Close Combat Mage

Chapter 77 – Visiting the Bazaar

At this point, Suo Jia had finally managed to securely set up his defensive system. With this Glacial Armor, any Wind Blades, Fireballs, or Rock Thorns could now be completely ignored. Aside from high-ranked magics and certain destruction spells, it would be very difficult for ordinary magics to injure Suo Jia through his Glacial Armor.

Although he had already learned how to use the Glacial Armor, Suo Jia did not dare slack off. He only had four months left to learn the Revolving Frozen Gas before the competition officially began. Revolving Frozen Gas was the most basic AOE spell of the water element, and the area of effect directly correlated with one’s magic power.

Revolving Frozen Gas centered around the caster, releasing spirals of cold gas towards the enemy. This gas would then turn into a vortex, trapping those people inside and inducing frostbite all over the enemies’ bodies. Not only did it have all of these effects, it also had a great slowing effect. If mastered, this spell could even completely freeze opponents solid!

However, to activate the Revolving Frozen Gas, one had to have extremely strong magical power. Otherwise, such a large scale spell could not be cast.

Two months passed in a flash. Sou Jia had still not managed to activate the Revolving Frozen Gas spell, even with the aid of the Faerie’s Soul and Atlantis’ Wisdom. Suo Jia knew, however, that he had almost grasped his goal. It would only take another month at most to reach his objective. As for the first-ranked magics, Suo Jia had already completely mastered them.

But more importantly, after two months of training, the Ice and Snow Pact had finally begun to show signs of new progress. The current Ice Sphere was already quite difficult to break; after colliding with the wall, it could easily be seen that the wall would sport a clear depression, and the Ice Sphere would still be completely intact afterwards. Both its strength and hardness levels had been increased by quite a lot.

There were still 2 months left until the competition. The fire wind warriors that had previously gone to collect the Snow Lotus fruits would return soon. Although their trip was longer this time, the rewards they earned were plentiful. Suo Jia knew that he could now select and buy sets of equipment for each fire wind warrior.

While he was choosing equipment for the fire wind warriors, Suo Jia also needed to find some beneficial magic equipment that could increase the strength of his magic. The competition was starting in 2 months and for the sake of victory, temporarily relying on items was unavoidable.

The White Villa’s rank and class increased during the past two months, and its income also increased wildly. The profits from the goods that the fire wind warriors brought were already worth tens of millions. Adding onto his own income from services, Suo Jia now had a wealth of 47,000,000 gold.

With money, he naturally gained confidence. He would no longer suffer experiences like when the store boss had yelled at him. Thus, early in the morning, he and the Sixth Sister once again left the White Villa to go to the market to browse around.

After learning her lesson last time, Sixth Sister had deeply felt that she had neglected her duties. Every day for the past few months, she had been circling the city, inspecting and improving her knowledge about all the businesses in Holy Light City. Now, although she did not dare say that she knew Holy Light City like the back of her hand, she was much more able than she had been 2 months ago. At the very least, she clearly knew the most appropriate places for various activities.

After hearing that the Young Master wanted to purchase some warrior equipment as well as mage equipment for improving attacks, Sixth Sister did not bring him to the magic shop they had visited last time. Instead, she brought him to Holy Light’s open bazaar.

The open bazaar was a public business district that anyone could arrange vendor’s booths in. As long as one paid a certain fee, he/she could open vendor’s booths here. Of course….the better the location, the more expensive its prices were.

The open bazaar occupied quite a large area. Although the exact dimensions were unknown, the boundaries stretched beyond what the eyes could see, and the space took up an entire four streets. The level of bustling liveliness it had was beyond imagination.

The open bazaar was split into 4 main sections: every-day use items, commerce merchandise, equipment, and seasonal clothing. Each section only allowed its respective type of items to be sold there and different businesses were not allowed to overstep their section’s boundaries.

This time, Suo Jia’s main objective was obviously the equipment section. With Sixth Sister in the lead, the two of them entered the bustling district. Seeing the surrounding vendor’s booths that had been set up, Suo Jia immediately grew excited. The entire area was full of weapons and equipment. There were thousands of them, far surpassing the few the magic shop had had. Now he had much more choices.

With Sixth Sister accompanying him, Suo Jia leisurely walked around the vendor’s booths. All types of weapons, armors, magic jewelry, and even some bizarre items were packed into each of the booths. Although there was no lack of quality goods, majority of them were normal items. What Suo Jia wanted to do was to choose the best weapons and equipment that he himself wanted from the seas of other weapons and equipment displayed.

Suo Jia did not want to buy any weapons. To him, the fire wind warriors’ attack power and speed were already high enough. Even if these traits hadn’t yet reached appropriate levels, they were not as important as defense was. Both wind elements and fire elements had weaker defenses, and could not be compared to water elements’ or earth elements’. Thus, the first thing that had to be strengthened definitely had to be defense.

Unknowingly, time flew by. They looked around for the entire morning, and after buying a simple street snack to eat around noon, the two continued to stroll through the bazaar. However, despite their efforts, they were still unable to find the things they wanted.

These weapons and equipment were mostly for girls, and while defense was one thing, being beautiful was another. Suo Jia didn’t have the heart to make such young and beautiful girls dress up like men every day. Even if they had to hide their identities, it was still more reasonable to find some gender-neutral armors.

In the blink of an eye, the entire day had passed. At this point, Suo Jia’s back and legs were beyond sore from all this walking, and yet he still hadn’t found what he was looking for. Just as Suo Jia was thinking that the entire day had been a waste, a large ring of people attracted his attention.

Normally, if a vendor’s booth had many people gathered around it, that meant the booth definitely had attractive items. Such items were also normally good quality items. With this in mind, Suo Jia pulled Sixth Sister and practically flew over to the booth.

After squeezing through the crowd with some difficulty, they saw a middle-aged man wearing a long red robe. He was currently sitting there with his eyes closed, there were only a few items on display. However, one of them had managed to attract Suo Jia’s attention!

The item was a blue glove made of an unknown material. Not a single seam from its assembly could be seen from the glove’s outer appearances alone. It seemed like the glove had been naturally created; it was both mysterious and strange, making Suo Jia unable to tear his gaze away from it.

However, what attracted everyone’s attention was not this glove, but the flaming red greatsword next to the glove. It had a strange and extreme structure, and it gave off a very powerful feeling, especially the fiery red crystals embedded on the blade’s sheath. It was obviously a mighty treasure.

Just as Suo Jia’s attention was preoccupied by the precious blade, a fire warrior amongst the surrounding bystanders loudly shouted, “Hey! Vendor, I want this sword. How much is it?”

Hearing the other party’s words, the vendor didn’t even bother to open his eyes, and coldly said, “I’ve said this already. I’m only willing to exchange this sword, not sell it. My staff was destroyed while I was adventuring, so I need a staff. Unless you have a high quality staff, I will not sell this sword, no matter how much money you offer!”

“This…” Hearing the vendor’s words, the fellow that had shouted out stuttered in reply. From the mage in the red robe’s appearance, he seemed to be a magic lecturer. It would be difficult to find someone with a staff that would satisfy his expectations.

Among the 4 elements, the fire element magic had the strongest power, so fire mages had extremely high statuses. Fire staffs were beyond priceless, and it was extremely rare to see a good staff. Thus, whenever one appeared, everyone would fight over it like crazy.

Seeing everyone fall silent, the vendor sighed and said, “Everyone says Holy Light City is flourishing, however in my opinion, it’s only average. Magic shops can’t even buy decent staffs, and they can’t be found in auctions either. It seems that this bazaar has absolutely no hope.”

While speaking, the fire mage loudly declared, “Tomorrow morning, my group is just about to leave the city, and I desperately need a staff. Otherwise, there’s no way I can continue adventuring. Therefore….I’ll now greatly cut the price. As long as anyone has a Precious-ranked fire staff, I’m willing to exchange all the items in this booth for it!”

“Ya!” Hearing the vendor’s words, everyone could not help but exclaim in shock. This fire elemental sword was an ideal-rank; just the price of it alone could not be any lower than a fire elemental staff of the same rank. This was also why everyone had gathered around it; fire elemental warriors and mages were equally valiant, and fire weapons and staffs were equally precious.

Hearing the vendor’s words, Suo Jia finally returned to his senses. Suo Jia’s eyes lit up as the vendor declared his new decision. It just so happened that he had the Ideal-ranked Vulcan’s Roar, which was 2 ranks higher than the vendor’s requirement. With this, he would finally be able to get the blue glove!