Chapter 142: Finding The Market

Meanwhile, Luke also arrived at the carnival.

People everywhere, lights blazing bright, bustling with liveliness. But he didn’t dare let his guard down.

Seraphina helped on her own initiative, casting an illusion on him so he wouldn’t be easily recognized. Since she is a Mythic-grade Summon, the illusion was also Mythic-tier, so this means there’s nothing that could see through it.

After casting the spell, Seraphina herself was the one who ended up captivated by the carnival.

She looked this way and that, and eventually dug out a bear mascot costume, pestering Luke to let her wear it.

Luke thought it over and decided it wasn’t a bad idea — walking around with a golden beauty was eye-catching enough on its own. With the bear costume on, only her face showing, that would do just fine.

"Listen, Seraphina," Luke said. "Your Path cultivation can’t stop. This place has plenty of people, plenty of good deeds to be done, it’s a perfect chance for you to cultivate. But remember — keep a low profile, and don’t cause trouble."

Seraphina obediently bowed, then dashed off in a flash, leaving Luke standing there like a worried old father.

But he remembered she was: "Seraph, the Angel of All Spirits with the highest potential among them, the Light of Order, the Will of Civilization, the Shield of Creation."

...Well, fine then.

Luke turned around to find the carnival’s marketplace. It didn’t take long to find it.

Blue canopy tents stood one after another, arranged neatly like houses. There wasn’t much festive atmosphere over here, as it felt more like a place for doing business.

However, after standing for a while and thinking about this, Luke looked to the right, where there was the area where they forged and sold tools, weapons, accessories, armor, and everything related to Beast combat.

Surprisingly, he walked in that direction.

If he wanted to know how much the Dimensional Items he had were really worth, should he ask someone who deals with the raw materials directly or someone who merely sells it to who would then use it?

Retailers wanted to profit off the markup, and you wouldn’t get many honest words out of them. Someone like a blacksmith looked at the material itself, the foundation of the thing, and gave you the real price.

The tent’s canopy had a sign reading "Ember Knights Guild."

Luke lifted the flap and walked to the nearest blacksmith. A middle-aged man, his beard thick as a forest. He looked Luke up and down, his gaze on that gaudy Molten Triceratops mask, deciding this must be an eccentric summoner.

"What’ll it be?" the blacksmith asked. "Beast Armor? That’s the hottest thing selling right now. Just tell me what your Beast is, I’ll fit you out a set, or custom-make one if you like."

Luke swept his eyes around the tent. The blacksmith wasn’t wrong because most of what was displayed, hung up, or piled around was Beast Armor.

As for why Beast Armor had suddenly become so popular, he wasn’t sure, but he had a feeling it wasn’t unrelated to the Victorian Guild.

"Thanks," Luke said. "But I want a weapon made first. I want a custom job."

He drew out his spear and set it on the table.

The blacksmith glanced at it. An ordinary spear, but it had an Affix attached, which counted as a point in its favor. He picked it up, weighed it in his hand, and turned it over: "You want modifications? Lengthened? Reinforced? Let’s get this straight first, we don’t attach Affixes here."

"You don’t need to worry about the Affix," Luke said. "What I want changed is the spear’s base material itself. I want to swap the metal."

"Oh, that’s easy enough." The blacksmith relaxed. "That’s within what I can do. We’ve got Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Carbon Metal, Aeon Influence Metal, Spring Metal. As for Carbon Metal, well..."

His words trailed off in Luke’s mind.

Luke knew these names sounded fancy, but at the end of the day, they all came down to the same category: Man metal.

But what he had in hand was a completely different breed of goods.

Luke reached into his Storage Space and retrieved one piece of [Insect Metal (Size1)], placing it on the table, and the blacksmith stopped talking.

"Use this," Luke said.

"Let’s just call it Insect Metal," he explained. "It’s a special reward I got from a Gamma-rank Dungeon. The System says it’s a Dimensional Item — used the same way as regular metal, but it grants different properties. Testing it on my spear seemed fitting."

He handed the spear into one of the blacksmith’s hands, and the Insect Metal into the other.

The blacksmith said nothing the whole time. He was too stunned to speak. In all his years, he’d never seen a metal like this. And every word Luke said sounded reasonable to his ears, nothing to poke holes in.

He had no idea that most of it was a lie.

Luke couldn’t just say he could effortlessly walk off into another world whenever he pleased. So he invented an origin story. As long as it sounded plausible, that was enough.

"This stuff... it’s really something else." The blacksmith turned the piece of Size 1 Insect Metal over and over in his hands, weighing it. "It feels different on the inside. The grain, the layering, all of it’s different. You really want to forge this into a weapon? Not sell it? You could make a fortune selling this."

Luke smiled. "I want to see first whether it’s worth anything once it’s forged into a weapon. If it doesn’t turn out well, I’ll just sell it off together with the spear."

Hearing this, the blacksmith thought it was a clever plan. He didn’t waste any more words and got straight to work.

He summoned his own beast — a Furnace Salamander.

The Salamander lay by the forge, keeping the flame at a constant temperature, able to make special adjustments depending on the material. Seeing this setup, Luke felt reassured about this blacksmith. He will temper the Insect Metal carefully.

Soon enough, the forging was complete, the spear fresh from the heat.

The Furnace Salamander helped speed up the cooling tenfold, and the spear was ready to handle in the blink of an eye.

Luke picked it up and examined its new appearance.

A silver sheen layered upon layer, varying in depth, like a kaleidoscope, and with the light hitting it, the slightest shift in angle sent colors shimmering and flowing across and along the shaft.

He summoned the System panel to check the changes.

〖Uncommon Spear〗

〖Affix: Pursuit → +11 Turns, 125% Tracking〗

"Seven more turns added, and tracking up by fifty percent?"

This was no small boost!

It must be due to the properties of the Insect Metal.

Insects are naturally gifted at sensing, swift movement, and persistent pursuit, so Insect Metal was supple and nimble by nature, and forged into a weapon, it pushed the Pursuit Affix to this level.

If Luke judged it by his own Crossbreeding System’s standards, this result was without a doubt a perfect ten out of ten.

"This weapon’s downright dangerous now," the blacksmith said. "Pity the System still only rated it Uncommon."

Luke smiled faintly, put the spear away, and gave the blacksmith a slight bow of thanks. "Seems like I really shouldn’t have just sold it off outright."

After a while, he paid the smithing fee and turned to head out—but he wasn’t in a hurry because he wanted to sense the atmosphere in the room after the encounter to see if he had left behind any aftertaste.

Luke hoped he’d succeeded in stirring this Guild’s interest in his Dimensional Items.

To his credit, he succeeded.

Luke hadn’t gotten far—

"Hey, wait!"

He smiled.

As the saying goes, money follows the eye. Once the eye is caught, the money comes.

Luke’s plan wasn’t to come in here and just offer to sell his items just like that.

So his plan was to ask them to customise his weapon and from there they see for themselves how valuable the Insect Metal is.

Simply, if he’d walked in the door saying "I’ve got goods, you buying?" they’d have taken him for a swindler, or figured he was trying to cheat them. But by forging the Insect Metal into his spear, while having the aura of being reluctant to sell and wanting it for his own use, the worth of the thing spoke for itself.

Luke turned around and walked back.

There was a new face in the shop. Taller, with more the bearing of someone in charge.

The man politely asked him where he’d gotten this metal, saying his friend couldn’t stop praising it.

Luke told his story again: a unique reward obtained from a Gamma-grade dungeon.

But this time, he added that he had a few more with him.

Hearing this, the Ember Knight Guild beamed.

The new man asked, "Since you still have some, would you be willing to sell?"

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A/N: Thanks for reading