Chapter 216

Tenna led us through the city to a store that specializes in spellbooks. While spellbooks aren't strictly necessary to progress as a mage, they help a lot. They allow mages to cast spells they wouldn't ordinarily have access to and eventually learn the spells that they practice as system-granted magic as they level up. I learned most of this through Bella's study of nature magic from the book we got for her in Traehall.

"This is the place," Tenna said opening the door to let us through. "The prices are pretty high but this place has the best selection of magic grimoires.

Walking into the shop I could feel the tingle of magic in the air. Unlike the book I had purchased for Bella back then, these books had magic woven into the bindings themselves. The building was large and had two stories. Despite all the chaos in the capital, the store was surprisingly busy as well. Dozens of mages young and old were looking through the tomes on the shelves.

"This place looks really expensive, are you sure we can afford anything here?" Raya asked while nervously looking around the store.

"This place is really expensive," Sibyl confirmed. "But if we want you to catch up to the rest of the group, Lilith needs to buy you something that will help you get up to speed."

Raya looked over at me awkwardly. "Well... I want to be helpful but I also don't want to feel like I'm mooching off of you either, Lilith."

"I know, but Sibyl is right. Right now you're the one I'm most worried about being able to protect yourself. If you want to make it up to me though, maybe you can help Mimi learn to read?"

"Really?!" Mimi said louder than was probably appropriate in a place like this. "You're gonna help me learn to read?" she asked Raya enthusiastically.

"Uhh... S-sure? I mean, that would be a lot of work but I suppose it would be worth it to me..." Raya said eyeing the stands of books we were walking past.

Tenna was curiously looking around the shelves without touching anything. Even though she wasn't a mage to my knowledge she seemed interested in the different magic books they had on sale.

"Couldn't we have picked something like this up at the Library? Why did we come to a bookstore if we have access to the Great Library?" Torien asked.

Morrigan shook her head. "I actually asked about that but they don't keep these kinds of books at the Library. They have lots of books on magic theory but these spell grimoires are more like tools or weapons than actual books with information in them. They have spells encoded in the pages that help you focus your magic to cast the predetermined spells inside of them. The stronger the grimoire the stronger spells you can cast with it. The book that Bella showed us is more of a hybrid of the two. It's mostly theory but it has a couple of spells at the end. These books are almost entirely spell formations."

A thin looking human woman suddenly walked up to us. "Correct! Are you looking for anything in particular I can help you with?" She was wearing a grey robe and was dressed a bit like a stereotypical witch with her pointy hat.

I pushed Raya forward who suddenly looked a bit uncharacteristically bashful. "I'm uh, looking for an early to intermediate fire spellbook? Something that would help me catch up to some of my stronger friends?"

The woman tapped her chin. "Hmm... how strong is your affinity with fire magic?"

"Uh, the lady at the adventurer's guild said that my fire and illusion affinities were both very high," Raya responded.

The woman's eyebrows rose. "Oh? Hm, alright then. Do any of your party members here use magic?" she asked.

Raya nodded and pulled a flustered Morrigan over. "Yep! Morrigan here has been showing me a lot, even though she's a wild mage. It's been super helpful!"

The shop attendant smiled. "Great! I think I know the perfect thing. It can be a little advanced for someone just starting out but if you have other mages around to help you through the hard bits, it's the kind of book that can take you pretty far. Right over here!" She said before starting to lead us toward one of the larger sections of the bookstore. The area felt a bit toasty, the section actually seemed a bit warmer than the rest of the store from the fire affinity mana hanging in the air.

The woman's finger trailed across the spines in the fire magic section until she reached one of the thicker books and pulled it out. "Here it is! The one who makes these grimoires is very talented, I've told her she should become a teacher many times but she always waves me off saying she's not good with people. I usually offer this book to people a little farther along than you but since you have such a good affinity for it and other mages to support you, I think you could get away with it. Here!"

She handed Raya the thick tome bound in red leather. The book has a large buckle across the front holding the tome closed and the spine just simply says: 'Notes on Fire Magic.'

"Since fire magic is a common discipline this grimoire isn't very pricy either, only eight gold!" the shopkeeper said enthusiastically.

Raya however sputtered at the price and suddenly looked much less sure of herself. "E-eight gold?!" She turned to look at me. "That's way too much, Lilith. Are you sure about this?"

I frowned. "Eight gold is a bit higher than I would have hoped but not completely out of expectations. I've spent more on things like armor and weapons before so this price seems reasonable."

Raya shook her head. "No no. This is way too much. I can't take this just for helping Mimi learn to read..."

I sighed. "Alright, how about this? I'll pay for it now and you can owe me half of it, four gold. Once we start doing some group missions I'll take some out of your share of the rewards until you've paid me back. In the meantime, you'll still help Mimi learn to read."

Her eyes widened, she almost looked like she was going to argue again but sighed and nodded. "Alright. I think that's fair. I still think you're doing me a huge favor here though."

I patted her on the head. "That's okay, I don't mind doing you huge favors."

The shop attendant smiled. "Well, it's good that that's gotten sorted then. Anything else I can help you with?"

"Do you have any grimoires on spatial magic?"

"Uh..." the shopkeeper was caught off guard. "You're serious?"

I frowned. "I am, is there a problem?"

The shopkeeper cleared her throat. "Of course not, follow me please."

She led us to another corner of the bookshop that was just labeled 'misc.'

"We don't have many options for spatial magic unfortunately. Just these two books and neither are good matches for beginners. Spatial magic is both rare and dangerous so it's usually taught directly by masters. Which of you wants to learn spatial magic?"

Mimi raised her hand. "Me! The guild said I have very strong affinity for spatial magic!"

She looked at Mimi with a frown before turning back to me. "Isn't she the one you were saying didn't know how to read...?"

I coughed. "Yes, well, we're leaving the capital soon and we don't really have any better options for buying something like this. Even if we buy it for her a little early, there's not much we can do."

She glanced at Mimi again before looking back at me. "Spatial magic is very dangerous and esoteric. Even with a good affinity for it, I don't recommend learning spells from a book like this."

I sighed. "Mimi, will you give me my sword from your pocket dimension."

She looked at the woman for a moment before materializing my sword and handing it to me. The woman froze in shock, not expecting Mimi to casually use what was supposed to be very advanced magic in front of her. I tapped on the hilt of the sword to demonstrate it was real and solid before handing it back to her. "Thanks, Mimi, you can put it back now."

Mimi looked confused but followed along. "Why did you need your sword? I don't get it."

I pulled her into a side hug. "Just proving a point. Nothing to worry about."

"Ah, I see," the attendant said. "Very well, I recommend this book. It's a bit advanced but if your... friend is that adept then it shouldn't be an issue. This book is quite a bit more expensive though at twelve gold."

I frowned. Twenty gold total for the two books was quite steep and would wipe out most of my remaining gold. It would leave me with only thirteen gold left. Bella should have around five gold and Mimi herself should have about twenty gold on her too but we're quickly burning through it. Still, there isn't much else we should need for a while and if everything goes according to plan we should be making good money in Traehall finding dungeons.

"Can I take the both of them for sixteen gold?" I asked, hoping to haggle a bit.

The woman's smile twitched. "I'm sorry all our prices are firm in this establishment. Categorizing the books is troublesome enough, we can't take the risk of losing too much on our investments."

I sighed with disappointment. "Alright, we'll take the two of them. Thank you."

She nodded and her smile returned to its full intensity. "Then please follow me to the counter so that I can finish our transaction!"

The weight of my money pouch was significantly lighter after placing four stacks of five gold coins on the tray in front of me. The woman carefully weighed each coin on a scale before approving it and moving to the next one. Thankfully there were no issues with that, so at the end, she nodded again and smiled. "I've confirmed the amount. Thank you for your patronage. Please come again the next time you're in the capital."

Raya carefully wrapped the grimoire in cloth and put it into her bag and Mimi took the book and simply made it vanish into motes of light that she absorbed. It might be a while before the spatial magic book will be useful, but Mimi becoming a spatial mage seems like a good use of her talents. I also considered asking about terra magic books but after dropping twenty gold on the two grimoires we did pick up, I thought better of it.

While we were in the capital we also decided to find a place to offload the blue sapphire we found in the dungeon a while back. After spending so much of my money I was suddenly more concerned about selling it since it wasn't very useful to me as a gem. The blue sapphire that Mimi said was 'grade B,' whatever that meant, sold for four gold after some haggling.

I looked at my friends. All of the ones that went into the dungeon back then were fortunately with me right now. "Hey, guys. Since we found this gem in the dungeon, we should split it four ways right?"

Morrigan and Torien looked caught off guard.

"That would be one gold for each of us," I added. "We weren't splitting with Mimi back then."

Morrigan and Torien looked at each other before Torien shook her head. "We were slaves back then and if I remember right, you gave us a bit extra to cover that at the time. You paid us more than enough."

"Nah," I said dismissively. "I think it would be good for you two to hold onto some money anyway since you're not slaves anymore. And for that matter, we should spend a little bit of time clothes shopping before I have to head over to finish my measuring test at the cartography guild. Oh, but I'll still pay for that, you two should spend your money on something fun."

I got the jeweler to pay us in silver and give me two extra pouches for the two. The twins were a bit reluctant but I was able to push the money on them without them having any reason to refuse it. Now that they were free I would need to start pushing them a bit more toward independence. Not so I could abandon them or anything, but so they could get used to having some control over their lives for once. I had to start slow though, they wouldn't accept it otherwise.

"Alright, let's get your clothes fixed up and get you some new stuff!" Bella and I practically dragged them to the tailor after that. Tenna smiled with amusement as she followed after our merry little group.