Chapter 9 The Shopaholic

As Elysia neared Umbra, her headache intensified. One look at the crates and Eva prompted her to hop on the deck, ignoring the source of her newest headache as she descended to her bedroom, flopping face first on her bed.

Ione joined her a second later, curling up against Elysia’s side with a purr.

Elysia’s headache dulled as she petted Ione’s silky soft fur. Her body grew heavier by the second as she dozed off, arm falling limp over Ione.

The sun set while Elysia blissfully snoozed away, sprawled out on her bed with Ione now perched on her chest only a few centimeters from her face.

Light shining through her bedroom windows forced her to roll over, sending Ione off her perch. In retaliation, Ione curled into a ball right in front of Elysia’s face while purring almost smugly.

To Ione’s dismay, instead of suffering, a smile formed on Elysia’s sleeping face as she nestled deeper into her fur.

Several more hours passed before Elysia roused. Unbothered by Ione, Elysia stretched spread-eagled on the bed while letting out a yawn. She absentmindedly stroked Ione fur, removing any annoyance her cat had punctuated by her loud purr in the near silent bedroom.

Elysia suddenly snapped awake, shooting upright, terrified of what Eva bought. She gave herself a quick sniff to find she didn’t stink, though a faint scent of ozone lingered on her clothes. Another plus of turning into an elemental, no more BO. Though she probably should change her clothes later after she did a damage assessment.

With reluctant but determined movements, she climbed out of her bed before exiting her bedroom. The moment she opened the door, she heard voices upstairs, one female voice arguing with another. Both curious and scared, Elysia trotted upstairs to find the blue scaled sisters sitting on the couch with Eva standing in front of them with her hands on her hips, surrounded by piles of bags with different shop logos.

Instead of interrupting, Elysia stood on the stairs listening to the conversation.

Eva glared at the sisters as she questioned in an insulted tone, “You seriously want to sell us a low-grade focus for five medium grade mana crystals!?”

“Of course, that’s a fair deal.” Replied the darker scaled sister.

Unconvinced, Eva retorted, “You know it’s worth at best two medium grade mana crystals. How about you throw in a low-grade spatial ring for a total of seven mana crystals?”

Both sisters winced as the darker scaled one countered, “the lowest we could do is ten for both.”

Looking almost disgusted, Eva shot back, “Seriously? I saw several low-grade spatial rings selling for two to three medium grade mana crystals.”

Both sisters straightened in their seats, causing the sun shining through the window to glisten off their scales. “The grade isn’t the only quality. Our items have much higher durability and mana efficiency.”

With a skeptical expression Eva compromised, “fine if you show me your spatial ring and they are of highest quality, as you say, I’ll buy both for nine mana crystals.”

The sisters glanced at one another before the lighter scaled sister waved her hand to materialize a gold and blue scaled box on the table. She opened it to reveal a display of a dozen rings of varying design.

Eva scanned over the assortment of rings with a critical eye before pointing at a prismatic colored scaled ring. “How much for that one?”

“One high grade mana crystal.” Replied Drask, looking almost pained to say the price.

Unable to resist any longer, Elysia emerged from her hiding spot. All three women jumped at the sudden appearance. Only Joe, who was nursing a drink while sitting on a new stool by the kitchen peninsula, showed no reaction. Her gaze shifted between both sides, then toward the assortment of rings. “Where did you get a high grade crystal to spend? I gave you 10 medium grade and from the looks of things, you spent all of it and then some.”

A smug expression formed on Eva’s face. “I flipped some things, of course.”

“Flipped?”

Eva stared at Elysia as if she was an idiot before responding. “I bought low and sold high. You know, like anyone with a half a brain would do in an uncontrolled market.”

This time it was Elysia’s turn to stare at Eva. “Is that what you are doing while you tormented the poor shops?”

Eva stiffened before glaring at Elysia. “Hey it’s not my fault they didn’t know how to play the game.”

“How do you know how to play the game?” Questioned Elysia with a suspicious tone.

Before answering, Eva glanced at the sisters, then pointed to the control room.

Elysia flashed an apologetic look to the sisters, who appeared slightly frazzled by Eva before following the shopaholic into the control room and closing the door. Her eyes widened, taking in the mayhem that was once a tidy room. Clothes, jewelry, and many other items she didn’t recognize lay scattered on every horizontal surface, including the floor.

A sheepish expression took hold on Eva’s face, no longer putting up a strong front. “Sorry, when I realized I could buy pretty much anything I wanted, I went a little crazy.”

Exhaustion set in despite just waking up, but Elysia gave her best parental look with her hands on her hips. “Explain.”

Eva fidgeted with obvious discomfort as she asked, “So, did I ever explain what my class was?”

“No, I assumed it was something to do with electronics.”

“A few of my skills give me a bonus to electronics, but no, I worked in sales before the system came. When I realized my sales skills would not cut it, I leaned on my electrical engineer degree to survive. Though I spent the entire tutorial grinding my class skills first.”

“So what is your class, then?”

“It’s called negotiator. It gave me several skills to help with negotiations and a stronger variant of identify for items at the cost of being unable to identify living beings like the regular identify all humans got.”

“That still doesn’t explain how you fleeced everyone. These people had years to improve their skills. There is no way you could beat them that easy.”

Confused herself, Eva commented, “You would think that, but it was surprisingly easy when I knew the value of every item and had the negotiation skills to haggle. Especially when different clans don’t coordinate their prices like before the system came.”

Elysia released a sigh before asking, “So let me get this straight. You made a profit while shopping?”

Enthusiasm returned in force, Eva blurted, “Yup! Just like flea market flipping.”

Unable to wrap her mind around the little shopaholic girl outsmarting a bunch of shops, Elysia moved on before a headache returned. “So, what was that ring?”

“Pretty isn’t it? I knew you would like it. It matches your armor and scary whip too.”

Elysia froze before asking, “Wait, you already saw my commission?”

A blood thirsty shrewd expression took hold as Eva replied, “Of course, I had to make sure it was worth the price we are paying for it. I have to say they did an excellent job, though their price was a little high, so I negotiated it down.”

“Is that why they look exhausted?” Asked Elysia, despite knowing the answer.

With a smile, Eva replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Elysia pinched her brow before speaking in an almost pleading tone. “Just please have mercy on them. Word spread to me about the mayhem you caused.”

Eva’s expression shifted back to confusion. “What? All I did was negotiate the best price I could. If anything, I was on the nice side. You should see some flea market haggling. It can get quite ugly.”

“Remember, they aren’t like us. I find it hard to believe you could flip so many items so easily with these people unless something in their culture makes it easy. Maybe they expect each other to pay the listed price so they don’t have experience with hagglers. You could’ve just crashed their economy.” Explained Elysia as if she was speaking to a child.

Eva’s expression formed an oh for an instant before her smile returned a moment later. “That explains why it was so easy. It was like negotiating with a baby.”

“Please refrain from taking advantage of the anymore Chrotile. I don’t want to make an enemy of them, especially when I may delve into a massive dungeon with them.”

“Oh, that explains the fast order. They asked us, but I’d rather stay here to organize my purchases.” Eva’s face grew red as she added in a whisper, “Joe wanted to stay to keep me company.”

Already knowing their decision, Elysia nodded her head. She was definitely keeping her bedroom locked. Even then, she should change her sheets after the dungeon, just in case. Did she even have a change of sheets? Hopefully Eva bought some.

“So, back to that ring. What was it? It had to be pretty impressive if it was so expensive.”

“A high grade focus and spatial ring in one. The value on that ring is actually closer to three high-grade mana crystals, so I’m not sure why they want to sell it so low. My appraisal skill doesn’t always give me specific details on the item, only its value and functionality.”

“Well, why don’t we ask them? It probably has some issue or imperfection. I doubt they displayed it to without it having some use to us, though.”

Eva shrugged her shoulders. “Sure, we may as well find out. Though we are getting a little low on funds. If it wasn’t for my shopping spree, we’d be broke after buying armor and weapons.”

They reemerged into the control room, passing Joe, who was refilling his drink toward the now recovered sisters. Before Eva could torment the sisters further, Elysia asked. “Could you tell us about the ring Eva pointed out?”

The sisters nodded to one another in silent agreement before the Daesk replied. “As Miss Eva probably noticed the ring is a high grade focus and spatial ring but if it were a normal one no way would we sell it for less than ten high-grade if at all as that would be a valuable item to our clans. Even with its limitations, we would be hesitant to sell it to an outsider if it weren’t sold to us at a great price on the condition we must sell it to someone who can put it to good use.”

Elysia’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she remained silent as the Chrotile continued. “While it is a high grade focus and spatial ring, in actuality it’s primarily a focus with limited spatial capabilities for its grade because of its power source. Personally, I’m not sure how it works, but I think it has something to do with the materials it’s made from. Normally, a focus or spatial ring would require mana to charge, but this ring runs on elemental essence. Because of this, its spatial capabilities are closer to a low-grade spatial ring, but as a focus, I would say it’s on the higher end of high-grade.”

Elysia’s suspicion grew at the explanation. The ring is a little too perfect. There had to be a catch.

Before Elysia could voice her suspicions, Eva beat her to it. “What’s the catch?”

“Like I said, it’s mainly a focus because of its limitation. Elemental essence doesn’t play well with anything other than its aligned element, so to use the ring’s spatial capabilities, it requires a rather large and constant power draw most couldn’t sustain. To make it worse, the power draw rises with the space used within. Theoretically, it could have as much space as a high-grade spatial ring power by mana, but the power draw would be beyond anyone below the third evolution and by then a ring of this level wouldn’t be worth using.”

“So, it’s more of an active instead of passive enchantment?” Questioned Elysia, eyeing the ring with interest.

“Affirmative, a passive enchantment would be ideal as it wouldn’t interfere with your combat capabilities, and we have items of that category available. However, they require mana recharging.”

Elysia flashed back to Thoss’s warning her about mana and elemental essence not playing well together, prompting a shiver before realization dawned. Did a certain annoying Chrotile arrange this? Even with its limitations, it was perfect for her. But was she willing to spend a large mana crystal on it? It would be awesome to finally loot her kills, though.

While Elysia was deep in thought, Eva asked, “how much storage are we talking about?”

Expecting the question, Drask answered immediately. “With its unusual characteristics anywhere between one cubic meter to one hundred cubic meters, though the high-end is likely beyond her.”