26 The Royal City

Raikou woke up extremely happy. He finally got to escape them dreadful wind element lessons. Lilia had given him nearly a months leave to train by himself. He decided to savour it and go explore the royal city near the academy.

He was about to leave the city with Ghost, when Lilia came rushing at him. "You big idiot. You forgot to take a sword with you. How do you plan on training your swordsmanship without a sword in hand."

"I was planning on purchasing a sword in the city."

Lilia rolled her eyes. "Do you think they're cheap? Even a standard mortal grade weapon costs 2 gold. This will do for now." She said and passed him a metal sword with a strap to sheathe it at his waist.

Name: Metal Longsword

Quality: Mortal 1st Grade

+5 strength while wielding.

It was a normal sword, but he was grateful nonetheless. "Thank you for the weapon! I will return this when I come back, and I will not take no for an answer." He added the last part to ensure that the system doesn't consider this his weapon for the 'find a good weapon' quest.

Lilia smiled and thought. "It seems he can humble himself when needed."

"Right then! Come on Ghost, let's go."

Raikou went east of the academy towards the royal city and was greeted with a magnificently terrifying sight.

"It's all white... All the buildings are white!" Raikou exclaimed. "What did I even expect." He sighed.

"You still owe me a favour remember? You said you would find me a female wolf, hehe." Ghost salivated and reminded Raikou.

"Yeah yeah, I remember..."

Raikou used his white card to easily enter through the gates.

A little boy ran up to him and tugged on his trousers. "Sir, for 5 bronze pieces I will direct you around the whole city."

Raikou looked at the boy to see him dressed in rags and his hair was disheveled. He felt bad for the boy and gave him 1 silver. He himself only had a few silvers to his name.

The boy's face lit up at the silver and he quickly hid it to avoid getting robbed later.

"Take me to the best weapon store in the city." Raikou instructed.

The boy eagerly nodded and led him to a store labelled 'Birminfram Gear Store'.

"How imaginative..." He remarked as he saw the name.

He walked in and was greeted by a fat storekeeper. Raikou had assumed the store would be headed by a muscly blacksmith, but he was wrong.

"Welcome to my store! How can I help you today! Are you looking for weapons, armour or both?"

"Direct me to your swords." Raikou instructed.

The fat storekeeper smiled and took him to his sword stock.

Raikou saw the price tags of the weapons and his eyes widened.

"What the fuck! Even the cheapest sword is 10 gold! I thought Lilia was exaggerating." He thought.

He inspected the 10 gold weapon to see that it was a Mortal 2nd Grade weapon. There were multiple 2nd grade weapons ranging from 10-25 gold with a 3rd grade weapon costing 40 gold at the minimum.

Raikou knew he couldn't afford anything the store and he didn't want to show how poor he was to the storekeeper. He cleared his throat and said "I like the look of your wares. I will be back in an hour with gold to purchase a sword." He quickly ran after saying that.

"Hmph, poor bastards trying to window shop in my store!" The merchant was extremely annoyed, as he knew that what Raikou said was just an excuse.

Raikou saw Ghost and the little boy waiting for him outside. He laughed and instructed the boy to take him to the markets.

"If reading novels has taught me anything it is that the markets will have some undiscovered treasures!" He thought.

They got to the market and saw tens of stalls with different items on display.

He walked around and inspected all the weapons, and they were all as trashy as expected.

"Main characters would usually find a rusty sword, which is actually a damaged supreme treasure. Let's try inspecting all the rusty looking weapons." He thought.

He looked for rusty swords and found 3. The first 2 were disappointing, but the third made Raikou's face light up.

Name: Rusty Metal Sword

Quality: Unranked (Evolvable)

Description: A rusty metal sword. Can be evolved continuously by making it consume other weapons (Any type of weapon)

"It may not be a damaged supreme treasure, but it sure is amazing! I can evolve it, which is exactly what I need with my amazing talent and fast advancement." He thought before looking at the price tag. It was listed at 1 silver, as it still had some use as a junk weapon.

He gave the stall keeper the money and picked up the sword.

Ding! Quest 'find a good weapon' completed!

Reward calculating... 1xp.

Raikou screamed. "What do you mean 1xp! Motherfucker, I found an amazing weapon of high potential!"

"The quest reward was based on quality, not potential. The quality of your sword is currently trash."

Raikou was dejected. "Little boy, I am done in the city. You can find someone else to direct for now." The boy was reluctant to leave from such a nice person, but he left nonetheless.

"Ghost! I am in a bad mood right now. Don't say anything about what happened. Let's go and find you a damn she-wolf to fuck! I need to go and train anyways." He started walking before realising he had no idea of any places to train in nearby.

Ghost laughed at the situation with extreme happiness at Raikou's distress. He refrained from saying anything, as he was scared that Raikou would go back on his promise.

He ran towards the little boy "LITTLE KID! One last thing. Do you know of any places populated with beasts used to train with nearby?"

The boy smiled and responded. "Yes sir, I do. If you pass through the gates and head right for a mile, you will find a forest. However, it is currently closed off for a competition. You can enter the competition at the entrance of the forest."

Raikou nodded at him and advanced towards the forest.