The Reluctant Hero - Vol. 1 - Chapter 9

Once he arrived at the Wizard’s Emporium, Axel immediately went to a catalog and began to browse through the spells. Using the provided quill, ink, and paper, he began to make a list of spells he wanted, the names of the people selling them, and their prices. He didn’t want to spend everything he had but he was prepared to spend most of it. He still had the staff and Giant Skull he could sell for some more money.

By the time he was done, he had a list of thirteen different spells he wanted to learn. A few of them were purely utility and would just make his adventuring easier. The rest were combat-related. Sure, he could stroll through a dungeon and just crush everything in sight with his Telekinesis, but that costs a lot of mana and it was… well it was BORING! He was sixteen! He wanted some fun! Excitement! ACTION! Yes, he was willing to put up with some boredom to get to his coveted Rogue class faster, but not THAT much boredom!

Fortunately, he would only need to contact five different Mages to learn all the spells he wanted to know. Axel provided his list to the receptionist working at the Emporium. After looking it over and calculating all the costs, the receptionist looked up at Axel, “Your total comes to one gold and ninety silver. You have to pay now and return tomorrow morning to be taught the spells. We need time to contact the individuals selling the spells at their inns.”

Axel quickly retrieved the funds. Almost half of what he earned was gone in an instant. The lowest price any spell could be sold at was five silver and only the most basic spells were that low. The guild and the mage both needed to profit from the transaction so a minimum price was necessary. Most of the spells Axel wanted were only five silver but two of the spells he picked cost him fifty silver each.

After paying for his spells, with a promised refund if a Mage didn’t show, Axel made his way to the last destination he needed to visit in the guild, the mission hall. The mission hall is where people could go to request, pick up, or drop off quests. Axel’s goal today was to find repeatable quests, mostly newbie ones.

Newbie repeatable quests were usually things like finding specific herbs or hunting specific weak monsters. Chores basically. Most newbies hated these quests and Axel honestly would have preferred skipping them himself. However, there were a couple of reasons he needed to do a few.

First, he wanted to increase his guild rank. Guild rank determined what quests someone could take, so even if he was one level away from ascension, the guild would deny him a quest if his rank was too low. That would be annoying so his only choice was to complete newbie quests and increase his rank so later he could take much more profitable quests.

Second, and probably most important, he wanted to take a couple of days slowly and allow his mana reserves to build up. After completing the dungeon, his mana reserves were a mere fraction of what they had been when he entered. With his current regeneration rate, just two or three days of taking it easy would let him store around ten to fifteen million mana. With that much mana and his upcoming new spells, he could smash his way to level one hundred in no time at all.

So, his plan was simple. Take basic quests, build up his guild rank, and store a ton of mana for another high-level dungeon run. The newbie quests would basically be a mini-break for him to ‘rest’ and ‘recover’ from his dungeon run.

The mission hall was wonderfully organized with different boards for the different ranking quests. Being that this was a starter city and nothing nearby was all that strong or difficult, the highest ranking quests were only D rank. Axel was currently F rank and there was the E rank between F and D. If nothing else, that showed how weak the surrounding area was overall.

With no other choice, Axel walked over to a large board that was sparsely covered in neatly organized sheets of paper that had a huge letter ‘F’ right above it. Almost every job on the board  was a repeatable one. The majority of the quests were for picking up herbs and select monster drops mostly used in potions. There were a few for monster hides to make armor with, but those were a minority.

He quickly made note of different herbs and monster parts that were being requested. Every stack of each would count as a single quest completion. So that could take a while, which was perfectly fine by him. The whole point was to take it easy for the next couple of days. So, he wrote down the names and descriptions of the desired materials and left the mission hall. He wasn’t required to do anything to take the repeatable quests, just dropping off the materials was good enough to get credit.

With his desired quests picked out, he left the guild and made his way toward the city gates to make his way into the fields once again. He didn’t have a massive amount of mana but he had more than enough to protect himself and crush weakling monsters. His Arcane Bolt alone should be enough to handle most of them since it currently dealt a little over five hundred damage. No wondering monster in this area should take more than two or three hits from that to defeat.

Still, before he could leave, he needed to sell off at least the fire staff he’d gotten. It was useless to him but he was sure someone else would love it. Thanks to a helpful receptionist near the entrance of the guild, he knew where to go to sell off a Mage type dungeon drop. As one would expect, the majority of stores catering to hunters were located close to the guild. The closer to the guild the higher class the store was considered. A sort of prestige thing for being so close to the guild.

The store he was directed to, ‘Riggur’s Tower’, was less of a tower and more of a two story storefront made of well polished wood and stone. Despite having and illfitting name, the place was pristine and filled with items a mage would love. He wasn’t very interested in the staves or traditional cloth armor, but the various accessories did catch his eye. He quickly started to peruse them to see what was available. Perhaps he could even gain inspiration for items to make with his Create Greater Magic Item spell. Once he was a little stronger and generating more mana… He froze as his eyes widened a little. Why the hell didn’t he think of that sooner?!

He’d been given a hint by his Ring of Borrowed Power and Staff of the Adventurous Youngster. If he could create magic items that boosted his ‘Int’ and/or his mana regeneration, he could gain more mana faster to make stronger items, to gain mana faster and so on in an infinite loop of power. Even if he had to start with items that only boosted his mana regeneration by one percent, he had ten fingers, ten toes, and who knows how many possible ear piercings that he could exploit.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he practically jumped out of his skin when he heard a mands voice nearly shouting in his ear, “Young man!”

Axel spun around while grabbing his chest over his hammering heart, “What?! Is there a reason you’re trying to scare me to death?!”

The middle-aged man gave Axel a deadpan look that perfectly conveyed his annoyance. He was a rather good looking man wearing flowing robes over a fit body. His thick brown hair just barely speckled with a little grey at the temples. His almost golden eyes bore into Axel for a few seconds before he replied in a cultured voice, “You’ve been staring into space for the last five minutes giggling in a way I can only describe as perverse. Kindly take those kinds of actions to the Red Light District.”

Axel had a decency to look embarrassed while blushing hotly. He’d been so lost in his power fantasies that he had no idea he’d done anything remotely like that. He cleared his throat and looked properly chastised, “I apologise for that. I just got lost in my thoughts.”

The mans deadpan look somehow seemed to become even more deadpan at Axel’s reply, “You don’t say.”

Axel cleared his throat again as he fought his embarrassment, “Uh, I was hoping to sell a staff that dropped in a dungeon and maybe buy an accessory or two.”

Finally, the mans expression shifted away from his blank deadpan look and looked slightly sceptical but also a little interested, “Oh? A staff? Those aren’t very common. Show me.”

Axel quickly retrieved the Staff of the Fire Adept from his Magic Box. This prompted a curious look from the man, “Oh? A mage yourself but not interested in a staff?”

Axel shrugged his shoulders, “It’s not my style.”

He held the staff out so the man could view it. The man examined it with experienced eyes as he hummed, “Not too bad. Pretty limiting though.” He nodded and focused back on Axel, “Fifteen gold. No more.”

Axel nodded to accept the price. He honestly had no idea what the staff was worth. However, he thought the price was likely to be fair. After all, this place had been recommended to him by the guild. If he made a habit of ripping off newbies it would be found out fast enough and the shop would end up losing all business. Axel held the staff out for the man to take.

“What kind of accessories are you interested in?”

The man posed the question to Axel after accepting the staff and heading behind the shop’s counter to gather the prerequisite gold to buy the staff.

“Do you have anything that increases mana regeneration? Preferably on an accessory.”

“Hmmmm…” The man seemed to be thinking while counting out the fifteen gold coins quickly, “That’s rare to find on accessories. Usually mana regeneration is found on weapons and robes.” He set the coins on the counter and gestured to them before walking to a display case showing a necklace with a golden pendant covered in runes, “This pendant is the only accessory I have with mana regeneration. It gives a bonus of ten percent.”

Axel collected the gold coins and stored them away before following the man and inspecting the pendant.

Amulet of Reeve’s

Spell Damage: +50

Mana Regeneration: +10%

“How much?”

“Twenty-five gold.”

Axel shook his head, “Maybe next time.”

The man shrugged and looked back at Axel, “Anything else I can help you with?”

Axel shook his head and quickly made his exit from the store. He quickly checked his current mana regeneration, ‘60.3’ per second, or five point two million per twenty-four hours. He nodded to himself. He would conserve as much mana as possible until tomorrow morning and then try to make a ring with mana regeneration using five million mana, the equivalent of half a million for normal Mage’s.

Could they ever even have a cap that high? He had no idea. It was time to do some quests. According to the quest notices, most of the herbs he was looking for could be found in the shade of trees. That meant exploring the copses of trees around the city a bit more. Axel hummed to himself while he walked at a leisurely pace. He even took a moment to pat the head of a dog standing guard outside of a small shop as he passed by. Today was looking like it would be a nice day.

A few hours after exiting the city gates, Axel had only found a handful of herbs, mostly different ones and few repeats. The areas directly around teh city had very obviously been picked clean, not surprising. He’d also not run into any wondering monsters. Overall… BORING! So BORING! Worse, he couldn’t go too far from the city and camp out because he had an appointment in the morning at the guild. Well, it’s not like he would have had much else to do within the city. At least this way his time was minimally productive. He glanced at the setting sun and sighed, it was time to head back, get some sleep, and get his new spells in the morning. After that he’d camp outside for a few days.