78 The Bare Necessities
“What do we have here?”
Eren stamped his mana signature onto the imprint and spoke with a hint of curiosity in his tone. It took him some time but it got the job done. The imprint accepted his mana signature, and he could use his mana sense to access space storage.
Eren didn’t waste time and took out everything that the dead ranker had in his storage.
“Hmmm…”
Eren could sense that the dead ranker was close to breaking into Awakened rank. As such, he had plenty of resources on him.
“Potion vials, spell scrolls and spell books, isolation scrolls, a Rank 1 metal shield, a Rank 1 crossbow, and some more scrolls. Damn! This guy was loaded. At least loaded from my standards that is.”
Eren chuckled mirthlessly before checking the rest of the stuff the ranker had.
“And what is this? A coin?”
The dead ranker had a unique coin in his possession. It was not an official currency of the kingdom. It looked to be made of some sort of copper alloy with graphical images on either side along with intricate inscriptions around the rims of both faces.
The coin also radiated a faint mana pulse. As if it was more than just a normal coin.
Eren lifted the coin first among all the items the dead ranker was carrying. When he bent down to pick him up, a faint deathly stench hit him that wasn’t noticeable before. It made him almost vomit.
However, he controlled his gag reflexes and picked the coin up to observe it. One side of the coin displayed a big X along with some runic characters around it etched at the perimeter of the coin, which Eren couldn’t recognize.
The other side of the coin had a face of a fierce bear that had its mouth open. The image was also surrounded by various runic characters. However, Eren could recognize the characters that were just below the bear imprint. It seemed they had been etched relatively recently by someone else who wasn’t part of the coin manufacturing.
The language used to write these newly minted characters was the official language of Gilaahan. Hence, Eren managed to read them with some difficulty.
“The Bear’s Creed!”
Eren had puzzled expressions on his face as he read what was inscribed on the coin. He then quickly searched through his memories and concluded that he had never heard of this term before in the data given to him by his guild about Giaahan.
‘Hmm. I should keep this coin and research it until I can make sense of it.’
Eren then moved on to check the potion vials. There were at least 50 potion vials in the dead ranker’s possession. Some of them he could identify while others he couldn’t recognize.
Eren recognized that 30 of the vials were related to mana recovery, stamina recovery, strengthening enhancement, and agility enhancement. The other 20 vials looked to be of a special kind as they gave off a different mana pulse when he coated them in his mana.
Then there were spell scrolls and some spell books. They described how the mana points and mana pathways had to be activated in a specific sequence to cast spells.
The spell books contained detailed versions of the spells as well as variations of those spells. Ideally, spell books had more value than their scroll counterparts because of the additional information they contained.
Alas, this was an earth element ranker which Eren didn’t have any affinity for. Thus, all his spell scrolls and spell books contained earth-element spells.
Eren would have kept scrolls and books with him if they contained spells of the water, fire, or wind element. The great elements from which his hybrid element was derived were these. That way, they could have been more useful to him if and when he decides to start wielding those elements in the future.
Eren didn’t get discouraged nonetheless. This was free stuff he had got his hands on. Plus, it wasn’t like they couldn’t be useful to him at all. He immediately decided to sell all the spell books and spell scrolls and get new ones that are suitable for him from the black market.
Eren decided to keep all the stuff in the dead ranker’s possession and immediately took them all into his storage. He then turned his focus to other stuff that was scavenged by the Ironskin bear.
The beast had dipped his hands in more than honey, it seemed. Eren found a lot of rare resources, including elemental stones, rare herbs, and various chunks of rare metal ores.
Ores came in a variety of forms and types. Some ore chunks were like small nuggets that could be kept in the palm of one’s hand. The other chunks were akin to rocks with a diameter of half a meter.
Eren also found a sealed pouch in the junk. Out of curiosity he lifted it and opened it to find at least 70 mana quartz in it.
He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw there was at least six Rank 2 mana quartz inside the pouch. Each of this mana quartz was individually more valuable than the rest of Rank 1 mana quartz.
***
Mana quartz was the common currency among all mana-harnessing entities, among almost all Numbered Oases. They were crystallized forms of untainted mana that were devoid of any elemental influence, mana signature, or mana pulse– mana at its most basic form.
Mana quartz was used in a variety of ways, including artifact smithing, potion concoctions, array constructions, and more. As such, mana quartz was critical for all the mana-harnessing entities.
Just like mana-harnessing entities and mana itself, the mana quartz also had ranks starting from Rank 1. Therefore a Rank 2 mana quartz was more potent and more expensive than a Rank 1 mana quartz. The same would be the case between Rank 2 and Rank 3 mana quartz and so on.
The exchange rates between Rank 1 and 2 mana quartz varied according to the local market, kingdom, and demand. However, most people need to spend 100 Rank Mana Quartz to get their hands on a Rank 2 Mana Quartz.
***
“I should have killed that bear gently.”
Eren thought to himself and sighed. He then chuckled when he realized that his luck had taken a turn for the better. It was like the bear had gathered bare necessities for him in a nice package.