{You have learned Great sword blocking: Beginner!
One of your skills has been assimilated into Body of the virtuous blade grandmaster of massacre!}
{You have learned Candle light: Beginner!
You have learned Blessing of the wind spirits: Beginner!
You have learned Rock throw: Beginner!
You have learned....
Eight of your skills have been assimilated into Mystical mandala of thirty six domains!}
Before getting out of the auction house, Aki took the chance to try and learn several of the skills books he'd gained from his wanton murder. While it was a seemingly useless atitude at first, he was pretty sure his base skills were absorbing the lesser skills, the best ones he'd used of rare quality, because each time he used one of the books it felt like he'd improved said spell or skill straight to pro level.
He'd actually found a book for Mystical knowledge too, but after using it he found out that leveling skills up didn't come with restrictions for decoration as he'd so treated them. To level up his pro level skills, he'd need herbology, potion making, engraving and linguistic knowledge skills at pro level as well. It was uncertain wether he'd need even more to get it to transcendent level, but he really didn't want to ask.
It'd reached Pro level without points, how hard could it be to max it like that?
He honestly expected something to happen as the thought passed his mind, but no opportunity showed it's face. Hard way it was then.
Going out while ignoring the strange look from his shade didn't result in any ambush either, so he just safely reached the station and dialed for a certain destination he'd long written out and eventually memorised.
Stepping out of the gray blue marvel, he turned right and stopped only as he reached a two meter and a half tall wooden board, much like one would find in a fantasy RPG game, standing right in front of the adventurer's guild or the town's tavern/inn.
Well, this one had a whole wall just for it, the classy, wooden cottage that also worked as a tavern for relatively wealthy players, apparently over thrice it's size in the insides despite looking like a normal two story house.
He didn't have any particular interest in indulging in magical drinks at the moment though. Despite his mood being lifted a bit after meeting with the fairy power house, he'd always been picky with food, and although even the minimal amount of hunger during his first dungeons had teached him to eat more things, that didn't mean he'd start to suddenly enjoy drinking alcohol.
Though the same could not be said about blood, that was mostly due to his new senses as a magical parasite rather than some mutation to his mouth and related glands.
"Look for anything that seems doable, we have the time to waste on the smallest quests as long as they have a proper compensation, at least fifty thousand points. For a point of reference, the emperor and demon king were both V ranked, before that there is Z rank and before that S rank, the more times the letter is repeated the more powerful. I'm currently SSS ranked in general, but i can still punch at around ZZ rank in general, sans killing that guy so easily." Aki explained to Samy through their mental link. "More importantly, keep an eye on the list of materials we have and match it to quests, exchanging those for some reputation would also not be a bad deal." He added out loud.
They spent plenty of time going through the quests, specially because many of the hit targets seemed to be reclusive hermits, meaning that despite being capable of and wanting to, Aki simply didn't have the patience to stalk such prey. Maybe some of these people didn't deserve to be treated like animals and such, but he was not an idiot and at the very least researched his targets on the forums. In the whole kill list, there was literally only ONE guy that wasn't an asshole or neutral, the latter type generally also fitting into the hermit category perfectly.
How they got contracts on their heads was anyone's guess.
After that the young man started to focus on the material and item request. Turns out that his things weren't that precious, though he simply left most lying around. There were still over a dozen quests he could fullfil right now though, and one was specially delicious.
[Aki:
{Quest: Searching for a dark/shadow affinity gemstone of rank I or superior.
Contac info: XXXX-XXXX
Reward: (Sceptre of kings)*}
Titania:...
Titania: Are you saying you have such gem now?
Aki: (Remains of untold horrors)*
Aki: Literally had to bite the thing to bring it with me because my target for an assassination turned out to be too important for the dungeon world. No prison run for me though.
Titania: I want to buy it. And that man is an enemy, you should not deal with him.
Aki: Noted. Say, i didn't want to assume things before, but are you interested in gems of most kinds?
Titania: Nothing below legendary, but yes. Why?
Aki: Well, suffice to say, depending of what you do with those, we might just be a match made in heaven. Give me five minutes and will send you an item description that might be of interest, we can decide on the shadow gem after you see it. Promise not to waste your time. :)
Titania:... Don't use emojis on me anymore and i promise to wait patiently.}
He smiled, already standing in the train, going towards his closest lobby. Luckily there was a map of all the places he'd ever visited in the system, not that it was the most useful when people generally had such rapid transportation method that was free and worked on coordinates.
Entering a house made of several squares and rectangles of different sizes, which should definitely not be stable or allowed to remain standing from how ugly it was, Aki shut the door with prejudice and started to concentrate, bringing his legendary+ sword out.
He condensed his mana on his palm, compressed it and added his whole mana pool plus change to the whole thing, a malformed crystal lump of green colour formed on his hand, barely the size of his little finger
There, it'd been that easy. Maybe he had more future as a crafter than he expected. Then again, he felt like throwing up and the migraine he'd just developed would make his mother and her own pains proud.
[Aki: Got it the first try! Obviously not what you wanted, but again, it was my first try, give me some time and Legendary will be the minimum.
Aki: *
{Aki's life affinity gem (Rare): Formed through a special and very idiotic procedure involving some mana, this gem contains the essence of it's creator and his understanding of life itself.
Effects: 1. Consume 2. Imbue
Consume: Ingest the essence to attempt to develop a life affinity bloodline. Slight chance of becoming a blood trall to the bloodline patriarch.
Imbue: Fix to an equipment of similar affinity to attempt a chance of empowering it. Upgrade depends on the item's rarity, higher ranks reducing the chance of successfully upgrading it. Using this option in an equipment with unrelated affinities may cause a mutation with uncertain results. Using this option of oposite affinities may cause it's destruction or weakening.}
Titania:.....
Aki: I tried doing it before, but my concetration and the amount of energy wasn't enough, though i once succeded in making a bomb instead, which wasn't fun.
Titania:....
Titania: Don't tell this to anyone.
Aki: That was the plan. I mean, if you have anyone who would be a better patron/buyer than someone who is clearly a fairy queen in title and ability, then please, do introduce us even if only for me to facepalm myself into a coma.
Titania:..... There may be a few who could use this for their own business instead, gem force is actually a thing, but i DO have bigger pockets.
Aki: Yeah, what the system calls a little mana is a bit over 2k, though i guess only a bit over half was properly integrated into the gem. While leveling up will allow me to produce them faster, i mostly relied on an item of mine that has it's own pool, it's regeneration is shit.
Aki: I can make one of these every eight to ten hours, depends on the head ache and my dedication to recovering, though i can't tell yet if the tipping point for legendary quality is 2 or 2.5 K effective mana into the mixture. On the other hand, i can make one of these for basically anything.
Aki: I do refuse to consider simply letting myself become completely combat useless however, i'm not that stupid. One of these per day is enough for now. Before you ask though, my mana is completely in sinc with my INT stat, so unless you have something to raise that...
Titania: I do, but you have not earned that.
Aki: Not even when exchanging for a solid rank II gem?
Titania: Those only work once and give out a talent. Unless you get me a rank V gem, there's no way i'm parting with one when i know such a special person won't be using the highest quality version.
Aki: Noted, though that will certainly take more time than you think. This is the highest ranked thing i've gotten yet. And I have two more runs on my own dungeons before i can reach level 3. Can't wait to taste your tears.}
Far, far away, a certain poised woman broke her tea cup in her hands. She was sure he was not supposed to know thanks to her efforts to keep it hidden, but he was not normal either. While you can modify an item's description or hide certain traits, there can only be one player with one certain name at a time and dealing with her would simply not be worth it to modify an item to the extent that she could not perceive such huge change.
Something like this was simply impossible to create except maybe for some natives who'd reached godhood or special existences, like elementals and spirits, though many formed gems mostly as a result of dying. There was just no way for this to be trick. Maybe her luck was finally turning around again?
{Aki: Will be waiting for an item of rank I that can store and regenerate mana on it's own then. Preferably a utility belt or boots? I don't really use many things, but if it's trading for something like this i'd prefer to not be lugging around something i won't be actually using.}
His message reached her, restarting her thinking process. She'd need to make sure he didn't die, so she completely agreed that the item for exchange should be something effective
Though she would not admit it, it was rather refreshing to deal with someone that was so direct yet retained a certain level of respect.
Speaking of level though.... How the fuck had a level two touched the door to become a ranker?
As such thoughts crossed the head of the Fairy queen, Aki massaged his browns. Turns out that interacting with two system instances at once hurt like having the skin and flesh of a limb gritted away, but with the back of his head.
For whatever reason, he simply didn't see it the same way as others did, something he'd guessed some time ago. It hadn't been anything in special that'd clued him on something being wrong, just how the system wanted him to use certain names for certain things. The overseer actually coming when he called for one and the way Titania had reacted to him refering to dificulty levels had been the nails on the coffin.
When the message showed rank II and rank V he could also read it as Proto-Mythical and Above Mythical. Was he ussing an older or special version for altists or something?