Chapter 16 - Real World Trade Center (1/2)
Upon making his way through the crowd towards the nearest stall, Cynrik activated his Inspect Skill, which was currently Tier 1. A wealth of information appeared in the form of system windows that hovered over each item laid out on the small wooden table before him.
Items and skill books of all kinds appeared neatly spread out on the table. Recently Rikard had taken Cynrik to their town's Skill book shop, where he came to realize relatively quickly that not only would his Inspect Skill show him a person's basic stats and such, but it also worked on items. Moreover, unlike the shop he went with his father, where things could be bought with credits, the currency here was a mixture of Skill points and credits.
Earlier, Cynrik had briefly glanced at the description of skill points and found out these skill points had a myriad of uses; aside from being used to upgrade skills, abilities, and even proficiency, they could also be traded to others as a form of currency.
With a quick glancing look over every available item arranged on the table, seeing nothing piqued his interest, Cynrik moved on—bouncing around from table to table before coming upon his 7th stall.
A specific item drew his attention, causing Cynriks eyebrow to shoot up inquisitively.
{What's up?} Brance, who was standing off to his left, asked. Not answering immediately, Cynrik instead took a moment to examine the items description thoroughly.
The first glancing look only showed the item's name as ”Pretty Brown Collection Stone.” Its name alone would generally make Cynrik ignore it, but right as he was about to look away, a little asterisk after the Stone's name caught his attention.
'Oi, Tobs, what's with the asterisk?' Cynrik couldn't help but ask the AI.
-An Object with an * after its name has hidden attributes that require further analysis.-
-Would you like to Analyze the ”Pretty Brown Collection Stone” further? Y/N-
Without a second thought, Cynrik chose yes, and subsequently, the description and name of the Stone changed.
-Elemental Affinity Orb (Earth)-
-By absorbing this Orb, a system host has a 35% chance of developing an Affinity for the Basic Element of Earth. In addition, during absorption, ambient mana of the Earth Element will be steadily drawn towards the Orb, allowing the host a chance to awaken the element within their Codex.
-This is considered a Tier 0 Basic Element and is highly stable-
The Orb, which had a deep brown luster, was tucked away behind several skill books, almost as if it was either hidden or discarded because its owner didn't have any idea of what they had in their possession. The Stone itself wasn't huge, to begin with, no more significant than the size of a tangerine, and had the appearance of smooth rock that you would find next to a river, well-polished but not very valuable.
{When we looked into affinities, we found out pretty quickly that a large majority of people don't naturally awaken more than one of them, but we couldn't find a lot of information about how to gain a second affinity.} Cynriks eyes narrowed as he spoke in the mind link to draw Brance over to the table
{Well, it looks like we just found out one of the ways.} Brance's eyes trained on the rock and, after receiving the prompt to analyze further, had to suppress his shock.
Nodding in affirmation, Cynrik moved closer to the table, casually giving off the appearance that he was looking for a particular book so as not to draw attention to the smooth stonelike Orb.
After several minutes of this act, he finally reached out and held the Orb. Unlike what he had expected, the Orb gave off no energy or feeling other than a plain and straightforward smooth stone. However, as he was examining the Elemental Orb, he quickly attracted the shopkeeps attention.