Jade followed Eye as he floated out of Core 1. They left the city and soon arrived at Core 2.

Core 2 felt like a large college crossed with a laboratory. Many buildings had people listening to people that were teaching and there were buildings for experiments and training. It had nothing too special to it apart from the fact that the merfolk here were more adept at magic since most of them used it in their daily lives.

Eye led Jade to a large building around the center of the city. He entered one of the doors that led inside and entered a hall way before entering a room at the end of the hallway.

Inside the room were two figures. The biggest one of the two was a 15 meter tall merman with the lower body of a sperm whale and the upper body of a white skinned young man with long grey hair, a full and long beard, blue eyes and large muscles. He wore a lot of jewelry unlike most merfolk but didn’t wear any clothes. Jade’s IP denoted him as [Rank 29: Mergod (Deep)] [Soul Glyph 1] [Ancient-Knight] [Soul Mandala 1] [Unbroken] [Warning: Abyssal Knight: It is advised that you learn less about this person].

In the Astral Plane, his soul looked even harder than Jade’s solid light soul. It was a ball of silver and its appearance seemed to be speaking of how hard it was to break. But it was way smaller than a regular soul indicating that the soul exchanged size for durability.

The smallest one was a 5 foot 8 inches tall woman with black skin and brown eyes. She wore a red and white designed cloth wrapped around her breast and hip. She looked the most human of all the merfolk Jade had seen but Jade’s IP proved this notion wrong.

She had two boas floating around her. One would assume them to be her pets but they were in fact her. In the Astral Domain she looked anything but human as the snakes and her human body shared the same soul. Jade’s IP denoted her and the boas as [Rank 20 Mami Wata] [Soul Glyphs: 1] [Drowned-God].

Jade turned to Eye and said “Who am I supposed to trade with?” His question was answered by the woman who said “I’m the one” in the most sensual voice Jade had ever heard. Jade thought ‘She somehow knew what I said with a psychic message even though I didn’t send it to her’.

Jade turned to her and with a coy smile, she said “Apologies for snooping”. Jade, easily resisting the sensuality her existence exuded, said “What’s your name? Let me guess, human? Snake? Snoopy?” The woman let out an ethereal chuckle and said “Close, I’m Snakes” She pointed to the Mergod and kept quiet.

Jade thought ‘So he is probably Ocean’, as he looked at the Mergod. The Mergod said “I am Ocean”. The man was quiet for a while before saying “Nice to meet you Jade”.

Jade blinked as he thought ‘Did this dude just call me Jade?’ The Mergod said “Apologies. I didn’t know you were trying to hide your name. One of the privileges of my current job makes me know more about someone the more the person knows about me”.

Jade was silent as he looked at the Mergod’s apologetic expression. He thought ‘This is really frustrating. Why are people so good at seeing through lies nowadays… wait, anything I know about him’. Ocean said “Yes, I now know your race, the soul glyphs and Mandala you have, one of the privilege’s of your current job, your job and a few other things. I will stop speaking now”.

The tension in Jade’s heart rose as he thought ‘This guy is a walking secret stealer. IP is there a way to resist this?’. Jade’s IP replied ‘No’. Jade asked ‘Why?!’ his IP replied ‘The same way no one can resist you taking their souls when they are dead, no one can resist him knowing more about them the more they know about him’.

Jade thought ‘Now isn’t that problematic. He probably has a event limited job like me. I don’t even have to ask him questions he can just say a bunch of stuff about himself and he’ll know the same things about me’.

Jade turned toward towards Snakes and said “I would like to know the magic that you have for sale, apart from Spirit magic”. Snakes said “We have a magic technology called Magic Drawing and a magic called Life Magic. Magic Drawing allows you to draw on an object and store magic spells in the object for as long as the drawing last. Life Magic provides spells for controlling and harnessing Life Force”.

Jade thought ‘So many new things’ and said “I have Wind and Plant Magic. Wind Magic is pretty barebones as it just allows you control wind, which you can probably do with your force field. Plant Magic is the one that is more suited to research, since you guys have Life Magic it will be a major boon”.

Snakes nodded and said “There are other types of magic that come with certain races but those type of magic show their full strength when they are being used by someone who naturally got the spell. Your Wind Magic must be one of those”.

Jade said “You’re right, even with my intelligence the potential of the magic is too limited and you guys live underwater. What is Wind Magic going to do for you?”

Ocean said “We won’t always stay underwater, we will take land too”. Everyone in the room looked at Ocean in surprise. For the Merefolk, the idea of owning land was and had always been a distant dream. They had gotten used to the idea of never owning land, to see that Ocean was single-mindedly going for that dream even after all the frustration they had experienced, especially him, surprised and inspired them.

Jade, on the other was wondering ‘What did he discover this time?’ Ocean closed his mouth and shook his head. Confused, Jade wanted to ask what the gesture meant but knowing more about Ocean, even if it wasn’t from Ocean’s mouth would reveal things about him so he kept quiet.

Snakes and Eye turned toward Ocean shook their head like he just previously did and turned toward Jade. Jade realized that the shaking of their head meant an apology or something along those lines. He said “So are you buying Wind Magic?” Snakes turned to him and said “Of course!”