EFB Chapter 25 You think it's too expensive, but I think it's too expensive too.
Chapter 25 You think it's too expensive, but I think it's too expensive too.
"Is this the shop that the Adventurers' Guild partners with?" Alina in the consciousness space pouted. "Neither the quality nor the service seems very good."
"Maybe it was compressed along with his height," Rod said abruptly.
"Ah..." Alina paused for a moment, then quickly added, "Was it inappropriate for us to say that about her?"
Before Rod could answer, she heard the owner, who had entered the backyard through the door, say:
"What are you standing there for? Come on, are you scared?"
"...Let's continue with our dwarf jokes," Alina said.
Rod ignored her and instead looked around the backyard.
Sunlight pierced through the fog of Misty City and fell on the dusty grass. Several scarecrows for practice were placed to one side, while a set of sturdy archery targets were placed dozens of meters away.
A few crooked arrows were sparsely stuck in the target, some even missing the target and stuck in the wooden fence next to it, silently telling the story of the historical achievements left here by others.
The hooded guest picked up his staff and followed silently.
She stopped at the doorway leading to the backyard, her petite body leaning against the cold stone wall, maintaining a safe distance. In the shadows, her scarlet pupils took in their every move.
"Hmph, didn't you want to test the weapons?" The boss brought over a quiver almost as tall as himself and placed it next to Rhodes, looking up at him and saying in a deep voice, "Come on."
The boss didn't have a good impression of the guy who was interrupting his work, and it wasn't just because Rod was taller than him;
A few years ago, an elven ranger who had traveled to Misty City came to his shop to have his weapons repaired. As soon as he entered, the ranger pointed at the bows and arrows on the wall and accused him of wasting the materials, giving him a thorough dressing-down.
When his ancestral craftsmanship was questioned, he was so angry that he almost smashed the other person's knee with a hammer. But when he turned around and looked at the rotten bows he had made, he couldn't come up with a single rebuttal.
After a passionate fight, he was forced to apologize after a narrow defeat and spent half a year learning bow-making skills from his opponent.
Every day before dawn, he would go into the mountains to find timber, grinding bowstrings until his fingers bled, and he would even sleep with a piece of bow material in his arms, pondering its workings.
Finally, the bow was made.
But that damned elf didn't even try; he just glanced at it and left.
From then on, the bow became his obsession.
Many adventurers who considered themselves sharpshooters tried it, but most of them were unable to unleash its power and found it even inferior to a regular longbow, leaving them disappointed.
Some people were willing to pay five gold coins to buy the bow as a decoration because of its gorgeous appearance, but he eventually drove them away.
The more he looked at the elven bow, the angrier he became. He wanted to forge a weapon of similar quality, but he found that it was never quite as good as the elven bow. He felt that it was a mockery of him, so he simply stuffed it at the bottom of the warehouse, out of sight and out of mind.
If Rod hadn't caused trouble today, he would never have brought out this trump card to make things difficult for the other party.
"Come on, let me see what you've got." The boss took out a horned hat from the side, put it on his head, and jumped onto a wine barrel next to him.
Rhodes remained silent, but simply reached out and raised the yew wood elven bow.
For some reason, the vine-like veins that arched over pressed against my palm, giving me a strange, uncomfortable feeling.
He drew an iron-tipped arrow, nocked it on the bowstring, and habitually pulled back the bow, but felt his wrist involuntarily sway.
call out--
The arrow shot through the air, grazed the edge of the target, and landed with a "thud" in the seventh ring.
"Um?"
The boss was stunned for a moment when he saw this, seemingly not expecting that Rhodes would actually hit the target on his first try. Then he crossed his arms and sneered:
"Ha, that's all?"
"I thought you were some kind of sharpshooter, but even my three-year-old can shoot more accurately than you."
"They could shoot a beer barrel from a hundred paces away with their eyes closed."
"How was that hundred steps calculated? Was it based on dwarf paces?" Alina rolled her eyes in her mind's eye. "A barrel that big, who wouldn't be able to hit it?"
"Hmph, elven bows are not something you guys can use," the boss muttered again. "Don't think you're elves just because you imitate their demeanor and clothing."
"I'm so angry! I have to teach him a lesson!" Hearing this, Alina, a half-elf, instantly became furious. "Let me shoot!"
[Resonance level increases]
[Current resonance level: 30%]
"Hmm..." Rhodes glanced at the panel, then tried to relax his control over his limbs.
The next second, his actions changed instantly.
His previously stiff shoulders relaxed, his fingertips firmly gripped the bowstring, and his entire demeanor became much lighter.
The purple bow was slowly drawn back until the bowstring touched his cheek, and in the depths of his dark pupils, a pair of emerald eyes reflected the distant target.
Without the slightest hesitation, he released his grip.
call out--
The arrow, with a sharp whistling sound, struck the red dot precisely in the center of the target, its fletching still trembling slightly.
"sharp."
The hooded woman who had been standing at the back muttered to herself.
Upon seeing this, the boss's face twitched, and he swallowed back the sarcastic remark that was about to come out, instead changing his words:
"Hmph, good weapons are only for the strong; the weak are not worthy of using the weapons I forge."
"I've said all sorts of nice things to him, both good and bad," Alina said, somewhat disgruntled.
"How are you feeling?" Rod asked.
"Actually, this bow... is quite good. The person who made it might have actually had contact with elves," Alina paused, "someone must have helped him..."
"Dwarves are indeed more likely to receive guidance from wise men," Rhodes said after thinking for a moment.
Before Alina could complain, he changed the subject and said, "Let's try that one instead."
[Armed Upgrade]
Pale blue magic surged from his fingertips, spreading along the bowstring to the entire bow.
The deep purple yew wood grain instantly lit up, as if a living wind was flowing within it, and the silver skin at the bow tip emitted a faint bluish-gold light, exactly the same light as the crystal longbow that the Gale Ranger used when he combined his powers.
The iron-tipped arrow, nocked on the bowstring, was also enveloped in a thin layer of blue light, its tip condensing a spinning wind blade as it aimed at the distant target.
"What are you doing! What have you done to my bow!"
The shop owner instantly flew into a rage, jumped off the barrel, grabbed a hammer, and charged at it, yelling, "Don't touch it with your weird magic! Can you afford to pay for it if you break it?!"
Rod ignored him.
Aim,
Draw the bow.
Let go,
call out--
The enchanted arrow was so fast that it left only a blur, piercing through the thick target and embedding itself deeply into the stone wall with a "thud," leaving only a small part of the fletching exposed.
The entire backyard fell silent instantly.
The boss stood frozen in place, hammer in hand, his mouth agape, wide enough to fit a fist.
"Oh?" The hooded figure at the door straightened up slightly, a look of disbelief flashing in his scarlet eyes, and his fingers tightened around his staff.
After a long while, the boss finally put down the hammer, ran to the stone wall in two strides, reached out and touched the still trembling arrow, then looked back at the elven bow in Rhodes' hand.
"Enchantment?" His voice trembled. "You can actually temporarily enchant weapons?"
For artisans, crafting enchanted weapons is a watershed moment. Each enchanted weapon is a priceless treasure, and most adventurers could never afford to buy one even if they saved up for a lifetime.
There aren't many materials that can support enchanted runes, and the number of artisans in the entire Misty City who can carve qualified enchanted runes can be counted on one hand.
Even he can't consistently produce many enchanted weapons, and often the materials he painstakingly finds are destroyed.
While temporary enchantments cannot compare to permanent weapon enchantments, they are more convenient and can temporarily increase the weapon's power.
For adventurers, even the slightest difference in battle is crucial and can even determine their fate.
However, such a technique is difficult to master. It requires extremely delicate control over magic power. If one is not careful, the massive amount of magic power will directly destroy the weapon itself, or even harm oneself.
Furthermore, temporary enchantments place stricter requirements on weapon materials. Even with short-term enchantments, weapons made of ordinary materials are prone to problems due to the erosion of magic, which can be extremely fatal in battle.
In my memory, apart from warlocks who are born with magical abilities and mages who study and practice like crazy, most professions cannot do this.
After all, many people can't even sense magic, let alone something like enchantment.
Why would someone with such capabilities need to buy weapons from him?
Thinking of this, the boss suddenly froze.
"You…" he jumped in front of Rhodes and asked, "What weapon did you use before?"
He stared intently at Rhodes, circled him once, and finally looked up to see the ash wood longbow wrapped in coarse cloth behind him.
He jumped up, reached out to touch Rhodes' back, and eagerly took the ash bow after Rhodes untied it.
"You...you use this kind of garbage weapon?"
The moment his fingers touched the bow, his already wrinkled face instantly contorted into a grimace. He gently pried it open and heard a faint cracking sound coming from inside. His face instantly turned as black as the bottom of a pot, filled with heartache and despair.
"What a piece of junk! Even a three-year-old dwarf's slingshot is sturdier than this!"
He angrily slammed the bow to the ground, and the ash wood longbow broke into several pieces, revealing the hollow and brittle wood fibers inside.
"Ah, so it really was the bow's fault, not yours..." Alina, in the consciousness space, was stunned when she saw this.
"I knew it..." Rhodes squinted at the fragments of the longbow on the ground.
The two of them simultaneously recalled the scene before they left home that morning.
Rhodes attempted to test his archery skills without being physically connected.
Perhaps it was the half-elf talent of Alina that boosted his fusion, coupled with the abundant results of the past two days, that led him to misjudge his aiming ability.
As a result, he repeatedly missed his target in the cemetery, with his arrows frequently deviating from the original trees and flying into other people's graves several times, which earned him some subtle ridicule from Alina.
Although the two were aware of the bow's wear and tear, they were more inclined to believe that Rhodes himself had not mastered archery skills.
In other words, practice cooking more.
Rod breathed a sigh of relief after finally proving his innocence.
Yes, he said he couldn't possibly be that bad.
It's all the fault of inadequate weaponry.
"But now we have to buy a new one..." Rhodes looked down at the shopkeeper next to him, who was still cursing at the broken pieces, and asked, "By the way, are you going to compensate me for this?"
"Pah! You think you can get this kind of trash from me..." the boss blurted out instinctively, then suddenly changed his mind:
"Didn't you want to get a new weapon? Here's the Elf Bow, I'll give you a discount."
In the past, he would cut anyone who dared to lower his price.
But now that we've finally found someone who can use this trump card of mine, we can't let him get away like this!
If you miss this person, there's no guarantee you'll find another one.
We can no longer let such good weapons gather dust!
Rhodes thought for a moment, since the ash wood bow was useless anyway, "Alright, how much is that bow?"
"5 gold coins... but considering your strength, I'll give you a discount, 2 gold coins, how about that?" The boss immediately changed his mind when he saw Rhodes' hesitant expression.
"It's a bit expensive," Rhodes thought for a moment, then took out his adventurer's pass and handed it over. "Can you give me a discount?"
"This is expensive?!" The shop owner was furious upon hearing this. "You think it's expensive? I think it's expensive too!"
He instinctively wanted to slap Rhodes' hand away, but upon glancing at the adventurer's rating on it, he immediately took it back.
"You, second tier?"
The boss stood there, stunned, recalling the Adventurers' Guild's requirements for promotion to level two adventurers.
Being a second-tier adventurer isn't exactly difficult, but it's not easy either.
By completing multiple Tier 1 missions, clearing out medium to large monster lairs, or simply surviving long enough, adventurers can accumulate enough experience to advance in rank and enjoy corresponding benefits.
Thinking of this, the boss looked up again and carefully examined the person in front of him.
Young, strong, with a human-like appearance and a hint of elf, it was impossible to tell what race he was.
Looking at the Adventurer's Certificate, it's brand new, very new, meaning he only recently became a Level 2 Adventurer.
Strange, when did an adventurer of this level arrive in Misty City?
Given the nature of the local adventurer group, they would have already made a big fuss about such a master long ago. How come he hasn't heard a word about it?
That means they're from out of town.
"Hmph, according to the rules, adventurers of your rank get a 20% discount here," the shopkeeper said through gritted teeth after calculating, "which is... 160 silver coins."
"This is an elven longbow! I'm sure you won't find another one like it anywhere in Misty City. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"
"Hmm..." Rhodes fell into deep thought.
The Adventurers' Guild's bounty of seventy-eight silver coins and twenty copper coins, plus the fifty silver coins Milan had previously given, the inheritance from John's gang, the villagers' payment and past savings, and a bunch of other miscellaneous valuables...
Rhodes currently has less than 150 silver coins in total assets. Although he might be able to manage it if he gritted his teeth and squeezed out a little more, but...
That left him with absolutely no money left, not even enough to buy basic supplies.
"Never mind," Rhodes said, taking back his adventurer's pass and shaking his head. "I'll go check out other places."
Even if other stores don't have a suitable one, he can save up some more money to buy it.
Just then, the petite figure who had been standing in the corner suddenly moved.
"Please wait a moment."
Holding her wand, she strolled leisurely to Rhodes and smiled.
"I think this elven bow suits you quite well. How about I help you with the difference in cost?"
She raised her head slightly, and a strand of long white hair slipped down with her movement, reflecting a mysterious iridescence in the sunlight.
Beneath the hood, her scarlet eyes gleamed slightly, meeting the gaze of Rhodes, who was looking down at her.
【Enchanting Eyes】