Emery went back to the sweltering workshop of Master Tahoggum. He found the small, stocky dwarf sitting on the corner, checking out the titanium he and his friends had brought. As Emery walked up to the dwarf, the man seemed to have noticed his presence for the dwarf looked up and said, "You're back! Did you forget something?"
"Yes, Master Tahoggum," answered Emery with a nod, "I would like to ask if you can appraise an item for me."
Master Tahoggum played with his burnt beard after Emery had laid down the tier 3 obsidian dagger he had taken from Granny on the table.
[Moon Dagger - Tier 3 Artifact]
[Weight: 0.9 kilogram, Length: 35 centimeter]
[Spell unavailable - bound to owner]
The dwarf took the dagger with his rugged hand, full of burnt marks. He summoned a floating cube and the cube shot out a ray of light, scanning every nook and cranny of the obsidian dagger. Once the cube had finished, Master Tahoggum squinted his left eye, which seemed to magnify it through the glass, while he twisted and turned the dagger.
After a few moments, the dwarf laid it back down, stared at Emery and said, "Did you find or steal this artifact?"
Inwardly, Emery didn't like the sudden accusation. However, outwardly, he kept his face straight and answered, "Does it matter?"
Master Tahoggum was silent before suddenly bursting into a laugh. "Hahaha! Not really, you're right, it doesn't matter at all! Welp, I had a feeling you were from a lower realm, and this item confirmed it. Don't worry, I can explain and tell you more about this stuff."
No longer looking at the dagger made from obsidian, the dwarf heartily said, "This item here is a tier 3 weapon, which I believe you already know about. But the interesting part here is this is a magic artifact. No doubt you want to ask what the spell is for and what bound to owner means. The bound to owner means the magic inside it is connected by blood with its master, like the storage ring you have right there" — pointed the dwarf to the ring Emery was wearing — "well, for us to be able to see what the spell is inside, we either need to have its current master give up ownership willingly else you'd have to wait until its master is dead."
"Is there any way we can take off the ownership aside from those two methods?" asked Emery, looking at the obsidian dagger remembering Granny, its master.
"Yes, there is. You will need a powerful unlocking formation spell and as well as potions. The higher the artifact tier, the more powerful the spells and potion required. You'll need to see a magus from the Formation Institute to break the spell binding it to its master and protecting its blood, then an alchemist from the Apothecary Institute to cleanse the blood of its master. Both are available here in the golden city with a cost of course," answered Master Tahoggum.
"How much does it roughly cost?" asked Emery, touching his ring to check how many spirit stones he had.
"For tier 3 artifact like this, I reckon a hundred to two hundred spirit stones," said the dwarf.
Emery felt wanting to punch the air in joy, as long as the price wasn't over 165 spirit stones, the total number of stones he and others had received each in collecting from the skyglazers, he would be able to rid that cursed woman of a weapon that had almost taken his life. That was though until he heard the next sentence from the small, stocky dwarf.
"Ah, not the white one though. The yellow spirit stones. If you only have white spirit stones, it'd be around 10,000 – 20,000," said Master Tahoggum, stroking his short burnt beard.
Emery was dumbstruck. All the fighting he had done with the others spanned for almost 24 hours. They had eliminated about more than a thousand skyglazers and the eight of them had received 165 stones each, which was 1,320 white spirit stones. That wasn't even near the minimum of 10,000 white spirit stones. Emery then calculated the number of days he would need to reach the maximum 20,000 white spirit stones. That was about 15 days of nonstop fighting against those skyglazers! And that was assuming he would receive all of it. Of course the spirit stones would have to be distributed to everyone, and if that was the case, it would take him, Emery, about 120 days or 4 months just to get it unbounded from Granny! He didn't have the time to do that!
"Hahaha! Good news though, is at least you'll still be able to use the dagger's raw power. Tier 3 weapons are stronger than the tier 2 long sword you received. If you want, we can do a trade, instead. I'll take that off of you, and I'll show you some of the tier 3 weapons in exchange for that. Of course, it'll be up to me if I think it's a fair trade. I'll have to unbound it before I can resell it," said Master Tahoggum.
The dwarf then offered Emery to check out his wares. But first, Master Tahoggum, stored the titanium on his storage ring with a hum, before leading Emery to another room, which seemed to be as expansive as the room with tier 2 weapons.
Emery checked the prices of the weapons and he was shocked to see that the simplest looking dagger already had a price of 10,000! He checked the other weapons and found nothing lower than that and the highest seemed to be about 30,000 white spirit stones.
From this, the cost of taking over Granny's moon dagger was almost the same as buying a new tier 3 artifact. Interestingly enough though, the properties or spells of these weapons were pretty much the same as the tier 2 weapons. Increased speed, sharpness, etc. So, this had gotten him thinking, maybe it would be worth it to have this dagger unbounded in the future. He had almost died from this dagger after all. For now though, he decided to use the dagger in case of emergency, maybe in his three months here, he would have the necessary knowledge about the potion needed to dilute the blood and the formation to break the protection of the weapon. He would have to go to the Formation Institute anyway, remembering Killgragah's request.
After having his fill of browsing the blacksmith's stock of tier 3 weapons, Emery gave his gratitude to the blacksmith and left.
Seeing all those wondrous craftsmanship and his natural curiosity in working with his hands and crafting; for a moment, Emery thought about joining the Blacksmith Institute, but then again, he had too much on his plate at the moment to think about. Maybe next time, he thought.
Emery stood at the spot where he had gotten off the carriage with the others. He checked the list of destinations pasted on the side of the waiting spot and found that the Apothecary Institute was one of the yellow carriage's destinations. As soon as the yellow carriage arrived, he went inside, and took one of the empty seats.
He sat beside the window and the carriage went through the tunnel they had first come from. Sitting inside the carriage, he watched with curiosity all the places the yellow carriage passed through. Definitely, this Golden City was a hundred times bigger than Venta City or even Lionarch. He also observed that most people on the street were humans, like him. Although not everyone had the uniform of the academy's acolytes. Only then did it dawn on him that he probably had just seen not even a fraction of what this city had to offer.
As he gazed at them, including the people coming in and out of the carriage, unconsciously, Emery became wary of his surroundings. The feeling of wonder and curiosity seemed to have been changed with skepticism and reasoning lately. And even as he got off in front of the massive building Apothecary Institute, which had countless floating boats entering and exiting from above as well as people moving at a brisk pace on the ground, he couldn't help but feel this way now that he was alone again.
Emery then began to wonder if his experiences the year before had changed something inside him or was this a part of becoming an adult.