Close Combat Mage
chapter-92

Hearing the blacksmith’s words, Suo Jia’s eyes shone brightly. He earnestly said to the blacksmith, “Very well, I’ll remember your words. In addition……I’ll do everything I can to find these items!”

The old blacksmith didn’t pay much mind to Suo Jia’s words. The words of an eight-year old child mostly seemed like bragging; nobody would really take them seriously. More importantly, they had already reached the storehouse, so it was time to begin selling. This was what the blacksmith was most concerned about.

Bringing Suo Jia up to a shelf, the old blacksmith pointed at the armor neatly arranged and said, “This is an armor made by copying the Marshal’s Armor. Although it can’t possibly be as powerful, its defense is still quite good. It’s just enough to aid your urgency temporarily.”

The old blacksmith then led Suo Jia even further into the storehouse, and pointed to a large pile of boxes, “Those are fake Holy Cross Blades. Their forms and weights are all exactly the same; it’s just their strengths that are lower. They can be used temporarily; in the end, they’re still produced by dwarves, so their quality isn’t a problem.”

Suo Jia nodded and said, “I want 36 each of these armors and weapons. Can you calculate the total cost for me?”

Hearing Suo Jia’s words, the old blacksmith pulled out a metal abacus and it pattered as he calculated. After he finished, he smiled, “Although these are just normal equipment and don’t carry any additional effects; they’re still dwarven products after all. They are of high quality, and can last for a long time. Their performance is also much better than other races’ products, so the total price is still quite high. The total is 42 million gold.”

Speaking up to here, the old blacksmith gave the abacus a shake. With a Huala sound, the old blacksmith laughed and said, “However, in order to give Emma face, I don’t need that 2 million. You can just give me a total of 40 million.”

“Fuck!” Hearing the old blacksmith’s words, Suo Jia could not help but feel dumbstruck. Could it be that this old bastard couldn’t count? How could he possibly know that Suo Jia only had 40 million gold left? Any more and Suo Jia wouldn’t have had enough.

Within the underwater training area, Suo Jia was sitting cross-legged on the ground. He wore the Frost’s Sigh on his finger, then… he wore the blue glove on his hand, completely covering the ring. This way, no one will be able to see the precious ring; otherwise, there would be trouble.

The fire wind warriors were already wearing the armors that Suo Jia brought back for them, and had left with the old blacksmith’s material list with their destination set in the far north. One objective was to hunt those high-rank ice element magical beasts; after all, their entire bodies were covered in treasures. They could simultaneously improve their combat abilities and earn a lot of money. It was definitely more cost-effective than picking Snow Lotus fruits.

After sending off the fire wind warriors, Suo Jia once again began cultivating. Wearing the Frost’s Sigh, he started to perform the Ice and Snow Pact. Sure enough, Suo Jia could clearly feel the connection between the ice spirits and himself; it was comparatively more clear and more smooth.

After only slightly testing it out, Suo Jia decided to momentarily stop. The part of the Frost’s Sigh that Suo Jia liked the most was precisely the fact that it could improve his cultivation in the Ice and Snow Pact. Closely tied with this, however, was the halved magic power consumption when activating ice spells.

As for spirit power, after eating 25kg of Snow Lotus fruits, Suo Jia’s spirit power continuously broke through three times. Currently, it had far surpassed his magic power. Now that he had this ring as well, it caused his magic consumption to decrease by half. Didn’t that mean he could already cast the Revolving Frozen Gas?

Originally, Suo Jia would have had to train for at least another half a year before he could successfully cast the Revolving Frozen Gas. However, after obtaining this ring, as well as the aid of the Snow Lotus fruit, Suo Jia could immediately cast it.

After taking in a deep breath, Suo Jia opened his magic textbook, and silently read it for a bit. First, he memorized the diagram needed to cast the Frozen Revolving Gas, then he closed his eyes, constantly familiarizing himself with it inside his mind.

Not realizing how much time had passed, Suo Jia finally opened his eyes. He confidently stuck out his right index finger, and in rapid waves, the Frozen Revolving Gas was released in one go.

“Hu… Phew…” Accompanied with a huffing and puffing sound, a freezing cold stream of air flowed out with Suo Jia as its source. It spread outwards while spinning, and no matter whether it was the ground or the pillars along its path, they were all covered in a sheet of snow white frost. The temperature of Suo Jia’s surroundings immediately dropped to 30 degrees below zero!

Furrowing his eyebrows in dissatisfaction, Suo Jia knew that his cultivation was still too weak. This low of a temperature would at most give his opponent a cold, and not be able to defeat the enemy on the spot. After all… negative 30 degrees was not enough to kill someone, and would barely even inflict a frostbite.

This Frozen Revolving Gas counted as one of the basic auxiliary ice magics. Its effects included numbing the enemy’s limbs, slowing their movements, lowering their attack power, as well as reducing the enemy’s accuracy. There were no other effects aside from these.

Based on the magic teacher’s words, Suo Jia’s only method of attack was the Ice Sphere. While considering this problem, Suo Jia’s right hand quickly began to move once more, and with a single wave of his hand, the Ice Sphere spell array formed in the air.

A cold, white air emitted from the Ice Sphere, and with a whistling sound, it flew towards the stone pillar opposite from him. Just as Suo Jia expected, after the Ice Sphere smashed the pillar into thousands of pieces, it didn’t shatter. Instead, it continued to shoot quite a distance before falling onto the ground where it rolled around back and forth.

Normally speaking, 10 degrees wasn’t that extreme of a temperature difference. However in certain critical moments, this was a deadly amount. If a person has a fever of 40 degrees, they can still be saved. However, if they reach 50 degrees, then they’re beyond saving. Even if they manage to live, they’d be reduced to an idiot. If they get to 60 degrees, one can scramble eggs on them.

Currently, with the help of the Frost’s Sigh, the temperature of Suo Jia’s Ice Sphere had been lowered by an additional 10 degrees from its original base temperature. Both its hardness and power had been increased by a great amount, and its destructive ability had also been greatly boosted.

Without tiring, Suo Jia began to activate the few magics that he knew one after another. He knew that the more these magics were practiced, the faster his activation speed would become, and the more powerful they’d be. After training these to a certain extent, the wounding power of the Ice Sphere would be quite formidable.

However, just because an ice magic’s temperature was lowered doesn’t mean it’s perfect. One also has to actually hit the enemy to be qualified. The Ice Sphere’s speed was also related to the extent a mage practices it; no matter how the magic is activated, it becomes faster, more fierce, and more accurate the more it’s practiced.

Only after his magic power had pretty much been exhausted did Suo Jia stop, and once again begin training the Ice and Snow Pact. An ash-blue mist rose like a flame in Suo Jia’s palm, constantly flickering.

Time passed very quickly. In the blink of an eye, there was only one month left until the day of the annual competition. During the past month, Suo Jia’s strength had suddenly increased fiercely with the help of the three magic equipment. He had already far surpassed the norm of other children of his age. However despite this, Suo Jia was still not completely satisfied, and he thought that his speed of improvement was still too slow. This was because his objective was the Greater Trade Routes; he couldn’t spend too much time training here.

As the days until the competition inched closer, Suo Jia’s training also became harder. However, even though there was still a month left until the competition, he had no choice but to temporarily stop training because… the day that he had arranged to meet with the leaders of the top 10 influential families had arrived. The main reason he had arranged for the meeting date to be so late was to allow these family leaders time to rush over from their cities.

Suo Jia once again excused himself from school, and quietly waited at home. He had ordered the maids to invite any person that arrived and asked to see him into the guest room, and wait on them there. Once everyone gathered, he’d naturally go out to meet them.

Suo Jia believed that with such an amazing dagger at stake, none of those fellows would dare to skip out on this meeting. They didn’t have to worry about Suo Jia tricking them, since Suo Jia didn’t have the capital to do so.

As time flowed by, the family leaders of the great ten thief families arrived at the White Villa, and one by one, they were invited into the guest room. After seeing that so many other family leaders had appeared in the same place, a few of the family leaders couldn’t help but inwardly frown. They knew that if the others weren’t here to look around for fun, they must’ve come to take away that dagger.

Finally, the ten great influential family leaders had finally gathered. After organizing his thoughts, Suo Jia pushed the door open and walked in. Seeing Suo Jia’s appearance, the eyes of the leaders immediately lit up. All of them knew that this young boy was Lord Suo Jia.

Suo Jia didn’t bother wasting words, and directly pulled the dagger out. He placed it carefully on the table, allowing everyone to look at it. Suo Jia was not afraid of any of them stealing it and running away, since nobody was that extreme. It wasn’t like Suo Jia didn’t have any background either; unless they wanted their entire family to be eradicated, nobody dared to go against this child that had a relationship with the Fourth Prince.

The dagger quickly circled around the family leaders. After it had once again returned to Suo Jia’s hands, he fiddled with it as he smiled and said, “I’m sure everyone already knows the advantages of this dagger, so I won’t go into further detail. The reason I called everyone together today was to find a good owner for this dagger. However….”

Suo Jia paused for a bit before he said in a serious tone, “I need to first clarify some things. I’m only willing to trade this dagger, not to sell it. Don’t try to persuade me with money; I’m not lacking in wealth. I only want a water elemental magical item that is Legendary-ranked or higher. I will trade with whoever has something that I am satisfied with.”

All of the leaders couldn’t help but furrow their brows at Suo Jia’s words. An item for a water mage wasn’t a problem; after all, any influential thief family would definitely have some in their collection. However… all ten of the major family leaders were here. It looked like… if they didn’t sacrifice a lot of wealth, there was no way they’d walk away with that dagger.

As the leaders were all in deep thought, Suo Jia continued, “The main reason I called everyone here today was for you all to personally experience this dagger. Everyone can return now; in half a year, we’ll meet here once more. However, next meeting, I hope that everyone will have brought treasures to exchange.”

Suo Jia pulled out a dozen lists of items from his pocket and gave one to each of the leaders, while saying, “This is a list of items. If any family leader can gather all the items from this list, I will definitely trade with them. Otherwise, I can only see whose item will arouse my interest.”