After hearing Dame’s plea, Raze was quick to answer. After all, he didn’t want his newfound business partner to disappear just like that. A lot of time and effort were put into this relationship, and he wasn’t so sure he could work with someone like Dame again.
He certainly was a unique character. Not only that, but Raze noticed something from before. When he was in trouble, the other members in their Demonic faction seemed to have recognized him and put a halt to their attack rather quickly.
Raze knew Dame was quite strong to hold off Beatrix, but it seemed he had power with the people as well, which was a good sign of his business moving forward in the future.
“A high cost, huh?” Dame nervously laughed. “I know we just agreed to go into business together, but it looks like your first customer in all of this is going to be me. I was thinking if we used those pills you handed me before, that if I gave it to the people fighting alongside me, they would have a chance.
“But even then, I need something that can help me beat Beatrix, is there anything you have that can do that?”
Although the Cursed mana pill was strong and could restore his Qi, in Dame’s mind, the difference was too large. Because with every strike, she would overpower him, and skillfully as well.
She would cut off his head before he even had a chance to use all of his Qi in the first place. Dame was hoping for something more, or maybe even for Raze himself to join the battle.
However, he had no idea that Raze had no intention to join the battlefield that would put him at risk for no reason.
“You helped me out of the situation from before,” Raze said. “I don’t like owing favors, so I will make the pills for those that will travel with you for free. You, of course, will supply me with all the materials I need. I hope you can afford it.”
The sides of Dame’s mouth started to rise; he knew Raze was a tricky person and was surprised to hear such a good deal would come of it.
‘Making so many pills at once, it will require a lot of stones, and I will have to use a few mana potions myself. The main thing I will have to be careful to avoid is mana sickness if my body takes in too many potions.’
“As for the second favor, a way to help you defeat Beatrix, I think there might be something. I can’t guarantee how it would work, but there might be quite a bit you have to sacrifice to win the battle.”
At this point, Dame didn’t care; he would take anything over his father ripping his own arms off.
“Of course, just let me know.”
“First,” Raze said. “I would like to go to a place where you have high-quality items, they can be weapons or armaments, anything of the kind, and I would like to select one item from there. Second, I would then like two level 2 power stones.” 𝑂𝗏𝓵xt.𝑪𝒪𝑀
A great pain had struck Dame right in the heart. He had a relatively small fortune being the Clan leader’s son, but it wasn’t infinite. This whole battle was going to cost him everything he had.
A level 2 power stone would have been easier for him to just get from some beast, but with restrictions on portals and time not on his side, he would have to use his funds to buy them.
“For yourself, I need you to bring a weapon of your choice and a level 2 power stone,” Raze stated.
With him being a 2-star Mage, he could only do enchantments at the second level, so a higher-level stone would be useless.
“What are we waiting for!” Dame stood up and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. “Let’s go!”
Dame had decided to keep up his end of the bargain first before even getting anything off Raze. Two Level two power stones had been given to him; one of them had the Earth attribute, while the other had no attribute.
It was a shame that they both didn’t have an attribute, but Raze decided not to make much of a fuss in the first place because he could see that Dame had tried his best to haggle on the prices, and he could assume that he would be quite low on funds.
The next place, rather than a market stall, the two of them had visited the inside of a shop. It looked a bit like the pawn shop that Raze had visited before on the inside, just that it was more focused on weapons rather than tools.
“Alright, you can pick whatever you want that’s in this room,” Dame said, standing blocking the way to a door that led to another room. He assumed that the more expensive items were in the other room.
It was okay because Raze wasn’t looking for a weapon; he was just looking for something that had a high affinity with magic. Hovering his hand over the items, magic flowed out of his hands, hitting them one by one.
‘Oh, this is a first; nearly everything in here is reacting to the magic. I guess these items are quite a bit better.’
Surprisingly, though, the item that reacted the most and vibrated the strongest was, of all things, a mask. There were several metallic masks that were placed in a barrel. They were made of pure metal with only small slits for one’s eyes to see through.
“Oh, those are working masks… they’re quite useless for a Pagna warrior but popular among workers who do hard labor all day since it protects the face,” Dame explained.
“And not the eyes?” Raze replied back, thinking it was quite the poor design. Poor or not, it had the strongest reaction. “I’ll just take this.”
Hearing those words, it was at that point that Dame felt like Raze was a saint. Was he being considerate because he knew how much money he needed to spend, that he had bought the cheapest thing in the shop? More and more, he was seeing him in a new light.
With that done, the two of them had returned to the inn, where they could see Fixteen waiting for them in the room. He was carrying something under his arm wrapped in an old cloth.
“The most important thing is helping me beat Beatrix, so I thought we could deal with that first,” Dame said, and looked at Fixteen.
Out on the table, he placed the item wrapped in cloth and unraveled it, revealing a pair of black gauntlets and a level 2 power stone. The gauntlets looked impressive. They weren’t large, like some; these were relatively small, almost the perfect fit over Dame’s hands.
It made them look not too bulky when placed on him. The fingers were pointed like claws, and it had a strange pattern on it that would make it look like they were scales.
“Alright,” Raze said as he sat down. Unlike the times before, he didn’t immediately start drawing the magic circle because he had to think about what type of enchantment to do.
He had already decided that he would use dark magic. With this, the level of Enchantment would be higher, giving it the effects of a rare or elite item! If he used wind magic, it would only become an uncommon rarity item. Although, there was also always the chance of it becoming a sealed item, which, when unsealed, would act like a lottery as to what type of item it would be.
Why Raze was thinking was because he was looking through his memory for what type of enchantment to put on the gauntlets. Just like his items before, even with Dark Magic, there was always the aim of enchantment that Raze was going for.
With the cloak, he wanted the storage ability; with the dark ring, he wanted the tracking ability to sense his dark magic. When an item was sealed, though, nearly everything went out the window, and it didn’t really matter what enchantment Raze had cast.
With weapon enchantments, things worked rather differently as well. Mages, in the first place, didn’t use many weapons apart from a select few, such as battle mages or magic swordsmen.
Raze wasn’t one of these two, so he didn’t know many weapon enchantments, nor had he memorized recipes for them.
‘Oh wait, wouldn’t that work? Although it’s a pretty basic Enchantment, it might be quite useful for a Pagna warrior,’ Raze thought.
With the onlookers there, he proceeded to go ahead and draw the circle. He didn’t mind the other two watching him because he knew they would have no idea what he was doing. On top of that, this formation, since it was a tier-2 enchantment, would take a rather long time for him to draw.
Around forty or so minutes later, he was done. Raze came over and placed the gauntlets on the ground, along with the crystal.
“Alright, here it goes,” Raze said as he emitted black magic from his hands, and it hit the magic circle.
The two, Fixteen and Dame, couldn’t help but stare in amazement at what was happening. They didn’t understand it, but the ground was lighting up from just a few drawings, and the crystal was disappearing.
Finally, when the crystal had disappeared, the gauntlets were the only thing left on the ground.
“Did it work…is it good enough?” Dame asked.
“Show me your effects,” Raze whispered, and the black magic started to fill the air.
[Elite Grade Cursed Morin Gauntlets]
It was a good sign already, with the gauntlets being at the Elite grade level, and it wasn’t a sealed item.
[Skill: Qi blast] [This skill allows the user to blast Qi out from their fists]
This was the effect that Raze was going for. A user that could only use their fists was at a disadvantage at range, but with this, anyone could be more versatile. This enchantment was a simple one that allowed one to use their mana in a ball attack, but for Pagna warriors, it was surely something impressive.
Now, though, with it being an elite item, it would have a couple of greater effects.
[Skill: Homing] [All Qi blasts will home towards the selected target] [The target must be marked by physically scratching the intended target with the gauntlets. Multiple targets cannot be selected]
[Skill: Hidden] [The gauntlets can be hidden by the user when worn. It will show the natural skin and clothing unless being used in combat]
The extra effects were great, but now it was time for the downside.
[Curse] [If the user performs sexual activities, all effects of the gauntlets will be lost.]
‘This one…is truly a curse.’