The peculiar spellbook

As night drew near, the four returned to the inn where Kana and the other two had been staying. Their little four-bedroom suite finally had another person to split the rent... er, no, it was finally fully occupied.

Kana patted Dean on the shoulder and said cheerfully, "Kid, you're with us from now on. I'm the boss around here."

Dean rolled his eyes and carried his few belongings into his room. To his surprise, it was quite spacious—practically a great big chamber—with a street just outside the window.

The room was rather bare, though, with hardly anything in it. A bed, a wardrobe, a shoe cabinet, and that was it...

Dean scratched his head. Wasn't this a little too sparse? Before he could dwell on it, Kana kicked his door open and hollered, "Get out here! What's so interesting about your room? You can sort it out before bed."

Kana seemed not to have realized they were back at the inn. Couldn't she knock properly? What if he had been changing or something... all right, Dean didn't usually change clothes for no reason.

Four things lay on the table in the sitting room: a very, very thick book, a Flame-Red Longbow, a garment with a metallic sheen, and a bottle of potion.

These were precisely the rewards Guildmaster Rukta had given Kana's party. Those four treasures alone were worth at least a thousand gold coins. How could this bunch of penniless adventurers possibly have afforded them?

Even the Adventurers' Guild had bled heavily over this. There was no helping it—these youngsters had people backing them. Dean's mentor, Sanderson, certainly had to be shown due respect. The same went without saying for Lamore's mentor, the only level-three priest in Blue Town and a close friend of Rukta's.

As for Kana, this hot-tempered young lady was far from ordinary. Even Guildmaster Rukta himself had no idea just how fearsome her background was. In any case, she was not someone a small-town Adventurers' Guild master could afford to offend.

Yanxi had no particular backing, but could they shortchange her? What a joke. Not only would Kana and the other two refuse to stand for it, but if word got out that Guild rewards varied according to one's connections, what would become of the Guild's reputation?

The potion could help a level-one apprentice form a Magic Vortex. Drinking it would increase the chance of success by thirty percent. Lamore desperately needed it. A year ago, he had failed once to form a Magic Vortex, and only afterward had he joined Kana's party.

For Lamore, nothing could have come at a better time than this bottle of potion. He had been stuck at this stage for three years.

This time, he was confident he could become a level-two priest.

Of course, the potion was far from cheap. At a hefty three hundred gold coins, it was beyond most people's means. Even an ordinary level-two adventurer might not be able to scrape together the enormous sum of a hundred gold coins.

The garment with the metallic sheen was a piece of inner armor with formidable protective capabilities. Most importantly, it would grow sturdier as its owner's battle aura or magic grew stronger, until it reached its limit.

The inner armor could also adjust automatically to its owner's build, meaning even someone as petite as Yanxi could wear it with a perfect fit.

This Magic Inner Armor belonged to Yanxi. As the party's tank, having her equipped with it would give her companions greater peace of mind. As for its upper limit, none of them knew. They would only find out when Yanxi's battle aura burst through it.

The inner armor was worth around five hundred gold coins.

That was its price in Blue Town, of course. In a larger town or city, it would fetch more. Inner armor whose limit could accommodate at least a level-three adventurer was certainly worth more than five hundred gold coins.

The Flame-Red Longbow was a little more slender than Kana's old bow, but also somewhat heavier. She would need time to get used to it before she could wield it as freely as her previous one.

More notably, the longbow could be infused with magic or battle aura. It had no physical bowstring; its string was formed from mana.

Thus, the bow's strength was intimately tied to its owner. It was worth noting that even Guildmaster Rukta could not draw out its full, true power.

The bow was also worth five hundred gold coins. Of course, high-level items often sold for much less in Blue Town than elsewhere. After all, the people here were not particularly high-level. Price them too high, and they would never sell.

As for taking them to another town to sell? Guild property could only be transferred to another Guild branch for sale, and there would be fees as well. Those were the rules of the Adventurers' Guild headquarters. Rukta certainly had no desire to hand them over to another branch to sell—not even if they sat in storage until they grew moldy and rusty.

So these youngsters were very lucky to receive such powerful equipment. What the four of them did not know, however, was that Sanderson and Silianth had repeatedly whispered in Guildmaster Rukta's ear: rather than let these things languish in obscurity, why not give them to the youngsters as rewards?

In the end, Guildmaster Rukta had been unable to withstand their persistence and had offered the items as prizes. Right now, he was at home drowning himself in drink, trying to forget the treasures he had given away with his own hands.

"Dean, didn't you get a bit... shortchanged with this book?" Kana asked, sounding rather odd. Dean's book showed absolutely no response. It could not be opened by hand, yet it did not appear to have a lock.

"I don't know either. My mentor told me to study it carefully. He said it was something good." Dean scratched the back of his head, utterly baffled.

"Have you tried battle aura... oh, no, magic?" Yanxi asked curiously.

"It's no use. Look!" Dean fed some mana into it, but it was just like releasing it into the air. The mana entered from one side of the book and passed straight out the other, unable to enter the book itself.

"There must be some special method. My mentor said this spellbook is the most precious treasure among the Mages of Blue Town," Lamore said, equally curious.

"Besides, back at the Guild, some level-two Mages looked really envious when they saw it," Lamore continued. "So I asked them what kind of spellbook it was, but they didn't really know either. All they knew was that apparently only its owner can use it, and that its functions seem incredibly powerful."

"Uh... does that mean this book already has an owner? Surely I can't be that unlucky!" Dean's face darkened at once.

"What nonsense are you thinking? If it already had an owner, why would they give it to you as a prize? Besides, how could your mentor fail to notice?" Kana pressed a hand to her forehead. How had he even come up with that?

"You'd better put your mind to figuring it out. That spellbook is worth a fortune—at least this much." Lamore held up both hands and waggled all ten fingers. Then he clutched his little bottle like a treasure and returned to his room.

"We've seen everything, so go do whatever you need to do. Let's clear out." Hugging her longbow, Kana returned to her room as well.

Yanxi said good night too, looking quietly delighted as she carried the inner armor back to her room.

Left alone, Dean stared helplessly at the spellbook, which was nearly as large as his own torso. How was he supposed to unlock this thing?

(End of chapter)