"Welcome to Mirovia aura bank, senior. How may I help this senior? Did this senior come here to buy aura for items?" A young beautiful lady who was talking to her 2 colleagues just a moment ago welcomed Zarek the moment he entered the aura bank.
The aura banks are a place to buy and sell aura. You might ask why would anyone even buy aura? It's because some blacksmiths or artificers want to use different aura so that their weapons or artifacts can have different properties.
The Mirovia aura bank was quite a spacious place but there was only one large desk where most probably the receptionists sit and a waiting place for the customer to wait. But there was no receptionist on the desk; however they were seated in the waiting place chatting with each other till Zarek came.
"No, I am here to sell aura." Zarek replied with a straight face.
The young lady who is supposedly the receptionist, her face twisted a bit mostly because only the poor and desperate people comes to sell their aura. It is not because selling aura doesn't fetch good money. It is mainly because there are no aura seigneur in the sea dragon fraction and before reaching aura seigneur level humans can't separate the aura from their body with their concentration level. Therefore forcefully separating the aura strains the brain a lot creating intense pain. Many even faint instantly or become crazy in pain trying to separate aura forcefully. So only those who are desperately in need of money come to sell their aura even at the cost of intense pain.
But the receptionist didn't show any disrespect as she saw the robe Zarek was wearing.
"Senior must be from one of the three ancient sects, The regal artificer sect. Please follow me to the desk." the lady said before showing the way.
Zarek nodded and followed her to the desk.
"So this senior's name…."
Before she could even finish, Zarek replied, "I don't want to disclose any of my personal information. So skip those parts."
The lady smiled awkwardly and replied, "As you wish. Then what is your aura color?"
"White" Zarek replied.
"Eh?"
"It's a unique aura." Zarek confirmed the lady's doubt.
"Unique Aura?!" The lady exclaimed.
"Yes"
"Okay then what traits or properties does it have?" The lady said with a somewhat stiff face.
"It is equally destructive and defensive."
"How much do you want to sell?"
"For now I will sell enough to make a single item."
"We will be taking a little bit extra to test its value. As we never got a unique aura before. I hope it won't be too inconvenient. Please place your hand on this orb." The lady brought out a shiny orb and placed it on the desk. "This orb will forcefully consume the aura and it will be really painful. So think about this thoroughly."
"Thank you for your warning. But I have this artifact which will help me with that." Zarek placed Zerik on the desk and continued, "I have never used it before so I am not sure if it will work but lets try."
So Zarek placed Zerik's hand which was almost like a child's hand on the orb. Then the lady started the orb making it glow. Zerik's body also lit up with his white aura.
Just as the orb started consuming aura from Zerik, Zarek felt a sudden headache and he grabbed his head with his hand.
"Senior, are you alright?" the lady asked.
"Yeah I am fine."
But it wasn't to the level people described it to be and it was endurable. So Zarek didn't say anything and endured it. Some minutes later when it was finished consuming aura the receptionist said,
"Okay senior, it's finished. Please wait in the waiting place till we test your aura."
Zarek nodded and sat in the waiting place with relief. Even though the headache was endurable it wasn't pleasant. Anyone wouldn't want to endure pain even if it was endurable unless he or she is masochist.
The lady and his colleagues went inside with the orb. The lady took out a small battery size capsule like thing from inside the orb. The lady then inserted the capsule in a hammer and gave the hammer to her guy colleague.
"Here infuse this object with his aura. But don't use too much. I was able to take just a little bit extra as it is too painful for the person to separate too much aura." The lady said and gave the guy a small metallic box the size of a thumb with the hammer.
The guy took the box and hammered it a few times carefully as he didn't knew any other method to infuse the small metal box with the little extra aura they took from Zarek to test. After hammering a few times he grabbed a iron bar and said,
"Let's test this out."
After saying that he swung the iron bar at the small box with all his force.
Twang
The iron bar got dented and almost bent like a L shaped object after hitting the box.
"I guess I have used too much force." The guy smiled awkwardly.
The lady then picked up the small box and exclaimed.
"How is this possible? The box is completely fine. There isn't even a single dent on this box. The iron bar also had some aura infused with it. Then how can only the iron bar get damaged?"
"This aura…..?! This is great, we can sell it for a high price. Even 4000 no…. 5000 or 6000 gold won't be a problem to earn with this aura." The guy replied.
"Then how much should we give him?"
"Let's try with 1000 gold and see if he agrees."
Both of them left the room and went to Zarek.
"Senior, the test is over and we would like to give you 1000 gold for the aura. How about it?" The guy receptionist said to Zarek.
'1000 gold? That's a lot. I didn't think it would fetch this much.'
Just as Zarek was about to happily agree…
'Wait, why do they seem nervous to me?'
"Too low." Zarek replied.
"Then how about 1200 gold?"
Zarek glanced at the guy and replied, "Not enough"
"Okay then how about 1500 gold, senior? It's already too high. Normally people would get around 200 to 500 gold but we are giving you three times more than normal."
"Those are common aura and mine is a unique aura."
"2000? 2000 gold. That's as far as we can go, senior."
"Fine." Zarek didn't push it further.
'That's double the amount they first offered. I could live many years without doing anything if I want with this money.'
Zarek was able to get double the amount because of him throwing a dart in the dark. If he hadn't even tried to argue he might not have got this much gold.
The guy released a sigh of relief.
'We can still earn more than twice the amount with this aura.' The guy thought excitedly.
Author's Note: Even though this chapter is not long enough I hope it's not too short like the last chapter.
Btw please leave your opinion it will help me to improve. As I said before this is my first novel and the opinions of you guys is invaluable. So if you think this should be like that or this could have been better if it was like this just leave a comment. And do point out my mistakes if there is any.
In next chapter Zarek will leave the city so hope there will be some good adventures. ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ