chapter 16

After Leonard rushed off into the town while leaving Kirito and Asuna far behind him.

He quickly headed to the market district, Leonard then quickly turned and ran inside an empty and dark alleyway, devoid of all life and inside the alleyway, Leonard stopped and leaned onto the stone wall of a building.

"Alright...let see if you actually have what I needed," Leonard muttered in a low tone.

"System, open the achievement store," Leonard commanded the Multiverse system.

[System Achievement Store- open, please input the category that you wish to search, or the name of the item directly through a built-in keyboard or use a mental command.]

The system message informed him before an interface showing all different kind of items and categories popped up.

"Good...good, System- search for creating materials for weapons, I'm looking for a cheap, yet strong and durable type of metal that is affordable," Leonard commanded.

[searching...searching...complete]

Then the list wiped itself and displayed with all different images of metals and ores along with their description and prices in masses.

Upon seeing the list, Leonard was quite surprised by all of the selection that was displayed before him, metals and ores that could only be founded in games and fictions can be found within the system shop.

He then immediately scrolling through the list which showed to him.

"Iron...fuck off, copper...steel….gold? What the hell?" Leonard stares fixed at the precious metal that many people would go crazy over.

"Why the hell is such a soft metal be categorized as a weapon crafting material?! And tell me why is this thing is cheap as dirt?! A single achievement point could get me twenty kilos of it? What the hell?!" Leonard threw lines upon lines of profanity and curses after he lay eyes on it.

[As long as the metal is cheap, and can be crafted into a weapon that can use to kill, it's fair game- Quote from the system manager.] the message informed him.

"...alright...I see." Leonard was speechless, however, he suddenly had a bright idea afterward.

"Since gold is that cheap…" he began to drool as he thought about literally drowning in money everywhere he goes because he knows that gold is the real hard currency on any modern worlds and or such world such as Leonard own homeworld.

But he quickly snapped out of his little fantasy as he remembers that he still have a quest to finish whenever he liked it or not, once again he quickly scrolled down furthermore to see what the system had to offer.

"Oh la-la...what is this!" Leonard quickly stopped at a type of metal that he found to be quite interesting, and quite unexpected at that.

[Saronite] was the name of that metal, its color was sickly green with a bit of cold chilled light blue, the metal itself was glowing as well.

Leonard began to read the description of the metal after he used his finger to click on it.

[Saronite- Origin- Warcraft Universe.]

Saronite is an element associated with the old god "Yogg-Saron", it first appeared across the world of Azeroth around the year 4,500.

It is believed that this metal originated from the blood of the old god itself, carrying with its properties of pure evil.

This metal has high resistances toward life and nature magic and light magic itself.

It has one fourth the weight of steel while being much stronger than steel itself.

Upon seeing the description of the metal, Leonard couldn't be happier, it was until he saw the price tag and the side effect placed on the metal itself that he's starting to feel depressed.

[Properties of pure evil]

Boosted all type of dark magic, however, this upon prolonged exposure to this metal, the host state of mind will be affected by its nature of evilness and will likely be driven insane by the dark whisper if the user mind is weak.

The only way to counter this is by having a strong will to bend the dark thought to the user will and control it.

Require forging skill- Grandmaster Blacksmith.

Price per kilogram- two achievement point.

"...buy it or not to buy it...hmmm…" Leonard was feeling quite conflicted as he decides to whatever to buy this evil material or not to buy it.

The benefit was indeed very tempting, however, the side effect was quite severed.

"Everything comes with a cost huh?" Leonard let out a sigh.

"Screw it...I'll deals with it when it hit me," Leonard added before he used all of his achievement points to purchase five kilograms of the evil metal.

[Thank you for your purchased, the material will be placed inside your inventory- and once again for deciding to use our great multiverse system store, have a safe day~] a message popped up right after he bought the metals.

"...regret nothing," he commented before he opened up his inventory.

When he opened up his inventory, Leonard found that the Saronite ores has already been smelted into bars and was nicely stacked in one of the inventory slots, waiting to be withdrawn.

He wasted no time and pulled out a single bar, holding it within his palm.

He was quite surprised by how light and big the metal is, the mass was indeed four time that of a normal steel ingot with the same amount of weight.

Leonard then decided to do something really stupid, he slowly placed the metal ingot near his ear, trying to listen in for the so-called "dark whisper" that could drive people insane as described within the lore of the Warcraft universe.

"Hmmm…so far...not-" he was about to call bullshit on the whole thing but he suddenly felt light headed for some reason.

"Sssss...the master is coming…" a low whisper then sounded within his head before he fell unconscious.

*****

Inside Leonard mindscape.

He stood in the misty shadowy worlds which devoid of all life.

"Where the hell am I?" he rubbed his head in pain since it suddenly felt like it was hit by a jackhammer, the headache was surreal.

When he came to, Leonard was scared shitless by the scene in front of him.

"Holy...shit…" Leonard jaw dropped wide open.

He was standing face to face with a monster! The creature was swimming in a pole of thick viscous liquid that resembled liquid Saronite with tentacle squirming around.

It literally a giant head with no eyes and had nothing with mouths that filled with razor-sharp teeth and many tentacles...

"A mortal has intruded upon my realm? Interesting...interesting, give in to your fear now...mortal!" it then let out a cold laughter that sends a chill down Leonard very spine.

"Oh, dear...it is time for regret?" Leonard thought as his teeth were currently clattering.