Nate sat next to Lindsay and Aura on a bench to the side while Angie was busy meeting with the guild master. They were talking about the different stores on the map while they waited for the other group to finally arrive.

  They might have been stuck across the city originally due to an accident, but they had made fast progress after it had been cleared aside. Now, they were due to arrive at any minute.

  “We’re supposed to meet everyone formally tonight to go over logistics, and then leave tomorrow afternoon,” Lindsay grumbled. “That doesn’t leave me- I mean us much time to go shopping.”

  Rolling his eyes, Nate rolled the map back up and leaned against the wall, relaxing. “Last I checked, going shopping with someone who doesn’t enjoy it is more stressful than anything else. Besides, I think if we’re careful there should be plenty of time to go to the places I want to shop at,” He added with a smirk.

  He got a playful shove for his comment. “Your just lucky that they’re also places we wanted to go.”

  “Uh huh, especially that last one, right?”

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  She looked longingly at Aura, her hands twitching. “I won’t even bother denying that one.”

  Aura glanced at her. The disguise she was using at the moment making her look more like a normal, albeit large fox. “Just don’t forget that any cute, fluffy companion you bond with also needs to be able to fight. It shouldn’t just be an expensive living cuddle pillow.”

  “Rude!” Lindsay gasped.

  “What’s rude?” Angie asked, startling them both.

  “That was… surprisingly quick,” Nate said. “I thought something like this would have taken a lot longer.”

  “Normally it would have, but Dad and the others got everything in motion weeks ago. All I really needed to do was select the routes, who was going to run them, and the payments for doing so, and then sign some paperwork. You know, stuff which required me to actually be here.”

  “It sounds captivating, truly,” Nate yawned. “You live in a magical world, Angie.”

  She punched him in the shoulder. “Hey, the logistics of it all can be pretty interesting. I admit this one was less so, simply because everything had already been taken care of for me. Dad actually over-prepped me for this particular location, but that’s fine. We’ll be stopping at other cities where I can do the same thing at which he won’t have thought to talk to.”

  “Whatever, as long as you find it interesting,” Before he could continue, the party of merchants they had been waiting for entered the building, and after looking around for a moment, approached the sole group they didn’t recognize.

  “Angelica Chrighton, of Chrighton Mercantile Group?” A well-dressed woman in the lead asked politely.

  “Yes, that would be me,” Angie said, holding out her hand to them. “I take it you are the Richlow Group we were here to meet?”

  “We are indeed, sorry about the delay,” The woman replied while taking Angie’s hand.

  ***

  After details had been exchanged with the other group on where and when to meet, they had separated for the next few hours.

  “So, the reason we actually needed to meet up with them now instead of later is because?” Nate wondered.

  “Just the way things are done,” Angie replied from her spot on the couch behind them. “Some groups get personal visits. It could be because they’re new, special, feeling like they’re forgotten, or they have a habit of forgetting meetings. You’d be surprised at how many merchants have fragile egos. Doing something simple like an in-person meeting like this tends to really make a difference. At least it does, according to my dad. This is the first time I’ve ever done one.”

  “At least we aren’t the problem group, that would sort of suck,” Lindsay muttered from her place behind the wheel again.

  Nate had offered to drive, but she had denied him for the simple reason that she had more experience driving in cities and traffic. Which was true, and she was definitely the best driver among them. At the same time, he didn’t want to simply leave all the driving to her.

  At that moment, they were carefully making their way toward the first of the three energy skill stores that the woman had told him about. After that they would head to the companion beast emporium, and then the other stores.

  Nate had an idea of what energy skill he was looking for; it was actually a basic one that he could have gotten at school. It was just a simple analysis skill used for herbs. He had been limited to the number of skills he could get back then, so he hadn’t been able to learn it at the time. He was also hiding his backup core at the time and hadn’t dared to go shopping for the skill while in their home city.

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  Now that they were in an unknown place, he had more freedom to act. There was also the possibility of finding some modified skills.

  Each of them was relatively happy with the skills they had at the moment, but it was still better to choose new ones before they spent too much time on evolving them. Lindsay and Angie both had gotten specialized attack skills from their families that they would likely keep. Their support skills had all come from the school, same as him though.

  After a few close calls with people who weren’t paying close enough attention, Lindsay pulled up in front of a single-story building. The store itself resembled so many old bookstores that Nate had seen in movies in his past life. The large windows showed towering bookcases packed with thousands of booklets.

  Energy skill books, at least the basic ones like they had studied at their high school, didn’t tend to be very thick. Each one topped out at a hundred pages max, with most being half that at around fifty to sixty instead. It was the reason they had been able to learn their initial skills in a class period. Some of the later ones had taken longer.

  Most of these stores actually didn’t even sell basic energy skills for that exact reason. They rented them, along with a room in the back that the person could use to study in. It was only the next grades up or the modified versions that they sold.

  Aura decided to stay in the RV while the other three went into the store and looked around.

  “There are thousands of skill books in this place,” Angie muttered, running a finger along the spotless shelf. “How are we going to find anything?”

  The shop was kept nearly spotless. Almost all the dust that paper seemed to constantly generate had been brushed clean.

  “Most people generally ask,” The middle-aged man behind the counter said, peeking up from behind the book he was reading. Placing a bookmark between the pages, he closed the book and turned to them. “Let’s start with what sort of energy skills you are looking for, attacking, support, both, basic, foundation, or perhaps something that has been modified?”

  “That’s a lot of options,” Nate said as they approached the counter.

  The man chuckled and took a moment to inspect them. “Well, it is certainly more than you likely encountered at whichever school you attended.”

  “What’s the highest rank of skill you have in the store?” Lindsay asked curiously.

  The man had spouted off foundation skills among the options, which were just above basic, so it had made her wonder.

  It took the man a minute to answer. “There are two ‘Created’ energy skill books.”

  The three inhaled sharply. That was the sort of skill book that promised easy power… at certain compromises. It would have ridiculously high usage costs, and since it was already so powerful, the possibility of evolving it even a single time more was almost an impossibility. In other words, there would be no personalizing it. What you bought is what you got.

  Some people liked the easy power, while others understood the need to evolve their skills the hard way. Still, if you found a pre-modified skill that fit what you wanted, then there was no actual reason to start at the very beginning. Each skill needed to be modified three times, before it ranked up to the next level. With each evolution taking months or more, that was a lot of time to spend on each skill rank-up.

  In the end, it just depended on the vision you had for your skills. There was something to be said for having a standard approach to things as well.

  “Well, I think those are probably out of our price range,” Nate finally said after a few seconds. “How about your foundation and domain energy skill books, both attack and support options?”

  “Sure,” The man turned to Angie and Lindsay. “And which ones would you like?”

  “Um, probably the same for me,” Lindsay said while Angie nodded. “I doubt we’d be able to afford anything more, anything more expensive, and unfortunately, we won’t be in town long enough to use any rental services you may offer for the basic books.”

  “I understand.” He tapped at his computer and motioned for them to step closer to the counter. “I keep an organized list of everything I have in the store on here. I can print out a version if you would like, though it would only have the names. On here you can click on each one that catches your attention and read a full description of the skill. If you’ll give me a minute, I’ll be back with a laptop one of you can use that will have the same information.”

  While he went into the back room, the three crowded around the computer and began reading through the list of skills he had in stock. It was a surprisingly comprehensive list, containing far more skills than they had ever heard of.

  Angie’s mercantile family naturally knew more than most people back in the city. However, they were still somewhat remote as states went in the middle of the country. New skill books and other items would trickle in on a regular basis, but they were rarely at the forefront of things.

  The dungeon forming in their own backyard first was a rare exception as things went.

  Nate came across a modified domain version of the analysis energy skill. It was even more effective than usual at identifying herbs, while nearly worthless when attempting to do the same for ores or resources that weren’t herbs. It was expensive, but considering some of the places they had been driving through recently and would be going through in the future, it was worth it. At least, that was the hope.

  After placing that book to the side, he could afford one more book in the foundation stage, as long as it was on the cheaper side. It preferably needed to be an attack skill as well. It would be best if it was something that could be used with both his weapons, but he would accept one that only worked for the crossbow.

  While he was looking through the list, the girls were peeking over his shoulder, reading everything with him. As soon as the owner came out with the laptop, they broke away and crowded around that one instead.

  Once he reappeared, Nate pointed out the analysis skill that he wanted and asked the man if he had any ideas for the attack skill. It was a very good thing that they had been able to gather as many cores, herbs, and beast bodies as they had on their trip. Selling the bodies was a little awkward, as the Overland RV didn’t have a trailer. All the other items were easy enough to sell, but the bodies had to be done a little bit at a time.

  Each time they stopped for the night, they would do a little hunting to ensure their campsite was safe. Over time, the quantity of beast and monster corpses built up, along with all the cores and herbs they stumbled upon. Not to mention the herbs they would receive inside the dungeon.

  Originally, Nate was carrying everything, however, after Angie and Lindsay both received their wrist computers that changed. Still, all that money they had worked so hard to gather over the last several weeks was barely enough to buy a few energy-skill books.

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