"Freddy, this is my youngest sister. Esmeralda Silverton, but don't call her that she will not react to it. You should call her Esy. She is similar to me. Spirit affinity with elemental support. She also has a bonding ability so a Beast ring ist a must have."
"I see, do you want to purchase a beginner beast as well? I have a collection of Featherfire eggs. They should hatch in the next few months. A newborn beast is the easiest to tame and a Featherfire is an excellent mount for a young beautiful girl."
"Give me two. A Featherfire should not be held alone and as newborns even bonding incapable mages can tame them," Jasmine said. I had no clue that one of them was supposed to become my beast. But in hindsight it was obvious.
"Excellent choice. I will give you two from different ancestral lines so you can breed them if you get lucky with a compatible pair. For the Beast ring I guess you want a three in one right?" Freddy asked.
"Obviously," Jasmine replied.
"What is a three in one?" Esy and I asked in unison.
"A three in one is a beast ring with two space ring spaces. One is commonly used for personal belongings and the other is normally used as an arsenal. But you can use them however you like." Jasmine answered.
"A three in one and two Featherfire eggs. What else can I get you for your sister?"
"Give me a spirit flow amulet and an adventurer starter pack," Jasmine said.
"Which weapon?"
"No weapon."
"Excellent!" Freddy cheered, "Now young man, what can I get for you?"
"A gold grade space ring, a necromancy handbook, adventure starter pack, 'Sun and Moon Cycle' from Gerond Fanatic, and 'The Might of Twilight'," Hilda answered for me.
Freddy raised an eyebrow after listening to this request.
"Young man, you are really blessed. Death affinities are rare. We should be thankful for that or Necromancer would be all over the place. The powers of light, darkness and twilight in combination are also extraordinarily rare." Freddy said while taking a mental note of my person. "May I know your name please?"
"Sorry Freddy." Hilda smiled embarrassed, "I forgot to introduce him. This is my son Thorus Maxima. he has confirmed affinities for death, sun, moon and twilight."
Freddy flinched as she introduced me as her son and his eyes twitched as she named the sun and the moon.
"In that case I might have something that might be of interest to you." Freddy stood up and walked to his desk.after a few seconds he came back in his hands a pair of gloves.
The gloves looked magnificent. They were made of black leather and the topside was plated in red metal. The right one had a sun engraved at the center, with sword runes on every finger knuckle. The left one had a Moon engraved at the center and every finger held the rune for a different polearm, a spear on the index finger, a halbert on the middle finger, a glave on the ring finger and a battle wand. The thumb was engraved with a scythe.
I could feel the power they radiated and knew that I needed to have them at all cost. It was as if I had suddenly been possessed.
"My team of adventurers brought this to me. They said they found it in an ancient tomb. Even after three decades I still have no clue what I have acquired here. All I know is that it had to be extremely powerful once. The estimated age of this pair of gloves is 500.000 Years. The fact that it is still in perfect condition speaks the obvious." Freddy explained, "in the beginning I was adamant of finding its purpose, but failure after failure made me wonder if it just wasn't meant to be."
"How much?" Hilda and Jasmine asked in unison.
"1 S-Class Manastone for everything." Freddy said.
Jasmine's and Hilda's eyes widened while the twins froze in their seats.
"You want 1000 A-Class Manastones for a thing you have no clue about?" Jasmine asked, "Freddy, I like you and I have been a loyal customer in your shop. Our order until now is 1 A-Class Manastone at most."
"No, you misunderstood, Lady Silverton. I don't want the worth of an S-Class Manastone. I want to be paid in an S-Class Manastone." Freddy explained. "I know you own more than one. You do not need to deceive me."
"Freddy!" Jasmine said clearly not pleased with the merchant's words, "I am not trying to deceive you, I am just unwilling to pay such a huge amount for something I know nothing about."
"Let me top it up. I give you 3 more beasts for your sister and a soul pendant for the boy. If you give me a S-Class Manastone of the fire element I will give you a Night Falcon on top."
"Now you sound desperate." Hilda commented, "before we are going to consider it more carefully please pass the gloves over to Thorus."
Freddy handed me the gloves. As my hands touched them I felt an odd sense of familiarity with the gloves. I put them on, they fitted like a second skin. I moved my hands and they felt like I wasn't wearing gloves at all.
I was elated by the feelling they gave me. I think it was visible within my eyes, because Hilda smiled at me and asked innocently: "What do you think?"
"Is an S-Class Manastone a lot of money? I know the worth of gold and silver but I have no clues about Manastones." I asked, knowing that it was surely an unfathomable amount of money. And it is. Manastones for those that do not know are ranked from F-Class to S-Class. 1 F-Class Manastone is worth 1000 Gold. and one E-Class Manastone is worth 1000 F-Class Manastones. This continues until you reach S-Class. So 1 S-Class Manastone is worth 1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 Gold. 1 Septillion gold. 1 Gold can sustain something like an orphanage for 1 month.
For a normal person any manastone would be a ticket to retirement.
"Not really an S-Class Manastone is not cheap but it's not something I can not afford." Hilda said smiling and patted my head.
"I take the gloves. Now tell me more about this Night Falcon you talked about. Is it still a hatchling? Or do we need the support of a Tamer for it?" Hilda asked Freddy.
"The night Falcon is still unhatched, And it will take a few more years for him to hatch. The Father is a Behemoth-Class Spirit Hawk. The Mother is a S-Class Night Falcon. The cross breeding between these two has mostly produced Night Falcons. A few Spirit Falcon's and Night Hawk's were among them. We currently are not sure what this one will become but everything points at Night Falcon."
That is pretty valuable. A beast with the potential to become a behemoth-Class Beast has a price of 10-20 A-Class Manastones. A Skyborn one could even rise up to 100 A-Class Manastones. It could be viewed as a huge discount for only an elemental specific Manastone, but it wasn't.
"That is acceptable. The Soul pendant better be platinum grade. And I want a Sky Panther cub. I will also need a three in one at least gold grade. You can keep the normal space ring. The other two beasts should be decided by Esy and Jas." Hilda said Freddy had already put his Pokerface back on his face.
A Sky Panther is very strong both on land and in the air. The problem is that raising them can be some serious trouble.
"A shield turtle and an earth shark would be appropriate. They are hard to come by, at least the earth shark." Jasmine said without consulting her sister at all.
"A shield turtle egg it is. I unfortunately do not have any earth shark cubs in stock. If you are ok with a delayed payment I will get back to you as soon as I get one that is appropriate."
"It should be alright, having the birds and the turtle to take care of should keep my sister and her boyfriend busy." Jasmine said as she smiled at Esy in a diabolical manner.
Esy didn't like it when Jasmine called me her boyfriend because our relationship was not at that point, yet. We were heading that direction, but that didn't mean that we were at the point where we would call each other boyfriend and girlfriend.
I saw that Esy gave her sister a 'you will pay for that' glare. Jasmine laughed when she saw that and ruffled Esy's hair to the latters displeasure.
"We will take what we can now," said Hilda before she produced a red crystal the size of a head. A glint appeared in Freddy's eyes.
"Two three in one, two adventure starter packs, one spirit flow amulet, a platinum grade Soul pendant, a necromancy handbook 'Sun and Moon Cycle' from Gerond Fanatic, 'The Might of Twilight, a Sky Panther cub, the Night Falcon egg, two Featherfire eggs, a shield turtle egg and last but not least an earth shark cub to be delivered as soon as possible. Did I miss something?"
"The gloves, you missed to list the gloves." I said, raising my hands to show them to the merchant.
"Of course forgive my tardiness, I am old. The gloves of Sun and moon are yours to take as well. This all comes to a total of this very beautiful fire elemental S-Class Manastone."
"The gloves, two three in one, two adventure starter packs, one spirit flow amulet, a platinum grade Soul pendant, a necromancy handbook, 'Sun and Moon Cycle' from Gerond Fanatic, 'The Might of Twilight, a Sky Panther cub, the Night Falcon egg, two Featherfire eggs from different bloodlines, a shield turtle egg and an earth shark cub to be delivered as soon as possible." Hilda said and placed the Manastone on the table. "One S-Class fire elemental Manastone."
"Give me one moment to gather everything you ordered." Freddy said before he vanished into thin air.