17 Shopping

The two kids that are arguing are 10 feet away from each other. Their bodyguards weren't around. Interested, Luca went up to them.

"Hi, my name is Luca! What's yours?" Luca looked at the two, with a smile.

Luca's who just appeared in front of the two surprised them. The one who was wearing the vest looked towards Luca and cracked a smile back.

"Names Reed Marchand, it's good to see that there are some sensible people around." Reed adjusted his hat.

As if not wanting to be outdone, the "young master" spoke,

"Since you want to know, it's Kamar Vardanyan." Kamar lifted his chin as he looked down at Luca.

"My rooms right here, if you ever want to come over, just knock." Luca waved goodbye and went back into his room.

His two bodyguards, were a few feet away from the door, standing straight in full armor.

"Its ok, you guys don't have to be in full armor when you're in this room." said Lucia, looking at them with respect.

Since their Knightsmith's they can make their armor disappear. But Lucia wasn't sure it went, they didn't carry it around, it just vanished like their armor was never there. His curiosity got the better of him, he asked.

"Where does your armor go when you make it disappear?"

"It dissolves into the air and if we want to make it again we use our tattoos." Griffin responded, lifting his shirt, in the middle of his well-defined chest there was a fist-sized tattoo that looked just like his armor. It was surrounded by Salvon Runes.

"WOW, that's so cool! Does that mean that every tattoo on your body is a piece of equipment, like that spear?" Luca pointed to the side of abs where a 12-inch spear was.

"Correct, every tattoo has a purpose. When we pour our primordial energy into the tattoo it creates it. Some tattoos take more energy depending on how complex the equipment is." Griffin responded with his usual respectful voice.

The Knightsmiths where cool to Luca. Their powerful and could create awesome weapons. Feeling sleepy Luca looked at the exquisite clock that was in the living room and saw it was 10 p.m. He went to his room to sleep and was glad to finally be able to sleep on a soft and warm bed!

The next morning, at 7:00 am he woke up. He wore a similar pair of black leather pants and a light brown and white shirt, but this shirt didn't expose his chest. He then looked at the money that Sergio gave him, about 10 platinum coins. Damien voice could be heard in his head.

"Luca you should buy new clothes and get the mandatory academy uniform. You can also look around to see if we can find anything useful, but before we do all this, we have to see how much 10 platinum coins are actually worth. Try asking one of your roommates, they might know." said Damien

Luca nodded and walked out of his room. To his surprise, Griffin and Eve were already in the living room. Griffin and Eve are about to prepare some breakfast, it seems they went out, earlier today, to by some supplies. He told them what he was going to do, and they stopped what they were doing. They were going to go with him, but he told them it was alright. But they took their duty seriously and came along anyway. They walked out of the dorm and Luca knocked on Reed's door. He had a better impression of him and he didn't smell any negative emotions from him.

Reed walked out, his black eyes bloodshot and his short blond hair slicked to the side with some strands of hair standing up.

"Oh, it's you, what can I help you with ?" Even with his young features, Reed presented himself as a refined adult.

"I wanted to ask if you knew how much a platinum coin is worth." said Luca

"A platinum coin is worth 100 gold coins, it's the same everywhere." Reed had one eyebrow lifted when he heard Luca's question.

"Um … how much is 100 gold coins." Luca felt a bit awkward asking when he looked at Reed's expression.

"Your serious right … from looking at you I can see that you're serious. Alright, I'll explain to you, 100 bronze coins are worth 1 silver coin, 100 silver coins is worth 1 gold coin and, 100 gold coins is worth 1 platinum coin. There's more, but this is what normal people use." said Reed

"Thanks!" Luca waved goodbye.

Reed waved back and closed the door with a slightly puzzled expression. Luca walked out of the school gates and pulled out his trusty map. He could see most of the clothes shops located to the left of the center of the city. Taking in the sight of the city's beauty, there were flags hanging every now and then of the Cypress Kingdom. The flag had the outline of a blue knight on a horse with his spear pointed to the sky. Six stars in the background, in the shape of a lance.

Local men in Cypress would wear blue shirts and gray wool pants. He found the first clothing shop that was a bit sketchy. The signboard was crooked with the wood slightly chipped, the words Nathans clothing store. He was a bit hesitant to go in seeing that most people avoided it. But he suddenly picked up a smell, the smell that was similar to a spirit beast but different. This grabbed his attention and he got on high alert. The curious and adventurous part of him wanted to explore. He told Griffin and Eve about what he found, to make sure nothing went wrong. He was about to go in when he heard Damien's voice.

"This smell is familiar if I'm not wrong it should belong to a bloodline holder who's related to the spirit beasts. Depending on which spirits beast clan they belong to, determines how we act. Be ready for anything, but they don't smell like high-bloods, so were fine." said Damien.

Slowly, Luca entered the store, and inside this large store, clothes were separated in the middle. One side for boys and one side for girls, the smell of the bloodline holder came from the girl's side. He awkwardly walked towards the smell of bloodline holder, the walls covered with girl clothes. The old hardwood floors creaked under his weight. He slowly walked past countless girl clothes that were on clothing racks and reached his destination.

A cute girl with short shoulder length hair was looking at some clothes. She looked 4 feet 9 inches tall and had white skin. His feet stepped onto the hardwood floors, creating a creak that got her attention. She turned around and looked at Luca with a look of surprise in her blue eyes. Suddenly a guy who was close to her and who Luca hadn't noticed before, spoke.

"Stop, I don't know what your intentions are but for her safety and yours you should stay back." A man wearing all black with blue eyes and hair said.

He subtly released some killing intent. Luca was also able to notice that he was a bloodline holder.

"Interesting it's a mid-blood and from the feeling that I'm getting from him I guess that he's a Blood Knight. If I'm right this little lady should be the daughter of a clan leader. Not everyone can have a Blood Knight protecting them. Blood Knights are the personal bodyguards of mid-blood royalty. When were in a more peaceful place area ill explain what a Blood Knight is but just know that they can fight head to head with a Knightsmith." said Damien.

Griffin and Eve felt the Blood Knights killing intent, and they released some of their own. Causing the Blood Knights face to change, he got into a position that allowed him to attack or defend if he had too with a dead serious face. This also made Griffin and Eve move into a stance that would make it easier to attack or defend.

Luca didn't expect the situation to get out of hand. The cute girl had a troubled expression.

"Look we didn't come here to pick a fight or anything, I just happened to walk by, see you around." Luca made a sly expression with his eyes narrowing, speaking in a mocking tone. Luca in his mind was yelling, "Why the heck did I do that!?" It just suddenly seemed natural to him so he did it without thinking.

This made the Blood Knight pay more attention to Luca. Luca walked out of the store with Griffin and Eve flowing behind him. After walking for a bit, Luca heard Damien laughing.

"To perfect! Your becoming more like an Azure Demon Fox, the time for your bloodline to kick in was perfect. It was probably caused by the fact that a mid-blood tried intimidating you, which is unacceptable in our eyes." Damien said.

"So that's what it was." Luca said

Luca was sure that she was part of the academy because she had the academy rule book crumpled up in her hands. He walked into a much better-looking store and was looking for blue pants, a white button-up shirt and a blue vest that was the standard uniform for the boys at Cypress Academy.

He discovered that he was kind of rich! He bought the clothes that he needed and ended up buying the best ones the store had. They only charged him 50 bronze coins! Feeling good about being wealthy, Luca was ready to go look at some other stores. Specifically, a weapons store, he was walking around the shopping district of the city. He ended up getting lost and stumbled into a store that was on the edge of a street alley.

The store only had one word on the signboard, "Cultivation". It should have been a popular store, but the signboard was in ruins and the words on it were faded out. It took him a while to even figure out what I said. But he was curious, so he went in, and the store was small. It was only 20-meters wide and long, it was a square room. On the left and right side of the store, there are two old shelves with random stuff on them. There was an old man at the front of the store who was reading something while sitting on an old stool. The store owner ignored him so he went to the shelves to see if he could find something interesting.

The shelves were divided into three. He found small booklets on the top shelf about cultivation, but they were useless to him, most being targeted to ordinary human cultivators. He found weapons laid out on the middle shelf, but Damien said that they where all trash. He also found spirit beast parts on the last shelf, but Damien also told him that they were worthless.

He went to the other side and only found junk. He was looking at a thick claw of a spirit beast, about 3 inches thick. The claw was broken in half and was only 1 foot long, he looked at the cracked part and could see the inside of the bone. He noticed that there was something stuck inside the marrow of the claw. It didn't look special, he almost thought it was a rock that got stuck inside the claws bone marrow.

"Wait Luca that's a skill shard! Don't pull it out, I don't think the store owner knows about it. Otherwise, he would treasure it, it's not easy to get your hand on a skill shard, I bet it's worth a lot of money. Let's buy the claw and look at it when we get back to the dorms." Damien said.

Luca went up to the store owner and told him he wanted to buy the claw.

"That'll be 1 gold coin. Don't give me that look, this claw belongs to a powerful spirit beast that could be a match for a Sovereign cultivator!" The old man's saliva flew out his mouth as he passionately spoke with conviction in his eyes.

"What a load of bullshit, this claw belongs to an early body refinement spirit beast (stage 1 level 1 while a sovereign is a stage 4 cultivator) You can tell by the color of the bones, he's trying to scam us!! Forget it, just buy it and never come back to this dump!!" said Damien