Both of them walked around the lower part of Alfa City with leisure, taking in the sights all around them.
The place was crowded and messy. The voices of many people muttering and talking to each other made the area seem unbearable, but the place was also full of wonder and the two were having an enjoyable time.
After a while, they arrived in one of the stores with the symbol of a huge sword in front of it. Under the symbol, the text [Sword Shop] could be seen.
"We might find a good one here!" Silva exclaimed.
Without waiting for him to respond, Silva pulled him in and asked for a tier 5 sword with a price of less than 50,000 spirit stones.
From the corner of her eyes, she saw Emery frown slightly and the girl changed the budget to 20,000 spirit stones.
"Let's see if we can find you a more worthy sword," Silva said with a teasing lilt in her voice.
At first, Emery was skeptical, but his expression changed to one of surprise when he saw the shopkeeper return with three piles of swords. From the pile of broken and rusty ones, he pulled a sword shining in dark red.
[Blood Devouring Sword]
[Long Sword - Tier 5]
[Length : 1.2 meter, Weight : 62 kilograms]
The sword looked intimidating, and the name was promising. However, his expression changed when he read the description.
[This sword will consume the user's blood in exchange for power. The stronger the attack, the more blood needed]
"... what the hell"
Apparently, it was the user's blood taken, not the other way around, a suicidal sword.
With it, Emery hurriedly placed the sword back into the pile.
"What about this one?"
Silva pulled out a bright, shiny sword decorated with jewels and carvings of vines. Emery had to admit it was one of the most beautiful swords he had ever seen just a level below the Excalibur.
[Fairy Knight sword]
[Long Sword - Tier 5]
[Length : 0.9 meter, Weight : 14 kilograms]
This time, Emery decided to read the description with less expectations.
[This sword has the soul of an ancient 5000 year old fairy sealed within - can only be used by a male.]
[The sword will bring out the sealed femininity within.]
"..."
Emery didn't even have the energy to respond, he simply stared at Silva.
In response, the girl chuckled and said. "Could be useful, you know, someone needs to understand women better."
Silva used the chance to explain that tier 5 swords or higher tier had the capability to be infused with a soul. Just like Caliburnus that could speak to him and give him a massive boost of power
The stronger the soul, the more powerful the sword. However, this sword was infused by a useless one and, considering the effects, no one wanted it, thus the price flunked.
They continued looking at the other two piles, but they found nothing else slightly interesting.
Emery wished he could find a lucky diamond in the rough pile of junk. Unfortunately, life does not work that way. This is afterall not a fantasy story.
Emery decided to not get himself a sword at the moment. He had a pretty good tier 4 sword along with a few tier 3 swords from his master. Trying to find a good sword with his current budget would just be a waste of time.
Not far from the shop, Emery saw an apothecary shop and was quickly interested to enter.
However, just like before, he couldn't be bothered to buy overpriced high-tier ingredients. Instead, he checked on all tier one and tier twos that caught his interest.
Healing herbs, strength enhancer herbs and poisonous herbs. He needed all of those to upgrade his research for his [Strength Paste], [Cleansing Potion], [Gaia Serum] and the poison needed to progress on his future fey gene project.
When Silva saw what Emery had gotten, she raised her eyebrows and asked. "Why not get something useful for a fight?"
She walked to a particular corner of the room and gestured at a range of ingredients that were volatile and could turn into fire or explode. These ingredients, potions and recipes were sorted based on their overall tier.
"I think you could use more firepower. As nature element users, we really are lacking in that category."
Emery thought about it and realized it could be the start of a new line of research. The ingredients looked a bit different; instead of leaves and plants, most looked like sand in varying colors.
Silva also picked up two sheets of recipes for him. "You should start with these two, they're pretty good. Especially the second one."
Both were basic recipes, one was a recipe to create a liquid that could continuously burn even while submerged in water, while the other was a powder mixture that created an instant explosion.
Silva looked at him and said with a smile. "You will thank me later for that." The girl seemed to have a hidden purpose in choosing them.
Emery decided to take all the rare ingredients he could find, specifically the ingredients that could only be gathered from the three neutral realms. He bought more than a hundred kinds of ingredients, but he only took a handful each, just barely enough to cover his research. In addition, the recipes chosen by Silva all cost him 15,000 spirit stones
Although Emery didn't have that many spirit stones, he believed these herbs were not easy to find, unlike the artifacts and spells that he could buy in the Magus Academy.
Emery was using his spirit stones very cautiously, so the next place Silva took him was the main reason they came here. The clone facility shop.
He didn't even need to look at the options, as he only had one specific clone frame to buy.
[Rank 9 clone frame]
[Male] [Human] [Halfblood]
[50,000 spirit stones]
It was just a pile of gooey form, an artificial body with bones and organs crafted for a specific purpose. Just with this one purchase was enough to drain all his spirit stones.
After he paid for the clone, he was asked to step into a device that looked like a massive cylinder.
Light shone all over his body, scanning him from top to bottom with a whirring sound. Right as he stepped away from the cylinder, a clone frame was shaped with his exact specifications, his height, his hair color, etc.
When it's done, Emery now had a copy of himself that he placed into his spatial space.
After he left the shop, Silva asked. "What should we go shopping for next? A spell maybe? We might find rare spells in this places, you know?" She said with a grin on her face.
Emery quickly shook his head. "N-no, no more shopping until after the auction."