THE WEAKNESS

While Lynne had been running away from the scene of the crime, he was in relatively high spirits. Considering the level of his current strength, he was no longer a small fish at the bottom of the barrel in the Magic world. He was at least two feet up from the bottom.

He had quickly found a relatively tall mountain and climbed it with ease, scouting the horizon from the flat peak. The monkey and the bird were still far away, but he had managed to establish communication with the duo through the bird. It would take them roughly a week to catch up to Lynne, and that was if Lynne merely stood still in this very spot.

However, he had already told them to aim straight for the Holy Paradise city, and that they should meet up there. Looking around, he only spotted a single larger city, a bit to the north. The city appeared quite modern, with high-rising buildings towering one over another, and massive, defensive walls seemingly turning it into a fort.

After a brief thought, Lynne changed his appearance and aura yet again, afraid that someone might recognize him from the remnants of the battle against the Fire Fiend. He now appeared to be a youthful, twenty something male with short, buzz-cut hair, wide eyes and tender and fair skin. The aura he emoted was of calmness and aloofness, with a tinge of grace.

Only after being satisfied fully with transformation did he proceed towards the city. Roughly an hour later, he had found himself in a lengthy line in front of the city gates, with nearly one hundred people in front of him. The gates towered good twenty meters into the air and were built from some precious metal Lynne was unable to recognize. Two serpents ran parallel up through the gate, seemingly like veins of the gate.

As Lynne inspected the entrance a bit further, he realized that over half the people were rejected entrance to the city, and were sent off down-faced. This made him worry slightly so he inquired about the reasons.

Apparently, this city was called Serpent’s Twist, and was one of the major cities surrounding the capital. It had direct bloodline connected to it as well, mainly through the extraction of precious metal – Earthfire Metal – from which the gates themselves were built. Apparently, the metal is so rare, that the city’s mine is the currently known mine deposit of it on the entire continent.

Because of the high status of the city, not only would you need to have personal strength, but also lofty status in order to gain entrance. However, as there are many powerful, roaming Mages, if you don’t have status, you need to have riches.

This made Lynne even more anxious, so he quickly found a nearby merchant’s caravan and inquired about exchanging gold for Mana Stones. After learning the rate of exchange, though, he forcibly swallowed back a mouthful of blood.

“That’s a robbery!” he hissed at the plump merchant sitting atop the horse. “I could get half the women of this continent to serve me for a year for the amount of gold you’re requesting for measly one hundred Mana Stones!”

“Humph,” the merchant coldly snorted; as someone who had spent decades in the business, he realized that Lynne was in desperate need of Mana Stones, which is why he set such exuberant rates. “Either take it or leave it. This isn’t Beggar’s Quarters.”

“No, it’s definitely not Beggar’s Quarters!” Lynne rebuked quickly. “It’s Thief’s Guild! How isn’t your face red already?” Lynne raised the volume of his voice slightly so that the surrounding people could chime in on the fun. “I wonder whether your business is falling apart for you to resort to daylight robbery! Aren’t you ashamed? Could you dare face your ancestors like this?! Huh? What? You think robbing poor youths like me is fun? Is your head swollen from all the shameful acts you’ve committed in the past?”

“You!!!” the merchant’s face quickly grew ashen, as he realized he had stepped on the wrong beast’s tail.

“What me? Huh? You want to curse me?! You don’t have to! I’ll curse myself while I heckle you! Isn’t being a merchant all about being fair?!” Bullshit! “About making righteous deals with other people?!” Do you even know what ‘merchant’ means?!! “And creating wondrous relationships across the world?” Did you grow up in the mountains?!

“Hai, you bring shame to all the merchants around the world!” Lynne suddenly turned to lament as a couple of tears fell down his cheeks. “When I was young, my grandma – who was a descendant of a True Dragon by the way; I once saw her spit fire out of her mouth. It might have been her rotten teeth, but it’s most-likely fire – khm, she told me that merchants are this world’s mortal gods, because they bring joy to all commoners like us! Ai, my grandma bit her tongue once too hard and choked on her own blood, how lamentable…”

“Fine, fine, thousand gold coins to one Mana Stone, just please, shut up! Just shut up!” the merchant wanted to cry but no tears came out; he could only regret his sour fate to have provoked a shameless character like Lynne.

Most those people surrounding the duo were chuckling in low voices, mocking and pitying the merchant at the same time. Lynne, on the other hand, completely ignored them as he exchanged tens of millions of cold coins he had for roughly thirty thousand Mana Stones. This, in turn, made other people look at him with envy, as 30000 Mana Stones – even just low quality ones – was a considerable amount, especially for rogue Mages.

Empowered with the wealth, Lynne began humming a sweet melody in a low voice as he went back into the line. Roughly a quarter an hour later, it was his turn; the guards inspected him closely, nodding as they sensed he was Master Archmage. Lynne quickly fished out ten thousand Mana Stones when they inquired about his status, upon which the guards paused for a moment and then let him pass.

Being in an extremely good mood, he flickered twenty Mana Stones over to the guards, as he proceeded to enter the city.

Although the city was relatively large, it was was built with simplicity in mind; it was completely square-shaped, and all plots of land were square-shaped, making it so that it was easy to navigate through the city. After short inquiry, Lynne had learned something quite pleasant: teleportation array – connecting directly to the Holy Paradise – will be activated in two weeks’ time, and he immediately reserved a spot for himself. Apparently, it was due to the grand event, and nobody needed to tell Lynne what that grand event was.

As he had two weeks of freedom, Lynne found a quite distant inn, nearing the city walls themselves, and reserved a one bed room for two weeks. It cost him two Mana Stones, but he didn’t feel much for it. As it was still midday, he decided to take a stroll through the city and learn its general design.

To his astonishment, over half the buildings were actually built out of Earthfire Metal, most of which were at least five stories tall, with majority eclipsing even ten. Eventually, his path led him to the central part of the city, which was a massive square, nearly a kilometer in circumference. The square was surrounded by four buildings in total: Justice Hall, Lord’s Mansion, Auction House and Battle Arena.

Lynne’s eyes shone slightly as he saw the name of the auction house: Divine Treasure Pavilion. He immediately hurried over and entered the massive, twenty stories building. Although it was called auction house, its first seven floors were actually a massive shop, vaunting countless rare resources and treasures. As Lynne laid his eyes on the shimmering objects, he felt incredibly small beneath them – and this was just the first floor.

He lacked severely in the department of life-saving treasures; you could say that he really only had Heaven’s Writ, but that was too circumstantial. Outside of that, he only had a space duo of daggers, but it wasn’t really a life-saving treasure. He also lacked true trump cards, and so far had to rely solely on himself in every battle.

A flicker of determination flashed through his eyes as he approached one of the first shelves. However, the moment he saw the prices listed beneath the items, his eyes blanked for a moment and he felt like crying. 10000, 12000, 8000, 60000… Fuck! I thought I was rich! What the hell is this shit?!

“Hello,” a sweet sounding voice woke him up from his daze; as he shifted his head sideways, he spotted a beautiful, middle-aged woman approach him. All the painful emotions quickly disappeared and were instead replaced by reverence. “Do you need some help?”

“Ai, sure, you’re too nice,” Lynne put on the most innocent smile he could. “I’m in desperate need of lov—I mean loo-awesome life-saving treasures. Ah, unfortunately, when my dear grandma passed away – she was a million year old tree who evolved into a person, by the way – she didn’t leave me with great wealth. However, the knowledge she taught me… ah, I could swim in it for a lifetime and never bathe completely…”

“Ah,” the woman’s lips twitched slightly; he isn’t a beggar, is he? “H-how much do you have, young Lord?” Ai, her voice is beautiful! Her bosoms are great! Her-ah, forget it, forget it. I’m not good enough for her yet.

“20000 or so,” Lynne said. “Ah, but I can’t spot anything that can truly help me in the time of need for that price.” Ah, thank the lord he isn’t a beggar!

“Please,” the woman stood next to Lynne, her fragrance entering his nostrils, causing his mind to stir. “Follow me young Lord.”

“Always.”

“Hm?”

“Yes, yes. Lead the way.”

Soon, the woman led him up to the second floor, and into a small corner that was stacked with jade pendants to a boot. Green, yellow, silver, black… all colors were present, and they were all stacked neatly into translucent boxes of glass. Lynne’s jaw dropped to the floor when he saw the items, and then separated from his body when he saw the prices. I didn’t mean just one! What the hell’s the use of a single, life-saving treasure?!

“This here is Immortal’s Breath Jade Pendant,” she carefully took the glass box off the shelf, pointing at the brightly white jade pendant inside. “Its price is set at merely 18000, but it’s true value is much bigger. As long as you infuse Mana into it, the protective barrier’s strength will be the triple of that if you just used Mana to create it!” That sounds like complete crap! Terribly weak! I’d rather just freaking dodge.

“Is-is that so?” Lynne chuckled nervously.

“Of course,” the woman smiled sweetly, leaving Lynne in complete daze. “This can definitely save your life in a critical time. So, will you help the big sister out and buy it?”

“Ah, this,” Lynne sighed softly as he stared at the beautiful woman; ah, she probably has some troubles at home… maybe even her husband beats her… yeah, that’s definitely why she’s working like this… ah, where would my heart be if I didn’t help a beautiful maiden out? “Yeah, I’ll buy it!” Lynne exclaimed, taking out 20000 Mana Stones. “These 2000 are for beautiful sister, as my thanks for leading me properly.”

“Ah,” the woman appeared shocked for a moment as she covered her lips, following which she smiled warmly. “You are really kind.” she ruffled his hair slightly as she gave him the pendant, taking the Mana Stones.

“He he.”

Lynne left the shop feeling rather good; he had helped a beautiful maiden in need, and he didn’t even feel bad about wasting 20000 Mana Stones on a terrible treasure to do it. He hummed a sweet melody as he strode back to his inn.

On the other side, the woman watched his back as he departed, her sweet smile disappearing and shifting into that of mockery. She stared at the ring on her finger, eyes cold.

“Heh, naive sucker,” she said lowly. “Men without self-control sure are easy…” with that, she strode back into the shop, welcoming another, love-stricken youth.