Jingle.
"Now that was a good al." Alan stepped out of the tavern and patted his stomach with a look of satisfaction
"I still don't understand why I was the one who had to pay." Lucian complained, following close behind Alan.
In the end, Lucian was the one who paid for the al with his own money, sothing Alan had no sha about.
"It could have been better..." anwhile, Julia sulked silently as she pouted and dropped her shoulders after her request for alcohol was denied.
"Alright now, where could he have gone?" Ignoring complaints, Alan scanned the darkening streets for a particular man.
As of right now, the sky was bruised into shades of dark orange, not entirely sunset, but the sun was soon to fall past the horizon.
Usually, they would have simply settled for the night over at the tavern, as the establishnt offered rooms during nightti, but they now had other plans, which were to find Felix.
Humm
While Alan was rubbing his chin, lost on how to find Felix, he felt a sharp vibration buzz against his palm.
"Hmm?" Confused, Alan glanced down to look at his hand, taking notice of the small, black box he was still clutching.
It was the noise supression artifact that Felix 'accidentally' left behind on the poker table, which Alan snatched with the intention of returning it to the man.
Yup, he definitely took it just so he could return the object, no personal feelings involved at all.
Now, that very sa box was now pulsing within his grasp, a faint blue light began to leak from the edges of the artifact.
"Is it ant to be doing that?" Iris asked, leaning in. "Are you sure you're not holding a bomb?"
"How would I know? I literally got the thing like thirty minutes ago." Alan shrugged, though he didn't drop it.
Amidst their conversation, the blue glow didn't subside, it only got brighter as they watched a thin trail of cerulean smoke hiss out of the edges of the artifact.
Then the smoke condensed, swirling into the shape of a floating arrow, hovering slightly above the black box, it pointed towards a certain direction.
"Where the hell can this be leading?" Alan frowned, turning his head to look at the direction the arrow gestured to.
"A tracking charm." Lucian noted with interest.
"A what charm?" Alan asked, he wasn't exactly the most knowledgeable about topics relating to artifacts, in fact, he was quite oblivious to many aspects of the world, but he had Lucian to cover for that.
"The na should be pretty self-explanatory." Lucian replied, pointing to the cloudy blue arrow. "It's a charm where you can link it with soone, forming a connection that would allow you to track down the location of the linked individual."
"Oh." Alan nodded, understanding what Lucian was saying. "Then who could this be linked to?"
"Are you dumb?" This ti it was Iris that spoke up. "He must have known you'd take the artifact."
"Ahem." Alan cleared his throat, feeling oddly self-conscious. "I did it out of the goodness of my heart, I wanted to give it back to him, okay?"
"Whatever makes you happier."
"No, believe , there were absolutely no personal feelings involved."
"Sure..."
The blue arrow bobbed up and down before gently floating forwards, leaving the black box behind and off to its own adventure.
The group trailed behind the glowing blue arrow, and as it led them through the crowded streets of Kahl, it took them away from the salty gri of the docks and up a series of steep, stone staircases.
The scenery changed instantly the mont they reached the peak, the rowdy taverns and simple street stalls were replaced by rows upon rows of rchants' shops.
The buildings were taller, the stones concrete was cleaner, and the stench of the fresh salt water was subsided with the scent of rich incense and perfu.
"So this is where the rchants all gather, huh?" Alan remarked, taking in the view of the place, calling it simply crowded was an understatent, the streets here were overflowing with people.
But the arrow didn't wait for Alan to completely absorb the scene, it cut through the bustling evening bazaar, forcing the group to weave past wealthy traders in silk robes and vendors selling exotic birds.
The varieties of goods being presented were absurd and quite bizarre, ranging from simple clothes and artifacts to full-blown mana beasts held within cages.
For a split second, Alan's eyes caught a certain stall where a large cluster of people were gathered, it was a rchant store exchanging hearts of creatures.
From the distance Alan couldn't gauge precisely what level the hearts being displayed were, but it naturally caught Alan's interest.
The most common knowledge of the mana system was the fact that the mana core was located in the centre of the heart, an extre depth that you wouldn't be able to perceive with the naked eye.
So it was essentially a part of the person's heart, a part of their body, like it was just another organ.
When it cos to refining one's mana core onto the next level, there are a few thods, a well-known thod is simply just conjoining the mana in your body and manually refining the core, which is slow and tedious work if one's goal is to advance to the next stages.
That thod is easier the lower one's mana core rank is, aning that the stronger soone is, the more difficult it becos to self-refine their rank.
The next and most common thod followed by others was the simple act of hunting, to put it in simple words, to willing hunt creatures that possessed mana cores, such as mana beasts.
The process behind it was to extract the mana of the defeated opponents and assimilate it into your own body, which ultimately hastened the progression by leaps.
Which is why hearts of creatures were very valuable, as the mana core was in the absolute centre of it all, the heart practically held all the mana of the creature.
So it wasn't usual you'd run into business specifically trading hearts of creatures, for soone like Alan, he could simply go hunting himself, but what if by any chance the seller sold a creature heart with a core rank higher than his own?
It would definitely be beneficial, however Alan didn't get the opportunity to pay a visit to the store, as the arrow kept moving without a stop.
Every ti the group would pause at a crossroads on the streets, the arrow would pulse and lead them in the correct direction.
This process was repeated multiple tis, pushing past the crowds of buyers and sellers, passing by interesting shops that caught each of their eyes, and taking different turns every now and then.
Finally, the trail led them to a secluded plaza lined with high-end boutiques and private residences, the arrow flickered one last ti and dissolved into a fine mist in front of a particularly luxurious shopfront.
There, sitting on a velvet-cushioned bench outside an antique shop, was Felix, with the sa fedora hat placed on his head and glasses sitting on his nose, he didn't pay any attention to the new arrivals, instead he kept reading the book in his hand.
"You're here a lot later than I expected." Felix remarked, without glancing up from his book. "I was beginning to think you were going to steal my little artifact over there and turn into a pirate or sothing."
"I was going to give it back to you..." Alan grumbled, tossing the black box back to Felix.
"Well, how about taking a seat?" Felix caught the artifact and neatly tucked it into his coat.
"What seat...?" Alan asked back.
Felix was sitting on a bench, sure there was space for them to sit, but it would make for a rather weird position to converse with one another.
"Oh, silly ." Felix chuckled lightly and reached into his coat, taking out sothing that resembled a stick.
Snap
And broke it in half.
The ground under their feet trembled slightly, vibrating as an entirely new bench erged from the stone floor, along with a set of tables in front of it.
As Alan stared, utterly baffled by the scene, Felix gave him that sa all-knowing smirk. "Perks of being an artifact dealer."
"Uh huh." Alan just blankly nodded.
Felix didn't have to say much more, the mont the bench appeared, Julia already jumped up and settled into the bench like it was hers all along.
Iris sat down next to Julia, while Lucian calmly sat at the end of the bench, leaning his elbow against the rest and staring at Felix.
Alan was the last, sighing, he took a seat in the middle, next to Lucian and Julia, directly across from Felix.
"You know, you should be thanking ." Felix started the conversation.
"About what?"
"Don't you think you're very noticeable?" Felix smiled. "Why do you think nobody bothered you on your way over here?"
"Ah." Alan realised, the entire way here, no matter how they behaved, nobody turned to look at them, and unlike before, there was practically no one staring at them, like they were... invisible. "It was you?"
"Haha, bingo." Felix laughed in response.
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