Chapter 159 & Update! :)
854 11 12
X
Reading Options
Font Size
A- 15px A+
Width
Reset
X
Table of Contents
Loading... please wait.

Chapter 159

 

Dream State

 

“I can’t wait to check this out!” Sunghee said.

“I admit I’m curious too,” Fox said.

They are both crowding in to see it.

“So is this like a teleport ball or more like a home shopping center?” Sunghee asked Fox.

“I…don’t know…I don’t smell any traps though,” Fox is puzzled with it while she’s leaning over towards me with her hands on her knees.

They are inspecting the rumored black market mage orb connection device.

“You checked for traps?” Asakura asked.

Fox nodded.

“Thank goodness. That was smart,” Asakura said.

“That was a good idea actually. Thank you,” I said with a nod.

“I should get a reward right?” Fox hinted with a big smile.

“Yes, you can get a reward,” I said in monotone. I already know the others will say they want one too right after…and it does happen. There’s a minor scuffle of them all saying they want one too and pushing each other out of the way like kids.

“Hey cut it out,” I ordered.

They all stopped immediately.

“I wonder what kinds of things might be on here,” I said after that.

They all leaned in close again.

Oops, we better stop ourselves from getting big heads.

Near us Asakura is thoughtful and engaged too but said nothing.

I’ve locked that pitiful opera cosplay necromancer in a stasis room and now I know they don’t have to only be of the opposite gender to be put in them. So he’s locked up just like Haruka is. I’d avoided using those crystal slave slots because I wanted to force open new slave crystal slots through combat first rather than use the limited ones that I had. It was a theory or hypothesis that if I used up my monster core unlocked slots first; I’d have less long term number of crystal slots.

Before doing this I’d made sure that it’s not a permanent use of a slave crystal. In other words if I want to I can empty someone out of one, and put someone else in; thank goodness.

I’ve also found out through tinkering with them that when someone is in a slave crystal, or soul crystal (not all of them are captured) that I can sort of….shake them out much like dumping ice out of an ice tray. That’s a terrible analogy but the closest thing that seems to fit. Not that I’d want to dump anyone out, except for the old skinny balding necromancer dude that is kinda freaky and weird.

I’m afraid of being in the room with him, even with Fox and the others with me actually.

“Can you help me open up the orb?” I asked to Sunghee.

“Well you don’t technically need her help. But yes, her helping would let you be able to read it,” Asakura said.

Fox nodded to confirm it.

“Sure let’s take a look. Actually I saw one of these once before, but at the time I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t actually get to use it. It’s the same principal as an adventurer having access to magic tools though so I should be able to help you still if even in a limited, very limited way,” Sunghee said right after that.

She puts her hand on the orb with mine. It takes my energy to activate it because she doesn’t have a mana core, but she’s needed to sort through the language stuff that I’m figuring out. This is our new trick too. If Sunghee is holding my hand, then because her class had opened up her own translation ability recently, and now that stacked the translation ability access into interfacing with the orb. Now I can read and see what stuff says or have her read it to me and see what she thinks. It’s glitch at times though because it’s kind of like we’re cheating it out in a way that’s not normally used, so I still need to have her double check to make sure I’m reading stuff right, and often one or two words in sentences will look like garbled code and she’ll fill me in on the gaps.

The blue screen that opens up after we open up the orb’s power is a bit similar to the blue screens for skills since it’s also based off magic. And we’re now looking over things. It’s taking some time just to decipher what everything us. Slowly we’re piecing it together. The others also come in closer around us to look.

“This interface looks weird,” Fox said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Do you know something,” she added looking at Asakura.

“This looks like the mage’s version of a magic medieval set of ebay pages,” Asakura said while squinting at the screen with her hands on her hips.

“Huh, I was thinking the same thing,” Sunghee said.

“Wow, this is so cool! Who knew there was such a thing?” I said.

“Yeah it is cool. If we’d had access to stuff like this earlier, we wouldn’t have had so many problems,” Sunghee grumbled dourly.

Asakura is spot on, I can see. I keep staring at it. This is technically a huge breakthrough even though everything on here will be expensive. Even just a few small low magic items from here could help us a lot.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Sunghee said.

“What’s ebay?” Fox said. She is waiting and watching patiently with us with her legs folded under her while sitting up straight. She’s so beautiful sitting like that; I want to stare at her all day. Plus with her tall form, the small skirt she’s wearing is forced to ride dangerously high up near her hips, adding more reasons to stare at her.

Oops…yeah that will be hard to explain if she catches me staring huh. She might want to escalate in front of the other girls instead of doing business.

I also have a hard time not staring at all of the others, especially Asakura’s huge melon bust that’s always stretched out.

Somehow I forced myself back to the task at hand.

“Um…it’s a black market device similar to this one in the land that we came from. I doubt there’s any access here so it won’t really help to research it or spend time on it,” I said, not knowing how else to explain it.

“Black market? Are you sure about that? Asakura chuckled.

Her and Sunghee giggled.

“I see,” Fox answered. She still remains quietly and elegantly observing with us.

“Um, don’t rush into anything OK? We want to be careful and plan out the best optimum gain OK? So don’t just buy crap without a plan please!” Asakura said. She’s leaning over next to me to look at the screen and in the process while she’s bent over her giant boobs are hanging down and forcing tons of skin on display while she doesn’t realize it right in my view.

Or maybe she does realize its on display...

We can see all kinds of tabs on the top and the left, from the screen display of the pages. The furthest most left has sections like usable by …different types of adapted specialties. We can choose gear for specific class sorting; warriors, range specialists, assassins, specialists, mages, heroes, and summoners.

I didn’t think hero was even a class or type of job. But according to this it is. Oh wait; there was mention of that in the dwarven town of Sven somehow becoming one through unlocking it as a job in saving the town huh? I should find out more about that, especially if they can sniff out demon gened people.

And it makes you wonder who else has these magic market interface orbs too. Although it obvious nothing is going to be free.

“Wow, that’s a lot of variety,” Asakura noted, as she points forward with her hand at the screen, she accidentally is showing me a nipple hanging out the bottom of her straining shirt. I don’t make any effort to have her cover it up or make her aware since its rewarding to have her sexy figure on display, besides she might have done it on purpose.

“Those aren’t the only sub tabs. See, look, I can click here and change this part to now sort through books and grimoires, tools and crafting stuff, weapons of many types and kinds, jewelry, clothing, vehicles, land, music, creatures, human trafficking, Potions...” Sunghee keeps reading, unaware of the other two trying to be provocative.

“Vehicles sounds interesting,” Fox said.

“Vehicles can attract muggers and thieves easier though. It’s like putting a ‘rob me’ sign up,” Sunghee objected. “I wouldn’t even bother with that.”

“Ah that’s true. I forgot, almost giving in to temptation,” Fox said.

“What?! Keep the potion section away from Rina. And it has a slaves tab? That’s awful! How?” Asakura’s eyes widen in shock.

“Well duh…how else do you explain why Shun can summon and de-summon you guys? There are others that can do that too,” Fox snorted.

“You think so?” I asked.

“Maybe,” was the response.

“Wait, what? Is that true?” Asakura asked in shock.

“Well it’s not common. I’ve only heard a few rumors of a couple demon heavy hitters doing it,” Sunghee said.

“We can’t prove it. But I think there are a few,” Fox said after that, while looking into my eyes.

“Wait summoning doesn’t mean people trafficking. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” I objected.

“Uh…yeah sorry Shun,” Fox dipped her head apologetically.

Both of them look at me.

“What’s the difference between them?” Sunghee asked.

“There’s a huge difference between them!” Fox chirped in my defense.

“Yeah totally! Shun is helping us and we’re family. It’s not something bad! It’s good to have a family too. And family is the basis of survival in any world,” Asakura said. She then patted my knee affectionately.

Actually Asakura said something shockingly true, yet very simple. The idea that family are the basis of survival in any world would hold true in both this world and our old one, even if its economic or weather survival.

This is how penguins survive the polar zones.

“That’s true,” Fox agreed.

“Um…that’s summoner magic not slave stuff,” I said.

“It doesn’t make much difference. We’re happy with Shun. Although we need more ‘rewards’ don’t we? You don’t fuck us enough,” Sunghee snorted.

They all agreed.

Asakura smirked but tried to hide it quickly. The look in Asakura’s eyes suggests she agrees.

“Thank you,” I said.

They both nod and blush at me.

“I think you need to note there are slave crystals and summoner abilities. They are usually two different groups. Technically there are also slave collars which can be in either of those or separate too but you have the main grouping being slave crystals and summoner stuff. Slave crystal users can be demons, mages, or usually both. Not just summoners, though summoners are better at it,” Fox said. She looks embarrassed that she has to explain it. I can’t blame her.

“So what are the differences between slave crystals and summoner abilities?” Asakura asked.

“Actually I kind of want to know more about that too. Maybe once we know the differences we can figure out future paths of skills and more options with more choices. And what if we don’t know everything about each of them but we just think we do? We could be overlooking something,” I said to Fox.

“That’s a good thinking. We need to try to open up more of your abilities,” Asakura said with energy.

“That’s a good point. I agree too,” Sunghee said. She smiled big.

All of them are excited at this magic network thing. It could help make our lifestyle a lot easier to transition to this world too.

“Well basically summoner’s summon creatures from other worlds or other dimensions or places to do their bidding. It doesn’t have to always be fighting stuff. It can also be something like summoning helpers for work that isn’t killing stuff. And it can be done for the enchant to be tied off a money earnings contract or economic magic contract too. But there’s no guarantee that all summoners store their summon creatures in the same form of dimensions or other worlds or wherever they go when they are put away. That’s one thing that might help to research. Like what if the ones from other worlds are stronger than those stored in dimensional pockets or vice versa. We don’t know which type is stronger for us?” Fox stated it as a research topic with a smile.

“That’s something to think about Shun,” Asakura said, confirming Fox had said something hugely smart.

“But how do we prove it is the question,” I said with my arms folded.

“It may take talking to other mages to figure that out, much as I’d hate to admit it,” Fox said.

“So we just got +1 to homework,” Asakura said.

“Hey there’s an economic section here. What do you think?” Sunghee shrugged. She’s used them before for years I remembered when she said that.

I’m not as sold on an economic contract being as powerful but I’m not willing to discount anything to look at.

“Not to mention I swear that one section was something like mage built portable housing, activated by magic,” Asakura interjected.

That looks more useful to me.

There sure a lot of interesting things here.

“That might be nice. But I still like having walls around us from being in a city. This world is pretty dangerous and full of evil,” Fox cautioned me.

“As long as it’s dry, warm, clean, and comfortable I don’t mind,” Sunghee said.

“But where do the summoned creatures come from? I mean that’s what I kept wondering when we were fighting that imp summoner goblin shaman. And he had so many imps too. Was he re-summoning the same imps over and over, summoning their clones, or just I don’t know…pulling them from other dimension pockets, or summoning a whole tribe from some other world or hell?” Asakura asked. It’s interesting that she’d ask this of all people, because she’s very logical.

“That’s an interesting idea. I wondered that too,” I confessed.

“We won’t know unless we start asking around. But not many of them will want to share secrets,” Fox said.

“But we could try,” Asakura said.

“Well it depends on the kind of summoner. With that one I don’t know, but one hypothesis is that its all up to the magic coding in the spell. So if you knew how to write the code you could probably do either option and then some, or create special upgrades or unique usage functions. And just like there are tons of different mages, there are also different summoner types too. Some summoners summon spirits from this world like necromancers are a low specialized variant type summoner in a way that use spirits from this world. I bet shamans use spirits from their element mostly from this world too at least, but if they are more powerful who knows. Some others not related to either of those summon spirits from other worlds like for example warlocks summon creatures from hell mostly, and some other types of summoners and mages form contracts with animals or things to use their summons but aren’t technically a summoner themselves always,” Fox said quickly.

“But Shun doesn’t have animals. Why is his different?” Asakura prodded.

“You’re right it’s not,” Sunghee agreed.

“That is very different, usually. Most summoners use beasts. You are right to ask this. And I’ve seen several beast summoners. But I don’t have answers on how they are different. But summoners tend to stick with the same type of creatures. I don’t know if that’s because of efficiency or ‘rules’ though,” Fox said while thinking some deep thoughts to herself with her arms folded.

“I would suspect there’s a reason for it and not just something random,” Asakura said while thinking aloud.

Good question…I wonder that too. I didn’t say anything yet because I’m hoping they can generate things that I might not think of.

“Shun’s abilities summon people in conjunction with those slave crystals. And part of it has to do with linking his mana and life force with who he summons. There’s only one other group that can summon people…well two types actually,” Fox is explaining.

“Eh? I didn’t know that,” I said.

“This …is so weird. I didn’t know either,” Sunghee said folding her arms.

“Summoners summon things below them in evolution usually. Unless they are really powerful they can’t summon something above them in evolution. And summoning on the same level would have a lot of limitations for obvious reasons unless there’s something else added to the mix,” Fox said.

“That makes sense. A mouse shouldn’t be able to summon a cat,” Sunghee said.

Her analogy made me smirk a bit. But it did make sense too.

“But summoning people does seem like something not every mage could do,” Asakura reasoned.

“That’s correct. Only deities or guardian spirits, dragons, or demons can summon people; at least that’s what’s being taught. I didn’t know there were exceptions until we met Shun, so it has me curious about him and the demon box’s origins. But I don’t know why you are different yet,” Fox said.

“Huh? That doesn’t make sense,” Sunghee said.

“But again it forces us to question the origins of that demon box Shun has. It still has a lot of mysteries about it that we’ve yet to figure out,” Fox said.

“Always that damn box. It’s not like it would give us a truthful answer either if we asked it,” Asakura growled.

“Dang,” I said.

The box is more mysterious and tempting than I’d considered before. But that also means its also more dangerous than I could comprehend also.

I just hoped, I didn’t become more demonized in my gene and DNA changes. And thinking about the box also meant more stress. I think that’s why we took baby steps with trying to figure out the box.

“I know right? Summoning people sounds like a cheat. And Shun isn’t any of those except for having demon genes,” Asakura said. she’s more excited about it than I am.

“So if people can’t summon people what do they summon normally? You did mention animals but are there certain confines on types or classifications, or is it by intelligence ratings of the beasts?” I asked.

“People can summon animals or demons usually, while demons summon animals or people. It’s interesting that they are sort of polar opposed right? You get it now?” Fox said shrewdly with a smirk.

“That’s proof of the demon box being sourced from demon parts then isn’t it?” Asakura noted.

Hmm, I hadn’t thought about it that way.

Was she right?

It had to be made out of something,...something with a lot of mana!

“There’s no proof of that,” Sunghee countered. She probably said that thinking she was defending me from what she’d said but what if she was right? Sunghee glanced at my nervously.

Maybe she was trying to keep me from getting upset or worried. If you cared about someone enough, then you might accidentally try to shield them from things that you thought were very worrisome or dangerous.

“And more like whoever made the box was probably a type of summoner or mage that was powerful but wanted to create a way to summon people and sentient beings outside the edges of what were considered the norm for its job,” I noted.

The others gave me a concerned alarmed look.

“That’s…also correct for both of you. And the more Shun uses it, the more his power will solidify into someday not needing the demon inventory box is my hypothesis on its future growth though I can’t prove it. Of course there would still be benefits then from using it or having it…but…” Fox shrugged.

“Are you sure?” Asakura asked.

“Like I said, that’s my hypothesis. We’d have to prove it somehow either way,” Fox added hurriedly before they could say anything else.

“So are you saying that Shun is the only summoner that is at least partly human that can summon humans or non-human species, AKA demi-humans?” Sunghee questioned.

“That’s right, so you don’t want him being caught summoning in front of others. We don’t want anyone to know what he is. Mages especially would get pretty anxious to know what was going on, since they’d been taught a particular rule system that they believe in. It would be hard to explain and others wouldn’t get it at all. They might question which team he’s playing for and what his race card is. It could attract all kinds of negative attention,” Fox said.

I’m suddenly very grateful I’d been so secretive. But again I was forced to question the demon box’s origins.

“Be careful!” Sunghee said quickly looking at me in the eye.

I noticed this whole time Sunghee has kept hold of my hand on the orb. She’s kind of playing with my fingers in hers romantically. It’s kind of nice how actually she’s just focused on enjoying holding my hand. And maybe that’s why she’s not really trying to be provocative like the other two.

“That explains the imp summoner summoning imps instead of people,” Asakura said.

“He must have had to work pretty hard to summon other imps instead of something like squirrels or dogs for example, I think,” Sunghee said.

“I disagree. Imps aren’t really all that special. They are pretty low on the demon evolutionary tree at least for the sentient beings,” Fox objected.

But the imps aren’t bad either. They would have good gas mileage for a summoner. And that’s probably why that imp summoner liked them.

“Oh…” Sunghee scratched her head.

“Whatever, we’re on the same team,” Asakura reminded her.

“But there were a lot of slave collars on that site,” I objected.

“Slave collars don’t necessarily mean summoning people. They just mean a means of controlling people with magic tethers. Even non-mages buy slaves and slave collars for all kinds of beasts and for just house slaves,” Sunghee said. She didn’t like saying it though but was being honest with me.

Fox nodded. “You guys have been lucky but you need to step it up. Luck isn’t enough, and you’ll need to get stronger and apply yourself to work forward from here.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Even though she’s looking shrewd and talking tough, I can tell by the way her tails are waving around that she likes the attention, and being seen as the alpha girl.

“Would goblins summon animals…or summon things like demons?” Asakura asked in follow up.

Fox looked up, seemingly picturing something in her mind. “Well…I’m not an expert on goblins but they’d probably not be able to summon things that were very high on the evolutionary chain, since they are pretty low on the ladder of evolution themselves. And goblin races are low on the magic spectrum too in terms of both ability and evolution because of that, which is why they try to compensate for their shortcomings with more violence than others. There are a few exceptions to everything but you notice that goblins try to overcome their low magic spectrum with sacrificial offerings and team casting blending it all together with blood magic too. You have to remember magic evolution and body and physical evolution are technically two different trees, although my saying that probably makes you more confused. I doubt they’d be able to summon much beyond minor element spirits, and minor demons like imps. I could be wrong though.”

“Wow,” I said.

But Fox took it one step further, “Shun have you ever question what the shared mana pool skill is that you have and why it’s there?” she asked.

“I have found that odd actually. It seems like a weird skill even though it is quite powerful. I was just happy to have such a big mana tank,” I replied.

“Using monster cores to get mana pool upgrades isn’t all that special but the fact that he has extra set options available for it is,” Sunghee said to contribute.

“True,” Fox scratched her chin thoughtfully.

“More than that I wonder what it means to Shun’s mind and body. What is it doing to him really? And why does he have to get an upgrade in it, before he links with another girl? We should have questioned that earlier,” Asakura questioned.

I felt squeamish. The mana pool upgrades don’t have anything demonic to do with them do they?

I really needed the mana pool upgrades. But now that I think about it, it would be weird for me to get too many free gifts with no cost...

“I too have thought about that. I think it’s because the shared mana pool skill that you’ve been building up and acquiring is actually connecting or taking parts of the other girls’ souls into your own to make yours stronger. But the generic version actually could be your soul absorbing particles leaked from other mage mana cores released when they die or are injured over time too. And both ways could also be absorbing the natural ‘gaia mana’ leaking out from this planet,” Fox said.

“Those are all really good explanations. Its giving me some things to think about,” Asakura said in school teacher mode. This is exactly what a math teacher might say.

“Gaia mana huh?” Sunghee said.

“Let’s talk about gaia mana a different time. That could take a whole discussion just by itself,” Fox said.

We’d thought there was a link…but nobody had really suggested miniature soul parts branching off or taking parts of another’s soul, or sharing those parts before. It was suddenly a bit quiet.

“To think that our souls are being taken in though, sounds scary,” Asakura said.

“That sounds dangerous,” Sunghee said skeptically.

“Normally I would say so too, but you remember it’s a two way connection. So it seems that soul parts or whatever are also exchanged and then both souls healed and actually enlarged through the process which is similar to soul contracts while also welding together. It’s this welding together process I think that makes it so you can someday be free of the box once your power and mana core solidify. But whoever set it up probably had to screw up a lot to get the magic coding right is the problem. It would have involved human experimentation,” Fox said in a scholarly tone.

“I see. I think I understand well now. It explains a lot,” Asakura said.

“That doesn’t sound so bad you say it that way. It’s not bad right?” Sunghee asked.

“Nope it should be fine. Just you are more connected than you were, and you shouldn’t be apart from each other too long or too far,” Fox said.

I was a bit concerned…but then Asakura comforted me.

“Hey it’s not your fault. We were thrown into this,” Asakura noticed I felt bad and quickly hugged me tightly.

“I think it’s only making everyone stronger. And you aren’t losing parts of your life. Everyone here is getting stronger. And the stronger Shun gets the more we’ll grow. It’s why I think Shun will eventually push me into archmage status someday. I put a lot of thought into this so I’m sure we’re safe, even if it sounds weird. Also I would have noticed through mana sensing if there were some serious side effects,” Fox concluded.

“And would that also work for non-mages making us more powerful, even if we don’t have mana cores?” Sunghee asked.

“Yes I’m sure of it,” Fox said.

“If what you say is true…possibly but who knows how long that could take,” Asakura guessed.

“It probably would take awhile,” Fox offered. “Like years…but it would take that long for all of us anyway. And we aren’t confined away from that normal individual growth process either. So there’s two tracks to capitalize upon.”

“I would think it would but would depend on the types of skills he builds. Maybe there’s also a hidden shared vitality or life pool skill?” Asakura suggested.

Shit.

I have to find out if she’s right. That was a really good idea. I just have to figure out how to unlock it.

“You’ve given me a lot to think about. But we can’t verify it for now. Let’s shelf this idea but remember it so we can talk about it more at a later date,” I said.

“Let’s look at the black market interface some more,” Sunghee said.

Sure enough it comes to books and she’s suddenly scrolling through spell books.

“Why is it selling those …in a book form rather than as separate spells individually?” I asked.

“If it’s a full spell book entirely then it’s probably got many codes of magic spells but it means it was harvested from killing a mage. No normal mage is going to just give up their own spell book. It’s their life practically. So you don’t know what you are getting really. Plus a loser probably lost through not having as good spells and not just about mana tank, not to mention chance for duplicate spells. So there are problems with buying a fallen mage’s spell books,” Fox said looking unhappy with her arms crossed.

“Eh?!” Sunghee is surprised.

She’s scrolling through page after page of little grimoire shaped spell books of all kinds. Some are black, some red, and some light colored, but also some that are brown and all with rich hardcover and leather bindings with rich looking pages.

This…

It was a bit disturbing to think that a lot of these spellbooks are here because of banditry, including murder.

I didn’t approve of that. But there was probably very little oversight on this market.

I had to also remind myself that grimoire magic and spell books in a grimoire format aren’t the same thing either.

“Mages usually spend a lot on their books,” Fox explained.

“So that’s basically saying there’s no free lunch huh?” Asakura noted.

“How come Shun doesn’t need a spell book?” Sunghee said interrupting.

“Now that you mention it, I don’t ever remember him acquiring one at the beginning though I do remember you mentioning grimoire magic as a magic type,” Asakura said.

“It could be the grimoire magic unlocked sort of is holding it together so I don’t need one?” I guessed.

“Grimoires and grimoire magic don’t necessarily belong together. They can be two different things depending on what you are looking at. But you might be right,” Fox interjected.

Finally Fox has turned out to be a good magic teacher. Today has really shown that. I guess we needed more things to interact with though.

“Some magic systems don’t require daily memorization, where the user doesn’t forget the spells,” Fox told them.

Its complicated, because there’s many types of systems.

I shrugged, “I don’t know how it works but it’s working.”

“It’s likely that he’s just a deviant form of casting with its own mutation. There are many types of magic deviant type mages that don’t have to technically have a spell book but for some reason sooner or later almost all mages pick them up even if they don’t need them just because they are fascinated with the concept of storing secrets and creating their own power structures. Plus a summoner is a bit different from a mage but can use mage spells. But mages can’t usually do what summoners can do,” Fox shrugged.

“So if you kill a mage and take his book do you get everything he knows?” Asakura wondered.

The others gave her odd looks.

“Um, I meant in theory. I don’t want us becoming murderers,” she added hurriedly.

Sunghee stared at her for some time.

“I just want to know how it works,” Asakura hurriedly said.

“Basically no. It doesn’t work that way. There’s a chance you could learn some of their spells, but you might not get any of them or you might get several or something you already know. So it’s got potential to study and replicate their notes and codes to theoretically get many spells but it would take probably months or years to get anything at all. Plus what if they are written with ‘bad code’? Then you might harm yourself by taking in their ‘bad code’. You wouldn’t gain ground quickly because people think differently and might write the coding for their spell differently than yours even though you are casting the same spell. So it would take time to decipher things,” Fox added.

“So it’s a chance for slow potential but could be more than getting just one spell …but with uncertainty,” Sunghee summed up.

“That’s right. In the end its better to precisely pick what you think is best, and not to gamble on fallen mage’s chances of giving you something good. Don’t forget that if you can’t use that element you are up a creek too and that’s a more serious issue entirely. The chances of having compatible elements with just some random mage off the street is pretty low actually; think about how many different element type or specialization types there could be in a world blended from two worlds colliding,” Fox said to remind us.

I think Fox was right but part of me was curious to know what other kinds of magic coding were available and what I could do with it.

“It does sound interesting. I wonder how much stronger you could get Shun? I mean this is like being a kid in a candy store. The more powerful you are the better our chances to survive this hell world too,” Asakura said with one arm around me. I can also feel her boobs pushing up against my side.

The girls keep looking through ‘magic eight ball ebay’. It was also interesting that all of them, even Fox, had accepted long ago the idea that this was a hell world. Perhaps in whatever cosmos this planet was created in, it was closer to the spectrum of hell than heaven?

There are several spell books my price range. Hell I could buy a few of them but I wouldn’t gain a spell instantly. It could take months of research and effort after that to learn it too. That was another disadvantage of doing it this way.

“But I don’t get it. Why sell their spell books? Doesn’t it seem like they would be giving up their power? Wouldn’t they also be afraid to give their secrets away to others?” Asakura asked.

“That’s a good point. But it just shows there’s a lot of murder going on if you ask me,” Sunghee said.

“They are afraid to give up their power. And yes they don’t like giving up their spell books. And the chance that an enemy has the same trick as them makes them not only very worried but extremely jealous. But they also kill each other to loot each other’s spell books to. So some of these will be spell books taken from their fallen prey, not their own spell books. There also will be some others that are so fixated on gaining the next tier in power and spells that they might not mind sacrificing their spell books from when they were younger if they can trade that for something that will give them a better edge. Then there are also people that just like collecting spell books and have a niche for that as part of the market,” Fox explained.

“Sounds like they are greedy for power and that forced them to end up both giving and taking,” Asakura noted.

“They weren’t forced, they made bad choices,” Sunghee corrected.

“That’s exactly true. Thanks for correcting me,” Asakura said curtly.

“That’s true,” I said.

But there are other things too. As we look further. In the end nothing is easy. And a lot of this stuff is super freaking expensive too.

Enchanted weapons are a big section. I could spend tons of time in this area but not on the prices. Enchanted clothes and outfits is its own section. Those are obviously the higher priced sections too. Just about everything you can imagine is here.

The tools section is mostly based for different professions so we avoided looking at it for now but it’s intriguing too. Gyle would be interested the most in the magic tool section I suspect, but I can’t really show them this. What if he were to turn me into the authorities?

And potions section I’m glad Rina isn’t here to look at for fear she might want to do another experiment. The more permanent a potion is the more its price goes up.

We find a section for portable enchants and one use enchants too with its own section, which is like selling one use or three use spell scrolls on another section. Then there’s a whole new section just for jewelry like rings, necklaces, bracelets, and so on. I hurriedly left that area for fear the girls would want me to buy them jewelry…

So I skip that part. That’s what happens when you become a couple, so I couldn’t take that risk. But there was no mistaking that it meant enchanted jewelry too and not just minor stuff.

“Let’s come back to that part later,” I said.

The others groaned. “Spoil sport,” Sunghee said.

“Well…eventually we have to go back to that spot,” Asakura kept nudging me.

“I agree. He knows what we need,” Fox said.

The others agree but don’t push it.

Ah crud…they want wedding rings huh? But magic wedding rings would bankrupt me right now probably. And if we’re bankrupt it would be easier to get into a checkmate situation and die.

The next section is for land, which is useless if I don’t know I can stay in this city…there are land sites from all sorts of areas that we’ve never heard off both cities and continents even.

And by accident we end up on the creatures and slaves part of the site.

I wasn’t sure that’s a good idea. “Maybe we should skip this part,” I suggested.

But suddenly Fox stopped me. “Wait, Shun this might be the best spot available to look at. Here we can try to get you more allies. And they are cheaper than magic weapons. We can’t ignore that’s real potential to gain early on with less time farming gold to get a gain from.” Fox was very firm on this.

“I don’t like it but she’s probably right when you think about the math of this. Especially with your shielding magic on them,” Asakura said with darkly clouded eyebrows.

“Do we have to get other girls in on this? I mean…you guys aren’t worried because you are beautiful…Fox is super sexy and you have monster boobs. I used to think I was beautiful and sexy but it’s hard to compete with both of you. By the way your nipple is hanging out your shirt,” Sunghee said to Asakura.

“Oh…sorry about that,” Asakura said while pushing her stretched tight shirt back down. Because her shirt gets stretched so tight it has a tendency to push up, which you need tremendous volume to achieve in physics.

The other two frowned…I think from jealousy from several different reasons.

“We’re not getting anything now I think. But we need access to the best options. And if we are underpowered game over doesn’t have resets. Someone could die. So I’m afraid we have to get other people in on this,” Asakura tried to help her calm down. That didn’t help since Asakura is monster boob sized.

“This part of the page feels yucky,” Sunghee said.

“Yeah, but these people were stolen. With Shun and our ‘family’ this is a better life. They would absolutely be happy. Its a way to escape them ending up in the hands of some evil bastard and a better life,” Fox said.

“That’s true,” Asakura said. “Even if they are made sex crazy with pheromones.”

The others giggled.

“Shun is a summoner too don’t forget. So if we screw this up it’s bad. We need to push his advantage of being a summoner,” Fox said.

“But we’re doing this for Shun remember. We need to help him and helping him helps us survive better too,” Asakura said to correct her.

“Sorry you are right. This is necessary huh?” Sunghee still didn’t look too happy. I think I also heard her mutter something about already having her under her breath too.

“I know right? But we’re helping Shun. So we have to deal with it. We have to help him have the biggest mana pool ever. He’ll need more girls. Plus only Asakura being able to produce breast milk is really bad,” Fox shrugged.

Asakura frowned. “But I like it that way. It means he has to drink from the tap often.”

“Cut it out. We need to toughen up on solving that. Its a vulnerability if you are knocked out, separated from us, or out of commission,” Sunghee said to her.

“But Shun can rescue those things there too Sunghee. I think you are reluctant to admit that. There’s potential for good,” Asakura reminded her.

“Even if you say that way, we have to face the immediate real threat that we have a real problem on our hands right now. I mean we’ve had two groups of mercs try to kill us in three days. He has to extend his combat potential quickly. Not only do we need this but it can’t wait,” Fox said leering at her.

“Fine…” Sunghee said.

We’re looking over the pages on the screen one by one.

They are describing creatures and people for sale with real pictures next to them. I can scarcely believe it. All of them have the shiny silver collars that I’d seen before but that appeared translucent to all but the owner.

It started out like small animals though. Wizard familiars like rats, ravens, dogs, cats…and then suddenly it was getting even more exotic as things progressed. We saw white dogs that looked a little larger and smarter than others, which Fox said were elven dogs. Then there were strange two tailed versions of some of the same animals, and even panthers.

I see pixies on one page too, which shocked me. Some of them started to resemble on a small scale similarities to that fairy we’d rescued awhile back though judging from the looks of things comparing pixies and fairies was like comparing orcs to goblins.

Someone went to a lot of trouble to sell them. Some of them have clipped wings, while others just have the slave collar, and some also have chains around their waists instead of their arms or wrists. I can see skills and name headings on some of them but I’d have to have Sunghee read it to me to get anything. A lot of them must have been put up right after capture too because more than a few have massive bruises or black eyes, and that’s common with not just the pixie types either.

The girls looked horrified when we see the clipped wings on some of them. They even had a reaction like someone was hurting a baby or something while crying out.

Note to self; girls can’t resist cute fairies and pixie types. Put this on the same list as puppies and kittens and things girls can’t say no to. Be careful.

We had to hurriedly divert them away from wanting to rescue cute fairies and pixies. Though I think there were only one or two fairies, but many pixies for sale. Perhaps fairies were more powerful and harder to catch and still live through the experience. The price of fairies was like a small kingdom because they had such huge mana cores it seems.

On the next page the pixie types diversify, and I found out there are actual fairies which glow similar to what we’d seen that I’d traded to get my hand fixed. Then there are some that have camouflage skin, some with dragonfly wings, while a few with butterfly wings, though the dragonfly wing types seem much more common on all.

Last but not least, I was surprised that there is even a type of water pixie that Fox showed us that are almost as tall as a person at between 4 and 4 ½ feet tall with no wings which she calls a ‘nixie’, or water fairy. If she hadn’t told me that I would have thought they were strange beautiful types of elves with silver and silvery white hair and sea shells adorning their hair? Despite their short size they look sort of melancholy in the eyes probably from both their character and from being captured, and have cunning and intelligence there, with very adult looking bodies.

Water nixies are very cool and interesting. I wanted to learn more about them but there are other things to look at too. I had to turn away from the nixies after awhile. Their beauty was too hypnotic and made me want to have sex and we were trying to concentrate right now from the sex demon hunger trigger going off. I suspected the water nixies also had some kind of glamour spells in effect, which their owners would be more than happy to let them use if it meant a higher selling price.

As we turned the page away from the water nixies I realized that I’d been under the glamour effect of the nixies en masse, probably they were trying to take advantage of the magic network and had figured out a hidden way of spilling their glamour through the interface, even though it shouldn’t be able to happen.

Sneaky...very sneaky.

They were trying to exploit an escape!

That means they are powerful huh? But it might also make them willful and that could be a problem.

Then there were also mermaids and tritons, and other sea creature type demi-humans, some of which I had no idea what they were. Those had warnings on their pages. I guess it was something to the effect of must have a water storage tank?

And just like everything else, they are all in chains and enslaved with forlorn expressions but usually not beaten or bruised up. Some did but we couldn’t tell if it was because they were rebellious or because of being recently captured.

But none of these things were here by their free will. How were they turned up here anyway? Were they criminals or sold for taxes or something else? Maybe some of them were war trophies taken from far off lands?

“There must be like whole teams of people that go out and grab these creatures huh?” Asakura said.

“Well…yeah. I chose not to do it. But I recall running into recruitment campaigns for this stuff before,” Sunghee said.

Instantly the others are looking at her.

“I…I don’t want to t-talk about it right now,” Sunghee said before they could ask.

I should get the full details from Gyle.

Wait, I might not even be able to tell him about this. He would absolutely freak out!

And what I saw next confirmed, my hunch on this...

On the very next page; pages and pages of captive dwarves. The descriptions had warnings on them, that they were hard to control but that if you could control them they were useful in wealth creation. Come to think of it I’d seen pages of books being sold in the how to books for medieval pyramid schemes based on dwarf slave production rather than selling fake drugs or male enhancement drugs like on our home world.

Wealth creation? Hmm…?

The forlorn and spacey looking dwarves often look beaten up more than the other creatures. I’m guessing there would be discipline issues often with people like them that love being free and independent.

I’m not into dwarves either though. Yuck. Seriously they should totally keep the clothes on all of these creatures but they don’t. To be fair female dwarves are nice looking, but I guess some people are into the ugly ones too? And even ugly dwarf females get good prices because of their crafts and skills. Naturally creatures like dwarves have also much more willpower and independence thinking so the pictures of these tended to be more beat up and also have more binding ropes tied over their arms.

Goblins are being sold on there, as well as orcs, but they are probably cheap and not very good value considering how ugly and poor they look. Strangely a lot of the goblin and orc slaves appear accepting of their slavery, as if they were raised their whole life that way which was probably possible. I’m not interested in looking at orc slaves either, which we skip. But even as slaves they look cruel. The weird part was the goblin and orc types didn’t have bindings a lot of the time.

You could probably buy like ten goblin or orc slaves for every one dwarf, it’s that different in prices.

Fox said it was because they enjoy serving a cruel master and often accept slavery, if its for someone strong. They have fetishes of stuff like that.

Weird...

OK…too much information. Maybe Fox was just biased against them too. But she could be telling the truth, just in a way that’s brutally honest too.

Were-rats are one page also, but considering you risk getting bitten to capture one there are only three there. They carry several warnings regarding their infectious bites causing were-rat mutations. All boys and all ugly as sin with rotten looking sharp teeth, emaciated and yellowish skin with bloodshot eyes in a sort of way; these also have pictures of their morphed form and their human look, which isn’t much better than the other. Not to mention they have slumped over shoulders and backs, while also with the other sickly deformities manifesting all together.

“This is …so creepy. This is the creepiest thing we’ve seen yet apart from undead,” Sunghee said.

When we get to the next page we stop.

“The hell?!” I exclaimed. “Look.”

Slave crystals... or soul crystals for sale, just like I had in my demon inventory box. These are unused though. So if I bought them and installed them would I theoretically have no limit to how many party members I could have? So other people might have stuff like this too?

Suddenly I have a ton of questions right now. This has a ton of potential too.

And why do they look slightly different?

Right now I have to know! There’s something about these that make me intensely curious about the differences between them.

I thought I was unique. I still am unique, but I’m curious how far other summoners can use these crystals and to what extent.

They don’t look cheap though. I should come back to that part later.

The next screen has pages and pages and pages of humans both male and female for sale like the others. I immediately noticed when it transitioned from humans to high humans too. High humans look like better, cleaner, and more beautiful versions of humans with all of them looking almost model pretty. They look like nearly the quality of Sunghee, but I refuse to admit that they are on her level. Sunghee is always special to me and unmatched in many areas; plus it was true.

What is a high human anyway? Why are they different? I’ll have to ask Fox later about this.

We passed like a half a dozen pages of vampires. I wonder how that worked out? Wouldn’t a vampire slave be hard to control? And if they ever got their willpower back for even a few seconds I imagine they would probably take their frustrations out on their owner…

The vampires tend to all have common features in that they have the same light colored skin tone that Asakura has, and thick inky black colored hair seems to be common but not dominant in every single one of them, though non-black hair color is rare. And some of them just have a patch of their former hair color on one side of their head in the form of a stripe or two. Not only that but it’s almost like half of them are wearing makeup even though they really aren’t, probably through the vampire genetic make up to help them find prey through a hormone based glamour effect. And they look very pretty with doe eyes, ruby red thin delicate looking lips, and very young looking adult like builds that are just a bit above looking emaciated probably as a result of being undead.

Beautiful but deadly…will it be suicide to own one?

It also seems that you don’t really get turned as a vampire unless you are already beautiful because the master vampire wants playthings for entertainment more than work in many cases. And it’s very obvious that they would turn vast numbers of the opposite sex under them, rather than the same sex, which accounts why the vampire slaves for sale are mostly female outnumbering the male versions by almost four to one.

There’s even a page for dark elves. Dark elves are popular but are the priciest of all. They are even more pricy than nixies, fairies, and vampires by far.

I wonder why? Gyle said they were trouble. But didn’t get into it very much; maybe people paid so they can use that trouble to export it to others through theft or muder?

Then we run into another page full of all kinds of beastkin.

I didn’t know there were this many but there are. There are a lot of differences between them and other humans and not just ears I find out. Nearly all of them have tails, with deerkin having only a short waspy tail and antlers with slightly longer torsos than the others, but everyone else having long thin tails.

I also found out cat beastkin often have four boobs. Rabbit beastkin apparently always have four boobs.

It’s weird to see it, with the female rabbit beastkin totally splayed out in their pictures so you can see everything. Overall they look kind beautiful, but it takes getting used to seeing four boobs on something. Because they tend to start the top boob a bit higher than humans would and then the second row of boobs underneath it, they still have very thin washboard ab stomachs, probably because its putting almost all of their fat in one place.

“What? How come they have four boobs?” Asakura asked.

I wonder if she’s jealous? But to be honest if hers were any bigger I doubt she’d be able to walk.

“It’s not surprising. Real rabbits have eight to ten boob nipple things, whatever you call it. So an demi-human related to them would have traits similar to them,” Sunghee said while blushing.

“Rabbitkin tend to procreate more um…cough* successfully than other beastkin types. So at some point they evolved to have four boobs, often with two nipples per boob, so they’d have enough milk to feed all their young and to offset their high sex drives,” Fox said while blushing.

“Wow…I’d heard the rumors but I’d not actually seen on until now,” Sunghee said.

“Well most of them would be wearing clothes on the street unlike on a ‘magic eight ball ebay’ I think is the term you used?” Fox said to me.

“It’s kind of hot and sexy on the right build but not all of them,” Asakura said.

“Would you like me more with four boobs?” Asakura winked at me with a seductive voice.

“Trust me girl…you wouldn’t even be able to stand up if yours were any bigger,” Fox said.

They laughed. I didn’t think it was funny.

“No please don’t grow anymore. Your spine might snap if you do,” I said.

Sunghee smirked and chuckled.

“How come we didn’t notice that earlier with the two rabbitkin siblings in Leif’s group?” I asked them.

“Maybe the girl was flat chested?” Sunghee guessed.

“Ah that’s true. Quite a few of them are flat chested actually,” Sunghee noticed.

It’s hard to get the seductive image of four boobed rabbit beastkins out of my mind. And then the cat beastkins with four boobs are next to them too.

“So if this is right it looks like catbeastkin have a good chance for four boobs, but never get as many boobs in max potential as rabbitkin, I think,” Asakura noticed.

“That’s odd. A lot of people must like these because the ones with four boobs sell for like five times as much as the others,” Sunghee said with her nose scrunched up.

“No comment,” I said.

“Can you blame them? It gives a new level and meaning to paizuri,” Fox said while blushing.

“So foxkin don’t grow four boobs either?” Asakura joked while laughing.

Fox stiffened and didn’t answer.

We all look at Fox.

“You’re hiding something,” Sunghee sneered.

“Out with it,” Asakura said.

Fox is blushing, “Well…foxkin also about 10 percent of us grow a second row of boobs. But it doesn’t manifest at puberty. It happens like after we find our mate. And like I said it’s not everyone just a rare percentage.”

Fox is already rare for her kind. Does that mean she’s vulnerable to the mutation? I don’t voice this aloud.

Um, I’m not sure how to take this. It’s partly fascinating but also strange too.

Both of the girls’ mouths are hanging open like fish.

“So there’s a chance you could…” Asakura stared at her unable to finish.

Fox’s face is crimson. “Yeah, there’s a chance I could wake up one day and have four boobs with a new set starting to grow underneath.”

“Well…at least they all look beautiful. I mean none of the ones here on this slave crystal and summoner creature section looked ugly,” Sunghee shrugged.

“Well the ugly slaves probably get sent to the mines,” Asakura said.

Ugh…that reminded us this was pretty awful.

This is so awkward.

Funny enough all the cow beastkin girls are already bought up and sold out. So we don’t get a look at any of them. It’s obvious that people with boob fetishes targeted them quickly. And there’s no sign of when they will get more and it appears it’s been like that for awhile. Plus their price was enormously high for all those same reasons.

“At least there’s no foxkins,” I said to Fox for encouragement.

But I spoke to soon. As Sunghee flipped the next page she’s horrified.

“Oh my gosh! I know her!” she cries out pointing at the screen.

Oops…this wasn’t supposed to happen was it?

Turns out foxkins are pretty rare. There are only three of them here. And is it good luck or bad luck that Fox happens to know one of them? And they are even more expensive than pretty much everything except for fairies.

In order of costiliness from highest to lowest it goes; Dark Elves, Fairies, Foxkins, Cowgirls (aka Minotaur girls), Vampires, Water Nixies…and then there’s like a whole dozen or two species right after that.

Come to think of it we skimmed through a lot and there are a whole lot of other races we didn’t even get too.

I don’t like this. I don’t want to become a demon. I need to make good choices.

But it’s true that because of the pheromones all of these women are in love with me. Sunghee, Fox, Asakura, and Rina…

But without them I’d be like a sex demon version of a vampire and unable to control myself. There’s also the issue of being attacked all the time.

So my only choice is to get more women in my team? Does it really have to be like that?

I feel like I have a heavy heart.

“I know what you’re feeling Shun. This really is a better life for us all. You can’t imagine how wonderful it is to be together,” Fox said. She’s giving me a very empathetic look. It looks like the soul link ability sometimes lets her know when I’m feeling very deep grief and sadness like now.

“You have to know how wonderful this is Shun. You treat us all well. Plus the sex is wonderful! And it’s not just about sex. We have a life, a common goal to stay together and fight off our enemies to survive in this hell world. If my sisters saw us they’d be jealous. We are a family truly,” Fox said.

“Don’t feel bad about getting more women. You need many guards and protectors. Even if you never let them go this life we have is pretty wonderful. You keep forgetting that,” Fox added.

She wraps me in a hug, but has to avoid it getting too tight so she doesn’t injure me since she’s so big. And because she’s big and tall when she does hug me it puts me like looking right at her…yeah my head is level with her gorgeous swollen tits with the perfect distance for teasing her nipples with my teeth and lips, with my hands right at the level of her lower hip and short micro mini skirt by accident now as she’s hugging me.

Its also plainly obvious to me, but not to others that she can’t wear a normal person’s underwear. It’s kind of funny when she does because with her being nearly being over 7 and a half feet tall when she tries to hug me because of how long her legs are, but I still like it and it feels vivid and very lifelike when she’s close. It almost feels motherly because to her I must seem so small too. She keeps patting my back.

This is so hot. She’s so close and also pliable in that she’ll do whatever I say, and wanting my physical attention. It was also amazing that even though she was alarmed at seeing the other foxkin on that awful site, she still managed to stop and comfort me in distress. I can feel her hands patting my back.

Foxkin really are wonderful.

But this is super intimidating.

The magic network has anti-theft enchants and security protocols. There’s no way to hack it or free slaves that we can see. So if we try to make someone’s life better by having them join us, we can only help one of them, not all of them.

That makes me full of stress.

And this world is full of slavers to watch out for too. 

 

 

Author's Note!

Thanks for your support very much. I feel grateful to have so many nice friends and readers. I do also enjoy getting notes from you by email, etc. Also wanted to give you an update. I am going to try to do the third Elf Collector book before the end of this month! I am pretty excited about this. Yeah, it will be a lot of work still, and please consider the date not yet fixed in place. It could change. But this is why this week's chapter went up late; because I was really hoping to have an update on that with this chapter. 

Thank you again.

I hope next chapter release and the one after that to fine tine details on release schedules. (And fingers crossed to make it and make it good in time.)

12