45 Shopping spree
"WHAT?!?" Jason exclaimed with wide eyes. He was positively shocked about the number, as it was far greater than he had expected.
Mark added, "But don´t be fooled. 1,000,000 Credits might look like a lot of money but after considering the price for most of the resources, you will notice that it's only a long number."
Still, for Jason, this number was double the amount he had previously. He felt hopeful that if he continued catching beasts with potential, maybe he could be at par with his future classmates, at least, in context to their wealth.
But this would take much of his time that Jason wanted to utilise in other ways.. as such he could only disregard this thought.
After business was done, all of them talked for a few hours about their trip to Cyro City, until it was night. Jason politely declined their offer to have dinner with them and instead decided to return home.
Even after arriving home late at night, Jason didn't forget to practice his Heaven's Hell technique.
He noticed that the replenishing process was becoming smoother and effortless. Based on its stability and pureness, Jason was already able to meet the requirements of the second level, but the amount of his soul energy was still not enough.
Apparently, he had reached a soul energy of three units which was decent if he considered how much he had in the beginning.
All of that was due to his unique soul, and both Artemis and Jason fell asleep happily with a big amount of 1,000,000 credits reflecting in his bank account balance.
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The next morning, he was woken up due to Artemis jumping around on his belly. Jason stifled a yawn and straightened his back slowly as Artemis flapped happily with her wings.
Jason always wondered if Artemis would just continue to grow stronger or if she would evolve further as he noticed that her mana core had almost reached the strength between a two-star and a three-star wild beast.
The paper-thin mana flow in her body continued to thicken slowly, but she didn't grow anymore. Or that was, at least, what Jason thought, for the moment.
Jason had many things to do and with his newly acquired fortune, he could begin his shopping.
But before he would do that, Jason canceled his leasing contract for his apartment as it would be useless once he moved into an A-grade city.
After that, Jason received half of his previously deposited money back which was more than he had expected.
With slightly more than one million credits in his pocket, Jason wanted to purchase quite a few things.
Jason liked fighting with his dagger, but he realised that once his only dagger was blown away by his opponent or thrown away by himself, he would be completely unarmed.
He browsed through quite a few websites and his luck didn't betray him as he found a pair of tempered Jade Iron daggers at the mid-grade-1. These were available for sale by the same merchant from whom he had purchased his first untempered Jade Iron dagger.
Their price was more than reasonable with 160,000 Credits and Jason would be able to pierce through a late awakened beast's hide with them. As such he purchased them.
He also recalled the time he had thrown his dagger at the vulture and missed hitting it at a crucial spot. Thus, he wanted to learn knife-throwing as it was easier to combine it with his dagger-orientated combat style than a bow.
After thinking for a moment, Jason bought a hundred low-grade 1 Coranit throwing knives.
Their length was around 15 centimeters, the blade was 6 centimeters long, and was extremely thin, but because of the innate characteristic of coranit, it was still quite durable.
Coranit was one of the most common ores and was most likely used to manufacture weapons 300 years ago until iron was discovered, but it had slightly superior durability and mana conductivity.
With enough mana injected in the blades, these throwing knives would pierce through the hide of late-awakened beasts, but that wasn't their main purpose.
One would more likely throw these knives in small openings or maim by hitting vital spots rather than well defended spots.
Their price was 1.500 credits each so another 150,000 credits were deducted from his decreasing fortune.
In addition to the throwing knives, Jason also purchased a mechanical knife holder, which looked like a normal black box with two slots on the sides.
The knives could be stacked in the box with a few that would stick out and be replaced with the next in line after the previous one was drawn out. Around 50 knives in total could be inserted into the box.
Jason wondered how this was possible as 50 knives wasn't a small quantity and the box was described as being 20 centimeters long, 5 centimeters wide, and 3 centimeters in height…
Jason admired the sorting skills of this mechanized system as he estimated that not a single millimeter of space was wasted. It was a decent looking small compact box that could be attached to his lower back without hindering his movements, while a single knife could be taken out from both sides.
After purchasing the throwing knives, Jason decided to continue purchasing weapons and he looked at a graded bow.
But he was quite shocked to notice the large difference in strength and durability between ungraded and graded bows.
Considering his current strength and the expected rate of increase in his strength, he decided to purchase a mid-grade-1 bow made out of a low-evolved strengthened elemental deer with fortified horns.
Their tendons and horns were perfect materials to manufacture a bow with it.
The price of the bow was 77,000 Credits and he purchased a bunch of reinforced arrows along with the bow. These arrows would not shatter even after hitting a steel wall and cost him 27,000 Credits.
It was astonishing to see that a bow made out of awakened beasts could be sold for so much as the evolved ranked elemental deer was only worth around 5,000 Credits at most.
After calculating his expenditure so far, Jason was shocked to realise that he wasn't even remotely close to finishing his online shopping tour, but his credits were vanishing into thin air.
He needed some defensive garments and some new paralysis potions, a tranquilizer, a few expandable miniature beast cages, ample beast cores for Artemis, and if still had some credits left, he would buy something for himself.
At least, a little bit would definitely be left for him as he had to eat and drive around with the shuttle.
Thus, he kept aside 1000 Credits for himself and continued with his purchases.
After more than an hour, Jason's seemingly large fortune of 1,000.000 Credits was almost exhausted. The garment he bought was a low-grade-2 hide-armor that could adjust itself slightly according to its wearer. It could protect the wearer from the physical attack of each kind of awakened beast and even mid-evolved beasts.
Its price was a horrifying 400,000 Credits, but for Jason, his life was worth even more.
Never would have Jason imagined that the price was so low because it was a second-hand outfit. It had already been worn by someone, fixed a few times, and was also one of the cheapest grade-2 garments.
Jason was more than a little bit shocked to see the price tags of most garments and weapons, as the rare materials were not even close to the prices most wanted for the finished product.
He now understood why blacksmiths, runemasters, alchemists, and these other jobs were considered to be rich and powerful, and people with such occupations were also sometimes deemed as greedy.
But nobody could estimate the credits they had to shell out during their apprenticeship. The early expenditure of such craftsmen was more than horrifying as most initial works were failures. It would take them a long time until they honed and perfected their skills to be able to call themselves a blacksmith, for example.
Furthermore, it wasn't easy to stabilize the mana conductivity in most materials and use them to create perfect weapons or garments.
After comparing the price of his leather armor to the prices of most grade-2 or 3 weapons, Jason felt dizzy.
While grade-1 weapons were strong enough to kill awakened beasts, grade-2 equipment could already be compared to evolved beasts. and even unblemished beasts to an extent. While grade-3 was something, only Magus would be barely able to use, and this equipment was manufactured out of magical beast materials and the subsequent beast ranks.
Jason didn´t know a single person who owned grade-4 equipment on Astrix, but he had heard about a Saint-Blacksmith who forged a grade-4 weapon for someone on Canir. This made him wonder how many grade-4 weapons and armors existed.
While normal graded weapons were already frustratingly expensive in Jason´s opinion, he also saw a few offers on magic and soul weapons, and the expressions on his face couldn´t be described in words when he saw their price tags.
Jason dreamed about owning a powerful soul weapon as he had heard that some extraordinary materials could even enhance the effect of one's soul and establish a symbiotic connection.
But those were only legends from Canir and Jason wasn't sure if something like that really existed.
While he still had 190,000 Credits left, they were used up after he bought three low-grade-1 paralysis potions, a graded tranquilizer with 10 shots, and one big self-driving expandable miniature beast cage.
The most expensive was the graded tranquilizer, but it was also one of the most important things he needed as it would be hazardous if a beast woke up while it was flung over one's shoulder.
Jason had around 10,000 Credits left from his hunting trip and the canceled apartment, but he wouldn't buy beast cores for Artemis as he had a few left. Jason waited eagerly for the huge parcel to be delivered to his apartment as he wanted to test his new toys as soon as possible.
He hoped that it wouldn't take long for his parcel to arrive and he practiced the Heaven's Hell technique to kill time.
After that, Jason began practicing his modified Azure feisty ape technique before the `long-awaited message finally popped up on his bracelet's screen.
