Material Girl

Day of Westar, 1:30 p.m.

Vivian entered a salon.

It was a high-end salon located in a high-end neighborhood.

Before coming here, right after the teaching and feeding Holy Mission for today, Vivian had expertly evaded Lily, Airie and especially Melissa's invitation to go out and celebrate.

She told them she couldn't because she had an important meeting with Criselle.

Although it wasn't true, she had other important reasons to see her.

But nevertheless, before the week ends, Vivian knew she would eventually have to accept their offer to go out and celebrate and thinking about it only made her sick to her stomach.

"Good afternoon, Honored Priestess. Welcome to Fabio's Place. How may we be of service?" a female employee at the reception desk asked.

Vivian looked at her up and down, especially the face.

Not bad I guess…

But the uniform and her makeup sucks…

And she's chubby…

"Thank you, but I must've entered the wrong place," Vivian said before turning away and leaving.

Based on Vivian's experience, the more high-end the establishment is, the better looking the employees. On top of that, 99.9% of the time, the establishment will put their best-looking employee in the reception area.

So if the receptionist is not attractive, there's a very good chance that whatever services the establishment is offering, it's bad.

***

Vivian entered another high-end salon.

"Good afternoon, Honored Priestess. Welcome to Lalaine's Beauty Salon. How may we be of service?" a female employee at the reception desk asked.

Vivian looked at her up and down.

She then proceeded to sweep her gaze around the area.

Sniff.

Sniff.

Not a bad smell…

She returned her gaze to the female employee.

"Do you accept payment through this?" Vivian said and waved the stretched-out sun pendant of her necklace.

As for as she can remember what Lance from the Vault Room told her, not all establishments outside of the Temple of Priests accept such a payment method.

"Yes, we do."

"Do you offer makeup tutorials? I want the best."

"Yes, we have that here and you can choose between Sharon, Cei--"

Vivian held up her hand.

"Please, I'm in a hurry. Just give me the best employee you have who can teach me how to put on makeup. I don't care about the price."

And of course, the better the service, the higher the price.

One can't expect to have premium service with cheap prices.

Both things never come together.

"Of course, Honored Priestess. Please follow me."

***

4:12 p.m.

At the compound where the members of the Temple of Priests live.

Vivian entered the Blacksmith Shop.

Although she looked like she was only wearing lip balm, she was actually wearing a full-on "no-makeup" makeup look, giving her a natural look instead of the abnormally pale skin and almost purple lip.

Earlier when visited the salon, she asked the makeup artist to teach her on how to apply the "no-makeup" look and this was the result.

She also had to buy additional cosmetic products which were all waterproof and other things as well like nail polish.

Vivian went straight to the counter where Sike and Grace were and they were surprised to see Vivian.

"Sister, how may we help you?" asked Sike.

Vivian placed some trinkets on top of the counter.

"How much will it cost if I want these repaired and recharged?"

Both Sike and Grace's eyes suddenly bulged when they saw the trinkets.

The trinkets were, of course, none other than the Dark Finger Claw, Earth Finger Claw, Ice Finger Claw, and the Soul Finger Claw.

Looking at the Elemental Weapons, which was that they were cracked into two pieces, they immediately knew that the reason for their damage was because from "overloading" which meant that either the user used its active skill too many times or the user's Physical or Magical Force was too much that the weapon wasn't able to withstand it and cracked.

On top of that, Vivian bought these just yesterday afternoon and they were mithril-grade.

Sike picked up one of the weapons, at least half of it, and examined it.

Grace, on the other hand, had her eyes bouncing between Vivian and the broken Elemental Weapons.

After all, she knew that Vivian's Physical and Magical Force was on the mithril grade. She also knew that Vivian was a "Secret Agent" of the Temple tasked to investigate any traitors within the Temple.

"Brother?" asked Vivian.

"Oh, yes, sorry," Sike quickly said and put down the item. "You were asking how much to repair and recharge these?"

"Yes."

"Each would cost 1 gold coin and the recharge is 10 gold coins."

"I'll pay with a loan."

"Yes, sister. It would be 45 gold coins."

In Vivian's mind, she no longer had any use for these things so she decided to just repair them and then give them to them Felize, Torr and Gaze.

And since they were aware of the one Magic Art to two Physical Arts ratio, she wasn't worried. Whether they decide to use or sell it, that would be their own decision.

As for selling these items herself, instead of giving them for free, Vivian was too lazy and impatient to concern herself with such things, especially when dealing with low-baller buyers.

She would rather spend all that time and energy training her Physical and Magical Arts.

"By the way, do you sell Physical Force and Magical Force Crystal here?" asked Vivian.

"Yes," replied Sike.

"And are you aware of the one Magic Art to two Physical Arts ratio?"

"Yes."

"I've heard that if someone only trains their Magic Art and neglects their Physical Arts, it can cause a nerve inside their head to pop, explode or whatever you want to call it which can kill them in an instant. However, I've never personally seen or heard of such a case. Is it true? And if yes, how does one know if their Physical Arts is lagging behind their Magic Art without dying?"

"It is true, sister. And can I understand why you've never seen or heard of such a case because it's very rare. Most of the time, it's people overtraining their Physical Arts and neglecting their Magical Arts because they're easier to train and everyone has access to them."

Huh…?

Physical Arts is easier to train…?

How is that possible…?

I even got suspended for overhunting…!

"And about your question on how one can know if their Physical Arts is lagging behind their Magic Art without dying, it is through the Physical Force and Magical Force Crystal.

"Let's say your Physical Force is iron. If your Magical Force is half a step in becoming mithril or silver-mithril, that's when your body will start to experience some complications. But when your Magical Force becomes mithril, while your Physical Force still remains iron, that is already death."

"I see. So two metal grades is the limit?" asked Vivian.

"Yes," replied Sike.

As far as Vivian knows, the metal grade sequence was iron, silver, mithril, orichalcum, adamantite and then the legendary metals -- rainbow steel and spirit steel.

"But brother, what happens if the person reaches above adamantite or the legendary metals?"

"Just as I mentioned to you in the past, it's already rare to see someone reach the physical force level of orichalcum and adamantite. So to see someone with that kind of magical force is rarer. And if we combine those 2, that's very, very rare and those people are the top of the top, the stuff that heroes are made of -- in our Temple, that would be the Gray Cloaks who specializes in extermination missions. And if we consider the legendary metals, such as rainbow steel and spirit steel, if you ever get to meet someone like that, please introduce me to that person because I too want to meet such a person and would like to see what kind of glow the Physical Force and Magical Force Crystals would emit if they used it."

"How much is the Physical Force and Magical Force Crystal again?"

"10 gold coins."

"Does it come with a manual on how to assess the glow of each metal?"

"There are manuals and there's also Memory Crystals. However…" Sike said and paused for a moment. "Because the measurement is based on the glow, not an actual and precise measurement, there will be some differences on who you ask."

Vivian knitted her brows.

"Differences? What kind of differences?"

"For example. Let's say your Physical Force is around the silver metal grade. Now, depending on who you ask, some could see it as slightly below silver, others could see it as silver, and another group could see it as slightly above silver. But don't worry, the manual template imprinted on the Memory Crystal we are using is based on the standard and supported by the Temple of Priests, the Temple of Blacksmiths, and a number of cities and branches of the Adventurer's Guild."

"Huh?" 

Vivian didn't come from a magical world, but she came from a world that was way beyond the medieval era in regards to technological advancement that the whole world has become a globalized market so everyone in the world was competing with each other, making the competition very, very fierce. And although there were still some bloody and primitive wars happening around the globe, the biggest and most profitable wars that rich countries, large corporations and the most influential people were playing on were the global economic and information wars.

So even here there's also something like that, huh…

Well, given the things I've heard and seen in the teaching and feeding Holy Mission that I've been participating in, I should've already expected something like this as well…

But still…

To think that even the information of something like the Physical and Magical Force of metal grades are controlled and not everyone agrees to it is already very concerning…

Like why…?

Is there something that the higher-ups of this world are hiding about the Physical and Magic Force of metal grades…? 

Or something related to it…?

"I'll buy it as well."

"That would be a total of 65 gold coins."

Ugh…

I just got promoted to White Cloak yesterday but I've already spent too much…

On top of that, I also got suspended…

I need to find a way where I can earn more money while still growing and without exposing any of my secrets…

"Brother --" she said but stopped herself.

She wanted to ask why isn't everybody just using the Memory Crystal to quickly learn everything instead of having to manually learn things.

However, given her age and there was also Grace who thinks Vivian was a "Secret Agent", she didn't dare to ask such a question.

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Hello, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Thank you for reading!

By the way, I posted some Chapter Drafts at P-a-t-r-e-o-n. And to view them, you can read them at…

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There, you will have access to the Chapter Drafts for $5 a month.

Please note that the chapters posted there are only drafts. So when those said Chapter Drafts will be published here, there will be some edits. And at the moment, Chapter Drafts 147-206 are posted there.

And since this will be my first time posting Chapter Drafts for this novel, I will be posting 60 Chapter Drafts for the first month (November). After that, it will be around 30 Chapter Drafts each month.

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Thank you once again and I will see you in the next chapter.