The Truth of Magic

220 picking up scraps in the market (1/3)

as zhao xu slowly walked out of the bar, he couldn’t help but weigh the bag of coins in his hand.

the five players who were greedy for him probably really had a deal prepared today. otherwise, they would not have specially packed an entire bag of coins.

that wolland really wasn’t lying. the bag of coins in zhao xu’s hands was worth almost 1000 gold coins.

however, it contained a platinum coin that was worth ten gold coins, and there were about a hundred of them in total.

Usually, only caravans would use this currency. Above that, there were the ” gold notes ” that were guaranteed by the Association of mages or the temple.

However, Zhao Xu had never seen this before.

zhao xu was walking down the familiar ” street ” again, but he was still thinking about what had just happened.

In the floating city, the high-circle mages had an average intelligence of 20+, and even his mentor Antonya was an existence with an intelligence of 50+. There was basically no room for him to display his skills.

So, most of the time, Zhao Xu would just learn passively. Sometimes, thinking too much would make it easier for him to be educated.

However, now that he was in ” winter city, ” he had to think carefully about his every move, just like the escort experience in the Tianbei merchant Union.

Sometimes, missing a link in one’s thinking meant that the whole thing was wrong.

Logically speaking, the other party would not be able to recognize the “cloak of stars” that he was wearing, but they might guess that it was a magic item.

As for the ” +1 netherworld ” scythe on his back, it was easy to notice that it was a magic weapon because of the netherworld’s looming characteristics.

however, the ‘netherworld’ attribute was good at fighting ghosts, but it was useless against players.

zhao xu finally realized that he had acted too rashly this time.

from the moment the bartender ignored him. he should have realized that he was a foreigner to winterfell.

He was an ” unregistered resident ” who did not have a Resident Certificate and had not paid any city tax.

That was why he had suddenly disappeared. Even the city guards and the entire security system did not know about this.

especially since the players themselves were projections, they didn’t even need to deal with their corpses.

in addition, players liked to kill each other for the sake of revenge. thus, unless it was a player with a position in winter city, the general security system would not intervene.

Considering the fact that the highest level mage was only at Level 4, four at Level 2, and most at Level 1, his actions just now were equivalent to a child walking into a gold mine to cause trouble.

If they didn’t do anything to him, then the local people must be simple to a certain extent.

Zhao Xu knew that he had made a mistake just now, so he didn’t feel too bad about it. It seemed like it wasn’t the first time the five of them had done this kind of business, so he directly used magic to kill them.

in the beginning, he directly used the 2nd-circle “sparkling dust,” which was actually a disguised control spell to paralyze the combat power of several people on the spot, and also to achieve the purpose of letting him escape the battlefield first.

after the flash dust exploded, zhao xu also cast invisibility on himself.

if zhao xu had activated the ring of invisibility first before releasing the sparkling dust, then his entire body would have been covered in those golden particles. he would have been completely deceiving himself.

and after zhao xu successfully became invisible, he was actually trying to avoid the crowd and find a safe and reasonable position.

it allowed him to use a wave of fireballs to envelop the five of them and clear the field.

Among the level 1 players, the Barbarian with the highest health dice in the initial stage was D12. Combined with the characteristic of being able to Max out his health at Level 1, that was 12HP. If his Constitution was also full at 18 points, then the adjustment value would be +4.

this barbarian who didn’t use any special skills had 16HP at the start, which was equivalent to zhao xu’s hp when he was level 3.

on the other hand, the barbarian’s health points would only reach 18HP if it was stacked with the berserk ability.

he was still under the threat of the 18 points of damage that zhao xu had expected from his fireball.

none of the five players and the four guards were level 2.

That was why Zhao Xu had chosen the spot where the fireball would land when those people had been so suspicious and gathered together to open the door and run for their lives.

Then-he cast-six-meter radius area-specific bombing spell-” fireball “, which directly cleared the nine people.

even if there were still some who managed to survive, they wouldn’t be able to withstand zhao xu’s final magic bullet. when he reached level 5, he would have three magic bullets per spell. when he reached level 9, he could have five more, which was the upper limit.

Choosing the spots for large-scale spells was also a headache for mages in the future.

Arthur’s spells were all prepared in his mind, so the effective radius of the spells was set in advance.

Therefore, most of the time, it wasn’t that color spray wasn’t good enough, nor that fireball wasn’t powerful enough, but that everyone really threw it without a care, and that would lead to the destruction of their teammates and enemies.

Zhao Xu had once cast a rainbow jet at his allies and enemies during the chaotic battle in the canyon. After he had knocked everyone down, he had relied on the four players around him who hadn’t participated in the battle to turn the tables around.

the only way for most wizards to avoid hitting their teammates was to learn metamagic abilities like shapeshifting, which could change the area of influence of spells.

Some other abilities were through the advanced class ability ” shapeshifting mastery ” of an Archmage, which could also change the form of a spell in the face of battle.

Of course, when Zhao Xu advanced to spell guard in the future and learned the ability to cast selective spells, he would be able to cast spells so that his teammates would be able to ignore the effects of the spells and the spells would only be effective on the enemy.

This was the most powerful ability that had a wide range of applications.

after zhao xu briefly reviewed his gains and losses from the battle, he went back to the grocery plaza.

he had suddenly received 1000 gold pieces, so he naturally had to seize the opportunity to make up for his shortcomings in strength.

in particular, there were some secrets that might be spread from the mouth of these hawkers who traveled in the wilderness all year round.

by getting close to them, he would be able to get more inside information.

the layout of winter city’s “grocery plaza” was similar to that of the vegetable market on earth. basically, each person had one area.

most of the owners of the goods were busy with their own things at the stalls, and some even brought food to rush the work and sell at the same time, but the quality of the work was reduced.

The square was filled with people. Even if they didn’t have any need for it, they were all walking around in front of these stalls to see something new.

the items in the grocery square were roughly divided into a few categories. the rarest were definitely magic items, from scrolls to magic weapons. however, these valuable items were usually sold in specialized shops. most of the goods that could be brought to the grocery market were defective goods that were difficult to sell.

the rest of the items were mostly excavated from various ancient ruins and tombs.

for those excavated items, after simple methods couldn’t detect the effects of those items, most of them could only be dealt with cheaply. after all, the cost of 100 gold coins for the appraisal technique was still very high.

in fact, many people who used magic items, even up to their deaths, might not be sure if they had exerted the full effect of the magic item.

Making do with it and saving as much as possible was the mainstream for the lower-level adventurers in Arthur.

not everyone had golem goggles and enough spell slots to cast detection spells like zhao xu.

the last category of items left in the square were alchemy items. their effects were the clearest, and they sold the most.

A set of alchemy tools, enough alchemy materials, an alchemy principle, and enough craftsmanship (alchemy) skills could make a living.

This was also the reason why alchemy had become the mainstream skill for manual labor in Arthur, while his weapon-making skill had not caught up.

after all, compared to other skills such as being a coachman, a chef, or a farmer, it was more self-sufficient and did not need to rely on the heavens for food.

Many players chose to sell their alchemy items in the grocery square because the alchemy shops had a stable supply channel and stable quality.

Individual customers like them couldn’t sell for a good price before they had a good reputation because of the uneven quality. he couldn’t enter the other party’s line of sight.

Zhao Xu’s trip this time was also to get himself some alchemy items, and at the same time, see if he could use his appraisal skill to find some useful items.

in mystra, where everyone was an apprentice wizard, if an ancient coin fell to the ground, the people around them would be able to explain the ins and outs of the coin.

In addition, although the 1-circle appraisal skill was expensive, after everyone used the appraisal skill to guess that it was 80 – 90%, they felt that they could earn back their money and were willing to take the risk.

Because of Mistra, it was possible to find a shop within a hundred meters of where the [ identification ] spell could be used.

On the contrary, in winter city, if one wanted to find a mage who could prepare [ identify ], they would have to make an appointment in advance so that the other party could specially prepare [ identify ] for them tomorrow.

Zhao Xu’s gaze went straight past the main and most eye-catching spots in the grocery Plaza. The wool came from the sheep’s back, and the rental fees had to be paid for by the buyers.

And because of the high flow of people there, the probability of successfully picking up a treasure was very low.

Zhao Xu looked at each house, but he wasn’t looking at the items on the table. He was looking at the people.

zhao xu, who had been a public security officer before, could tell which people had come to the grocery square once in a while to sell their ancestors ‘treasures, which people were just peddlers doing price difference transactions, and which people had just come back from a tomb raid and were in the midst of getting their hands on a treasure.

but then zhao xu’s gaze suddenly stopped on a player dressed as a warlock.

Zhao Xu didn’t expect to run into someone he knew, and it was someone he knew who had become one of the higher-ups in WinterCity.