The alleys were like a maze, connecting the lower town of Tobysk and the edge of the university district. Walking along the alley, turning the corner, I saw a steam pipe that had broken for some reason and was leaking water.
For the safety of his boots, he bypassed the puddle and continued walking forward. Soon he saw a rusty metal staircase climbing up the outside of the dark yellow wall.
I walked up the metal stairs to the second floor and felt like the whole staircase was shaking.
After knocking on the door, he said to the inside:
"Cuckoo introduced it to me. She said the last book she bought was of poor quality."
"She always says that there are quality issues with our books. This woman is too picky."
There was a muffled sound from the door, and after the door was opened, a man with bare arms and an anchor tattoo on his arm walked into the corridor with Xia De. Xia De followed him and held his breath, because this guy had a strong body odor.
"Do you know the rules?"
"I don't know. I just came to Tobesk from out of town."
Shade said in a stifling voice.
"So what do you want to do? Buy books at the library, or consign books?"
“Buy books.”
Because he was holding his breath, he spoke in a muffled voice. Fortunately, the voice sounded strange with a mask on, so the other party probably didn't notice.
"Okay, this way."
The floor of the corridor was lifted up in many places due to moisture, and it made a creaking sound when stepped on. The doors on both sides of the corridor were all closed, and it was unknown whether there was anyone there.
The man led Xia De to turn left in front of the corridor and arranged for him to wait in a small room where no one was currently.
This room was unusually dark, with no windows, and the air was filled with the smell of... canned fish. Maybe Mia would like it here. The space was not even as big as the bathroom area of St. Teresa's Square No. 6. There was only a sofa in it, and there was a small square hole in the wall opposite the sofa, which was covered by a wooden board.
On the wall on one side of the small hole was a rusty black iron gas lamp. The man leading the way turned on the light, allowing the dim yellow light to barely illuminate the room, then he closed the door and left.
Xia De sat on the relatively clean sofa and waited for a while, looking at the painting of the Hanged Man on the wall. The straight gas tube went around the painting and then connected to the gas lamp. Xia De wondered why the gas pipe was not placed higher so that it would not have to go around at a right angle.
The wooden shutter was suddenly pulled open, startling Xia De.
An impatient male voice came from behind the shutter:
"What do you want to buy? Do you have a specific title, or just a request?"
The man had a distinct Tobysk accent and was probably in his thirties. But the light was dim and could not illuminate the space behind the shutter. As the shutter was opened, the smell of canned fish became stronger, and it was obvious that the person who was speaking had just eaten.
"About the magic of gluttony."
Shad said simply, pretending to have an accent that wasn't native to Tobesk, which was easy because he really wasn't from here.
"Gluttony? Wait."
Then the man fell silent, and the only sound that could be heard coming from behind the cave was the sound of pages turning.
Gluttony is not a rare spiritual rune, and is even quite common. However, the most common gluttony is enlightenment or whispering rune, especially the black iron-colored whispering gluttony. You have a high chance of getting it by reading the stories of the cannibal tribes that have disappeared in the Fourth Epoch. Relatively speaking, the silver blasphemous gluttony rune related to the evil god rarely appears.
"Yes, what price do you want?"
The man's voice was heard at least ten minutes later. Xia De knew that there was no bargaining here, so he did not hide his intentions.
"About fifteen pounds will do. No more than twenty pounds."
This is the answer given after considering one's own financial situation.
The man did not answer, but wrote something in the space behind the shield. Judging from the sound, he was probably writing with a pen. But what he put on the wall at the entrance of the cave was a piece of paper and a pencil. When trading items here, the names of the items are not mentioned to prevent the information of the items from being leaked.
There were two magic spells scribbled on the note, probably because Shade's price was too low.
The two magics are "Parkinson's Gluttony" and "Food for Satiety".
The former, as you can tell from the way it was named, was a newly developed thaumaturgy in recent years, and it was most likely spread from the three major thaumaturgy schools. Its function was to impose a "gluttony" state on a certain target, making it extremely eager to eat for a certain period of time. For ordinary people, this would most likely cause the target to die of gluttony. For ring sorcerers, the effect would depend on the level difference between the two parties and many other factors.
This is a magic that was consigned to the Black Raven Library. The other party offered 14 pounds and 3 shillings, and did not provide materials for learning the magic. In addition to gluttony and related spirit runes, the learning requirements must also be enlightenment or whispering spirit runes.
Even if Xia De bought it, he would not be able to learn.
"Food for Fullness" is a magic that can only work on oneself, and the effect is relatively complicated. After using the magic, the user needs to set a certain edible item as a goal for himself, and eat four times in a row with an interval of ten minutes, and each time eat more of the item than the previous time. Make sure that after the last meal, you will reach a full state.
After four times, the "satiating food" effect is satisfied, and this magic can be used to make the selected target food into food that can make you "satiated" with one bite. It is not only psychological fullness, but also meets the physiological requirements of eating. More importantly, eating the target "satiating food" has a therapeutic effect, but no matter what kind of effect it is, it is only effective for the magic user.
If you want to change your target food, you must go through at least one complete lunar phase cycle.
This magic was also consigned to the library. Because the food produced could only work on itself and the effect was not very prominent, the price was very low, only 9 pounds 7 shillings. If the buyer wanted to get the learning materials, he had to pay 11 pounds.
The only thing that could be learned in this magic was the blasphemous silver spiritual runes related to food, and Shade just met the requirements.
"But will it be useful for me to learn this magic?"
He asked himself, and then thought it was very useful. Not only could he save money for food, but he also didn't have to use fake immortality to hold on if he got hurt during the day. More importantly, even at night, the effect of the magic Scindia's Silver Moon Gift was more of a mental treatment, and the Fullness Food could make up for this shortcoming a little, but unfortunately the healing effect of this magic was not obvious.
That's not necessarily the case.
A whispering voice sounded in my heart.
"Why?"
Xia De asked in his heart, but on the surface he pretended to be hesitant and thinking.
Your gluttony does not come from contact with the residual power of the evil god, but from almost devouring a part of the power of the gods. This spiritual rune is different from the normal blasphemous rune and is very powerful. When combined with the divine afterglow state, the magic learned from it will probably be very powerful.
Shade could also feel Gluttony's special power, because as long as he summoned the Life Ring, Gluttony would flash with silver light, which was a manifestation of ordinary spiritual runes taking effect.