As the mana concentrated, Necro sat down on the floor as the scenery around her changed completely. It was very nauseating.
Ace kept watching in amusement as she could see the mana concentrate on Necro's eyes, almost like a film. Not only was this a new magic, it was no-attribute magic.
The greatest difference between no-attribute and normal magic, was that no-attribute had no clearly distinguishable Magic Circle. The whole magic formation was the Magic itself. Thus, developing no attribute magic was deemed impossible by even the Holy Church. Only once a magician dared to defy that and study new kinds of magic, but the world had not heard of him for decades now, except for a Crusade more than 10 years ago, that ended with his death. His very name was erased by the church and deemed ungodly.
Necro opened her eyes in something akin to a box. Its walls were plain and brown, like paper, but completely flat and spotless. The room was about the size of a small servant's room, with a little over 6 sqmts and an average height ceiling a little under 7ft tall. It was a perfect cube.
In it, there were piles of items, some under others, and some protected by strange invisible barriers, separating them from others.
'Oh... So that's how food and meat is stored...'
In essence, every single item was surrounded by a kind of magical coating. It was almost as if the items were not there, but only there in essence.
'Makes sense that you can't store living things... I don't think anything can move in here...'
There was also no source of light whatsoever, a bluish glint illuminated the place, but it came from necro's face and ring. Probably magic was allowing her to see the items despite there being no light.
A couple of dozens of coins were laid to the side, a few barrels full of water, beer, wine and other foodstuffs.
"SALT!"
Necro yelled, scaring Ace.
"The heck! Necro?" Ace got kicked out of her trance-like state by her scream, and called Necro back, shaking her shoulder, inadvertently causing her to cancel the magic.
*bleeerg*
Necro vomited from the extreme nausea of having the whole world around her change at once.
"Why the fuck did you do that?!" Necro yelled at ace.
"OI! What's going on he-... Necro? Are you ok?" Bid came back as he heard Necro's scream and thought they were fighting.
But the image of her sat on the floor and all the stuff in front of her made him think she was the victim of something...
"Ace what did you do?"
"Nothing! She yelled salt and I-"
"You fucking forced me to cancel a vision magic! Do you understand how screwed up that is? I could've become blind!" Necro was furious, and yelling at Ace, who just cowered in fear and shame.
"I... I didn't know..." To be fair, she did know you are not supposed to pull a magician out of a Vision Magic, but she had no idea what magic Necro was using. She had a guess but got too afraid when she yelled and yanked on her instinctively.
"Humpf! Never do it again!" Necro found the sulking Ace cute, but was too angry to give her much attention. Her head was still spinning.
"Why did you scream salt though?" But that didn't stop Bid's curiosity.
"See... I found some salt in my Storage Ring."
"REALLY!? That's awesome! It's been almost a month since we last ate food with salt! Can you spare me some for tonight?"
"Sure... But why don't you pack some?"
"Are you crazy? We are only B-Tier. There's no way in hell we can afford salt. We only ate it once in a fancy place to commemorate Ace's promotion."
'Is it that rare?' Necro was very surprised at Bid's answer. Her family was not so rich, but she always ate food with salt. She never imagined living without it.
"Sure... Take some..." Necro pulled out a small soup bowl full of salt, giving it to Bid.
"WHA-! THIS MUCH?! Are you sure?! We can live almost half a year off of selling this!"
"Half a year?" Necro tilted her head to the side, completely reactionless.
"YES! There are tens of gold coins worth of salt in here! This is pure clean salt! It's worth a fortune." Bid was lowkey crying right now. Grabbing onto the salt bowl.
"But weren't you from a poor place that had to send you to the forest?!"
"Hehe..." Necro scratched the back of her head.
"Don't pry too deep. She's probably the same as me." Ace's words both saved her and made her confused. The unweighted smile vanished from Bid's face, changing into something grim and depressing.
"I see... Sorry to ask too much... I'll go set up the fire pit." He left with a depressed look on his face, but his eyes still glittering as he stared at the bowl of salt.
"And you Necro, be careful. This world is completely different from that of royalty. Even things you took for granted can be riches. Never forget that."
Necro realized what she had done out of ignorance. She had never been a normal person, both as Solaire and now as Necronomia, she was always a person akin to royalty. And the world was not as forgiving as one expects.
"I'll be careful from now on... Thank you... But does this mean you are also royalty?" Necro's curiosity and the weight of the previous words managed to make her forget her anger for a second, and ask Ace about what she said.
"Don't pry into my life." With a dry answer, Ace turned her back on her and left towards the camp spot, leaving Necro pouting at her back, cursing inside her head.
Ace however, was holding her tears while she tried to escape from a person who made her recall her past as a royal-blood.
Ok salt, now they aren't that expensive, if chemistry really applies to that world, then you can find salt along the rocky beaches for free.
in 14th century Europe the price of salt was around 400 to 500x the current price.
The gabelle—a hated French salt tax—was enacted in 1286 and maintained until 1790. Because of the gabelles, common salt was of such a high value that it caused mass population shifts and exodus, attracted invaders and caused wars.
@DarkGodEM So, you're saying the country has a high tax on salt? That would make sense, but still, since they have adventurers and stuff, I would imagine importing salt still wouldn't be that expensive. I mean they are adventurers, going around, collecting valuable good, and selling them is one of their main jobs.
@EndFrost The whole of europe had. Salt was a means of paying salaries in many places still until the fall of the sacred roman empire in 1453, a mere 25 years before this novel takes place.
@DarkGodEM Yeah, but you're forgetting that this world of yours has magic. Stuff like finding mineral deposits is significantly easier, along with figuring out good ways of extracting them.
@Blanklines this story is still loosely based on actual history though, and considering there's a religion that has been proven to have political motives, I'd bet that if a method like that exists using magic, the church has made it very hard for others to use such a method in order to keep the power they have, increasing the price of minerals to around the value they held in actual history.