Making a plan for such a serious operation wasn't always easy, especially when everyone had their own opinions on everything. But in this case, everything went smoothly. The plan was basically to attack a little after midnight. Since clocks were magical tools in this world, and they cost a lot of money, Adeline would light a fire at their meeting spot when the time was right. She came from an established noble family and was the only one in the group who owned a watch.
The planning itself only took about 15 minutes, since there wasn't that much to decide on. Ark only had about half an hour left in his human form, which is why he decided to look around the city for a while with Thufrat.
The streets of the city were quite crowded, and Ark and Thufrat just enjoyed the atmosphere for a while as they walked around and chatted with each other. After walking around for a couple of minutes they decided to sell some of the stuff they had gotten in the dungeon earlier. Even though Ark hadn't really thought about it, the spatial bag on his waist contained quite a lot of money in the form of magical artifacts.
At the corner of one of the streets, there was a small artifact shop. This artifact shop was run by an old man. The old man had silvery grey hair, and a monocle covering his left eye. As Ark and Thufrat entered this shop, they were hit by a very large amount of mana particles. The feeling of mana was actually very pleasant, giving this shop a very relaxed mood. The old man gave Thufrat an odd look when he entered the store, he looked a little annoyed.
Ark, noticing this, felt the urge to go to another store, but they didn't have that much time, and this store was actually pretty renowned around these parts, making it optimal for selling their stuff. Since Ark was annoyed at the old man's attitude, and he didn't want to be polite to such a person, and therefore he wasn't.
"Yo, old man, we want to sell some magical artifacts." He said as he walked up to the counter.
The old man looked a little annoyed being addressed this way, but when he heard that they wanted to sell magical artifacts, his interest was instantly piqued.
"Just follow me this way, I'll appraise your items for you." The old man said as he motioned for Ark and Thufrat to follow him behind the counter.
Behind the counter, the old man opened a door to a small room with a big workbench in the middle of it, this was where the old man appraised rare items, as well as the place where he tinkered with all kinds of things. Ark and Thufrat followed the man in, and they stopped on the other side of the table, opposite the man. Ark didn't waste any time and instantly took out some items from the spatial bag.
The first thing Ark removed from the spatial bag, was a pitch-black greatsword that had an affinity towards darkness. As the sword came in contact with the world outside of the spatial bag, the darkness mana in the air instantly went into an uproar, swirling around this sword. The old man stared at this sword with a glint in his eyes. These people in front of him seemed to have hit the jackpot!
Ark wasn't done yet though, after taking out the sword, he reached for his spatial bag once more and started taking out some things. The first thing he took out was a fiery red gem, this gem shone with an irresistible luster and the fire mana in the air started dancing happily when it revealed itself. After taking out this red gem, Ark took out another 5 similar looking gems, each with their own element, one green, one blue, one brown, one translucent as well as one yellowish surrounding by terrifying electric sparks. The one that was yellowish was of the lightning element, and it emitted quite the terrifying pressure as it appeared on the palm of Ark's hand. Ark had never really realized how brutal and tyrannical the power of lightning was before this.
The old man felt like fainting when he saw all of these elemental gems one after the other. This youth in front of him didn't even bat an eye when taking them out! He simply acted like he took out some pebbles he found on the roadside. Ark's feeling wasn't far from that either, he had no idea of the value of these gems, but he didn't have any money at the moment, just a small amount that Thufrat had saved up by himself.
"Old man, state your price!" Ark said with a bit of impatience, they had spent a little too much time here already, and Ark didn't like this cramped space.
"Give me half a minute to think first!" The old man responded as he eyed all these objects in front of him.
Ark only nodded and stood there in silence, while Thufrat curiously took a look around this little workshop of this old man. After half a minute had passed, Ark was about to speak up, when the old man finally stated his price.
"I'll take it all for 3 rose gold, as well as 30 gold coins!" This was around the market value for all these things. The most expensive object here was the pitch-black greatsword. But all of the gems could be used to craft both magical weapons and staffs, making their price less than an already completed product.
Ark had no idea about the value of these things, and he cast a glance towards Thufrat. Thufrat was really excited when he heard this price, and when Ark looked at him inquiringly, he nodded his head in satisfaction. This was a pretty good price after all! Since Thufrat was on board with this price, Ark stretched his arm out to shake the old man's hand. The old man was a little taken aback, but he quickly shook Ark's hand. It wasn't often people would shake his hand when finalizing a deal, but he didn't really mind.
As Ark was already in this store, he decided to buy another spatial bag since the one he was using now was actually Thufrat's. The old man was happy when he heard this since spatial bags were pretty expensive. Ark only wanted one that wasn't too big, and he bought one for 1 rose-gold before exiting the store with Thufrat. Ark stopped outside the store and swapped some of the contents of the spatial bags, such as his clothes, and after that, he also put in 1 rose-gold as well as 15 gold coins in Thufrat's spatial bag. Thufrat was very happy, he had never had this much money in his entire life, and if he wanted to, he would be able to just relax for a while with this money, not that he would do that.
Since Ark didn't have much time left, Ark and Thufrat left the city and sat down in the forest outside for a while to just talk. The conversation was very pleasant for both of them since they hadn't gotten to talk that much with each other yet. Whilst talking with Thufrat, Ark felt like his life was finally starting to become a little pleasant. He had never really felt complete in his life, and he still didn't, but slowly but surely, the void in Ark's heart was beginning to shrink.