Chapter 322 – Trouble Arrives.

‘Haven’t been here in a while… there weren’t this many people before, the race has probably already begun here.’

Roland walked into the large underground chamber filled with hooded figures. The place looked like some occult gathering with how many hoods and robes everyone was wearing. There was almost no one here that wasn’t covering their face with something. This was one place where his hidden apparel didn’t raise eyebrows as it did in the city.

“Hey, what you looking at?”

“…”

“That’s what I thought.”

A man spat to the side while walking past him beside some of the market’s stands. It was chuckle-worthy to get a look like this from someone that was barely a tier 2 class holder. If Roland decided to give him a smack across the face probably no one would even help this guy out. However, he was not here to cause trouble, instead of causing a scene he wanted to buy some enchanted gear for testing purposes.

‘That guy is going to die if he does that to a hidden tier 3.’

While it was impossible to pinpoint a tier 3 class holder in a mass of people, it wouldn’t be strange if one or two of them had already arrived in Albrook. With the appearance of the B-rank dungeon, some people would arrive to look for money. Some of the less savory types that appeared would see this as a chance to rob some platinum adventurers or even join them on their adventures.

There were also new merchants coming, ones that sold all sorts of equipment, even cursed items that couldn’t be pushed forward on the outside. They required some protection, so moving with tier 3 bodyguards or a large entourage of tier 2’s wouldn’t be strange. When glancing out in the distance he could see more tunnels being assembled and even a second level down being created. Probably in the future, this would become a much larger marketplace.

‘Even if stronger people arrive, they shouldn’t be able to tell who I really am. It’s nice to be able to customize this thing for a change, not even a skilled mage should be able to tell who I am now…’

Roland had managed to analyze the pendant that he was lent by his old boss from Edelgard. The old pendant had certain limitations that made the item jumble up his status screen. After identifying the enchantment that was inside and comparing it to weaker ones, he was quickly able to go through the magical mechanisms that made it work. It took a few days of work but now he could just implement the same effect into his armor.

It would never fall off and he could copy the rune on almost any piece of metal that he was holding. For the time being he went with the common name of William. The choice of War Magus came due to his fighting style which allowed people to cast spells and be good with weapons at the same time. It was a somewhat uncommon profession but known for high combat capabilities as it mixed in fast casting with melee combat. It was a means of scaring people off as there weren’t many counter tactics when facing a properly experienced War Magus.

‘I could have used this during the gold rank test, they aren’t as pedantic about your status screen during the Platinum rank test.’

Now after gaining his new class it wouldn’t be strange to go get a new rank. Normally a person expected the test requirements to be even more strenuous than the previous ones but this wasn’t always the case. The first requirement was achieving a tier 3 class but identifying it wasn’t always required. Instead one could just choose to have their skill tested by the guild master themselves.

This would probably be his fate if he decided to take it in Albrook. Aurdhan was the guild master here and would face him in combat. That is if it would even come that far as tier 3 class holders were already treated as the elite. Due to this fact, it wasn’t that hard to gain the new adventurer card. The fact that a person was able to get through their tier 3 ascension ritual was mostly proof enough. Not much more could be learned by experience past the golden rank, what mattered was more the power a person gained after gaining all those tier 3 enhancements he received.

‘I should get this over with, even though I’m stronger it’s better not to poker the beehive.’

Soon after glancing around, he noticed a new merchant stand that wasn’t there before. It was somewhat eye-catching due to the two muscular bodyguards on the sides. The weapons that were being sold there were the same, they radiated a strange magical aura that he was able to pick up with his mana sense. All of his skills were enhanced so he could already tell that these were items with curses and hexes placed on them.

There were several magical languages in this world, one of them was runic that he used and the other that was the widest spread was enchantments. However, those two were just the two most known and orthodox of them all. Besides those two there also existed divine miracles and demonic curses. They were somewhat lumped into the same category even if the people using them disliked this fact.

These magical objects were usually created by priests or occult leaders. They channeled the divine powers given to them by a higher being. Most of the time this was done by religious factions like the Solarian Church or cultists like the Abyssal cult. In an unknown way, they would infuse weapons or items with their blessings to generate a magical effect. These effects Roland had already attempted to emulate and had achieved mixed results.

Then there were other various hexes, sometimes produced by other means. Sometimes the craftsmen used strange shamanic rituals that were similar to the ones the demonic priests used. Other times they were done through alchemical means that added magical properties to the material in itself.

‘I wonder if I can really analyze all of them with my eyes, it worked on the healing spells so, in theory, it should work on the curses and hexes too.’

If it was up to him then he would just try to get his hands on all of those items to try and translate the magic into runic language. Buying up cursed items was a thing that could get a person into trouble though, the same thing went for hexes. They usually had some type of effect that could affect the well-being of the user. The Demons didn’t lend power without taking something in return. One theory was that anyone using a cursed item would have their senses muddled by demonic whispers. Others believed that their soul would be slowly siphoned away into the demonic realm where the creator ate them up.

‘It’ll probably be better if I just get one of the hexes instead, something like venom should be enough, I haven’t really worked on anything like that before, it’s a bit more rare than the common poison enchantments you see everywhere.’

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After making his decision he approached the stand he started recalling the time when he had been cursed by a dagger stab. The pain that he felt that day would never be forgotten and he could already see some blades with similar curses.

His skill to analyze objects had ranked up as well. He was able to see what the weapons were made from. The Necrosium metal included in the curved dagger was something that cursed items required. It was a material that mostly went into the hilt to keep the curse from seeping out and afflicting the person wielding it. Darksteel was similar but it could be used on lesser curses and enchantments.

The short sword was a mix of two, poison was one of the go-to enchantments that the thieves guild used. It was something that could be made by regular magic smiths and even Roland was capable of applying the runic version already. The Bleed Hex on the other hand was something he hadn’t come across yet. This effect was known to him, it would delude a person’s blood and cause hemorrhaging of any wound. It would severely diminish the effects of healing potions as well.