"You, follow him. Tell me where he is going. If he leaves the village, immediately report to me," Joshua said in a gloomy voice to his servant who was following by his side.
The servant quietly agreed and began to follow Abel from a distance.
"I will make you regret what happened today." Joshua knew that Zach was a rank four Novice Knight. It wouldn't be easy to find a person to rob him. Plus, he was the heir of the Knight of Bennett. The consequences of harassing him could be very severe.
Not his little brother, though. Abel was a blacksmith. It didn't matter how gifted you were, or if you were the follower of Master Bentham. At the end of the day, you were still a blacksmith, and no one would be bothered if you died.
Little did Joshua know, he was only stepping further onto a road of no return.
After Zach had won his bet, a few men were getting ready for a celebration at a luxurious restaurant. But Abel did not go with Zach. When they arrived at Harvest City, he departed from the group since he wanted to buy something.
Abel counted the coins in his pockets. Other than the 20 gold coins he originally had, there was also the 50 gold coins that the Knight of Marshall gave him for entertainment at Harvest City. There were 70 gold coins in total, and he decided to spend it all on 138 little gems. However, to avoid attracting attention, he went to 4 separate jewelry stores to buy those gems.
His wallet looked deflated. Only two coins left. Still, Abel no longer had the nerve to use his Horadric Cube out in the open streets. So, he found a hotel, booked a single room and used the Horadric cube to slowly combine the gems.
It was like a walk in the park. In a short amount of time, Abel had combined the gems into 20 red gems and 26 blue gems.
Abel was trying to remember the combination formula of the Horadric cube as he stared at the gems. He wondered which category of darkness 2 gems were the ones he had just combined. As he kept on staring, he suddenly had an idea. Why don't I combine two this time?
He took out 3 blue gems and put them in the Horadric cube to combine again. By the time he took it out, it had become a large, round, transparent blue gem with countless cuts on the side.
"Let's try to level up again," thought Abel. He turned the remaining 6 blue gems into 2 more large round blue gems. Then put the 3 large round blue gems in the Horadric cube and pressed combined. This time it had turned into a droplet-shaped gem. Abel was certain that this was it. This was the perfect blue gem, the ultimate blue gem in Diablo 2 looked exactly like this. The Horadric cube had forcefully turned the blue gems into the ones in the video game settings.
The droplet-shaped gem shined in a shade of blue that reflected a hint of melancholy. As Abel stared at it in his hand, he wasn't planning to sell such perfection. The Horadric cube possessed the great power to combine such perfect gems, which was big enough reason for Abel to be extra careful during the process of selling those normal blue gems. Luckily, Harvest city was a very developed region. Gems with such quality were not that hard to come by.
Eleven thousand gold coins. While it was the amount that Abel sold his gems for, there was no way he was going to carry so much cash on him. So, he went to the Shrine of the Goddess of Wealth and exchanged parts of it into one hundred unit coins. He threw it all into the Horadric cube, luckily it only showed a single-digit so it didn't take up any lattice. But when he decided to take it out, it turned in to one hundred gain. How convenient.
One hundred unit coins were most commonly used within large banks. They were a bit larger than normal gold coins and filled with the engraving of every goddess of protection. These goddess engraving needs to pass through the shrine to get made, so these one hundred unit coins are very secure.
With a cheerful look on his face, Abel began to plan on how he could spend all this money. Little did he know that someone had been stalking him this entire time. Funnily enough, it wasn't a good day for Joshua's servant, who's spent his whole day following a young man who would just never stop walking. He had been to almost every jewelry shop in Harvest city riding his horse and by that point, the servant was almost too tired to continue. He only wished that Abel would soon find a place for rest.
Above his head was a signboard reading Edmund's Boutique shop. This familiar signboard Abel couldn't help but remember the Qi condensing potion he had bought at Edmund's boutique shop. He already used up all the Qi condensing potion he had, soon he would be attacking the knight's level. If he slowly trained by himself, it would have taken him years of effort until he could have gained enough Qi to condensed his core.
After using the master's "Qi condensing potion" he had leveled up by 2 levels. Abel had always worried if any problems were progressing through the levels with such speed. Because immediately, he had leveled up by 2, which was not what he had expected. As it turned out, drugs were not the only way to level up in short periods. There were other options. There was quite some evidence that this was true, as both Master Bentham and the Knight of Marshall were not shocked to see how fast he had attained another epiphany. If anything, they didn't seem surprised in any way, which could potentially mean that there was an alternative supplement for his training.
According to Abel's knowledge, if there wasn't any problem leveling up with other methods, taking the no side effect "Qi condensing potion" definitely shouldn't be too harmful to him. That being said, now was probably a good time to get himself some supplies.
The moment Abel stepped into Edmund's boutique shop, a familiar voice came out to greet him.
"Welcome to Edmund's boutique shop, how can I help you today?" the voice stuttered as its owner did not expect Abel's visit, "Oh, welcome! Didn't expect to see you here, young and handsome gentleman."
"Ms. Yvette! what are you doing here?"
Yvette gave out a small laugh and proudly said, "I got promoted from Fort Lee to the vice manager of Harvest City."
"Congratulations, Ms. Yvette" Abel cheered.
Yvette must have been very capable to become the vice manager of a large city sector such as Harvest city. Abel had great respect for outstanding people like her.
From the look on her face, it was clear that Yvette liked being congratulated by someone she knew. Since there was a lot of stress after she got promoted to this position. Unlike a small city such as Fort Lee, even the position as a vice manager has 3 slots in here.
"What would you like to buy today?" said Yvette softly.
Abel pondered for a while and gave out a number "I want 162 bottles of lesser "Qi condensing potion."
Yvette was excited by this a large transaction of lesser "Qi condensing potion". This deal would make her look really good in front of her boss.
"It's 1620 coins in total… Let's settle the deal for 1600 coins" Yvette said after she applied the discount.
Abel saluted to Yvette "Please wait."
Abel took out 16 100 coins from the Horadric cube and inserted it in his wallet. Then he pulled out his wallet and gave the coins to Yvette.
After a short period, the shop assistant brought out a medium-sized box, inside was tightly packed with 162 lesser "Qi condensing potion".
After Abel rode his horse back to his place, he immediately went to his room and combined 162 lesser "Qi condensing potion" into 6 masters "Qi condensing potion". Watching as those "Qi condensing potion" shone in its amber glow, Abel knew he was getting a massive power-up soon.
As Abel was putting the 6 master's "Qi condensing potion" in the Horadric cube, he remembered his transaction with Yvette today. Ms. Yvette never asked him for his name and the past 2 transactions had been quite smooth. Also with the name Edmound's boutique shop, plus Yvette's cautiousness. Abel decided if he had anything inconvenient to sell in the future, he will leave it for Yvette to handle.
Meanwhile, out on the courtyard, the weather was still freezing even though it was already a new year. That servant curled up in a dark corner, his eyes rigidly starred at the front gate. This place was the Knight of Marshall's temporary house and not many people knew about that. If the servant realized this was the resistance of a royal family, who knew if he would still have the nerve to continue spying. Ignorance, sometimes, was the only thing that was necessary for a disaster to happen.
After dark, the gate of Harvest city had been shut so the servant decided to continue spying. However, little did he know that the Knight of Marshall and Abel had already got on a carriage to join the new year cocktail party in the city palace.