It was already evening. As Mr. Adler and I bid farewell to the King and Sister Aurora, he said, "Follow me, young lad!" with a smile, tilted his glasses, and walked inside the auction house.
I thought we were going to leave this place, but I guess not. I could tell that Mr. Adler had been experiencing a complicated confusion due to the treatment the King and the Princess showed towards me. I don't blame him, though. Even I was surprised to see the King of the whole Vrisorid Kingdom being so friendly to me.
"Papa! I'm hungry!" Ku said as he yawned.
"Me too, little guy... We will get food on the way to the room!" I replied with a smile.
So, while walking inside the auction house, I followed Mr. Adler to a place that kind of looked like a storage room.
Perched on my head, Ku curiously looked around the cluttered storage hall, littered with vaguely sorted crates and shelves of miscellaneous goods. Mr. Adler had told me that the Trident Auction House stored a lot of goods, most from different merchants and adventurers, and others from remote places, including the kingdom of Dragruel and even the Kingdom of Mir.
"Now, young lad, don't you have anything in mind that you want?" Mr. Adler said with a smile as he patted my shoulder.
"Huh?" I was confused.
"You will be attending the Central Academy from tomorrow. I wanted to give you a present as a benefactor, seeing how you are my friend's child," he said.
Friends... child? Does he know my father or something?
"You are a friend of my father, Sir Adler?" I asked him with curiosity.
"I certainly do know your old man, but I don't suppose I'm a friend of the man. I'm your adoptive mother, Amelia's friend!" He replied with a chuckle.
He is my mother's friend? So, he calls my mother the Director when speaking with anyone other than her personally. It seems like a good opportunity for me, though.
"Oh? Alright then, Sir Adler. Can I take a look around?"
"Certainly!"
I did find it weird when he didn't even mention this to me when he called me to this auction. But whatever, if it is benefiting me in any way, sure, why not? I happily went in and looked around.
Something I had learned while adventuring was that, while both weapons and armors forged by dwarves were considered the highest class because of the race's innate mastery in the field, elves had their specialties in bows as well as conjurer staffs and wands.
Most of the enchanted weapons were bid during the event yesterday, so the only things left were regular weapons that would eventually be sold in stalls, which was fine for me; I wasn't looking for anything special, just dependable.
Peering through the endless rows of shelves and racks, I picked out a few to test. It didn't take long before I stuffed them back on the shelves they came from, discontent with the crude workmanship of the swords. The balance between the blade and the grip had all been off, and they were shaped sloppily with no mind for executing anything but simple swings or thrusts.
I didn't think of myself as overly nit-picky, but after hours of scouring through the room, it was clear that my taste in swords had become too particular. I'm still fine with the sword my father gave me, but I wanted to look around anyway.
Ku, growing bored of the repeated actions of removing a sword, swinging it a few times, and unhappily putting it back in place, hopped off my head and began having his own little adventure.
I treaded deeper into the large storage hall, passing the shelves and racks of the more appealing blades on display and arriving at a section where sheathed swords were simply crammed in barrels.
One thing I noticed about the swords in this world was that they fell into a couple of categories:
There were the large swords, either the wide heavy swords or the long claymores. Many warriors and offensive mana-reinforcing people preferred these behemoths because of the raw power that could be generated through a single swing, but others considered the weapons savage and unrefined.
The more balanced swords, seen most commonly used by knights and adventurers alike, were the broadswords. These were generally wielded with one hand, coupled with a shield in the other, but there were two-handed varieties. These swords provided the most balanced and versatile performances and were the standard swords to begin learning swordsmanship.
The last category of swords was the lighter and thinner blades. Weapons like sabers, curved single-edged swords, rapiers, and daggers all fell into this category. These were all focused on speed and precision, while daggers were often used as a concealed weapon or dual-wielded for more versatile and acrobatic styles of fighting.
Even if the weapons here were second rate, the inner swordsman in me couldn't help but bubble with excitement.
Seeing all these weapons certainly reminded me of my past life's favorite sword and best first friend, Celeste. I still remember the time when I fished it out from a river while running away from the training grounds after getting yelled at by my mentor at the age of eight as Gladius Agroth. It was a rusty blade, but for some reason, I grew attached to it and used it in every single one of my battles.
By the time I reached the age of twenty, the once-rusty sword started to glow, summoning the God of Pride, Tiamat in her dragonic form, while she bestowed me with her power to use dragon fear and evolving the blade to its first stage, the Divine Spear of Pride, Orenmir.
After that, slowly as I got strong and summoned each of the gods as I got their blessings and powers while opening the evolution stages for Celeste, the God of Wrath, Asura explained things to me about who I was, and who my ancestor Agroth was, as well as why the sword selected me as its sole wielder. Asura bestowed his power, unlocking the seventh stage, the Ultra Divine Sword of Wrath, Gladius.
"Sighs, its no use thinking about it now!" I sighed myself thinking about my past, "Good ol' days!"