Ashton didn't even hesitate to ping each object with the pen of insight as he took a closer look. The objects inside were practically within a small void. It was similar to the Backpacker's bag, though Ashton knew everything within it the moment he peered inside.
He pushed his hand into the dark space within the chest, and pulled out the first two items.
They were two different jute bags, tied with threads at the top. One was blue, one was gold. Ashton wasn't certain what they were yet, though as he looked at the information that the pen wrote down, he couldn't be happier.
Bag of Magic Stones
A simple bag that contains a varied selection of magic stones of different types and rarities.
Bag of Coins
A simple bag that contains 5000 coins.
The descriptions were simple, because the contents were simple. It would be too much to describe all the individual magic stones, so Ashton would look more closely later.
But the important part were the coins. This reward immediately brought him over the minimum coins he needed to summon the Salesman.
"Fuck yes." Ashton couldn't help himself but let out a quiet cheer over the first two items in the chest. And there were five more there, so this would definitely be great.
Ashton opened up the bag of coins, and the moment he did, it dissolved into magic particles, similar to when you moved coins to and from your status.
He quickly opened the window, and there it was.
[Coins - 5564 -> 10.564]
With a broad smile on his face, Ashton pushed his hand into the chest and pulled out the next item—a large pot of bright red ink.
It had a small dial on the lid, with seven small stones, each a different colour. As Ashton twisted the dial, the ink inside the glass bottle quickly changed to that exact colour. But the colour wasn't the only thing that changed. The mana pattern and the way that the veil flowed around the bottle shifted at the same time. So each colour was a different ink, but what were the effects?
Seven-Coloured Inkwell
Grade - Rare
Volume - 250ml
An inkwell that holds seven different inks. Each one strengthens the power of one particular type of summon. The inks do not, however, hold any special summoning capacity on their own, but can be mixed with any other ink at a 1:1 ratio to gain the complete benefits of both.
By providing magic stones, the bottle can be refilled.
Red - Demonic
Orange - Construct
Yellow - Celestial
Green - Elemental
Blue - Fairy
Indigo - Spirit
Violet - Undead
Ashton smiled as he got to the orange colour, which the pen of insight had written over a few times, trying to emphasise it.
"I get it, I get it. I'll mix some of it in with your ink next time," he laughed slightly. But either way, beyond making a great snack for the pen, this seemed like an amazing item. It was a great supplement for Ashton's inks. Not only would this strengthen seven different types of summons, but it would also quite literally double all of his summoning ink as long as he had the magic stones. He didn't quite know how much of a magic stone was needed to top this back up from zero, but he could figure that out soon.
For now, though, it was time to get to the main course.
From the way that the Pen of Insight was writing their information, Ashton could tell that the other four items were part of a set. Ashton quickly reached in and grabbed the first of the bunch.
It was a new pen. It felt nice in his hand. Weighty, but not heavy. The way mana flowed through it felt perfectly natural, too. It had a nice, smooth grip, and a dark red-brown feather with icy blue tips that Ashton could recognise everywhere.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Ancient Summoner's Pen
Grade - Rare
Feather - Roc
Handle - Oak Treant
Nib - Gold
An ancient pen that once belonged to a powerful summoner. As one of the first to draw out the power of the veil to call on the aid of others, their tools may be rudimentary but powerful and created from practice and study.
Any circle drawn with this pen will extend the summoning period by an additional 25%.
Roc feathers were some of the best bases for pens even now, but the rest wasn't to scoff at either. Treant Oak and Gold were some of the best mana conductors around, so it was clear that this 'Ancient Summoner' really knew their stuff.
A 25% increase to summoning duration was an amazing boon that he couldn't let up. That meant that the Pen of Insight would be fully able to concentrate on observing and writing now, and Ashton had a new dedicated pen for summoning.
The next item that Ashton pulled out was the book laying beside the pen earlier. It had a pale white cover made from some kind of lizard-like leather. It was so soft that it felt like it might rip if Ashton was too harsh, but at the same time, he could just somehow tell from experience that it was far sturdier than it seemed.
The pages were relatively thick. Made of some kind of old parchment, but the magic flowing through each and every one of them was special. This wasn't just the material's natural mana, but rather, the patterns of the pages had been changed and locked in place through numerous minuscule enchantments. This wasn't easy to do by any means, even for Ashton, especially not on every single piece of parchment. He did have a decent idea what the effect was, though.
Ancient Summoner's Tome
Grade - Rare
Leather - Albino Basilisk
Parchment - Mountain Bull Vellum
Pages - 100
An ancient tome that once belonged to a powerful summoner. As one of the first to draw out the power of the veil to call on the aid of others, their tools may be rudimentary but powerful and created from practice and study.
Each page has been powerfully enchanted to hold onto inscriptions. Any summoning circle drawn onto its pages can be etched into it, keeping any special effects of the ink used.
Once etched onto the pages, each summoning circle can be used up to ten times before fully disappearing from the page.
A single page can only hold a single circle, but can be reused once the circle has run out.
And he was right. This was amazing. Ten times? That meant that Ashton could spend a little longer on preparing the summoning circles to call his summons to him, and maybe use some more efficient methods. And he didn't need to feel bad to use some of the more expensive or rare materials!
Once his spirit stat increased a bit more, maybe Ashton would even be able to upgrade these enchantments bit by bit and increase how often each circle could be reused!
'If only I was summoned by this guy instead of the other fucker...' Ashton thought to himself. If he was summoned across time in the first place, then he might as well have been the servant of a guy that actually did their own work instead of enslaving others.
Then again, Ashton would prefer taking an arrow to the skull before letting himself be a person's servant again, so maybe that was a weird line of thinking.
He shook the thought off and reached into the chest for the last two items. These ones were sure to be amazing as well, but he was actually the most conflicted about them already.
One was a long, extremely light blue cloak with golden patterns and linings all over it. It was a full-body cloak that was meant to cover the user's entire body. These things were supposed to be popular with mages and summoners, since it would hide what they were doing, and for summoners, allow whatever they called on to hide for a few moments.
Since this was a summoner's cloak, there were actually a ton of pockets on the inside, though the main feature was clearly the degree to which it changed the flow of mana around it.
Ancient Summoner's Cloak
Grade - Rare
Fabric - Blue Moonlight Silk
Lining - Golden Sunweaver Silk
An ancient cloak that once belonged to a powerful summoner. As one of the first to draw out the power of the veil to call on the aid of others, their tools may be rudimentary but powerful and created from practice and study.
A powerful cloak that not only provides magic resistance but improves the flow of mana within the wearer's body.
Exactly what he thought. Magic defence and just a general control boost that would surely help with channelling and even spellcasting. An amazing cloak.
The staff was similarly impressive. It was a large staff, taller than Ashton himself. It looked mostly like a large branch that had been snapped off something and carved just slightly into shape before smoothing out the surface. At the top, it hooked around a bit, and would probably be a good place to hang a lantern. The moment Ashton touched the wood, it felt like his mana wanted to jump into it. His mana wasn't drained, it just felt like it was moving better than ever before.
The leap in his spirit stat had increased his mana a lot, but he wasn't able to take the time and get used to that sudden jump. The staff seemed to be taking care of that for him.
Ancient Summoner's Staff
Grade - Rare
Wood - Elder Ash Treant
An ancient staff that once belonged to a powerful summoner. As one of the first to draw out the power of the veil to call on the aid of others, their tools may be rudimentary but powerful and created from practice and study.
When channelling your magic through the staff, the power of the user's summons is increased by 40%.
Of course, Elder Treant. That was one of the best materials around, and the effect showed it. A full 40% power increase? That was utterly ridiculous. This was a staff at the peak of the 'rare' grade. A summoner probably couldn't get anything better than this unless they found an Epic staff.
The fact that it was an Ash Treant made it seem like this was literally made for him in the first place.
But both the staff and the cloak had the same issue. Ashton couldn't use them.
Not the way he fought as a summoner, at least. The staff was amazing for summoning, but it was abysmal as a fighting stick. It wasn't balanced at all, it was far too light, and it might even break if properly as one.
The cloak was amazing, too, and maybe if he was something like an archer, he could make use of this, but the most important part he needed as a staff fighter was his agility. The cloak, while light enough, still covered his whole body and would get in the way with even the slightest manoeuvres.
If Ashton fully pivoted to the 'path of the magician', then maybe he would be able to use them, but not like this. They were still amazing to use for out-of-combat matters, of course, but even then, Ashton felt pretty nervous about not always being ready to fight at a moment's notice.
Either way, it was a shame, but for the time being, Ashton had to put those items aside. He needed some prep-time to properly make use of any of these items, except for the coins, of course.
But there was something else. Ashton expected it to disappear once the last items were taken out; that's how these things usually worked, at least. But surprisingly, the small wooden chest, now completely empty, was still sitting there in front of him.