunately, when he arrived at the Enchanter’s Hall, he discovered that they weren’t there. And he also had no idea where he would find them, which was problematic. Without any better options, Dante wrote a quick note letting them know he was leaving Sloria and left it with the workers in the Enchanter’s Hall.

Dante then made his way out of Sloria unimpeded. And after paying 6 silvers to get his raptor back from where he left it outside of the city, he was flying high in the sky, sailing over the encamped soldiers in the valley below.