Chapter 25: Mage Guild Branch – Purchasing Magic Scrolls
2024-11-18 Author: Amnesty L
In the evening, a cool breeze blew in through the window.
Tang Zheng, who had fallen asleep on the bed, suddenly opened his eyes and sat up.
Phew~
"Did I have a nightmare?"
Tang Zheng raised his hand, wiped the fine sweat from his forehead, let out a breath, and softly muttered to himself.
He dreamed of the Bone King, standing right before him, a pair of crimson eyes coldly staring at him!
"Damn it!"
Tang Zheng scowled and cursed under his breath.
The Bone King is a transmigrator, and so is Tang Zheng. The Bone King is a Player, and so is Tang Zheng!
"So, why should I be afraid of you?!" Tang Zheng took a deep breath, slapped his cheeks to clear his head, then got up from the bed and looked out the window.
Outside, the sky had already darkened.
Tang Zheng walked to the guest room window, pushed it open, and the cool breeze flooded the room, washing away much of his agitation.
He hadn't expected to sleep until evening.
This small inn was a two-story, European-style building, and his room was on the second floor. Through the window, he could see a small alley below and the adjacent street.
Outside the window, there were a few connected wooden railings extending outwards, but they looked old and clearly weren't sturdy.
A thief with any skill could easily use the walls on either side of the alley to climb up to the second floor.
Tang Zheng observed for a moment, shook his head gently, and closed the window again.
An inn like this couldn't guard against thieves anyway.
Tang Zheng washed his face to refresh himself, then left the guest room.
On the street.
Compared to the daytime, the flow of people was significantly less. Only groups of adventurers, carrying weapons, strolled leisurely down the street.
Tang Zheng had already asked the inn owner about the locations of shops selling various items nearby.
He first went to a clothing shop.
The clothes Tang Zheng was wearing had been on for over ten days and had started to smell sour. He would also need a few extra sets of clothes for his upcoming trip to the Touv Great Forest.
When he walked out of the shop.
Tang Zheng held a full package in his hand and wore a black robe that covered his entire body.
It cost him a total of three silver coins.
The most expensive item was the black robe he was wearing, priced at a full one silver and seven copper pieces. The other clothes filling the package were the cheaper, coarse linen type that Tang Zheng had been wearing before.
He bought the better-quality black robe for a simple reason.
Tang Zheng was heading to the Mage Guild next, and it was clearly inappropriate to go there to buy things while dressed too shabbily.
Within the Kingdom, major cities all had branches of the Adventurer's Guild and the Mage Guild.
However!
Unlike the Mage Guild headquarters in the Royal Capital, the branches in other cities didn't serve much of a function in training arcane magic casters.
Generally, individuals who displayed a talent for arcane magic casting would be sent by the Mage Guild branches in various cities to the headquarters in the Royal Capital for training.
The reason for this situation was, naturally, a lack of funds!
Due to the Re-Estize Kingdom's traditionalist views, the country's upper echelons paid little attention to the Mage Guild, which meant the Mage Guild rarely received financial aid from the authorities.
Therefore!
The Mage Guild branches in various cities thus became places dedicated to crafting and selling magic items and magic scrolls.
The Mage Guild here was a three-story, outwardly unremarkable building. If Tang Zheng hadn't specifically asked a passerby, he probably wouldn't have guessed that this was the Mage Guild branch.
Completely unlike the bustling Adventurer's Guild, it was quite desolate.
There were no guards at the entrance either.
But thinking about it, it made sense; probably no one would dare to forcibly enter the Mage Guild.
Tang Zheng arrived at the dark brown wooden door and was about to raise his hand to push it open.
Ding~
A soft chime of a bell came from the upper left side of the wooden door.
Tang Zheng looked up and only then noticed a fist-sized bell hanging above the dark brown wooden door.
He could faintly see a reddish light flickering on the bell intermittently.
A magic item?
The thought flashed through Tang Zheng's mind.
Click!
The dark brown wooden door opened automatically.
So that's how it works.
A hint of understanding flashed in Tang Zheng's eyes. How convenient. However, that bell magic item probably had more than just one simple function.
As he thought this.
Tang Zheng stepped into the Mage Guild. Soft light streamed through the opening door, revealing an exceptionally bright interior.
Compared to the crude and simple Adventurer's Guild, the interior of the Mage Guild was a world apart from its plain exterior.
The great hall was decorated predominantly in red and black. The surrounding walls were covered in red wooden panels, with only the wainscoting painted black.
The hall didn't look very large, probably less than a hundred square meters.
From the outside, the building's area should be much larger; the interior was clearly partitioned.
Six wall lamps hung on the left and right walls respectively, while a cylindrical chandelier overhead emitted a soft, white light that illuminated the entire hall.
At this moment.
Perhaps because it was evening, there was no one inside the Mage Guild.
Only two middle-aged men dressed in mage robes were sitting at the counter. One was propping up his chin, dozing off, and didn't so much as open his eyes at Tang Zheng's arrival.
The other one was younger.
When Tang Zheng entered the Mage Guild's hall, the younger one had already looked over.
"I'd like to purchase some magic scrolls," Tang Zheng said softly, stepping forward.
Unlike expensive magic items, which often cost around 1,000 gold coins, magic scrolls were not overly expensive since they were consumables with a relatively refined crafting process.
But precisely because they were consumables!
Therefore, even slightly wealthy adventurers wouldn't readily purchase them.
"My name is Valar. What magic scrolls do you need?"
This younger mage named Valar looked Tang Zheng up and down, his tone a little listless.
Pure black hair was quite uncommon.
"Do you have a catalog? I'd like to take a look," Tang Zheng said, bowing slightly, a bit embarrassed.
Thump!
As if he had already anticipated this.
Valar casually pulled out a thin book from below, placed it on the table, and then seemed to zone out.
Facing such an attitude.
Tang Zheng didn't mind. Instead, he picked up the book on the table with a slight hint of awkwardness and began flipping through it. He'd forgotten that he couldn't actually read this world's script.
The first thing that caught his eye was the description of zero-tier magic scrolls.
Tang Zheng's initial awkwardness eased. It had illustrations, so even though he couldn't read the text, he could discern each scroll's function from the pictures.
The number of zero-tier scrolls was even greater than he had imagined.
For instance: Ignite, Everlight, Clean, and other zero-tier magic scrolls were completely for daily life, with no offensive ability. For adventurers, these spells were practically non-essential.
He had heard someone from the Rock Squad mention that some caravans or nobles would often carry zero-tier magic scrolls when traveling to improve the quality of their journeys.
Tang Zheng searched through and quickly found the zero-tier Papermaking spell.
However, he didn't immediately speak up to purchase it. Instead, he continued to turn the pages of the book. Next were the first-tier magic spells.
The number suddenly decreased significantly, but both their practicality and effects were greatly improved!
`Repair (First Tier)`: Can repair damaged objects.
`Scentless (First Tier)`: Can clear one's own scent.
`Floating Board (First Tier)`: Can create a translucent floating board to carry items.
......
`Magic Arrow (First Tier)`: Fires three magical arrows.
Tang Zheng studied the information in the book. There were very few attack-type magic scrolls—only three in total. Most of the others were for support.
Hmm?
Tang Zheng turned to the last page and found it was empty.
No second-tier magic scrolls?
Tang Zheng was briefly stunned. If he remembered correctly, given the scroll crafting technology mastered by humans in the Otherworld, they should have the ability to create third-tier magic scrolls.
And within the Slane Theocracy, the incredibly precious technology to create fourth-tier magic scrolls even existed!
Even for the Mage Guild, third-tier magic scrolls would be relatively precious resources, but second-tier scrolls shouldn't be.
So.
It wasn't that they didn't exist, but that they weren't for public sale?
Or perhaps ordinary customers lacked the qualifications to purchase them.
(end of chapter)