Arthur let out a little hiss of breath as the damn turtle just stared at him after finishing saying ‘It’s good’. Impatient, he tapped the simple piercing with a sapphire embed in it, the stud that went into the body making him wince. He knew it was a given that he’d have to acquire a few at some point – pretty much every Climber ended up looking like a fashionista with bad taste after a bit, but still…
He hated the idea of rings or piercings or anything else that could get caught in clothing or weapons. It was bad form, and years of training without it, after watching enough videos of what happened when you wore stuff like that, had him conditioned to hate the idea.
“So?” Arthur asked again.
Arthur let out a little hiss of breath as the damn turtle just stared at him after finishing saying ‘It’s good’. Impatient, he tapped the simple piercing with a sapphire embed in it, the stud that went into the body making him wince. He knew it was a given that he’d have to acquire a few at some point – pretty much every Climber ended up looking like a fashionista with bad taste after a bit, but still…
He hated the idea of rings or piercings or anything else that could get caught in clothing or weapons. It was bad form, and years of training without it, after watching enough videos of what happened when you wore stuff like that, had him conditioned to hate the idea.
“So?” he asked again.
"Overall efficiency increase with anything to do with Tower Energy. Not refined energy, but Tower." Dovgrey nodded sagely. "Why it's so cheap, and only here at Beginner Towers, because it's so low percentage."
"Since all you higher level use more Refined right? And need a much bigger boost?" Arthur frowned. "But a percentage increase..."
"Caps." A wave at all the material on the table. "There's always a cap. Just not what you might see, because you're too weak."
Arthur grunted in acknowledgment. That made sense. Five percent on twenty was only like one point, or something. Five percent on a hundred was five... on five hundred was twenty five. By the time he had to worry about the caps, most Climbers would have moved on. Which was lower level rings like this moved down, to Beginner Towers.
"Ok lah. So anything with Tower - cultivating too, ya?" A nod. "Techniques?" Another slight nod. He opened his mouth again, saw the look he got and shut it. Everything was everything then. Maybe even refinement, which would be nice. Certainly if it meant efficiency in not just how much energy he used but also speed, it would be a big boost in a fight where fractions of a second could mean life or death.
Another winner.
Now for the dangerous cutlery. He looked both over at once, rather than drag it out further.
Enchanted Knife of Linked Harvesting
Effect: Enchantment links knife to a storage item, allowing speedy and clean harvesting of beast stones. When outer layer of a dead creature's defences are pierced, beast stone will be transported to linked storage item.
Ranged Throwing Knife of Return
Effect: Increased effective throwing range of knife. Enchanted to return to sheath after impact.
"Where's the storage item?" Arthur asked curiously.
"You can link anything you want." Dovgrey tapped the skinning knife's pommel where a small jewel was socketed. "Put that in the storage item, it will drop it in there. Has to be a storage item though, it needs to suffuse the surroundings. Can't be too big either, or else it won't work."
"Oh..." Arthur rubbed his chin, and then asked the obvious question. "Why dead?"
"Innate resistances. Might also not work on things too recently killed. You have to wait for the natural aura and defences to fade. This is just a Beginner tool, you know."
"Yeah. And it still requires me to stab things..." Arthur grumbled a little, but could see how it would be super effective. The sharp tip would make harvesting much faster than cutting through bone or muscle or reaching into guts to pull things out. Meant that he wouldn't be leaving as many bodies behind, just because he ran out of time.
He wanted it, for sure.
"And this one, only one?" Arthur tapped the throwing knife. Just one in a cross-body sleeve that would go under the lower rib on the outside of a breastplate the way it was configured. He assumed there were other options, since it was the sheath and knife that were enchanted, not the belts. Still, it was a cool way to carry and use.
"You couldn't afford a whole set."
Arthur winced at the blunt assessment. "It fly back or just teleport in or...?"
"Reappears inside the sheath," Dovgrey said. "You don't have a good weapon, for hitting things at range." Eyes drifted low to the pouch that Arthur carried his sling and the stones. "And fast."
"Yeah, yeah... but a throwing knife?" Arthur snorted. "Contrary to video games, these things are an annoyance at best."
A shrug. "Best I have." Silence, then he added. "Anyway, it's made of cold iron. Good for storing Tower energy."
Arthur narrowed his eyes at the addition, understanding beginning to penetrate his mind. After all, it wasn't an entirely unknown technique. Someone had named it the Gambit-gambit, which was a terrible play on words that, of course, became the commonly used name. Learn techniques and store them in thrown weapons, such that you could then deliver the attacks at range. Particularly useful since the physical object allowed one to store a higher percentage of Tower or Refined Energy inside the object rather than use a portion of it to create the container.
Negative was, you actually had to study the technique and throw it. And while explosive enchantments were the most common, flame or other elemental enchantments were a possibility too. Given enough time, Arthur figured he could learn how to do it himself, giving him another aspect to his long-range arsenal.
Imagine storing a third REED in the knife, so that he could release one after the other. Given enough time, he might even be able to lay a constant barrage of attacks own on his opponents. A nice thought but...
"I guess I need to make a decision now, eh?" Arthur said and rubbed his chin.
Most of these were add-ons, nice to have that might enhance him later on. The ink and techniques were great, but just too much work. The same reasoning for turning down the other cultivation technique sort of held for Shadow Sense, though the fact that it tied into his Yin body and nature had him leaning seriously towards purchasing it.
The throwing knife on the other hand was useless till he learnt better techniques. Or, well, not useless but much less useful. More importantly, he only had this floor and one more to go through and the big boss, which meant that his necessary utilization rate – before he spent time training himself out of the Tower and then coming back to a new one – was low. As a Climber, he’d have access to a lot more choices in terms of what he could train too in Malaysia.
No guns still, but bows and crossbows started becoming viable.
So, no throwing knife.
Storage pouch, harvesting knife, howler monkey ward, ring of piercing and the energy enhancement stud. He shifted all those forward, pushed the rest back. Hesitated at the cultivation technique and then, eventually, pulled it into the keep pile.
“All that.”
“You are joking, yes?” Dovgrey said.
“Well…”
The turtle reached out with those weird, stumpy fingers. Not too fat, they were still small enough that he had fine dexterity, but they were that dark and light green of turtle skin, with splotches of black alongside them. Nails that were hardened, but blunted manipulated the items, pulling the harvesting knife, the stud and the storage pouch aside, leaving the others in the initial pile.
“One of those three,” a gesture down at the three expensive items, “and two of the others.”
“How about two of the first row?”
“For another twenty ninth floor cores, sure.”
Arthur grunted. “Fifteen.”
“Twenty.”
“Don’t be like that, lah. You promised me a discount, boss.” Switching to Manglish, Arthur tried his best only to get a flat look from Dovgrey. After a second, he sighed. “Eighteen?”
“Deal.”
Considering how fast the damn turtle answered him, Arthur had a feeling he had lost out on that bargain. Taught him to show his cards, but really, the difference between three and five weren’t that great. He had picked up quite a few already just doing escorting the Tinker over.
Now, the question was, what to get.
The storage pouch was nice, but Arthur knew that the Merchant was supposed to have better quality items if you found him. The fact that he wasn’t on this village meant it was quite possible he wasn’t on this turn, which meant he might be out of luck. After all, it was unlikely he would have time to look further for him.
Not if he considered searching around a little for the Hermit.
Even so, he’d lasted this long without a good storage pouch. A small part of him held out hope for learning a technique that gave him access to a personal storage of his own – creating basically an extra-dimensional space out of himself.
That was the kind of technique you could get from the Hermit or other specialized quests. Basically not something you’d get in general. So, no pouch. If he had to buy something, it wouldn’t be that. The stud was an overall upgrade, but he mostly used Refined Energy. If it upgraded that, it would have been a lot more useful for him. As it stood, a minor upgrade in cultivation speed just wasn’t as precious as a major upgrade in harvesting time.
If nothing else, he wouldn’t be covered in so much blood.
Then, if that was it, he just had to decide between the war, ring of piercing or the cultivation technique. As much as the ring of piercing was fascinating, he was getting an overall increase in his attack strength when he got his spear back he assumed.
Which meant…
“I’ll take the collection knife, the ward and the cultivation technique,” Arthur said. Even if he didn’t learn it now – and there was something to be said about trying to practice it immediately – it was still a technique that suited him very well.
Best not to look the gift turtle in the mouth.
“Done.” Dovgrey pushed the three items at Arthur before he began to put everything away, grumbling all the while. “Bargain with me and never buy anything.”
“Needed to know what my options were. So… the spear?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Right. Right.” Arthur slipped the ring on, shivering as he felt the energies of the ring pierce him, sending little lightning shocks all the way through his aura and his body. He’d get used to it soon, but for now, it felt like tiny pinpricks all over him. Knife went into his dimensional pouch, knowing it was better to store it safely than potentially lose it.
And then, he only had to go study his cultivation technique.
After all, he had a whole day to master it.