blacksmithoftheapocalypse
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1275. Hold your breath
🕑 Added 2025-02-23 15:27:46 +0000 UTCEdgar invited them upstairs where it became clear that this was the place where they stored the valuable goods. The quality of the display and furniture was another step up from the first floor. The clerk showed them to a peculiar device, placed on a mahogany countertop.
It looked like a thick metal plate with various enchantments engraved on it. There was also a suspicious groove and several buttons on it.
“This is a multipurpose magic artifact that allows us to get a detailed identification of monster eggs. Thanks to a tiny amount of <Arpegium> used in the inside it can identify all beasts that were registered by the system,” Edgar explained, proudly displaying the plate.
“Multipurpose? What else can it do?” Fin asked, staring at the plate curiously.
“Its other main function is the injection of a mark of obedience into the egg, which allows people to raise the beast inside even without using a pet slot or a special class. Of course, it also won't get any system benefits in that case, like the pet space or growth corrections with levels,” Edgar elaborated on the function.
“Is this a unique magic from some world?” Seth asked curious. The whole egg business seemed too elaborate to be something new, yet the blacksmith had not seen any such egg stalls in Chrona or during his apprenticeship. He suspected this was one of those techniques of cultures that originated in a world without the system or before that world fell to ruin and had the system introduced.
It couldn't be that old, or something as practical as this would have reached at least the capital of the Chrona Empire a long time ago and Seth would have seen it there. Or maybe he had just missed it... or someone was hindering the propagation of this practice. He doubted it was the last one, but he couldn't completely eliminate it either.
“Hmm, from what I heard, that could be true. I'm sorry, I'm also just a local, so I'm not really privy to the whole history of egg trading,” Edgar answered a little embarrassed.
“How much would such a mark cost?” Seth asked out of curiosity. This technology had a great potential. Even without a tamer class, one could reign over an army of beasts, it was weird that he had yet to see anyone do so...
“The mark of obedience necessitates a drop of the customer's blood and 5 gold for a low-grade beast, 10 gold for medium, 15 for high, and it's not an option for the highest,” Edgar effortlessly spat out the price list.
“Oh...” the blacksmith let out a surprised sound. Unlike the eggs, this was a very steep price. He didn't need anything more to understand why nobody had done it so far.
“Can we look at what is in the eggs now?” Fin asked impatiently, slapping the counter repeatedly to make herself noticed. She was used to being tiny and even her human form was not very tall, so she was used to getting attention through actions.
“Of course,” Edgar said professionally and started with Fin's eggs. The first egg he took was a lime green one the size of a honeydew melon. He placed it on the plate and put a tiny splinter of magic crystal into the suspicious groove. The crystal turned into mana and was absorbed to bring the artifact to life.
A holographic interface very similar to the system windows appeared and it worked just like a status window. In the center, it showed a picture of a slime, and surrounding it were various stats and attribute values.
“Oh, this is a good one for the start. It's not just a slime variant that developed a barrier ability to cover its weakness, but even developed a method to attack with it, ” Edgar praised, while the looked at the status screen in shock.
“What is up with that level?” the blacksmith asked, looking at the attributes, the judged level, and comparing it to the approximated system level. The system level seemed about right but how were these the attributes of a lv.136 player? How did they get that number?
<Meadow Slime lv.136 System Level: ~60
Uncommon Warrior, medium-grade
Durability: 5000
Mana: 50
Agility: 300
Intelligence:50
Willpower:400
Luck:30
Trait: Slime Body = Immune to physical attacks.
Mag. Defense: 1000
Abilities: Barrier
Skills: Charge, Body Slam, Acid Breath, Acid Body
Description: Meadow Slimes are omnivores that can be found in mana rich meadows and swamps, where they usually feed of dead materials and plants. May hunt when food becomes scarce. Their main method of attack is charging their enemies and slamming into them. Will flee when enemies are too dangerous.>
Edgar stared at the bard for a moment, processing what he just said after seeing the status window. Then looked at it and started chuckling, covering his eyes, when he realized the problem.
“Haha, I'm sorry, I forgot to explain this. The system is based on classes and attributes of normal human players. Since most people on Urth are ori-huma or gained some divine correction to survive here I usually convert the level when explaining.
If you go by the standards of present Urth, this slime would be closer to lv. 63, but since normal players only gain half the free attribute points per level, it's judged as lv.136, with multipliers comparable to an uncommon warrior class.”
“I see...” The blacksmith said. Although he was still a little shocked, he understood what Edgar meant. This grading system was purely based on attribute and average class values. Although it showed levels beyond 100, it didn't correspond to the system level but was simply a conversion of total attribute points to level.
This also explained why the estimated system level was also displayed. One was a measurement of expected base strength the customer could count on and the other was a rough guideline that connected that to the experience the customer had in real life. The bard would have bet that most people just looked at the system level to judge the egg.
But Edgar not just answer Seth's question. He added another piece of information in the same breath. The identification even specified what kind of uncommon class the beast's multipliers resembled. Judging by that, the stats, and the skills, it was probably along the lines of a monk class, meaning it had a high multiplier for Mental Power, Movement, and possibly Attack speed.
“Well done, Fin,” Mina praised the fairy. “Yes, good work,” Seth joined her.
“Are you guys being sarcastic? It's just a lv.60 slime...” the brute said a little dejected.
“No, Fin. Did you already forget what he said? Those are just the stats if it grows up in the wild. If it's raised by a tamer or as a pet, it can be a lot stronger, right?” Mina tried to cheer her up, turning to Edgar with her question. The clerk nodded.
“That's right. Once it's fully grown, with the System benefits as a pet and proper care, it could probably accompany players into lv.80+ dungeons without a problem. Maybe even further.” Edgar agreed with her.
Of course, this was technically the case for all the gacha eggs. The question was whether one wanted to raise them as a pet. For normal people, there was always the question of party synergy and the worth of the cost and effort to raise them. Not for them though.
“Then this will be a great gift for Elly!” Fin exclaimed happily. They not only had a whole guild of people and parties that could take a pet, but they also had one tamer that would accept any good pet and a slime rancher specifically for slimes.
“I guess that none of you would like to bond with this egg currently. Shall we continue then?” Edgar asked with a smile. At his prompt, Fin chose the next egg to check. This time it was a dark blue egg with an abstract pattern that looked like tiny white needles.
Once again, he inserted a mana crystal. This quickly explained the price of the identification. Not only did they use specialized equipment but it also consumed a small mana crystal per use. That mana crystal alone probably cost around 15 silver, and they had to use one per egg.
If that was the power just to identify, what size of magic crystal would he have to put in to form that mark of binding when it cost several gold? So even if one owned the technology, it would still take an ungodly amount of money to copy a taming class....
The result of Fin's 5 eggs were a Meadow Slime, a Blight Spider, a Ground Boar, Graveclaw, and a Gruesome Vermin. Four of these beasts were various degrees of medium-grade with one being a lv.81 high-grade beast. Funny enough, it was not the creature with an interesting name like Graveclaw.
The Graveclaw was also good, being a wolf-beast with the potential to reach lv.74 and epic-tier multipliers. However, the high-grade egg was the Gruesome Vermin with the potential of lv.81 and rare-tier multipliers.
The Gruesome Vermin was surprisingly not a rat but resembled a bull-sized capybara. The implications of something looking so chill yet being so dangerous that it was called the “gruesome Vermin” were unknown.
They all congratulated for her lucky draw, as a high-grade beast here was technically a jackpot. The Mina pushed closer to the plate.
“My turn next!” Mina exclaimed happily, placing her five almost identical eggs on the counter.
