425 Points
“Master,” Bartoli whispered to Abel, “This must be some sort of trap!”
“What?”
“I don’t know how valuable magic staff is in this world, but shouldn’t they all be priced differently? You know, depending on how hard it is to make them. It’s not mentioned here, though. It just says that you’re supposed to make one.
Abel was starting to notice, too. So far, all he did was create one magic staff, but the contract didn’t give any specific request on its quality of it. Whoever made this contract must’ve forgotten to do that. As for the price, he probably just made a rough guess based on the cost of his raw ingredients.
Most importantly, he was probably trying to trick Abel, who was a newcomer to Liante City. Abel didn’t know too much about how things worked here. He didn’t have a lot of points, either, so it was natural for him to pick up any mission that he felt comfortable doing.
Up until now, Abel’s main goal in Liante City was to just take tours around the nearby areas. (and to take a look at his new house, of course) That had changed. Now, after seeing the items available for exchange, he started to have second thoughts. The things he wanted were expensive, though. He needed a lot of points to get them.
As mentioned before, there was the tower spirit. There were also teleportation circles, large-sized defensive magic circles, super-sized defensive circles, large-sized mana gathering circles, super-sized mana gathering circles, and magic towers ranging from six to twenty floors. Needless to say, they all needed many, many points.
Out of all these items, the teleportation circle and the large-sized defensive magic circles were something essential for Abel. If he could have those in the Harry Castle, it’d be a lot easier to protect those that were close to him. Same for Matthew Castle and the Bennett Castle. Actually, it was the same for Abel Castle as well. He might’ve lost that to Prince Liandre, but he was confident that he would get it back one day.
The cost of a six-floor magic tower was fifty thousand points, and that was not including the tower’s teleportation circle. A teleportation circle would cost twenty thousand points extra. A large-sized defensive circle would be at thirty thousand points each. No wonder there were wizards that had worked in the Wizard Union for a century, or many centuries, even.
“Time to earn some points, I guess,” Abel sighed as he realized the huge amount of work that he had to do.
Bartoli asked, “Are you accepting this mission then, Master?”
“Yeah, but I don’t have to rush it. I don’t think there are others who can do it, so let’s just go back now.”
Abel wasn’t wrong about that. That being said, he still didn’t like the idea of accepting a job from someone he didn’t know. If it was Wizard Lorenzo that was asking him in person, he’d be perfectly happy to do it. Yeah, even at a discount, but not when he didn’t know who was trying to hire him.
Meanwhile, Wizard Lorenzo was laughing as he pointed his finger at Wizard Nigel.
“Ha, aha! Ha, ha ha ah! Well, played!” Wizard Lorenzo laughed, “So much for your plan, eh?”
Wizard Nigel scratched his head in embarrassment, “Would you stop that? Come on; it’s not like I’ve failed completely! Now that I’ve got his attention, who knows? He might just come back to do the job in a few days.”
“Oh, I’ll be waiting for that, then! Sucks to be you, though. If I didn’t forget to bring my own materials, I would’ve just told Grandmaster Abel that I wanted a new magic staff.”
Unlike Wizard Lorenzo, Wizard Nigel did prepare the materials to make himself a new magic staff. Still, his pride wouldn’t allow him to ask favors from Abel directly. There was also some other reason that he chose to make a request anonymously, in the form of a mission, but that’s a secret that he’d like to keep to himself.
Abel didn’t know about all that, obviously. He just preferred doing everything out in the open. After he and Bartoli left the Wizard Union building, they retrieved their mounts and rode around the city.
After going around, Abel noticed how hard it was to enter Liante City’s inner circle. For every entrance into the inner parts, he would have to pay a fee of ten points per day. Most people couldn’t afford that, of course, but there were a lot of wizards who would like to do that. In fact, there were a bunch of them that never left the inner parts.
Right now, none of that was relevant to Abel. He was broke. He didn’t have a single point in his possession.
“A Blacksmith Union building!” Abel said out as he was approaching a building that he was so familiar with.
“Welcome! Welcome, Grandmaster Abel!” a human servant ran up to him and bowed. Abel wasn’t surprised by that, though. After becoming a grandmaster blacksmith, it became mandatory for all the staff members of the Blacksmith Union to know his name and appearance.
“Thank you so much!” Abel said, then jumped down his mount at the same time as Bartoli, “Um, can you take care of our mounts for a bit?”
“Why, it’s a great honor, Grandmaster Abel!” the servant complied despite how unexpectedly humble Abel was being.
When Abel walked inside the Liante Blacksmith Union building, everyone inside was ready to give him a welcome party. They were all very excited to see him. After all, some of them had never even left the city. If anything, seeing a grandmaster in person was like a miracle or a once-in-lifetime experience for them.
That didn’t last for very long, though.
“What are you all doing? Get back and do your job!” a solemn voice came, which made every blacksmith go back to their post. All the noise suddenly died down, and only the sound audible was the sound of iron being hammered. It was the first time that Abel had been here, but he could tell that it came from the backyard.
Master Joyce quickly came to bow to Abel, “I’m so sorry for that, Grandmaster Abel. The workers here aren’t very disciplined. Sorry if they’ve been bothering you.”
Abel didn’t mind being bothered, actually. If anything, he was more concerned that he was standing out too much in this building. He did notice Master Joyce, after all. As they were both at the master’s gathering event earlier, he felt like he should be extra cautious of his demeanor in front of his senior.
Abel greeted Master Joyce as appropriately as he could, “No, no, no, it’s okay, Master Joyce. If anything, I’m the one who disrupted the workers here. As a fellow member of the Blacksmith Union, I should’ve sent a notification before I came here, but I made the mistake of coming here unnoticed.”
Then they both let out loud, heartwarming laughter. Master Joyce was a fifty-year-old man, after all. He really appreciated it when a youngster was so polite to him. When Abel talked about how it was the first time he came to Liante City, he even offered him some “welcome gifts.”
“Come with me, Grandmaster Abel. As a rule of our association, for every master or above that came to Liante City, they would all get some points from our money pool. No need to decline. We want to make sure our finest masters could all have a good time here.”
Abel laughed when he heard about this rule, “Ha! You’ll have to excuse me for being a big burglar, then.”
Master Joyce laughed, too, “It’s 100 points for every master and 1000 points for every grandmaster. Please, if you can hand me your identity card now, I’ll be able to send you the point right away.”
When Master Joyce saw how fast Abel took out his card, he quickly let out a sigh of relief. In fact, he was worried that 1000 points were too little for Abel. As the only grandmaster of the Blacksmith Union, there were a bunch of people who would be willing to hand points over to him. Also, since he didn’t know how broke Abel was right now, he actually thought that he would be offended to be given as little as 1000 points.
After chatting with Master Joyce for an entire afternoon, Abel left and went back to his residence.