Amos woke up early in the morning. Now that he was full of energy he took stock of everything and formulated a plan.
'My main weapons are a short sword and a hook. I also specialize in illusion magic and stealth.'
Now that he thought about it in his head, only now did he realize how specialized he was in killing people. When it comes to magical beasts, they are generally stronger and have sharper senses than humans at the same level. So illusions are less likely to work on them. Plus a short sword doesn't have much reach making it more likely to become a close-quarters battle. And when it came blow for blow Amos would probably lose against a magical beast.
Amos leaned back on his bed and sighed.
'It'll be hard but I could still become an adventurer. As long as I buy a regular sword and start learning more conventional offensive spells. If I do that I can adopt a more magical swordsmen sorta fighting style.'
With his p's and q's in order Amos began his day. He first walked out of the inn and into the market district.
The market district was a large area of the city specially designated for shopping and selling. The area was loud and busy. On the streets were street vendors. They crowded the streets leaving little room for carriages to pass through. They had little stalls and laid their wares out on rugs. The higher-end street vendors had carriages that they would sell from.
As Amos was looking at the different stalls he heard a commotion a little down the street. He and many other people walked towards it to see what was going on. As he got closer he noticed a crowd. Amos weaseled his way through the crowd until he could get a proper look. He noticed there were 2 guards, a mad shopper, and a street vendor. Amos listened in on the argument.
The mad shopper yelled at one of the guards "He scammed me." As he pointed towards the vendor. He then showed off a silver sword he bought from the vendor. It had a shine to it and a nice sharpness.
The guard looked at the sword and asked "How did you get scammed?"
The shopper then scratched the blade with his nail. The silver came off and a bronze color could be seen underneath.
When the vendor saw this he tried to run into the crowd to get away. But before he could get very far the guards grabbed him and dragged him away.
It was a comedic show, but a good warning. 'Guess I should stay away from the street vendors.' Amos thought.
Aside from the street vendors, there were also shops all around the area. Amos continued in his search. He was first looking to buy a high-quality straight sword.
He went from weapon shop to weapon shop until he finally found the one. It was a sword made from mithril. It gave the blade a bluish-silver color.
What made mithril so good was its overall strength and high conductivity of mana. Although the trade-off was that it weighed a hefty bit. But with Amos's high level and high strength, it wouldn't pose a problem.
The sword itself was just under one meter long. Its hilt was silver in color and had a slight curve upward. The blade was sharp enough to cut through most other metals. It was overall a truly great sword.
Amos quickly took a liking to the sword before buying it. He managed to haggle down the price to only 25 gold. Leaving him with still 1 platinum and 70 gold left(he already sold his thieving equipment at the thieves guild base outside the city).
Now that Amos had the right tool for the job. He walked into the middle of the street with a smile on his face. He was really happy with the sword.
'Now that I have the right weapon, next, I need more offensive-style magic. While I do love illusions, they are a little underwhelming when it comes to magical beasts. But to learn new magic I need to find a mages guild library. Where could I find one of those?'
Amos rubbed the bandages around his chin as he thought. But soon he just came to the tried and true method of asking a random person on the street. He first asked a random guy looking at a stall. But the only thing the guy said was "Buzz off".
Amos's eye twitched. But he didn't let it get to him. He went on to ask another person. This time they simply ignored him. Amos's hand twitched.
Normally when it came to brigands they would never let such disrespect go. They would almost always fight if such a thing happened.
'Stop it, Amos. You're a new man. You shouldn't let such petty things get under you. This is just normal. You have to get used to it.'
Amos approached another man and asked him where the library would be. The man pointed down the street and said.
"You see it's right up your ass and around the corner."
The man then just went back to what he was doing ignoring Amos.
Amos's hand trembled above the handle of his new sword. A strained smile overcame his face as he stopped himself from drawing his sword. He looked up and sighed. He walked away as he thought 'Three assholes in a row. So far civilization doesn't seem so civilized to me.'
He walked up to a younger man this time and asked again. This time though the man was nicer and gave him the directions.
As Amos walked away from him and to the library he sighed. As he walked he began to think.
'I need to control myself better. I can't just go around fighting every asshole I meet. I mean if I did, I would be at it all day.'
A smirk came over himself at his own joke. It lightened his mood a little.
30 minutes later he arrived at the library. It was a large stone building almost reminiscent of a church. There was a sign over the front door.
"Mages Guild, Richards Library"
'Who the hell is Richard? Eh now that I think about it, it's probably just some higher up in the guild that got a library named after him.'
Amos walked in through the front door. Within was bookshelf after bookshelf. They were packed with wide and dusty books. But even in this vast collection before him, there wasn't a single book about magic in it. These books were about almost anything other than magic. Anyone could come in and read one of these books. Or if someone liked one of them they could buy it to keep it. But for the books about magic, you had to buy them before you could even read them.
Amos looked around the library until he found what he was looking for. He walked over to a counter to the right of the library. Behind the counter was a frail-looking man. He was skinny and had skin as white as a vampire. He was the librarian. He was currently sitting on a stool reading a book.
Amos tapped his finger on the counter. Yet the librarian still didn't notice him as he continued reading the book. Amos became annoyed(although you couldn't see it below the bandages).
"Ahem. Hey buddy."
The librarian finally lifted his eyes from his book slowly. A look of slight annoyance was in his eyes. He then asked in an annoyed monotone voice "How can I help you?"
"What do you think? I want the catalog."
"Ok. I already know the answer, but I have to ask anyway. Are you a member of the mages guild?"
"What do you mean you already know? I could be the scholarly type if I wanted to be."
"Sure you can."
The man then looked Amos up and down. Amos had a large cloak on. Beneath it was leather armor and a sword at his hip. Not to mention his face was covered in bandages. Plus his toned body was not very common in the scholarly type.
Amos only then realized how dumb he sounded when he said that. Obviously, he didn't look like a member of the Mages Guild. Amos then quickly said, "Yeah, yeah I'm not a member of the mages guild so just go get the damn book."
The librarian rolled his eyes before getting up. He then walked into a door behind him. After a minute he came out with an enormous book in his hands. It was the catalog.
The catalog was a book for finding magic books. It had every purchasable book within the library in it. It gave a basic description of each book. It would also say if you could gain a skill in the system from it in the form of a magic spell.
Amos took the book and walked away from the counter. Thankfully there were some long tables in the library so people could read there. So Amos plopped down at the closest table. There was another person currently reading at the end of the table, but Amos ignored them.
Amos opened up the large book. Inside the book was cut into sections for each book about magic. Each section contained the name of the book, a basic description of its contents, if you could gain skills from it, and last but not least the price tag of each book.
Amos was in the market for some simple offensive spells. So out of all the elements, he chose fire. As it was the tried and true when it came to destruction. Plus Amos already learned the basics of fire magic from Salis.
Amos chose a couple of books. Some of them contained theory and magic laws so Amos could gain a better understanding of fire magic, and the rest were just regular spells.
When he finished, he got up and walked back over to the counter. He told the librarian which books he wanted and handed him the catalog back. The librarian walked through the door behind him.
As Amos waited he activated [ heightened senses ] out of boredom. He leaned in and listened in. He could hear a series of locks being opened. One of them sounded like a dial being turned while another sounded like a key being turned. He leaned a little closer. Only when he was halfway over the counter did he even think about what he was doing.
*sigh*
'What am I even doing?'
He deactivated [ heightened senses ] and got off of the counter. Somehow it left him with a bad aftertaste. One of self-disappointment.
After another minute the Liberian finally walked back out. With him, he was carrying a stack of wrapped books. He plopped the books onto the counter.
"It'll be 35 gold exactly." He said.
"Really 35 gold? How do I even know if the books are good or n-" Amos started.
"The price is nonnegotiable."
Amos clicked his tongue before dropping 35 gold coins onto the table. He now only had about a platinum and 45 gold left. In the span of only a couple of days, he had spent around 55 gold. Versus the average family that made about 1 gold coin every year.
Amos mentally sighed before thinking 'Oh well. You gotta spend money to make money.'
He then picked up the books and placed them into one of his dimensional bags.
"Have a good day." The librarian said in a monotone uncaring voice.
"Yeah same to you," Amos replied.
Amos then promptly left the library. He looked up to the sky. The sun was a little less than halfway in the sky.
'Maybe 11 o'clock?'
It was only his rough guess. Amos always had the option to buy a pocket watch, but he found it to be a waste of money.
'What would I even need a pocket watch for? I mean there is always a watch in the sky, and they have two names. The sun and the three moons.' He would always think to himself.
Amos began to think. He could probably learn one of the spells and still have enough time to enter the dungeon. So he walked over to a bench and sat down. He pulled out the books and rifled through them until he found the one he was looking for.
'Moderate difficulty fire spells.'
It was called moderate because to learn the spells you usually had to be around level 40 to 75. While beginner books would be below level 40 and master spells above level 75. But unfortunately, as much as Amos would love to learn a master spell it would be very difficult. Just getting access to a master spell was already a nightmare. let alone actually learn one. So he had to settle for second best with moderate.
Amos began to flip through the book. Some of the spells took up 30 pages! So Amos just looked for a simple but effective one. He flipped until he found what he was looking for. A tried and true classic, the fireball. It took up 15 pages, but Amos was determined to learn this one. So he read through every page meticulously. Although he already had some understanding when it came to fire magic because of Salis, it was still difficult due to it being a somewhat high-level spell.
When Amos finished reading he tried to attempt it. Until he realized he was attempting fire magic in the middle of a city.
'Shit, that was close. If I started firing off fireballs then the guards would have started swarming me. I really need to get used to living in a city. But since I can't practice it here then how will I learn it? Hmm, Ahh the dungeon! It would be the perfect place to practice it. At least in the lower leveled areas anyways.'
With a plan in place, Amos got up and made his way to the dungeon. It was a solid 30-minute walk as it was in a unique district of the city. But once he got there he was somewhat surprised by what he saw.