Chapter 33: Shopping Spree

Luxy―as Jaxir learned the old woman was called―looked at Jaxir with a bright, knowing smile on her face. Jaxir almost couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew exactly what he was trying to do and just waiting for him to reach his limits.

’Well, maybe I should have expected just selling stuff to a merchant wouldn’t be good enough. I guess the only choice left, then, is to buy.’

―

Name: Jaxir Chance

Class: Magic

Level: 4

Alignment: Bad

Experience: 377/2000

Coins: 3,722,833

―

"Thank you for helping me with my inventory, I had no idea what I was going to do with all those items," Jaxir said with a chuckle. "I think I’ll need to buy things, now. Do you happen to have the second of the three Feathery Touch Set items here?"

"Ah, I unfortunately do not. The first and second set items are the only two that can be somewhat affordable for the common man, so they’re pretty much always sold out.

"What I can do for you is get you a map of the location where you can farm for this set. How does that sound?"

"Oh? How much does it usually cost?"

"The second of the Feathery Touch Set is an Uncommon item. Usually costs a few thousand coppers depending on inventory. Since it’s such a popular set item I often put it up for auction so I’ve seen it sell for more than 10,000 coppers quite often. The first of the set is usually around two to three hundred coppers."

"And what about the third of the set?" Jaxir asked out of curiosity.

He had the third already, he was just curious.

But Luxy seemed well aware of that as she looked down at his body with a flicker of well-concealed greed in her eyes. Then she chuckled.

"An Epic item is no joke. Honestly, the only reason people buy the first and second of the set is because when they are together, it increases the odds of the third of the set appearing by 100x."

Jaxir’s brows raised. He had a feeling that since he hadn’t seen a bunch of people walking around with feather sets, that probably meant that even with a 100x boost, the odds were pitiful.

"An item of that caliber I will always set up for auction. But you shouldn’t expect to get it without parting with at least one or two million coppers."

"I understand. I’ll buy the information, then," Jaxir said, nodding. He was tempted to sell the item to see if that would cross Luxy’s threshold or not, but the +50 Body stats was far too important to him right now.

"That’ll be 5,400 coppers."

Jaxir looked down at the screen before him a bit skeptically.

Luxy chuckled. "This information is quite important, you see. And it’s very dangerous to get your hands on it. You see, the Feathery Set is actually not part of the ancestral heritage of the Twinkle Village, it’s instead part of the ancestral inheritance of our sister village, the Sparkle Village. We are just in close enough proximity that we are only a few days apart and the hunting region happens to land between our lands.

"This information is a combo sale of information and access. It is a tax we pay to the Sparkle Village. A hunting tax, per se."

"I see." Jaxir nodded. "This is good context, thank you very much. I’ll take it, then."

"Excellent!" Luxy said almost a little bit too quickly.

Jaxir smiled but didn’t mind it. What he didn’t really understand was why the ancestral heritage of another village had appeared here so easily.

’Actually, I looted the first part of the set from a corpse, and got the other in a Nightmare Dungeon. So it’s not like I got them both from common situations...’ Jaxir thought to himself.

"Since you say there’s an ancestral heritage of the Sparkle Village, what’s the ancestral heritage of the Twinkle Village."

Luxy gave him a genuine and sad smile.

"I’m sorry. This I cannot sell. Only with the favor of the village lord’s family or he, himself, might you learn of this."

Jaxir almost laughed. Looked like that quest line was completely cut off from him.

"In that case, I’d like some better clothes. Do you have anything good here that will help a mage?"

"Of course!" Luxy was immediately cheery again.

It took a bit, but Jaxir eventually picked out a Rare grade robe.

―

Name: Starry Twinkle Robe

Grade: Rare

Level: 5

+25 Mind Stats

[Item contains one defensive charge that blocks up to 50 Damage. Needs one hour to fully charge]

Cost: 270,000 copper

―

The robes were quite nice and it gave him a great boost to his MP too. They shimmered in blacks and deep blues. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact it wasn’t really his style, Jaxir thought it looked quite badass.

Honestly, he preferred pants. But since this was a game, he lived a little.

After this, Jaxir bought a pair of simple black boots.

―

Name: Weightless Boots

Grade: Rare

Level: 5

[These boots reduce the weight of the user and every item they wield or are in possession of by 50%, so long as this item is both beneath Epic Grade and Level 6]

Cost: 420,000 copper

―

Though these boots didn’t come with a direct stat boost, it effectively made Body stats stretch a lot further. With them on, you could run faster and jump higher for longer stretches of time.

Clearly Luxy knew their value too, because they cost way more than his robes did.

Then Jaxir bought a belt.

It looked more like a gold rope that loops across his waist, the two ends fraying into loose, soft hairs that made them almost look like horsetail wisps.

―

Name: A Wisk of Mana Belt

Grade: Rare

Level: 5

[Improve MP regeneration by +20 per minute]

Cost: 490,000 copper

―

What Jaxir learned after going through so many items was that mana regeneration was all too rare. This was still the best he could find, and it cost so much, but he didn’t hesitate to sweep it up.

Luxy’s smile grew brighter and brighter with every purchase, and Jaxir honestly felt like he was already decked out with everything he needed already, and yet she still didn’t show any signs of her threshold being crossed.

’I’ve spent over a million coins, is this still not enough? Or do I have to breach the topic again to see if it will work this time?’

Jaxir tried having some casual conversation with Luxy a bit, asking her about her life and her day, and though she was amiable he could feel that her patience was already starting to wear thin after just a few minutes.

’So I really didn’t cross the threshold,’ Jaxir concluded.

"Can I see what Vestigem Cards you have?" Jaxir asked.

He still had over two million coins left over. He hadn’t been looking for Vestigem Cards because he currently had 17 of them in his possession. With Encore, that was good as having 34.

They were all Common Grade, but still quite effective nonetheless.

"Vestigem Cards you say..." Luxy suddenly perked up as though she had hit a new gear.

She slapped a palm on the counter and swiped it across. A surge of light almost blinded Jaxir, and then images of one Vestigem Card after another started whipping by.

"... All sorts." Luxy said with a grin.

"Hm... can I see all the ones related to Twinkle Mana."

Jaxir realized during his last battle that he could learn a lot about how to use his Twinkle Mana from mimicking Vestigem Card activations.

If he could use Twinkle Step just a few more times, he felt like he could refine his movement a lot more. But Twinkle Anchor was even more important to him. If not for it, there was no way he could have fought so many enemies at once.

He needed that more than ever.

By the same logic, if he could find some Hex Path related Vestigem Cards as well, would that help Wither, Bind, and Fracture along as well?

"No problem." Luxy’s grin grew deeper.

Jaxir was so focused that he didn’t notice something in her eyes shifting, almost like she was anticipating something that teetered just on the precipice.

"Wow, they really are expensive," Jaxir said with a whistle.

The images shifted and five cards were left behind.

Amongst them, Twinkle Step and Twinkle Anchor were right there. However, despite being one-time use Vestigem Cards, they were 150,000 copper each.

No wonder people rarely carried them. These cards could bankrupt people.

Without hesitation, though, Jaxir spent 1.5 million copper buying two of each, his eyes glowing with interest as he looked at the three Twinkle Mana-related cards he had never seen before.

What Jaxir didn’t expect was that he wouldn’t even get the chance to look into the cards with greater detail.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Heavy shutters slammed over the windows of the store and everything fell to near complete darkness.

One of the few points of light left were Luxy’s glowing eyes.