Chrysos turned around and saw that it was someone he knew. He was pleasantly surprised and said, "Mister Ruvie? It's nice seeing you here."
"Mister Chrysos, you should know why I'm here." Ruvie gasped for air and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.
Chrysos gave an uncaring shrug. "Hmm… I don't think I have any idea why." He then laughed and leaned on the stone wall. "So, how is the recipe working out? Have you deduced anything yet?"
Ruvie lightly clenched his teeth together before saying with a smile, "Mister Chrysos, can I trust you that the recipe you gave us is accurate?"
With a click of his tongue, Chrysos said, "Just because you can't recreate it with your meager skill level, that doesn't mean that I lied to you. Instead of blaming me, you should be blaming your alchemists who looked at me scornfully only to find out that they couldn't even replicate what I did. In my opinion, they aren't that knowledgeable when it comes to my recipe."
Ruvie narrowed his eyes. "Sir Chrysos, are you slandering our alchemists? Just so you know, they are still under the Carver family and from that alone, I'm sure that you know that saying such things like that will land you in serious consequences."
"Are you threatening me? If that's so, then this transaction isn't going to happen." Chrysos laughed in a frosty tone. "Don't forget, I'm not the one who makes a loss by doing this."
Ruvie's gaze weakened as he sighed. "Fine… How much are you selling it for?"
Chrysos lifted ten fingers.
"What?!" Ruvie was immediately shocked the moment he saw the price. "I gave you four thousand gold coins last time. Now you're asking for ten thousand?"
"What? Not willing to pay?" Chrysos revealed a sly smile.
"Of course not! Who in the right mind would buy that recipe with ten thousand gold coins?!" Ruvie stomped his foot in anger.
"What? Why would I ask for that much? Mister Ruvie, to think that you saw me as a greedy person." Chrysos' tone sounded as if he was truly hurt.
Ignoring the sarcasm from Chrysos, Ruvie calmed down and asked for the price. "So, how much is it going to be?"
"Like I said. Ten gold coins." Chrysos raised ten fingers once again.
"Eh.." Ruvie stood in his spot blankly.
"Pfft-" Meiros, who was watching from the side, couldn't help but let a bit of his laughter slip out.
Snapping out of his daze Ruvie looked at Chrysos and said, "I am not a fool. What is the true price of the detailed recipe?"
Chrysos thought for a while and seriously answered this time. "It's going to be two thousand gold coins." Chrysos took out a piece of raggedleaf paper and gave it to Ruvie. "Making this version of the smoothie will be a lengthy process, but the end result will be the same. You can even verify that with the old recipe that I gave you before."
Ruvie gave Chrysos two gold bills worth two thousand gold coins and took the recipe from Chrysos' hands. He skimmed through the recipe and saw that it was simplified and that he could visualize the feasibility of this recipe working.
Ruvie pocketed the recipe and said, "I'll settle with this for now. But if this doesn't work, you'll have to pay for the consequences." Ruvie took a contract and gave it to Chrysos.
Chrysos saw that the paper was light gray in color and he couldn't help but feel envious. He read the entire contract and approved of it after seeing that the consequences wouldn't be that heavy. And to make it so that there wouldn't be any loopholes, Ruvie took out a Divinium Image Capturing Device that worked out like a camera except for the fact that it prints out images in paper using Divinium markings, making it easy to see if there were any alterations to the image.
Ruvie gave Chrysos images to serve as evidence as per the contract.
Chrysos took the images and pocketed them. "Pleasure doing business with you."
Ruvie, being unfamiliar with this line since he is from the Divine Lands, responded with, "You find pleasure from this? Tch. Well I don't and I hope we don't meet ever again."
Chrysos remembered that he isn't on earth anymore and immediately regretted saying that.
Having nothing else to say, Ruvie left the two of them alone.
Meiros chuckled. "Master, why is it that you act so random from time to time. Towards nobles and rich merchants, you act so cold and I could even see that you detest seeing them, but whenever it's with the common folk, you're nicer and the way you treat them is way different. I can understand that you're kinder towards certain people, but you don't really act this way all the time."
Chrysos raised a brow and said, "Elaborate."
Meiros thought for a second and said, "During the greenflesh beast village, you attacked them mercilessly as if they had done heinous crimes. But when it came to Jifel and Vaf, there's no benefit to gain by helping them yet you still did."
Chrysos scratched his head and said, "Do I really act that weirdly?"
Meiros nodded. "Yes, it's as if you're two people at the same time. One side is good and the other side… not so much."
Gerald's pupils shrunk.
He thought about it seriously this time. Back on earth, he viewed killing as cruel and he would avoid seeing someone or something die as much as possible. He also helped people as much as he could either by small donations or by giving food to the homeless since that's just the right thing to do. Of course, as a celebrity a part of the media viewed it as him helping people just to be recognized.
But here in the Divine Lands, he realized that he treated people way differently. He didn't care about others and always prioritized himself. And yes, there's some instances where he helps people by selling cheap potions to weaker adventurers and he even saved Meiros before even though he is a corrupted one.
But then again, he did that because he saw benefits and that it would yield him some returns. That went against how he, as Gerald Greenwood does good things because it came from the bottom of his heart.
From this point of view, Meiros was right.
"Am I really turning into Chrysos?" Gerald held his forehead and he could feel a slight pain slowly getting worse.
"Master?" Meiros looked at Chrysos who was acting strangely.
Chrysos shook his right hand at Meiros. "Yeah, I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me."
Meiros pulled back his hand. "If you say so.."
Chrysos saw that Meiros was unconvinced and that he was still a bit nervous. This made him smile and say, "You really don't have to worry about me." He then patted Meiros' shoulder. "So, wanna look for some magic spells?"
Meiros slowly felt his worry fade away. He then nodded and smiled. "Yep, that would be nice."
Chrysos laughed and walked towards the academy. Meiros walked by his side as they continued chatting.
…
Not too long after, Meiros saw the academy and it would be a lie to say that he wasn't impressed.
Chrysos went to the section of the store to browse for attack type spells. Meiros on the other hand, looked for footwork type magic spells so that he could increase his speed and agility. He felt that he lacked the most in that aspect.
Other than that, he also searched for a spell that would allow him to attack his opponent from far away. Chrysos already gave him the Freezing Arrow spell and the Farsight spell so he only wanted a spell that could work both as a defensive and offensive measure.
Meiros kept looking but he still couldn't find a suitable spell that fit his needs.
Chrysos meanwhile, looked for support type spells that can help him during battle and some offensive type spells that can provide him with better physical battling capabilities.
He found an earth type spell called "Force Pulse" that can send well… you guessed it. Pulses of Force.
Although this spell is powerful, it does take a toll on the caster's body. But with Chrysos' ability to absorb impact and force because his body is reformed by the Steel Rhino, the spell doesn't have any negative effects if he casts it.
With this spell, Chrysos can just place his palm on someone and that person will get struck by a powerful pulse of force that can definitely deal serious damage.
Chrysos also found a spell called "Flaming Burneix Claws" made by Werian Burneix. The same person who made the fire trail spell.
The reason why Chrysos took this with him is because he currently lacks battle spells that he can utilize just by using his body as a medium. The other spells he had were good, but they cannot inflict direct damage by using one's body.
Plus, the claws really suited him because from what Chrysos saw, his fingers were nigh indestructible in his level.
"Until now I still don't know what my fingers are even made of." Chrysos moved his fingers in irregular positions and even moved them in ways they couldn't normally bend. "It seems that my fingers are double jointed.." Chrysos thought to himself as he looked at his index finger touching his knuckles.
He returned it to its normal position and paid for the spell. There was no point in dwelling over this at the moment.
Chrysos was about to find Meiros when he suddenly bumped into a mage wearing the uniform of Alzorian students.
"I apologize. Please excuse me." Chrysos spoke apologetically to the mage.
"No, no, no it was my fault for getting in your blind spot." The mage shook his hands at Chrysos to gesture that it was alright.
The mage saw the scroll in Chrysos' hand and with a bit of a proud tone, he said, "Say… you have a good taste when it comes to spells."
Chrysos held the scroll in his left hand and said, "It suits me so I decided to buy it. Not only that, the way the mage teaches how to use it is also clear and concise. In my opinion, it is quite amazing."
The mage's smile shone brighter. "Hahaha, what if I tell you that I'm the one who made that spell?" Werian Burneix flung his sleeves and held his waist proudly.
Chrysos was shocked. "You're Werian Burneix??"
"That's right! I am very happy that you bought my spell. I have been getting a lot of sales from my work but I can't resist being happy whenever a customer is satisfied with my work." Werian laughed.
"I also bought your fire trail spell." Chrysos opened his hand and pointed it upwards because of basic etiquette.
If you cast a magic circle in front of a person, they would take it as offensive and will think that you have plans on attacking them. Pointing the magic circle upwards means that you want to demonstrate the spell without the intention to fight.
The moment Werian saw the magic circle, he was shocked that the quality of the magic circle surpassed his.
Whenever Werian casted the fire trail spell, he was quite confident that his mastery of the spell was the best it could be, but Chrysos' magic circle forms even faster than him by 4 seconds. Which doesn't seem like a lot, but when it comes to life and death, 4 seconds matter a lot.
Not only that, the structure of the fire magic circle is way more rigid and the structure is sturdier than how he forms it.
Werian swallowed a bit of his saliva and said, "May I ask what your class is?"
"Hm?" Chrysos canceled the magic circle's activation and said, "I'm an alchemist." Chrysos raised his left hand and used his unique ability "Purification" and switched it between "Extraction," "Blending," and "Refinement."
Werian was even more shocked. He couldn't believe that an alchemist of all sorts would have this much talent in magic even more than him whose class is literally all about magic!
Werian asked again, "A- And your rank?"
"Iretoir Advancement stage." Chrysos answered truthfully.
Iretoir has the same stages as Provectis except for some minor details. Initial is the first stage, Reformation is the second, Formation is third, Advancement is fourth, Creation is fifth. Almost mimicking the Provectis stages, but it has two more stages called Advancement, the sixth stage, and Partial Rebirth, the seventh stage.
"A- A- Advancement stage?!" Werian couldn't believe it. He was bested by an Advancement stage Iretoir alchemist? Despite being a bit shaken, Werian kept asking, "What about your Divinium reserves?"
The Provectis rank's Divinium reserves is difficult to measure, but they still have a basic way to do so.
The Iretoir rank's Divinium reserves can be measured by using the basic fireball spell, but since the regeneration speed of the Provectis ranked classes are too fast, they measure their Divinium reserves by casting the spell "Fist of Faithfulness."
Fist of Faithfulness is a spell that consumes a lot of Divinium. An Iretoir ranked awakened one will deplete their Divinium reserves even if their Divinium reserves reached the 10th tier. Not only that, Fist of Faithfulness is a very rigid spell since as long as you form the spell correctly, it consumes the same amount of Divinium everytime no matter who uses the spell.
The Provectis ranked Divinium reserves is measured from 1-10 tiers. 1st tier has the ability to use Fist of Faithfulness, (FoF for short) 50-100 times. 2nd tier is 101-340 FoF, 3rd tier is 341-720 FoF, 4th is 721-1300 FoF, 5th being 1301-2100 FoF, 6th is 2101-3000 FoF, 7th is 3001-3950 FoF, 8th would be 3951-4700 FoF, 9th is 4701-5600 FoF, and 10th tier is exactly 5601-7120 FoF. Anything beyond 7120 FoF is in the Elitius rank.
Once an awakened one advances in a stage, their Divinium reserves have the chance to advance as well. So if one is lucky enough, they could have a Provectis tier Divinium reserve even if they're still in the Iretoir rank.