Shaman Open Cities

"Eh, so close?" Deon was startled when he looked at the location that Shi was pointing to on the map.

"Mm. Why do you think I took this job? I wouldn't waste away for three years in some random isolated mortal nation. Even for the platinum ladder spirit, that wouldn't be worth it."

Deon nodded slowly.

As it turned out, there was an open city situated just 200 miles away, almost directly to the West of Jing Mountain. 200 miles might sound like a long distance, but on the spirit continent, this was really nothing significant.

West of the Kingdom of Restari, there was an enormous mountain range. The open city was located on the third mountain into the mountain range. The two mountains between here and the city were staggered slightly North and South, creating a natural passageway through the mountain range, leading directly to the city's Eastern entrance.

"Flat Mount City…a shaman open city!" Deon eyes shone.

Open cities were known shaman gathering points. These cities had no official ruling power. Because of this setup, most open cities became akin to giant trading squares for travelling shamans.

To think that he was going to visit a shaman city so soon! Until now, he had been unable to learn much regarding the actual shaman society in this region, but Shi was like a ticket directly into this world. She wasn't a mortal nation peasant, she was an assassin in the shaman assassins guild, which had a small branch located in Flat Mount City.

"Flat Mount City was named by some unenthusiastic guy who saw how flat this mountain was and couldn't be bothered to think of a better name." Shi began to lecture him, Deon just nodded and paid attention.

"The city itself is located on the mountain peak, but this 'peak' is a massive flat land stretching for 50 miles across. This city is nothing like a mortal nation, it's a real shaman city, though there are obviously no 4-Star shamans in a smaller city like this, so those 4-Star powerhouses often still consider places like this to be 'mortal cities'. That said, there are almost no actual mortals living in the city aside from those children with shaman parents."

"There is no official ruler in Flat Mount City, but where there are people, there is always some sort of power struggle. For the most part, the city is controlled by the Trading House. This is the organisation with the highest battle power, but also by far the most stores and auction houses in the city. We cannot trade souls with a righteous path organisation, but we will definitely do most of our other sales with this group."

Shi paused briefly, then added:

"Actually, I was planning to visit the city two months from now anyway."

"Oh? What's happening in two months?" Deon asked with interest.

"The annual open auction!" Shi exclaimed excitedly. "It's the largest auction held in the city once every year, the city will be far more bustling due to this event! If there's anything you want to buy and sell, it's the best time of year to go. My contract with the new king allows me take two weeks away from this kingdom every 6 months, I don't want to miss the auction, so we'll need to wait until then."

"No problem." Deon nodded. "I have some things that I want to do before setting out anyway."

"Alright then. I'm going to let Terros know…given the current circumstance, I'm sure he'll be crazy suspicious and mistrusting of you leaving though."

"Just invite him to join us then. You mentioned before that he visits the city to trade now and then, right?" Deon suggested

Shi paused and turned back to Deon for a moment, raising her eyebrow.

"Really, you're fine with that? Aren't you bothered at all that he tried to kill you?"

"Not at all, since we're in a mutually beneficial relationship right now. The past is the past, what's the point of clinging onto grudges?" Deon shook his head as he laughed.

After Shi left, Deon didn't see her again until a full month later, but he became so engrossed in his training that he didn't even notice this.

After the battle against the Fan Kingdom and the Restari 'rebels', the new king was attributed with all of the merit for Deon's scheme and victory. However, this didn't mean that Deon lost out…not at all in fact!

Whilst he gained no acknowledgement for his overall scheme, he was still the commander who led the assault, and his performance this time was truly exemplary!

He hadn't been serving in the military for long enough to become a lieutenant, this was a set in stone rule that the new king didn't want to change abruptly. However…

"Special Commander Deon, here are the materials you requested!" A woman respectfully brought in multiple crates filled with resources with the help of a dozen other men. Transporting resources up and around the mountain was tedious, but it was well worth the effort considering the extreme value of every trade that Deon engaged in these days.

'Special Commander' was indeed a random title that the new king had made specifically for Deon. He couldn't even be bothered to explain what it meant, but for some reason, this caused people to misinterpret it as a secretive position. They assumed that the details of Deon's role couldn't be disclosed, even though it was really just an empty title.

Either way, Deon's prestige was well above any normal lieutenant, now at the level of a general!

But what use was prestige? Could he refine prestige into spirits? He could not.

But he could refine spirits from the resources and rewards awarded by the kingdom for his merit in the battle.

The new king instantly turned down Deon's request to be granted everything he wanted for free. However, he acknowledged that Deon had the potential to become a leading figure in the mountain war, so it was important that he was able to train properly. As such, he decided that Deon would be rewarded very generously whenever he achieved anything of note, starting with the most recent battle.

Adding on the two 2-Star spirits that Deon sold, and he really had accumulated an utterly absurd amount of resources.

Terros was aware that Deon utilised the body tempering spirits, and since he had once used the 2-Star dense muscle spirit and had it lying around collecting dust, he offered to lend it to Deon. Deon politely declined though…he could not use this spirit right now, and since he couldn't sell something that was lent to him without ruining their relationship, he would only be feeding it on the king's behalf.

Before using any of the 2-Star body tempering spirits, Deon needed to use all of the higher class 1-Star body tempering spirits first.

Naturally, Deon requested that he be given the ingredients for these spirits as part of his reward. He listed out every ingredient he needed to refine the spirits that he still required, five times. With his talent in spirit refining, Deon believed this should be plenty to achieve success with.

He hoped that he would at least obtain the complete set of materials for one of the mythril class spirits, but Deon was soon struck with a depressing realisation.

Mythril was too damned expensive!

Each of the body tempering spirit class evolutions required three pounds of their respective metals; bronze for bronze class, silver for silver class, gold for gold class, platinum for platinum class and mythril for mythril class. Although silver, gold and platinum were expensive treasures for mortals, for shamans, even platinum and gold could only be considered common materials.

Mythril was different.

Some shamans preferred to use physical weapons rather than offensive spirits, but these weapons became too fragile for higher rank shamans. Mythril was a metal that even 3-Star shamans would struggle to damage when it was crafted into a proper weapon, this alone gave it a high value. On top of this, mythril was much better at channelling the power of weapon enhancement spirits compared to steel, so it was considered a true shaman resource.

As it turns out, three pounds of mythril was already too much to be included in Deon's reward, no matter the ridiculous 75 pounds that he requested. The new king's eye twitched when he first saw this item on Deon's list, he honestly thought that Deon was joking.

He couldn't obtain mythril as part of his battle reward, but he could still exchange it.

After Deon sold two 2-Star spirits, he was able to obtain 15 pounds of mythril.

This still wasn't enough of course, not if he wanted to attempt each refinement five times.

Since he had a huge accumulation of 1-Star spirits that he had either refined or stolen from his enemies, Deon decided to sell almost 200 1-Star spirits to the kingdom all at once. This was a shocking transaction that even surpassed his previous sale of the two 2-Star spirits, since many of these 1-Star spirits were gold class!

Whilst waiting for his transactions to complete, Deon began to train properly with his newfound wealth.