Chapter 590 - 514: Ellis Lorin

Chapter 590: Chapter 514: Ellis Lorin

"Seven Silver Eagles. Not a coin less, respected Master Mage."

The stall owner.

An old Dwarf man, missing a front tooth, his fingernails caked with black grime.

He squinted, using a greasy thumb and forefinger to pick up a palm-sized, dark red ore from his stall. The stone, its surface marked with a natural honeycomb pattern, felt heavy in his hand as he weighed it.

His gaze swept over the hooded figure before him. The man’s deep gray traveling cloak had clearly been washed many times and its edges were frayed, but its style and cut still hinted at a more refined past.

The Dwarf’s eyes then lingered for a moment on the man’s brownish hair—meticulously combed despite the mine dust—and his overly clean fingers. He grinned, revealing yellowed, dark teeth.

"Just look at this pattern, feel this weight! It’s a top-quality ’Fire Pattern Stone,’ no doubt. Mix it into a forge, and the blades you make will burn with a searing heat! If I didn’t see you were an expert who knows his stuff, I’d have asked at least ten Silver Eagles from anyone else!"

The hooded figure, addressed as the Master Mage, furrowed his brow slightly. He tried to avoid looking at the filth under the Dwarf’s nails, instinctively straightening his back.

Even in this dim, filthy black market, filled with the stench of the mines, he maintained an almost instinctual, upright posture that was completely out of place.

"Fire Pattern Stone?"

The hooded figure’s voice held the faint, clear ring of youth, but he deliberately lowered it, trying to sound steady and experienced.

"The correct scientific name is ’Porous Hematite with accompanying Magma Crystallization.’ As for its ’searing heat,’ if you’re referring to the unstable residue of Fire Element Affinity, that originates more from the sulfide impurities in the accompanying mineral veins than from the ore’s primary composition."

"During high-temperature forging, such impurities can easily trigger elemental chaos, leading to a severe decrease in the finished product’s resilience, or even causing it to shatter."

He extended a well-maintained hand with distinct knuckles, reaching to take the ore for a closer look.

His fingertips paused for a near-imperceptible half-second just before touching the dusty and suspiciously greasy surface, then grasped it firmly.

"Look here..."

He used his other hand to point at a slightly darker spot on the side of the ore, his tone unconsciously taking on a lecturing quality.

"Excessive deposition, and obvious condensation pores. This indicates it was formed in an environment with drastic temperature changes, making its structural stability questionable."

"Besides... judging by the weathering on these edges, this was probably just picked off the surface of some abandoned slag heap, wasn’t it?"

He looked up. His pale, grayish-blue eyes held none of a merchant’s cunning, only the meticulous scrutiny of a scholar.

And along with it, a faint sense of detachment from the crudeness and ignorance before him—a feeling he himself hadn’t fully recognized.

The old Dwarf’s smile froze. He clearly hadn’t understood the long string of technical terms, but that last part—"surface of some abandoned slag heap"—had hit a little too close to home.

He gave an awkward laugh and rubbed his hands together.

"Ah, Master Mage, you have a... dangerously sharp eye!"

"But then again, for this quality and weight, it’s definitely a good find in the black market! Six! Six Silver Eagles and it’s yours. We’ll call it a friendly deal!"

The hooded figure pursed his lips.

He needed this ore. To be precise, he needed the unstable but nonetheless present Fire Element Affinity Traits within it to complete a half-finished Enchantment Base he was working on.

But he was even more aware of his own empty coin purse.

The few Silver Coins and handful of copper coins inside were all he could scrape together after rummaging through every corner of his satchel.

The "savings" he had taken with him when he’d left the academy in a fit of pique had long since been depleted over these past few months of aimless wandering.

"Four."

The hooded figure’s voice was dry as he spoke. He tried to sound firm, but the wavering end of his words betrayed a lack of confidence.

"Considering its actual value and potential risks, that price is more than fair."

"Four?"

The old Dwarf let out a squawk, as if he’d heard something utterly absurd, drawing the eyes of several nearby stall owners.

"My Master Mage, you must be joking... Four Silver Eagles won’t even buy you a decent ale at the ’Red Boots’ tavern in town! Five and a half! That’s the lowest I can go! Any lower and I won’t even make back what I paid for it!"

The hooded figure’s ears began to burn.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to haggle. It was just that such tactics went against the etiquette he’d been taught since childhood and the principle of "equivalent exchange" prized at the academy.

More importantly, a stubborn pride lingered deep inside him—a refusal to associate with people like this, a reluctance to sink to the level of haggling over every last coin.

But the harsh reality of his predicament was like a cold shackle, locked heavy around his ankle.

A flicker of conflict crossed his grayish-blue eyes, and his fingers subconsciously tightened around an inconspicuous patch on the inside of his sleeve.

It was a patch he had clumsily sewn on himself. The crooked stitches stood in stark contrast to the fine fabric of the original garment.

Just as he took a deep breath, preparing to either try persuading the Dwarf again or simply give up on the imperfect material...

A sudden, hurried set of footsteps, accompanied by several clearly intentional gazes, shot through a gap in the crowd from behind him, locking firmly onto his back.

Following them came a steady voice.

"I’ll pay for the ore for him."

The voice wasn’t loud, but its calm, unquestionable authority cut through the Dwarf’s incessant haggling.

"Ogre, go negotiate a reasonable price with this stall owner."

Before the words had even faded, an oppressive presence—a mix of leather, sweat, and the scent of the wild—descended upon the side of the stall.