The Primal Hunter

The last times Jake went shopping, he had either gone to the vampire place because he also wanted to sell stuff or went with Villy to get new clothes. All other shopping was done by Meira after that for a few reasons. First of all, it saved Jake time. Secondly, Meira was incredibly insistent on doing it as she was almost desperate to prove herself useful – something that had gotten better recently – and lastly… Jake had no idea where the hell to go shopping in the first place. Like, he had some ideas, and he could just go where he went last time with Villy, but he didn’t feel confident. The problem was that the place he and the Viper went was fucking huge, and Jake really didn’t want to wander around for hours on end to try and find what he was looking for. Could he ask someone for directions? Probably, but that was also something Jake really didn’t wanna do. Asking strangers for directions sucked.

So dragging Meira along and buying some equipment for her was just killing two birds with one stone. The two of them left only about an hour later, with Meira taking the lead and first bringing him to a place primarily dealing with alchemical products.

The Order of the Malefic Viper didn’t have any official stores, and as far as Jake knew, there was no massive trade emporium run by them either. All the stores one could encounter were run by individuals or other merchant organizations that simply operated within the Order. All the Order really got out of it was a small tax added on each product sold and payment for the spaces they occupied. This system allowed individual merchants to use the Order to progress and for alchemists from the Order to easily earn money by selling their products to one of many merchants eager to work as their broker. A bit like how Sultan had helped Jake.

He would probably love it if I brought him to the Order and had him get a store here, Jake thought as he entered a large street from one of the many large gateway-obelisk-things spread throughout this part of the Order.

Jake had gone to the same general area as he had gone with Villy. This was pretty much the epicenter of trade for the Order and filled with shops catering to every kind of customer. To call it an entire city was no understatement as Jake reckoned it was larger than any metropolis on Earth had ever been. This city was split into several districts that were then split into grades, and each district was further split into smaller portions based on product type. Jake had gone to the D-grade part of the trade city.

“I have gone to this store many times when Teacher or Lord Thayne asked for me to get alchemy ingredients,” Meira explained as they walked on the street. Jake chose not to comment on her using what many would interpret as a less formal name for Duskleaf by just calling him Teacher compared to calling Jake Lord.

“I will be in your care then,” Jake answered with a smile. It was honestly nice having someone just lead you around when shopping, so he didn’t have to go scouring himself and probably end up getting scammed as Jake had no idea what the hell anything was worth. Not that he doubted he would still come out fine. With the exchange rate of Credits from the ninety-third universe and his already massive amount of funds, calling Jake loaded was an understatement.

While alchemists did tend to be on the wealthier side, they rarely got truly rich as they also spent a lot. Buying materials for experiments that led to no useable products was just a pure money-sink but a necessity to progress in your craft. Jake felt very fortunate he had yet to run into any issues in that department as he just gave Meira however many Credits she needed and didn’t think about it much.

It was a bit weird that Jake had worked in finance before the initiation, but after the system really didn’t care much about money. Perhaps that was a testament to how little he actually cared about his job and life before the system. Sim-Jake hadn’t cared about money either but rather preferred jobs that challenged him, indicating that perhaps this sort of apathy towards money was just natural.

To Jake, money was just a means to an end to allow him to do what he wanted. Maybe he would care more if he actually needed money, but as things were, it was an absolute non-issue, and something was also telling him that he could make a lot of money if he truly needed it. If he became absolutely desperate for funds, he could probably just sell the autograph of the Chosen to some fanatical A-grades or something.

Jake was thrown out of his wayward thoughts on the importance of money as they finally reached the store Meira had wanted them to go to. It was a large building that was beautifully decorated with a very gaudy-looking sign in front depicting a cauldron surrounded by mushrooms and plants with dark green mist coming out of the cauldron. It was even magically animated.

Besides the sign that made Jake question the artistic sense of the creator as the idiot had included mushrooms, the building looked nice. He followed Meira inside, where a female scalekin attendant wearing a suit-like uniform greeted them

“Welcome to the Cauldron’s Dream; how may I be of assistance?” the scalekin asked courteously.

Meira looked at Jake as he answered. “I am on the lookout for Endurance-increasing elixirs and, if possible, some ingredients containing ethtoxins or at least ones useful when creating soul poisons. I also just need some natural treasures related to soul magic in general.”

The ingredients were self-explanatory as Jake really wanted to get better at soul poisons due to their potency, but his desire to buy Endurance elixirs could be questioned. Primarily to ask why he didn’t just craft them himself, and the reason for that was pretty simple: he didn’t want to. He could; it would just take a lot of time, and making elixirs truthfully wasn’t that stimulating for him.

“How many elixirs are you in need of, and will they be for D-grades like yourself or ones of lower grades?” the attendant asked.

“Just for me, and I need enough to add approximately six hundred stat points total,” Jake answered.

“Certainly, I shall have an offer ready in a few minutes. If you would please follow me so we can look at our stock for the soul items. Please do not hesitate to make me know if anything catches your eye and you have further questions,” she said with a smile as she led Jake and Meira into another room. Meira had explained that it was pretty normal that no price was offered right away on products but that there would be a brief waiting period. Jake guessed this was due to variable pricing or maybe just to do some paperwork.

“Is there a specific type of material you are looking for or products of a certain grade?” the attendant asked once they entered a far larger room than before.

“For rarity, I will need uncommon rarity and above, but some rare and above would also be welcome,” Jake answered. “As for if I am looking for anything specific… not really.”

“Very well, let me see what I can do. If desired, I could also ask one of our resident alchemists to assist you in selecting ingredients?”

“No need,” Jake said. Not to be an ass, but he trusted his own senses more when assessing if he wanted ingredients than some resident alchemist.

The attendant simply nodded before motioning for Jake to follow her over to a large tome on a stand. She directed Jake to simply look through their inventory as the pages changed. One page of the open tome depicted an alchemical ingredient with a three-dimensional picture that even gave off a faint aura and scent, while the other page contained written information on the ingredient displayed. As he changed the page, he saw that natural treasure also appeared, and if he wished to, he could open an index. No matter how many pages he turned, the book didn’t change either, making it look like the tome had infinite pages.

Jake was very engrossed in this as he began looking through the different offerings and ended up spending nearly two hours looking before he was done and had decided on what he wanted. The attendant seemed perfectly patient and ended up just chatting with Meira.

The elixirs also came rather quickly, and it was only after Jake was done browsing he got to see them.

[Patientia Elixir (Common)] - An elixir created from a mix of common ingredients, along with a few uncommon ones along with a Beastcore of unknown origin. Allows any who drinks this elixir to receive some of the innate power of the materials, enhancing one’s Endurance. +5 Endurance upon consumption.Requirements: D-rank or higher.

It was just as Jake had expected when he was shown the one hundred and twenty bottles. All of them were exactly the same and clearly mass-produced to sell. All Jake saw when he looked at them was saved time and proceeded to make it clear he would buy all one hundred and twenty.

For soul items, he ended up buying way, way more. Way more than he had expected to. The reason why he even wanted these items was that he had a few goals in mind. Firstly he needed some of it for the rituals with Duskleaf, and secondly, he wanted to work on making a certain kind of poison, and for that, he felt like he needed as many different kinds of ingredients as possible. So, yeah, he had chosen to get a lot of ingredients – around a hundred different kinds – with plenty of stock for each of them. Seventy-one were of uncommon rarity, eighteen rare, six epic, and one ancient rarity natural treasure. The ancient rarity one and most of the epic rarity ones were the only items he only got one of each. He had all of this written down on a magical sheet of paper that the big book of browsing “printed” out.

The attendant stared at the final list when Jake showed it to her for quite a bit. She looked up at Jake with puzzlement. “Sir, did you make a mistake? I count over four thousand individual items here…”

“Sounds about right,” Jake nodded.

She looked at him with judging eyes and stared him up and down as if to assess him. “I mean no insult, but before we proceed, I have to be certain you possess the funds for a transaction of this size. The final tally for all these items is… over one-point-two billion Credits.”

Despite saying the number, the attendant seemed shocked, and Jake was also somewhat surprised. Cheaper than he had thought.

One had to remember that Jake left Earth with about four billion Credits after the Treasure Hunt auction. But that was Credits from his universe. After exchanging them for Credits used in other universes – all of which had the exact same going rate – he had, in actuality, about four hundred billion with the 1-100 exchange rate. So to spend a billion or two on alchemical stuff wasn’t that big of a deal to him. What else would he spend money on anyway?

“Yep, that seems fine,” Jake just said. “Does that include the elixirs?”

“Yes…” the attendant said, taken aback. “Is sir certain?”

“Yeah,” Jake once more confirmed as he proceeded to use the system-feature-thing to show that he indeed had the Credits available.

The attendant did a one-eighty in attitude as all her doubt disappeared, and she displayed a massive grin. “In that case, allow me to process you, sir.”

With the attendant smiling giddily, Jake completed the purchase and got all of the stuff he had wanted. It was delivered in a special spatial storage bag which Jake quickly emptied to put it all in his own inventory as the herbs would do better in there.

Jake and Meira left after that, and Jake failed to hold back a grin as she saw the attendant dancing with joy inside the building behind them. Never had it been more obvious that the store had a commission policy.

“That is all I really came shopping for,” Jake said to Meira on the street outside. “Now it is all you. We need to get you a full set, excluding the spatial necklace, right?”

“Lord Thayne, is it really necessary?” Meira asked nervously.

“Meira, I just spent over a billion Credits while you waited patiently for me to finish. You have worked for me for quite a while now, and I have yet to really give you anything, haven’t I? So don’t hold back. Even if it is not for fighting, then good equipment can help you with everyday tasks,” Jake said.

“Okay…” Meira relented, having learned that there was no real arguing with Jake once he had made up his mind. Also… while it was faint, Jake did feel a bit of happiness in her voice.

The two of them headed back towards the gateway obelisk they had teleported into the trade city and walked through a gateway leading to another part of the district. After waiting for a few minutes for the queue to clear, that is. Despite having many obelisks and each obelisk having four gateways operating at once, there were still people waiting simply due to the number of people that came through. To say that the city was buzzing with activity was an understatement and Jake understood why shops absolutely loved being placed there. Even while inside the alchemy shop, he had seen several people come and leave.

After passing through the gateway, they found themselves in a new area and headed towards some shops Jake and Meira had picked out before coming. Meira had asked Izil for advice, and Jake had asked Reika to ask Irin. He had considered contacting Irin personally but had stopped himself as he felt like that would lead to an entire conversation, and he really had just wanted to go shopping.

Anyway, they headed to the shops Irin had suggested first as Jake reckoned she had to know the good spots. Out of everyone Jake knew who was around his own level of power, Irin was the one who had been in the Order for the longest, after all.

Reika had given Jake a list of three from Irin, and it did not take long to find the first one. It was a large red building and was actively having many customers going in and out. Most of them were women, but some had men accompany them.

A women’s clothes shop, Jake quickly concluded as he headed inside with Meira. Once inside, Jake saw that it truly was a high-tier establishment and an incubus quickly walked up to greet them when they entered.

“Welcome! You two look like new faces. First time coming here?” the incubus asked in a friendly tone.

“It is,” Jake confirmed.

“Were you referred by someone?” he asked, still friendly.

“A succubus friend named Irinixis mentioned the place,” Jake said truthfully. Not a referral, but he had learned about it from her, and Jake didn’t think she would recommend a place for Reika to visit if there was no way to get in. Oh yeah, that is what Reika had done – asked Irin where she could go if she went with Jake to get some equipment.

“Ah, I see!” the incubus laughed. “Come on in then! What are you two looking for? Something for the gentleman or the lady?”

“Equipment for her,” Jake said as he motioned towards Meira. Meira looked pretty nervous and looked around at the high-class entrance hall. Jake himself also scouted the rest of the building with his sphere but found that everything on the second floor was just a distorted mess while everything on the first floor was just a bar of some kind, a few meeting rooms, and overall nothing interesting. The reason why it was distorted was due to the liberal use of space magic to expand all the rooms and save on real estate. It had been the same thing at the alchemy shop.

“I understand,” the incubus said as he looked Meira over before glancing at Jake again. “Just follow me, and I am sure we can find just the right things.”