City Of Sin

61-70

Taking Flight

Richard did not know what the market prices were like outside of the Deepblue, and even if he did he was not interested. At this moment he was simply overwhelmed with excitement. Although these few tens of thousands were completely insignificant in comparison to the cost of the resources he had used, this was the first sum of money which he had earned through his own effort!

Richard only indulged in the pleasure of receiving this additional income for a few more minutes before immersing himself back into endless work and learning. Blackgold, on the other hand, had put on his high-power magnifying glasses made of refined gold and thrown himself onto his work desk. Completely oblivious to the passing of time, he studied the rune that Richard had delivered meticulously, line by line.

Only when the room had turned completely dim did Blackgold suddenly realize that the sky was already dark. He then promptly proceeded to light seven to eight magical lamps which filled the room with light as bright as day before he jumped back onto his working desk, continuing to inspect the rune which he had only spent thirty thousand on.

Before he knew it, it was already daybreak. He let out a long breath and stood up, his growling stomach reminding him that he hadn’t eaten for the past day and night. However, Blackgold couldn’t care less as he searched wildly to retrieve a magic briefcase of the best quality. Carefully placing the rune inside, he left the Deepblue in a hurry.

At the end of the month, when Richard scanned through his bill as per usual, to his surprise he found an additional income entry of a huge amount of 800,000 gold titled ‘Dividend from Auction of Rune’. This was on top of the 30,000 gold he’d received from selling the rune to Blackgold, as well as the gold from Sharon’s Delight, which in total, accumulated to an astounding amount.

Richard tried hard to recall. He had only handed an Elementary Agility rune to Blackgold, and from his knowledge such a rune couldn’t exceed 200,000 in price no matter what. Even if he’d exceeded the maximum 50% boost, it would still only be 200,000 coins. So how was it auctioned at a price so high such that even the dividend was worth eight hundred thousand coins? Moreover, this sum of income did not come from Sharon, but Blackgold. From Richard’s understanding of the grey dwarf, he would never give all of his auction earnings to Richard. In fact, he would not give half or even a quarter of the earnings to him! This was merely Elementary Agility!

Yet, as Richard soon encountered a new tricky problem in his research on rune design, this matter was quickly tossed to the back of his mind. It was the grey dwarf who, on the other hand, took much greater interest in him. He checked up on Richard from time to time, often to inquire kindly whether he needed anything. The abnormality was evident in his behaviour, but Richard’s attention was fully devoted to his problem which seemed almost impossible to overcome. As a result, it completely did not occur to him what the grey dwarf’s behaviour could mean.

Richard still did not know that his copy of Elementary Agility had been auctioned at the Sacred Alliance for a sky-high price of 5 million! This was because it was unimaginably versatile in its adaptability, and had a boost range exceeding 35% of a standard rune of its type, allowing it to be attached onto many fourth-grade and even third-grade rune slots to combine into a compound rune. Such a compound rune would take up less space on a rune knight’s body.

The more adaptable a rune, the less taxing it was on the capacity of a knight’s rune slots. No rune could afford to exceed the maximum capacity, and a certain margin had to be set aside when crafting one. Thus, there was always a problem of wasting a part of the rune slots even with a custom-made rune. Additionally, the higher the grade of the rune, the more of the capacity wasted. The sheer amount of wasted capacity from a few grade 4 runes would be enough to accommodate an elementary rune. The original conception of a compound rune was to maximize the usage of a rune knight’s slots, in turn maximising their effectiveness in battle.