Shades of the New World

Chapter 103: The Great Hall

It wasn't a long walk, since the Great Hall was located right next to the dorm rooms and the cafeteria. According to the map, if Evin continued through the hall, he would end up in the study area, which included the library, the classrooms and the training ground. There was also some place called the Beast's den outside.

The group entered the long hall with various rooms aligned throughout its sides. A circular counter sat in the middle of the Hall, with a lobbyist standing inside, an amiable smile plastered on his face, ready to help the young children with whatever they may need.

Some younger ones could be seen holding a guardian's or a teacher's hand, cutely swaying on their two legs, walking around the Great Hall doing one thing or another. But mostly being noisy. There were some older children in the mix, most likely the same age as Arza and Evin, who acted a bit more mature than their younger brethren.

Evin could see that the older ones were a bit less noisy and more on the stoic and prideful side. It seemed that they delighted themselves in being mages and Northerners, so they looked at Evin and Arza with a little more hostility and disdain compared to the younger children.

'Well, I suppose that's natural. Even with them being a bit smarter than normal kids, they were still children in the end,' Evin thought.

Well, aside from the hostile looks here and there, most children eyed Evin and Arza with innocent curiosity. While Evin was receiving some curious gazes due to his newfound handsomeness, Arza's size and red hair seemed to be the focal point of their gazes. The boy in question, though, did not mind their gazes as he nonchalantly eyed the tall ceilings of the Great Hall.

Then, they noticed Rith, who was floating beside the two newcomers. The Cosmic was flustered by the sudden barrage of sparkling eyes and timidly landed on Evin's head.

Evin smiled at the unexpected fluff sight, but did not bother entertaining the children and asked the lobbyist about the purchase of Core Shards.

"Have you registered your badges in your names?" The lobbyist asked.

"Not yet"

"Well, I'll do it for you, so please don't lose your badges. These will be in used as your Identification information in the Tribe Grounds, for counting your contribution points, and also for registering for missions," the man said and asked Evin and Arza their names, ages and core sizes.

Evin did not put Eviendra as his name, as it would make him a target for bullying. To deal with that Evin would either have to turn into an asshole or just accept his destiny.

When it was revealed that Evin and Arza were both half-cores, some gasps of shock resounded from nearby, but it wasn't anything too eye-catching in this bustling hall.

As the two kids put away their badges, the lobbyist then directed them towards one of the rooms in the Great Hall.

The All-purpose Shop.

Knocking on the door, Evin heard an approving voice from inside, saying something in Northern.

'I should start learning this language soon, huh?' Evin thought and opened the door.

Inside, he saw an awfully tall Cobfolk with disturbingly thin limbs, sorting some of the items on the counters.

"I couldn't understand if you said enter or not. Hope I didn't mistake your approving tone for something else," Evin said in Imperial.

"Oh, Westerner children sorry about that. What did you want from here?" the man asked in Imperial after taking a glance at the two children.

"We wanted to buy some Core Shards and the corresponding techniques," Evin said and showed Zorrik's badge. The man eyed the badge with some surprise and reluctance, and then acceptance.

"Slightly more important Westerners, eh? Well, here's the list of Core Shards. Take your own pick and no haggling. Also, you both can only buy one technique with gold. After this, you need to pay with contribution points," the man said, trying his best to hide his discontent.

Evin could obviously pick up on these things, but didn't bother butting heads with the man and took a glance at the list.

'Now I really wish everyone had similar views to Arza...' he thought briefly, before realizing how bad of an idea it was in actuality.

'The Core Shard prices vary from 50 to 300 gold and the Core-Bending techniques start from 100 gold and end at almost a 1000,' Evin noted.

Also, the Contribution points required were ten times more than what the gold coins showed. So the Core Shard's price varied between 500 to 3000 contribution points.

If Evin thought of the contribution points as a form of currency, then it was a pretty darn good currency. 10 percent of a gold coin meant that it was automatically the third most stable form of currency in the Empire, as far as Evin knew. First two being cold coins and Crystal-grade lodestones.

Crystal-grade lodestones used to be the same price as gold coins when Evin was first starting to learn magic, but its prices were dropping at a steady rate. The biggest reason was that it was almost the year of 1478 in the World of Alvox. In the year 1500, all the lodestones in the World would disappear into thin air and then appear in random places on the World of Alvox.

Anyhow, Evin had just finished almost all of his money during his stay in the City of Nevernight and only had a few dozen gold in his hands.

"Sir, what do the differing prices mean?"

"Well, obviously, the more expensive the better. Don't worry about getting scammed, I don't want to die by the hands of the Tribe Leader yet and I still have some pride left in me to not swindle little children(even if they're Westerners)," the man muttered at the end which Evin did not hear and continued: "Anyway, the more expensive Shards are a bit purer than the cheaper ones, while the more expensive Techniques work more effectively, while affecting your ability to adapt to other techniques the least"

From Unabach's book, Evin learned that one couldn't use one technique indefinitely when assimilating Core Shards in their mana-cores. Each unique technique's effects would lessen over time, and a mage would need to search for different ones.

Some of these techniques would require the mage to spend months, if not years practicing, so the mage's body tended to kind of get used to absorbing Core Shards in that particular way only. Thus, the reason who the technique's effects on future techniques were very important for mages when they chose them.

Satisfied with the Cobfolk's answer, Evin addressed the Cosmic.

"Rith, lend me 4000," Evin said. He had almost 50k in his savings, but he didn't want to take money from that.

"Sure, an added 20 percent interest sounds about right." Rith replied.

"What? How could you? We've known each other for like three years already 5% is a good enough representation of our friendship," Evin said.

"Are you kidding me? What's the point of lending someone money if you don't get anything back? 17% is the lowest I'm willing to go," Rith replied.

The back-and-forth interaction stopped after a while and they decided on a 8.5% interest rate, a bit tilted towards Evin.

The boy didn't wish to further push the percentage since he knew of the Cosmic's occupational disease, where she felt super depressed if she did something with money and didn't profit from it somehow. While Rith, on the other hand, felt bad for leaving Evin behind during the Lesser-Imposer's attack, so she was a bit lenient with her insistence.

Evin then bought the best Dark World Shard alongside the best technique to absorb it. He also bought Arza a World of Life Shard and its corresponding technique.

The Cobfolk pulled out two handbooks from behind the counter and gave Evin and Arza a Black and Pink object each.

The obsidian Core Shard that Evin had received was in the form of an extremely viscous liquid, and it was put inside a finger-sized vial. The substance inside was constantly spreading and moving throughout the vial like a web, as if it was trying to escape it somehow.

Another thing that Evin noticed was its confusing state of matter. It was surprisingly heavy, giving Evin the feeling that it was an extremely dense object, almost bordering on being a solid object, but other times, it would emit some sort of gas, fogging the insides and turning the vial completely black.

The Pink Shard that Arza received, on the other hand, was also in the form of a liquid. Pink blood, specifically. It was put inside a special container that would continuously stir its insides in a spiral matter, not allowing the blood inside to clot. The bright pink shine that it emitted hinted at the powers that were contained inside.

'Splurging feels so good' Evin thought, satisfied with his purchase.

"Can I have a look at the other items that you sell?" Evin asked the Cobfolk, who was dumbfounded by the rich person aura that Evin was emitting.

'You just spent 2600 gold coins and you still want to spend more?!' the Cobfolk thought, lamenting in his heart due to his poor upbringing.

"Sure," the Cobfolk said with his eyes twitching behind his mask.

Evin took another glance at the items on the list and found some interesting stuff.