"Sorry, did you just say Clave is dead?" Reno repeated, but he had done so, hushing his voice slightly. Thankfully, the hooded man was starting from one end of the hall of items and seemed to be going through them slowly.
"Correct, he had decided to go home early from his shift last night. Because of that, we had someone check up on him to see if he was okay," the Auctioneer explained. "It was quite a shuffle when we found him."
Reno looked at Raze again. He still remembered the tail end of the scene he had seen and what he had done. The fact that Clave had died the day after seemed too much to just be a coincidence.
'The hooded man, he did seem to be a little on edge. It's quite possible that he decided to finish the job with the anger still in his body,' Reno thought. 'Am I helping a very dangerous person? Or was it really a coincidence?'
There was another thought that had gone through his mind, and it was the extraction technique, but he had never heard of someone using the technique and being affected either. The amount of energy drawn from a person hadn't affected him greatly. Feeling ill was natural, as the Qi had been taken out of one, but for them to die after, there had never been a case of it.
"His body, do you know what the scene was like? Were there any wounds? Did it look like a murder or was it a natural death?" Reno continued to ask.
The auctioneer shook his head. "I apologize, but I really don't know the finer details at this moment."
Reno understood and decided to stop the questions there, but he would be keeping a closer eye on the hooded man. It was hard to tell who he was—was he a Demonic Faction Pagna master, or was he an alchemist in training? It was hard to say.
Looking at the items, Raze was doing one of two things. Since there were some items that would be from other dimensions, he was looking to see if any of them already were enchanted with magical power or any power at all.
He didn't have high hopes because he was sure anything of value would be tracked down and taken by Alter, but they were in the Demonic Faction where their influence was at its weakest. Still, he imagined that although they had no people here, they would still do quite a lot to make sure powerful Mythical and above items weren't retrieved here.
The second thing Raze was doing was using his magic power, a trickle of it out in the open, and seeing what items would react to it. So far he had found a couple of things that were already enchanted, having been brought from other worlds. But they were fairly common items.
They had basic effects, some that didn't even relate to combat, such as having a better taste or lesser resistance to pain for a few moments. On top of that, the common items were one-use type things.
To some people, he was sure it would seem amazing and magical, especially since most on Pagna wouldn't even know how to use them. But Raze could enchant better items himself. So instead, he decided to focus on those that would react to magic instead, and he had come across a few jewelry pieces that would react. One of them was a round brown-colored bracelet around the neck.
There were then a pair of golden earrings that were shaped like a cross with a flower-like design on them. Two small black gloves, that didn't really look like gloves since they had next to no place to use your fingers.
Reno could see him struggling with what they were and placed them over his hand, showing that they covered the wrist and the knuckles.
"They were used for training back in the day," Reno explained. "In the past, quite a few people tried to strengthen their bodies in ways other than Qi. These gloves were a way to protect the skin as they would punch sand to create micro-fractures in the body. The idea was the bones would grow back stronger and stronger. They are more of an antique now more than anything, a thing of the past."
Either way, Raze didn't care, they reacted to magic, and he could create something good out of them. Thankfully, he had also found another ring, this one black in color as well, and he was hoping he could use it to see his ice attribute.
Those were the best items that had reacted to magic there, leaving Raze a little disappointed, but if he had found something really special, then he wouldn't have wanted to enchant it with a level 2 power stone anyway and would have wanted a higher-level power stone, so he thought that this was enough.
"I would like to purchase these," Raze asked. "What's the price?"
Both Reno and the auctioneer had looked at each other. The items that were selected were close to the beginning of the lineup. In an auction, they often saved the best until last, so the items that were at the front would be sold for the lowest amount.
The auctioneer was hoping for a big spender, but it didn't seem like it would be this way.
"Since you are a friend of Reno, I can sell you the items for 1 silver coin each," the auctioneer said.
Raze quickly opened up his pouch and handed the money. The gold coin had already been used up to mostly buy the supplies in the first place, but he still had enough left over. Worst case, he would just have to pay with some power stones.
As the items were packed up, in a sack for Raze to take, Reno took a look at them one more time, and he was trying to figure out a pattern, but no matter how hard he tried when looking at them, he felt that all of them were just... random.
Raze didn't stop his search there as he moved on to the next section, and now he was onto the weapons.
'I don't mind if there are no weapons that are magical here,' Raze thought. 'I just need a real sword to use in combat, especially if I had to go to other dimensions or get attacked in the middle of the night. Along with my wind magic, the results of using such a thing will be quite good.'
The biggest issue was, Raze knew nothing about swords. He didn't know what was a good one or a bad one. Still, he used his magic as he went through them all that were in a barrel. None of the swords reacted until his magic started to move to one in particular. It wasn't placed in a fancy display or cabinet like the others.
Instead, it was mixed in with five different swords that were placed leaned up on a type of stand. All of the swords were together, slightly curved and damaged. When the Dark magic hit one of the swords in the center, it started to vibrate, and a mist started to come back at Raze.
'An… enchanted sword?'
[Rare class Ghost Blade]