BROWSING SPELLS

Now that she had spent a hundred and seventy of her original two hundred and fifteen gold coins, Sage no longer felt rich. That thought flashed past her mind quickly however.

What kind of spell was that? Sage wondered as she stared at the place where the Door had been.

When Sylphia looked at her after casting that spell it was like she was peering into her being.

Did she realise what I am? She thought, mentally kicking herself.

She should have considered that in this world where magic existed, pretty much anything was possible. Of course spells capable of distinguishing her identity were a thing. It looked like she would have to visit a magic shop and the black market immediately. If magic capable of seeing through someone existed, then it was only natural for magic that protected one from such spells to exist as well. Humans were creatures that liked to keep secrets after all, so there was no way that they had not developed countermeasures.

However… she looked down at the pouch in her hand. After paying Sylphia she only had forty-five gold left. Would that be enough to buy the spells she wanted?

After pondering it for a while she decided go anyway. If it turned out that she could not afford the spells she could always steal them. That was her preferred method of acquisition anyway.

And so, with directions from several kind-hearted strangers who gave her weird looks for her choice of outfit, she finally found a magic shop. It was a parlour on the edge of the Emerald District named Arkay's Arcanes. It was the kind of shop that people would pass by without giving a second glance; either because not many of them were sorcerers or it was just that dismissible.

The latter conjecture was proven the likelier one as she stepped into the shop.

"A customer," a shrivelled up old man behind the counter began after she entered. He looked even older than Bori. "It has been a while since I had one. Welcome to Arkay's Arcane, I'm Arkay by the way. How may I help you?"

If the elated tone of his scratchy voice was any indication it must have been a really long while since he had had any customers.

She scrutinised him with {Index}.

Race: Human (Human)

Physique: Grade 5

Mana: B (Cyan)

She sighed when she saw his mana colour. He was in the 7th Order like her. That meant he probably had some spells for her to learn in preparation for her next advancement.

"I would like to buy spell models," she responded. "I want to see everything you have about Illusion Magic as well as 7th Order spells."

"7th Order?" the man asked in surprise.

Sage suddenly felt a shift in his mana as he began to cast a spell that felt eerily like the one Sylphia had cast before.

Nope, she decided, and promptly took action.

Just as the spell was completed [Blind] landed on the man, causing him to gasp in alarm.

"It's rude to peek at a lady?" she said sweetly; well, not sweetly enough that the threat in her voice could not be perceived. "So how about you not do that."

The old man, Arkay, opened his mouth to say something, but then he seemed to think better of it and shut it. Then he nodded.

"Understood," he agreed.

"Thank you," Sage responded, before casting [Dispel] on him.

When Old Man Arkay got his sight back he acted as if nothing had happened. He disappeared into his store room and came out after what felt like a second later, a thick book with different colour pages in hand.

"Here you go," he said, offering it to her. "It is a catalogue of all the spells models I have in stock along with their descriptions. The colours of the pages indicate which branch of magic they belong to."

Sage nodded as she accepted the book. Then she cracked it by the spine and began to browse through its pages.

She was amazed to find that the tome truly catalogued spells. Of course it did not display the spell models; the old sorcerer was not moron. Instead, what was written in the book were the names of spells and the description of their effect.

If she had to guess there were hundreds of spells inside. Old Man Arkay must have been quite the adventurer in his days to have collected so many spells. It was just a pity that he did not have the aptitude to accommodate all of them.

She probably did not either.

While browsing through the catalogue she realised a disappointing fact that spells 3rd Order and below made up about ninety-percent of all the spells inside. As for the spells in the middle Orders, she was familiar with many of them. Unfortunately most of many of them were from an element she was unable to use; Water. Going by how thick the blue pages were that was probably the old man's dominant affinity.

There were also light element spells in the catalogue, but they were not many. The Light Element was probably the rarest of the elemental affinities so it was no surprise that there were not many spells of the element, at least not where the public could access them. The Church of Life had a monopoly on Light element spells. There were rumours that those who joined the Church were required to swear under a magic pact not to ever reveal the spells to those who did not belong to their organisation.

Very much in line with medieval churches, she thought with disdain.

Although, organisations such as magic schools also had their students swear similar oaths to prevent them from sharing their spells and so keep their recruitment numbers high.

The black pages were not many either. The spells on those pages were related to curses and debuffs, there was nothing related to the necromancy so she skipped them quickly and turned to other pages.

The red pages had numerous spells, which included 7th Order [Conflagration]. It was a spell that created a blaze that was hard to put out. If a Darkborne like her learned the spell it would be even more formidable.

However, the price left the corner of her mouth twitching.

Ten gold coins?

Based on how Sylphia had acted when she had asked for Illusion spell models, she had had expected spells to be pricey. However, ten gold coins for one spell? That was preposterous!

The catalogue listed most of the spells as costing under a gold coin. Only the rare 6th Order spells caused around that much.

How is it that price the 7th Order spells is so ridiculous? She yelled internally. Following the trend of the other Orders, shouldn't they be around five gold?

"Is it possible to get a discount on these spells?" she asked Arkay.

"I'm afraid not," the man shook his head. "There are no discounts in this shop."

The answer made her groan.

I'll come rob this guy at night, she decided, before paging on.

She was disappointed that the Dimensional Magic pages did not contain the spell that she had been looking forward to the most; [Teleport]. With this spell distance did not matter. As long as she had been to a place she would able to get there in an instant. Then she only needed to take trips to a place once and would forever be able to warp her way there.

As she continued browsing she finally found the spell Arkay had tried to use to peek at her. [Mystic Eyes], it was a spell that allowed one to see magic auras, allowing them to see the amount of mana a person possessed among other things. With the spell it was also possible to see a person's aptitude and affinity. [Mystic Eyes] also enabled one to see magic residue, which was helpful in tracking targets and figuring out what kind of magic had been used at a certain place within a limited time.

This spell was only eleven gold coins, but she did not hesitate to buy it.

As for the Illusion spells, they were pretty disappointing stuff life 2nd Order [Charm] and 3rd Order [Courage]. It was not that they weren't useful, but she could not imagine there being a situation where she would use them. [Charm] might be neat spell for getting what you want, but to Sage it just screamed cheap. Using such a spell like instead of using wits and finesse to acquire what you want? Where was the challenge in that? She could not help but disdain it.

As for [Courage]; why would she want to learn a spell that could only be cast on others? She was a loner, there was no situation where she would ever need to cast it. Even if she summoned an undead to fight for her the spell would be useless because it had no effect on the undead.

Still, she gritted her teeth and bought them. Life was unpredictable and one never knew what would happen.

There was one spell that caught her attention and fortunately it happened to be of the 7th Order. [True Image], it allowed the caster to produce a doppelgänger capable of casting spells up to the 4th Order. The mana for those spells still came from the caster though. Still, she eagerly bought it for ten gold.

Other Illusion spells she purchased included 3rd Order spell [Fear], its 6th Order equivalent [Terror], 1st Order [Mirror Image], 3rd Order [Decoy], 4th Order [False Image] and 2nd Order [Calm]. All in all she used up more than thirty of her remaining gold. [Conflagration] had also been reluctantly added to the purchased spells, which was why it amounted to so much.

And so she left Arkay's parlour with the promise that she would return in the middle of the night to take the spells she could not buy. It turned out she had been in there quite for quite because the first thing she saw when she exited the shop was the sun high in the sky.

After that she found herself a place to sit down and study the spells.

The first of these was obviously [Mystic Eyes]. It took her around half an hour before she was able to fully ingrain it. Then she cast it and looked at herself.

She saw the humongous cyan mana that enveloped her. At the bottom of her feet was a darkness that seemed to cling to her feet. There was another aura about her that she did not know what to make of. However, when she stared at people on the streets with her [Mystic Eyes] she immediately found that this specific aura differed with everyone.

It's my unique aura signature, she realised.

Another thing she noticed was that there seemed to be a difference between her aura and that of the people on the street. The auras of by the humans slightly differed to those of the elves and dwarves, but they were not that far off from each other. Hers on the other hand was completely different.

Sylphia knows I'm not human.

That was the only conclusion she could come up with after seeing this. However, she was not worried that the elf would tell on her though. The brothel madam came off as someone who did not do something unless it profited her.

Still though…

She should change to another disguise just in case.

But that could wait until the next day.

She spent the rest of her day at an outdoor restaurant, where she sampled their succulent steak. The place was had comfortable seats, so she decided to spend time there reading, though she had to keep ordering more food if she wanted to keep the owner from complaining and trying to chase her off. Since she had already eaten she offered this food to Nyx. He had been surprisingly well-behaved over the past few days so she saw no reason not to reward him.

And so day passed, night came and she was still engrossed in her readings. She felt Kaylee approach her through their bond but paid no mind to it… at least until the half-elf stumbled out of the alley across the street. When Kaylee saw her she suddenly adopted a twisted smile and took a running posture.

What is she trying to do? Sage wondered, puzzled by the girl's state.

She never found out because Kaylee fell on her face as soon as she took the first step.