Disciple of Immortal

Act 2: Chapter 15: 《Manarak Steel》's Price

「This 《Manarak Steel》 is manufactured using 《Mithril’s Cane》 original alchemy. How about this? This faint red silver is really beautiful right?」

Gannet proudly showed off a beautiful, rectangular lump of metal.

Its length was around fifty centimetres from one end to another.

Its length was just the perfect length to forge a sword.

「It was a metal made from several combinations of rare metals, resulting in this metal which is easy to manufacture yet retains high performance. But, it has one fatal weakness. That being the limited number of personnel in 《Mithril’s Cane》 who can make this metal with alchemy. The number of them can be counted in one hand.」

In short, this metal was the culmination of 《Mithril’s Cane》’s latest technology. The cost of manufacturing materials must’ve been added into its selling price too. It was by no means cheap.

「Uhm… May I ask for the price of this metal?」

Pomera tried to ask with a timid voice.

「Let see. Basically, the price for the metal of this size is around 1.5 millions gold.」

「1.5 millions…」

I couldn’t hide my surprise upon hearing such sky high, through-the-roof prices.

I learned my lesson from the previous case that due to the level disparity between each person, high end items were thoroughly regarded as high end items.

But, I still couldn’t hide my surprise knowing that the price could easily break through the one million mark.

That kind of amount couldn’t easily be gathered together if we just completed low-rank commissions.

Not to mention, for an S-rank item, the amount must be even more exaggerated than this.

Maybe I should be more careful in this regard since the D-rank item alone was sold at 300k gold.

Depending on the situation, I might need to change my travel plan.

Maybe I should pay more attention to my adventurer’s rank.

No, think about it again, maybe it’s better to sell large amount of monster’s materials rather than completing commissions. Diving into an underground labyrinth like 《Cocytus》 might be the most efficient way to earn money right now.

It seems that the threshold of someone being regarded as an A-rank adventurer was level 100, and that rank was the maximum limit for me in order to avoid the attention of walking disasters like Notes.

Moreover, there should be a level difference even amongst S-rank items.

Maybe the price for 《Adamant Ore》 should be considered cheap.

I’d be really happy if I could get 800k gold though.

「… Whoops, it seems I forgot about the situation and ended up giving a long explanation about 《Manarak Steel》, how embarrassing. Well, since most of our metal and ores are kept in this place, please just tell me once you find the one you’re looking for. I know everything about the ore kept in this room.」

I looked around inside the room.

To be honest, I don’t really understand things about metal and ore.

「Can you show us, 《Adamant Ore》?」

「Mu…? My apologies, it seems I missed what you said just now. Can you repeat your question?」

Gannet seems like he was choked by something upon hearing my question.

「The truth is, I’m looking for… 《Adamant Ore》.」

Upon finishing my sentence, I noticed that the smile on Gannet’s face had frozen.

I also felt my face stiffen upon seeing his reaction.

Did I just step on… another landmine.

When I sent a glance over to Pomera, she was covering her face with her hands while muttering 『Again huh』 .

「P-Please wait a minute! I might’ve blurted out strange thing due to that name.」

Then, I took out 《Akashic Record》 from my magic pouch, and turned over its pages while thinking about the 《Manarak Steel》 that Gannet was talking about just now.

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【Manarak Steel】《Value : C-Rank》

A variety of metal alloy developed in Manarak city.

The red tinge in its silver was truly beautiful.

It’s mainly used as the main material for weapons around Manarak city.

A weapon made with this metal was the weapon of choice for A-rank adventurers who couldn’t find a good weapon, or B-rank adventurers with lots of money.

Though its production almost never catches up with demand, no need to feel cheated since its manufacturer, the 《Mithril’s Cane》, sells it at a fair price.

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「Ah…」

Upon looking at its “value”, I realized that I, once again… stepped on a landmine.

I felt my face pale. I was sweating like a waterfall.

Starting from Myth-rank, Legend-rank, and Lastly S-rank, I thought that the value of S-rank, which ranked the third from above, wasn’t a big deal.

Moreover, I was used to the scenery of S-rank items littering around the lower floor of 《Cocytus》.

The combination of the two above factors led me to create this mess.

Maybe, an item like 《Adamant Ore》 isn’t something that you could find in any store.

Or rather, that 《Cocytus》 was truly an out of the world place. A pebble in that place might be even more valuable than half of Manarak.

If even a C-rank item was sold at one and half million gold, just how expensive was the price of an S-rank item?

Assuming that the price was doubled with each additional rank, it would make its price shoot through ten million gold.

Here my sense of money got paralyzed, I didn’t even feel a difference between gold and Japanese yen.

Had I known about this situation, I would have stuffed as many S-rank items as possible into my magic pouch and dimension pocket.

… Whoops, even though I could sell those items for money, it wasn’t without risk, there was no meaning for me to have a lot of money when the most expensive item I could buy outside were C-rank items.

「… Eh, speaking of rank, the 《God’s Blood; Ether》 from Lunaire-san which I used to drank like water, just how many tens millions of gold is the price for one of them…」

No, even the worst quality of that ether might be more expensive than that.

The more I thought about the matter, the more I wanted to scream in frustration.

Rather, it seems my common sense of money has long since broken after seeing S-rank items littering around like trash in Cocytus.

「May I ask what happened to your companion… Pomera-dono? He seems a bit unwell since a while ago.」

「… U-Uhm, though this is just for reference… may I ask about the highest ranked item you keep in this institution?」

「We said to the public that the highest item we kept was a C-rank item. Since we use B-rank items as our precious research subject. What do you think about that?」

I was truly perplexed when I heard that.

What should I do now? I… might’ve lost the majority of the reason for staying in Manarak just a moment ago.

Gannet’s gentle-looking face warped.

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TN: I’ll take a vacation next week 16th-22nd August. More details in foxaholic discord