Today is Tuesday, the day of the Holy Prayer Festival of the Dawn Church. Shad promised Bishop Owen and Father Augustus that he would appear in the church in the afternoon to participate in the activities and give a public speech. In addition, he still has some things to deal with.
Leaving Mia at home to look after the house, Shad packed up the things in the basement and went out.
The purpose of going out in the morning was to buy some things.
The first stop was Old John's Antique Shop. Old John was reading a newspaper and waiting for customers as usual. When he heard the bell ring, he tilted his head from behind the newspaper and saw that it was Shade. He yawned and said:
"Are you here to buy anything today? By the way, how was your exam week? Louisa should have passed her ancient literature exam, right?"
Papa John is the black market shop owner who has the best relationship with Dr. Schneider's group.
"Passed. My alchemy homework passed too. Dad, I'm going to spend a lot of money on buying things this time."
After waking up, Shad strolled through the familiar Tobesk, away from the wet port city with pirates and murlocs, and was in a very good mood.
"You? A large sum of money?"
Father John looked at him suspiciously, totally disbelieving what he said, as if he thought it was some bargaining tactic.
So Shad reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and grabbed out a 100-pound note tied with a piece of paper; he then reached into the outside right pocket of his jacket and grabbed out a 100-pound note tied with a piece of paper; finally he reached into the left pocket and got another 100-pound note.
The largest denomination of banknotes issued by the kingdom now is 50 pounds, but it is usually only used for settlement of large items and is rarely seen on the market. Shade took out 5-pound notes, a total of 60:
"The relic you mentioned, worth 300 pounds, is consigned to you by a friend. I want it." (Chapter 99)
The old man looked at the money in surprise, then nodded:
"It has the function of extracting energy from a living organism or something similar to a physical or non-physical entity and injecting it into the user's body. That's the requirement, right? I still have that thing. If you want to buy it, I can give it to you... Although I knew you met a wealthy noblewoman last time, I didn't expect..."
He didn't say anything else, but quickly put the money away, asked Xia De to wait for a while, and then left for twenty minutes, and when he came back, he was holding a long and thin object wrapped in a cloth strip in his hand.
"A cane? A sword?"
Xia De was looking forward to it.
"The cane isn't that long. If it was a cold weapon, do you think it would only sell for 300 pounds? You should know how expensive weapon relics are."
The old man said as he put the thing on the counter and then quickly walked to the door of the store and locked it.
When the cloth strip was removed, there was a fishing rod inside.
"A clerical-level relic soul fishing rod, all black. The rod and the hook are made of similar materials to stainless steel. It is telescopic, 5.24 feet (about 1.6 meters) when fully extended. The fishing line is transparent and made of unknown material. It can be extended as needed during use."
The old man nimbly took the fishing rod in his hand, pulled out the retracted part of the fishing rod with a click, and handed it to Xia De for inspection.
"Once the Soul Fishing Rod hooks a living person, you can harvest the other person's memory fragments. If the living person is also a ring warlock, then you can obtain a part of his soul, and there is a very small probability that you can directly obtain the other person's soul rune, which perfectly meets your requirements. As for the side effects..."
Seeing Shade swinging the fishing rod back and forth to feel the feel, Father John knocked on the table and asked Shade to pay attention:
"It can only be activated by fishing. And the other party cannot lose the ability to move, and must take the bait actively. Once hooked, the fisherman must read the acquired memory and cannot refuse. Moreover, the acquired memory is a random segment and cannot be selected. If this method is used to read other people's memories for a long time, even a high-level warlock will have his or her own personality affected. What's more dangerous is that as long as it is used more than 13 times, there is a chance that a huge fish hook will suddenly fall from the sky in the rest of your life."
"oh?"
Xia De looked at him in surprise:
"What is that?"
"I can't answer you, because people who see the fish hook will take the initiative to touch it, and then disappear. The news about the fish hook is what they say when they see the fish hook."
The old man shrugged his shoulders:
"Maybe some strange being is fishing. Do you see the lines of Ru script on the fishing rod? That's the language of the Fourth Epoch. I happen to understand some of it. The general meaning after translation is—"
We are fishermen, but we are also fish.
The price of the fishing rod was 300 pounds and it had to be paid in cash. Even if Shad brought up the matter of the walking stick, he couldn't get Old John to give in, because it was consigned to him by a friend and he had no right to lower the price.
So after paying this money, Shad's savings dropped from 900 pounds (note) to 600 pounds. Although his ability to make money increased, unfortunately his expenses also increased.
The fishing rod was for the possible divinity in the future, so the money could not be saved in any way. After sending the fishing rod back home, Shade put on his robe and mask and went to the Black Raven Library.
The acquisition of the Whispering Spirit Rune Greed was something he had not expected, and the acquisition of the Spirit Rune meant that he could master a completely new power. Greed had little to do with Time and Silver Moon at present, so Shade followed the convention and only planned to learn a magic related to this. If there was a suitable magic in the future, he would go and get more power of greed.
Similar to gluttony, greed is also a relatively common spiritual rune. Many ancient books and relics can allow ring sorcerers to obtain runes with similar concepts.
Besides daily necessities, emergency preparedness, repairs to the third floor of his house, and second-year tuition, Shade still had about 200 pounds to spare. Compared to the first time he chose the magic of gluttony, this time he had a lot more money.
In the dim little room of the Black Raven Library, Shade sat on the sofa and explained his requirements to the person behind the wall through the small hole in the wall. In order to avoid missing out on valuable magic, he also specifically stated that the price could fluctuate slightly.
It took the library half an hour to give Shade a list of seven kinds of magic, six of which could be learned by Whispering Elementals and Spirit Runes of Gluttony.
The cheapest skill, Greed, is worth 15 pounds. This is a passive ability that increases one's greed after learning it. This is a magic that is used in conjunction with other magics that use "greed" as a condition, and ordinary ring sorcerers will definitely not learn it.
The most expensive one is Varda's Life Contract, which costs 350 pounds without learning materials and 1,200 pounds with materials. This is an active ability, which uses the "loan" relationship to sign a contract with other intelligent creatures by handshake. Once the contract is violated, the magic will claim the life of the violator.
It sounds powerful, but the magic is useless against a ring sorcerer of a higher level, and it will become ineffective due to text traps and the death of the caster. It is a precious "contract" magic.
Shade didn't choose the most expensive one, nor the cheapest one, and finally chose the thaumaturgical collection with materials worth 232 pounds.
The explanation of this magic is quite simple. It uses one's greed and love for an object to give it extraordinary powers.
The magic itself is only effective on ordinary items. You can only choose one "treasure" at a time, and it can be changed every time the moon phase cycle. And the power of the magic is limited by the greed and cherishment of the item itself, as well as its own level.
Different ring sorcerers' choices of different "treasures" will grant different supernatural powers, but these powers will only be amplified according to the appearance of the items. For example, shoes will allow the wearer to run faster or see higher, and eyes will enhance vision in the dark or increase the range of vision, but it is absolutely impossible for the ring to suddenly be able to shoot fireballs after choosing it.
According to the records provided by the Black Raven Library, most of the ring sorcerers who learn this magic choose coins or banknotes as their "treasures", because the greed for banknotes will never decline.
Of course, some ring sorcerers also select special Rhodes cards as "treasures". As a result, the cards will have extraordinary abilities such as flying at high speed or being hard and sharp.
You know, the Founding Balance controlled by Shade cannot be sharp enough to be used as a weapon.
Of course, this magic also has very slight side effects.
First, the greed for items of the same type as the selected "treasure" will be amplified. Second, once the selected "treasure" is lost, the user of the magic will no longer be able to use the magic during the six-month cycle, and during this period, the desire for "greed" will be amplified.
But this side effect is acceptable, so Xia De chose to buy this magic.
After paying the high fees, his savings dropped to about 400 pounds. When Shade returned home, he found that it was not yet lunch time, so he used materials such as "money grass", "horse manure stone" and "greedy manure skeleton" to complete his study of magic.
However, there was a small problem when selecting the "treasures".
He took out all the cards and planned to select Ancient Fairy Tale·Match Girl. But when the magic light covered the cards, the whole deck including Genesis·Silver Moon but excluding Genesis·Balance was selected.
The Origin of Balance cannot be selected, probably because it has been activated and is not an ordinary item. The entire deck was selected, probably because the "Divine Afterglow" state increases the effect of the magic.
It's not that he can select multiple targets, but he can consider "a group" as "one" target.
The evidence for this conjecture is that Shad feels that he can replace different cards into the deck, so that the replaced cards lose the "selection" and the replaced cards gain the "selection". Therefore, when Shad obtains a new special card, the new card does not have to wait for the next lunar cycle to be selected.
You spent so much money on magic, is it just to give your opponent extra cards when playing cards? Outsider, you are such a greedy person.
"Don't slander me."
Xia De hooked his finger, and under the effect of the treasure, fifty-four cards flew from the far end of the table from top to bottom and stacked neatly on the table in front of him.
Then Shade took a newspaper and opened it, then manipulated fifty-four cards to cut the newspaper.
The 200-plus pounds was well worth it. In the divine afterglow state, the sharpness of these cards was not enough to split bricks and stones, but it was enough to cut a human throat. Moreover, the power of the special cards in the entire deck was far greater than that of ordinary cards due to Shad's greed.
If he could replace the entire deck with special cards, the effect of the magic might be further enhanced.
When the cards started flying, Mia hid behind Shade and watched the scene. When they landed on the table in front of Shade again, the cat walked out with wide eyes, jumped onto the table, and curiously stretched out its claws to touch the top card.
Although the cards have acquired the characteristic of being sharp, using the treasures to control the flying of the cards is far inferior to Shade's direct control of the origin and balance. However, compared with the spells that can achieve similar effects to move objects, the control of the treasures is more delicate.
For example, Shad suddenly had evil intentions and made the card that Mia kept hitting suddenly fly up. When Mia was chasing, she manipulated the card to fly around on the table, making the cat keep waving its claws.
"Meow~"
It suddenly stopped, put its little paw on Shad's arm, and looked at Shad with its big amber eyes.
The stranger laughed and let the cards stop in front of the cat, which stretched out its paw with great satisfaction.