Bookstore (2)
After waking up at 5 am once again, I went to the cafeteria and ate my typical 2 sets from the breakfast menu. Then I decided to go to the bookstore.
There were two reasons for going, one being that I wanted to get any martial arts book or grimoire from the shop and the second one was to investigate the other floors.
After arriving at the depressing-looking store I went in and decided to sort out every book there was in the store, but looking at the large amount I just thought of looking for what I needed.
After almost two hours of looking around, I was able to find only three books that were worth something.
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[String Arts]
(Description): A martial arts book, that allows the user to learn the string arts a martial art of using strings for combat by controlling the field with your strings and restricting the enemy's movements.
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[Spirit Communication]
(Description): A passive skill that allows the user to be able to understand spirits to a higher level.
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[Durga's 8 Arm Arts]
(Description): A martial arts that allow the user to summon 2 extra arms that the user is able to move as he pleases and when the mastery reaches its highest level, the user is able to create 8 hands that he will be able to control.
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All three books are actually extremely good, 2 being martial arts that could be useful later on.
[String Arts], seems to be more of an assassination skill but I can already tell that the skill functions on fighting around with your opponent and wrapping your strings around the opponent's limbs and then cutting them all off.
[Durga's Arts], it just as it states, it will give you extra arms and you can either use them with weapons or just for punching, it is quite self-explanatory.
But [Spirit Communication], Is the only book, I'm still unsure about as the description is quite vague, being able to understand spirits is actually something quite useful but does understanding mean being able to speak to them or being able to understand their actions better.
Without giving it much thought I just opened the [Spirit Communication] book and received the skill.
'Status'
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[Name: Keith Devans]
[Overall Rank: G]
[Strength: G- (Potential: C)]
[Agility: G- (Potential: C)]
[Endurance: G- (Potential: C)]
[Magic: E- (Potential: A+)]
[Inteligence: C- (Potential: S+)]
[Luck: C+ (Potential: Unchangeable)]
[Charm: D (Potential: Unknown)]
[Talents]
-[Magician]
-[Telekinesis]
[Martial Arts]
-None
[Skills]
-[Truth Eyes]
-[Avid Reader]
-[The Hawk]
-[Spirit Communication]
[Artifacts]
-[(S-)Glomer's Gloves]
-[(S)The 40 Knives of Shi]
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No increase in stats but that's fine, and now to test the skill out I called out Lich from his dimensional space, but he looked to be quite angry as he has been giving me the cold shoulder ever since he was summoned. Which was still very cute.
But wanting to learn about the skill I apologized to him and told him that we would be heading into a dungeon soon enough for him to get some summons. It was only then, that he looked at me.
But just by looking at his movements, I was able to tell what he was trying to communicate.
He seemed to be telling me that, that was good enough but pouting at the same time. So I can guess that I'm now able to understand what spirits want to express when they do certain actions.
But leaving that aside, I could tell that the other two martial art books were good but I will probably save them and entice others to join Luminous Shadow and become my slaves using these books.
Then with the first floor being done I went behind the counter and opened the door that led to a staircase to the second floor. Opening the door you would take the stairs on your right and head up the stairs, then at the end, a door should be to your right.
After opening the door I was quite surprised to see a living room, followed by a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom, and finally, the stairs to the third floor were to the right of the door.
With everything on this floor, I can already guess that the man used this floor as his home. Even so, the place was in shambles and everything including the furniture was broken down.
But with a little remodeling, I should be able to transform this into something better than my cheap apartment at the academy, although it will probably take a while and a lot of money.
Then I went to check on the third floor, and there was nothing special, the floor was just empty with nothing it in. Since there was nothing to see on the third floor, I headed to the fourth and last floor.
The fourth floor was just another empty room. I really don't mind, but since most of the walls and more, were damaged and seem almost rotten, I decided to call a remodeling company to fix it. I put Lich back in his dimensional space.
And after a call, a worker came to the store and I told him that there was no need to fix the sign outside. I did tell him to replace all the doors even the entrance doors with automatic doors and an access code lock, to fix up the second floor and make it into a nice floor to live in, and just fix the walls on floor 3 and 4, of course, I also had him get new bookshelves and to be careful with the books.
"Hmm, that's quite a lot to ask for, but if we consider everything that we will be doing it would cost you around 15 million, would that be ok?"
So fixing this place costs more than it does to buy it, that's not really unexpected but I still had hopes anyways I still had 20 million so I should be fine.
"Yes, that would be fine, how long do you think it will take?"
"Around 2 to 3 weeks, should be enough"
He then pulled out a contract, that I didn't bother to read just pretended to do it because I didn't have any knowledge regarding laws apart from what was shown in the novel with Arthur buying new properties and stuff for his guild.
After signing it, I transferred 15 million to the worker and I left the bookstore to him and went back to the academy to read some books in the library as at this time everyone should be in class so it was perfect for me to have a relaxing time in the library.
That's what I thought until I saw Alicia running up to me after I opened the door to the library. She was excited to see me but also looked worried for me.
"Are you okay now?"
"Yes"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes"
And this sort of questioning continued until Alicia got tired of asking.
I grabbed a book at random and went to the back room of the library so I didn't have to deal with anyone, well it's not like I can really escape from Alicia though.
I went inside and sat down on the desk that was assigned to me but Alicia brought her chair over and sat next to me.
I let out a sigh.
"Can I help you with anything, miss Alicia?", I said with a bitter smile.
"Hmm, yes, yes you can"
"What is it?"
"Well, you see, I'm extremely bored right now, so how about we go out"
I gave her a big smile and continued to read my book. Seeing this Alicia made a pout and started poking my cheeks.
"Come on let's go"
I let out a sigh again and got up from my seat, Alicia stared at me, with a face asking if she did something wrong.
"Aren't you coming?", I asked with an indifferent tone. To this Alicia brightened up and we left the academy.
We had been walking for a while so I decided to ask.
"So, what is the real reason, you wanted to go out?"
Alicia gave me a nervous look and began to explain.
"W-well, you see, every time I see you, you are always in the school uniform but every time you go outside the academy, the clothes you were are kind of, you know?"
Well, apart from the clothes from the third district it is true that I don't have anything else other than the uniform from the academy, but I think they look fine, I don't see why I would need new clothes.
"Are they that bad?"
"Yes, if I was a robber I wouldn't even consider you a target", She said, kind of hurting my feelings but I let it pass.
"So we are going to buy clothes?"
"Yes, although it is not a popular shop it is quite good, I can guarantee it"
We continued to walk down the market, even passing by my bookstore which was already an almost 10-minute walk away from the entrance to the market, and only after another 10 minutes, did Alicia pause and say "We are here"
We finally reached a small clothing store called [Elegante].
I then remembered this store and I knew that in the future it would become the biggest clothing brand in the world including the Union's multiple races, and it was due to the clothes' high resistance, elegant nature, and comfortability even during battles.
At least it would seem that Alicia, did have some knowledge of good clothing. And without any further ado, we headed inside to be greeted by a middle-aged man with brown hair and a beard in a butler suit.
"Oh, miss Alicia is great to you see again, and who might this little fellow be?", He said while looking at me as if I was a child.
'Why does everyone have to remind me of my size, like I'm I really that small, I'm only 130 cm, but still.'
"He is my underclassmen, I'm here to buy some clothes for him"
"That's quite nice of you, then feel free to look around"
"Thank you, George"
The store was quite fancy, with many items on display that looked quite expensive.
I was looking around appraising the suits, and surprisingly almost every single one had a trait of resistance and comfortability, which were one of the most desired stats in armor and clothing.
After looking around something caught my attention, a black beret hat that was a little bigger than one would expect, what caught my attention was that it had resistance and comfortability and other traits below it unlike other items but I couldn't read it quite well so I decided to walk over there and pick it up.
Then I felt someone touching my shoulder and to my surprise, it was George with a huge smile on his face.
"Hmm, what do you think about this hat, little boy?", he said with eyes full of expectation for some reason. Using my skill, I decided to analyze it a little bit more as well as read its description which left me speechless.
After a couple of seconds, I finally spoke.
"...uuuuuuh, i-it is a great hat, it wouldn't surprise me if it was a legendary item", I said while stuttering and no one could blame me if they looked at the grade.
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[(SS-)Detective John's Hat]
(Description): Hat that was previously owned by a legendary detective, that had never once failed in solving a case.
-(Resistance]: The hat is extremely durable against attacks.
-(Comfortability): It's comfortable to wear and will not bother its user in any way.
-(Clear Mind): Calms the user's mind to make better decisions during stressful situations, a trait needed for detectives.
-(Untakeable): The hat will not come off without the user wishing for it.
-(Analyze): Allows the user to be able to analyze any situation, including murder scenes, active fights, and more.
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No wonder he solved every single case, anyone with this hat would have gotten everything right. Actually, maybe it was because of him that the hat got these traits. It was actually never mentioned how ancient artifacts got their traits.
but anyways, why would such an item be in this place. Noticing my confused expression George, stroked his beard, and said.
"The item couldn't be appraised by anyone that I went to, but I knew it was a great item every time I held it, that's why I left it on the display to see if anyone would be able to see its greatness or maybe even appraise it"
Appraising was one of the most useful skills in this world. Not only does it allow you to tell the effects on an item and its grade, but it is also used to differentiate between normal books and grimoires or martial arts books.
But there are some issues with the appraisal skill, and it is that the skill is an evolving skill, meaning that you have to level it up to be able to appraise higher grade items.
The reason why that is bad is because leveling up the skill takes a lot of time, as the only way to get experience for it is by analyzing items without any previous knowledge of it or skills.
That just goes to show how broken the skill [Truth Eyes] is but of course this skill also has its restrictions and one of them is that the screen with the information of the item will only appear in front of it and not in front of me. Not only that but if the item is in a disorganized place with other items thrown over it, it will become hard to see the box of information because there will be other screens blocking my view.
I'm able to bypass the first restriction with [The Hawk] but the second one is not something I can really fix. The books in the library are quite easy to analyze because they are organized but with the hats being so unorganized I actually needed to get closer.
Of course, while I do call them restrictions, they are not anything special or hard for me to deal with.
I turned my head to George once again and asked.
"How much is it?"
"Hmm, I don't know", He said with a smug look on his face.