Chapter 391 - Orb Trading
Hearing what Thabon said last, Marcus unintentionally shuddered, since the idea of his master hunting him down and killing him was quite the terrifying prospect.
Still, after saying that, the harshness that Thabon was exuding quickly vanished, and he gave Marcus some words of encouragement.
"Do not let this get you down. You are still an amazing forgemaster, and this one mistake is not the end. I know that you will you continue to do great things."
Nodding his head, Marcus thanked Thabon for his kindness and wisdom, before getting down to the other business that he needed to talk to him about.
"Master, would you mind keeping this set of armor in the storeroom. I will be coming by again with a friend later and I plan on selling this to her at a discounted price."
After saying that Marcus took out the armor he made for Clarisa, and told Thabon all about the situation.
"I see. That should be no problem. Just leave it here and I will deal with it."
With his business at the forge now complete, Marcus said goodbye to Thabon and headed back to Blitz.
The two of them then quickly made it back to Marcus\' estate just as the sun was setting.
Taking the rest of the day to relax, Marcus read the book that Lilia had won at auction, and when he was done with that, he played a few games with Lilia until the night was getting late.
\'Time for some rest.\'
Having had some eventful and fairly stressful last couple of days, Marcus decided that he could use a few hours to fully recuperate his weary mind and decided to get some sleep.
Then when the next day had come, it was time for him to head back to the castle and see Mrazivý before she went off on her next adventure.
When he arrived, Mrazivý came and met him, and took him immediately to see Gwyneira who she had already told about the unique skill that Marcus had won at the auction.
"Wow, I am surprised that they auctioned this off." Gwyneira said as she looked over the Winter\'s Grace unique skill orb.
She had a racial ability that all true dragons had to see the true value of things, allowing her to understand the properties of the unique skill even before learning it.
"Even as far as unique skills go this one is pretty powerful. Very well, I will authorize you to pick out a unique skill orb from the castle\'s vault in exchange for this one. And since you are about to do me a personal favor by helping out Salvia, I will agree to your request to give this to Mrazivý."
Hearing this both Marcus and Mrazivý, had to hold back their cheers, but their elation was quite obvious on their faces.
After that, Gwyneira pulled out a sending stone and made some calls to a couple of people, one of which was the king in order to confer with him.
And though she did get into a bit of an argument with the king eventually everything got resolved.
"Well, Aaren was a bit upset about handing over a unique skill orb at first, but I convinced him of the benefits and told him that it was part of a payment for the job you are about to do for us. Though he did put his foot down about letting you choose from any of the unique skill orbs in the vault, so your choices will be a little bit more limited. But I am sure you will still find something suitable."
Shrugging his shoulders Marcus was still fine with this. At the end of the day, he was getting a unique skill orb, and he was able to give Winter\'s Grace to Mrazivý. So, it was a win win situation.
Gwyneira then personally lead Marcus and Mrazivý to the kingdom\'s vault, being their guide and guard as per the king\'s request.
Soon they made it deep into the depths of the castle, where its most secured area was.
To get there they had gone through numerous check point areas guarded by powerful magical formations.
However, when they made it to the vault, Marcus\' eyes went wide.
In front of him was a wall that was made out of adamantine, and Marcus could only guess that the entire vault was made of it as well.
"Impressive isn\'t it. You would not believe how long it took us to gather all of the adamantine necessary for this. But Boreas said he wanted the strongest vault in the continent." Gwyneira said, a slight smirk on her face seeing Marcus\' reaction.
But of course he was stunned. He had just spent a great deal of time, effort, and money to get nine ingots of adamantine, and here the royal family had an entire vault made out of the stuff.
\'Just the vault by itself must be worth millions of gold coins. What could they have inside that needs this level of protection?\'
Yet, as the vault was opened Marcus who was expecting to see mounds of tressure all over the place, was somewhat disappointed to see a room that just had numerous shelves that were neatly ordered with magic bags.
Of course, as he thought about it, obviously it made no sense for the royal family\'s treasures to be out on display, and all of the space was being used practically by having things stored in magic bags.
"Okay follow me and stay close. If either of you get to far away the vault\'s defenses will activate."
Walking into the vault Marcus and Mrazivý stayed right behind Gwyneira, as she walked purposefully towards their destination.
However, along the way Marcus did look around, but everything was just rows and rows of magic bags with nothing labeled.
"Mraz do you know what is in any of these." Marcus asked his curiosity getting to him.
Nodding her head, Mrazivý said, "Yeah I know some what items are in some of these bags. But this is actually only my third time in here, so I do not know everything."
Mrazivý then pointed to a shelf on the left in front of them and said, "That one holds rare magic skill orbs. And the one next to it if I remember correctly has materials from legendary grade beasts."
Nevertheless, Mrazivý did not really have time to give Marcus an extensive tour of the place, as Gwyneira soon stopped as they had made it to their destinate
In front of them unlike the other items which were fairly easily accessible once inside the vault, what stood in front of them now, was a locker made out of adamantine just like the vault. Adding another layer of security for the kingdom\'s most precious items.
"Give me a minute to disable the security enchantments." Gwyneira said, as she pulled up what appeared to be a type of touch pad on the vault.
After that she put in an excessively large string of symbols, that neither Marcus nor Mrazivý could read.
Then Gwyneira, pricked her finger and deposited a drop of her blood into a vial that had popped out after she entered the correct password.
And once that was done, she did what looked like a retinal scan, making Marcus wonder if he had actually been brought to a Sci-Fi world instead of a regular fantasy.
"Finally, it is done." Gwyneira said once she had finished shutting off the last string of security that this locker had.
Opening it up, Marcus saw that once again there were a series of magic bags placed within, but this time they were actually labeled.
\'Amethros ingots.\'
His eyes being immediately drawn towards the magic bag that had the most valuable metal in the world, in it, really wished he could grab it.
Still as tempted as he was, he knew better than to try and steal something right in front of Gwyneira, especially when she had been pretty kind to him and Mrazivý.
"Ah here it is." Gwyneira said as she plucked a magic bag out of the locker.
She then turned towards Marcus and said, "Go ahead and empty the contents out of the bag. There should be three unique skill orbs inside. Feel free to choose any one of them."
Nodding his head, Marcus did as she said and pulled out the three golden orbs that were inside the bag.
\'Sound Mind, Ferocious Rage, Decaying Aura.\'
Checking the names of each of the three unique skill orbs, one stood out to Marcus immediately.
\'Nope, not taking Ferocious Rage.\'
Placing that skill orb back into the bag, Marcus had no intention of acquiring any sort of skill that impaired his judgment, no matter how powerful it may be.
With one unique skill off the table, Marcus had to decided between the other two, and asked Gwyneira for a more detailed description of their abilities.
\'Hm, both are pretty strong an have their merits.\' Marcus though after Gwyneira had told them what each did.
Sound Mind would make him impervious to any sort of negative mental abilities, while also boosting his intelligence stat by twenty percent. On the other hand, Decaying Aura would allow him to create a field around himself, where any sort of organic matter would begin to rot into nothing. And this skill apparently did not disregard the user, but luckily Marcus was a ghost so that was a non-issue.
Looking at the two unique skill orbs Marcus was having a difficult time choosing one of them.
But after five minutes of going over their strengths and weaknesses, he finally came to a decision.