Alright, fair, I’ll pay, she did give me this incredible item… Let’s take out the other one then. Since she doesn’t seem to want them.
“Oh, so you managed to scam Arin out of hers too?” she giggled softly, “A Dragon uses the anklet. That’s why.” Oh. Yeah that would make retrieving it quite a hassle… “And that’s without mentioning the two missing parts.”
Uses? Isn’t it only for Saints? There’s Dragon Saints?!
‘[Poker Face] reached level 27’
Well, at least I have three parts. Next…
Valeure was eagerly waiting for more ‘entertainment’.
“I gave it away but I used to have a cursed item. It was a sun shaped storage pendant that would continuously fill up with sand.”
“What kind of sand? At what rate? Where did you find it? Who has it now?” Sofia could see the Saintess’ eyes shining. That’s a big hit.
“Fine yellow sand, completely uniform, I’d say about three kilos a day, maybe a bit more. I bought it at Garan’s emporium, a magic shop in Einsen. I gave it to a friend who likes it a lot, I’d appreciate it if she could keep it.”
“Hmm…”Wait, is she pouting right now? Really? Also she’s not questioning if I’m lying or not, not asking for any proof. I guess she can actually discern lies? I better watch what I say even more.
‘[Poker Face] reached level 28’
“Tell her that I’m interested when you see her. If she wants to sell it, she can bring it to the Temple, I’ll buy it for a good price,” Valeure declared, then she kept mumbling to herself, “Fine yellow sand… Can’t be transmuted mana if it’s this much. From a hero world? Unlikely… Then where… Cragstone reach? Could be. I think there’s a desert beyond the western sea too… I should go ask Richie…
“Alright, then I will tell you about your next skills, if that’s still something you want to know.”
Wait, Richie? Ah… One thing at a time. Sofia nodded.
“At 120 you will unlock the passive [Blessed hands of the scholar], which allows for drawing ritual circles in thin air, quite good if you know a few good ones. At 130 you get the active [Scroll of infinite prayers], don’t remember what it did exactly but it did involve reading prayers and inflicting some status effects I’m pretty sure. Like random status effects. I would say skip this one most likely. And that’s all I have actually. Severina died at level 137.”
She said that last line without any emotion… Was she the one who ‘died’ her?
It was pretty obvious from the start that whoever she learned the skills from was already dead or I wouldn’t be here… Too bad I can’t know more. It’s good to know what comes next to not miss good combinations. Maybe I should find a high-level [Necromancer] and ask them…
T.L.D.R. has to be a necromancer, right? Since he’s a Lich… Richard. Richie? Maybe I should ask about him next.
After a few seconds of reflection, Valeure seemed to have more things to say, “But this feels a bit like an unfair trade. This is all stuff you would have learned by yourself soon enough. I’ll let you choose a ritual schematic to learn… I have a few that should suit you well. Here, pick between those three, choose wisely because I will not give away more than one.“
Three description windows appeared in front of Sofia’s eyes, shared by Valeure.
[Great wall of runes]: A relatively lightweight defensive ritual, creates a wall of runes around the ritual circle that will not let anything through except light. The wall’s health is equal to twice the amount of base mana used to activate it. Lasts up to 3 hours.
Mana cost : (5 000 to 500 000 base) + (1000 per meter of wall length) Complexity : Medium
[Generosity of Sun]: An extremely simple ritual. Requires the sacrifice of 100 gold coins. Creates a zone blessed by Sun, in which mana regeneration is 20% faster, changed to 200% under direct sunlight. Lasts for 24 hours. Only effective with the approval of Sun.
Mana cost : 10 Complexity : Extremely low
[Ossifying ward]: A curse ward. Creates a cursed zone in which flesh turns to stone.
Cannot be canceled once activated. The larger the ward, the weaker the effect. Lasts 30 minutes.
Mana cost : 10 000 Complexity : Very High
“Is the second option even usable for me? How would I know if I can get the approval of… Sun? That’s a God, isn’t it?”
“It is. This ritual is normally reserved to the Saintess of the Sun, but it actually works for all Saintesses with blonde hair. Don’t ask me why. I had to dye my hair to use it once. Should be easier for you. As long as you don’t hate the sun. The bar is pretty low.”
Well that’s tough. All the choices are good. Let’s see the good and bad of each one…
Great wall of runes is useful protection. Can also serve to block paths in narrow areas. Though you have to set it up in advance since the complexity is still a bit much. I like that it will still be usable later. Up to a million health… That’s quite expensive though. Even for me…
The sun one isn’t anything fancy. Kind of a waste of money… But since mana potions don’t exist, as I’ve learned during my shopping yesterday, I guess that’s an alternative. Problem is the limited effectiveness without sunlight, and that it’s not very useful in battle unless you don’t move. And that’s if the thing even works in the first place.
The curse ward’s effects is quite disgusting to imagine. But that would be very good for traps, and I guess I can always use more bones. I imagine that it won’t work that well against higher level monsters, maybe only progressively slowing them down… But then again I want them to stay inside there for as long as possible. And I need to make it small enough that the effect is strong? I like the theme but this feels very impractical…
My first instinct is to go with the wall. Stand safely in there while Pareth does the work outside… But then what’s the point of all my other defensive skills? I’ll sit there and do nothing?
No.
As interesting as the curse is… I’ll go with the boring choice. Cannot go wrong with more mana. And if it’s a ritual meant for a saint in the first place it must be hard to come by anything like that elsewhere. But things like the other two rituals should be possible to find it feels like.
“I will go with [Generosity of Sun] then.”
“Great choice, I won’t even have to wait for you to learn it, here’s the shape for the circle. You throw a hundred gold in the center and send some mana. That’s it,” Valeure said, drawing the ritual circle in the air with wind-controlled gold coins flying up from her pile.
It was Sofia’s first time seeing a ritual circle being drawn out of gold. But really drawing it with anything would work as long as you put the gold in. The shape was exceedingly simple. Two small and one big triangles, inside of a circle. That will help with using the void castle sooner, since I can upgrade my mana regeneration with this.
Even the [Raise Skeleton] ritual which was relatively simple as far as rituals went was several levels of difficulty above this. The only other one she knew about that was that simple was the activation circles for the Key-rings. And if she was right, all the concentric circles did in that case was to help channel ambient mana to the ring.
Well, I don’t know many in the first place. But this still feels like an outlier.
“Alright I got it, thank you very much.”
“Now do you have anything else?” the fox woman asked expectantly.
“Let me see… I have a lot of paintings and stuff from around the 17th century, all in an excellent state,” Sofia said, taking a few things out of her ring.
“I’ll take some paintings, sure. What do you want for them?”
Now. Do I ask for something material or information? She glanced at the overflowing mountains of money still waiting behind the other Saintess.
“I want information on a few things, advice, things like that.”
“Fine, show me all the paintings and other antiquities you have, I will tell you what I take and how many questions that gets you.”
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