The painting ended up selling for 675 Gold to an older futanari, who both seemed to be the type of person to spend that amount of money on something like this whilst also seeming like the kind of person to spend that amount of money on ’something like that’, what with her long, plaited gray hair and slightly sunken expression.
Most people inside of the Sultanate were tanned, but she was paler than most, suggesting a life of living indoors and away from the sun, which was a feat in and of itself here, so I was trying hard not to judge her as I saw her rubbing her hands together in excitement, whilst something else showed her excitement somewhat as well...
All of the bettors were taking their time to enjoy the painting before it was taken away, and I had to roll my eyes slightly at how interested they all were in the woman’s likeness enshrined onto the canvas, wondering if there was anything to be gained from having something like that, which only ended up leading to Cali giggling softly in my ears to answer, the Arch Fiend remaining invisible and unnoticeable to everyone else.
That was all she did, her intentions clear as she reminded me that something so simple as showing even just a little skin could make people forget that they were capable of thought, let alone baring all of it... and it helped even more when you were more ’desirable’ than the average person.
Something that Aramicci and I shared, and something that Cali was not so subtly reminding me I had the ability to do; just a flash of a thigh with the potential to see even more, the ability to peer into the space between my ’mountains’... all of it was able to entice and seduce someone to do something that I wanted, and if I made use of other physical senses like touch or scent...
There was so much I could achieve if I wanted to use my looks as a weapon, but that weapon was a double edged sword that threatened to cut me deeper than it could ever cut whomever I wanted to wield it against thanks to the three futanari sitting at the table...
Shaking my head, I let the thoughts drift away as I instead turned back to the notebook in front of me, turning to a blank page and tapping my pen against the paper as I cleared my mind and reoriented it for what actually mattered right now; new spells to increase our fighting prowess, as always.
Specifically what could I get inked onto our bodies to make things more interesting and open up new techniques for us to master and add to our fighting styles, and with the idea from Batu to create and utilize things that could supplement our natural mana for something else, I was able to come up with a few things right off the bat.
The most obvious to add to everyone’s current gear set was enchanted boots, specifically making use of Wind Mana to enhance the wearer’s speed to a new level; not the explosivity that Fire Mana gave people for short bursts of immense speed, but instead a slightly slower, but longer burst of speed to make getting to and from places easier...
And maybe add some more power to any kicking attacks since speed enhances power drastically, the same way mass enhances power drastically; imagining a faster kick from Jahi delivered to someone not anticipating it made me shudder for a moment, before I began to salivate a teeny amount at the thought.I mean, paste would be an accurate description of what someone would look like after being kicked by her with more speed, and that speed would transfer to their vitae as it painted whatever was in its path that perfect scarlet color that made me shudder for different reasons...
That wasn’t an innovative spell though, but I still wrote it down as I made a note to get some Wind Crystals and have us search for a monster with hide infused by Wind Mana to make us new boots, which would be an upgrade anyways to the normal boots we were currently wearing.
My next ideas were individualized, things that would be unique to each of us and things that could be tattooed using their respective elements, though that was still something that was going to require some immense trial and error with Jahi since I had no idea if we could create an artificial Mana Crystal that could contain Light Mana long enough to enchant something with... let alone do something as complex as a tattoo on someone’s skin.
And while her control had improved over the years, I don’t know if she was on the level to tattoo herself just yet, so I did need to work with her if we wanted to do anything at all related to tattoos, but perhaps an idea would come to mind sometime soon...
Either way, since her fighting style always seemed to revolve around how quickly she could make use of her masterfully crafted greatsword - which was really heavy to carry around on its own - I wanted to put a shield type spell on her left forearm - her non dominant arm - and place one of her favorite close to mid range spells on her left palm, which was the dagger spell.
Turning her left arm into a miniature arsenal for her to wield would do her fighting style well, especially since she was capable of forging her own weapons out of her mana already, so she could do so and summon a shield instantly from her other arm if she ever found herself without her greatsword again, like she did in Khisba.
Simple, but... well, she was simple, so it made sense to keep things the same for her so that she wasn’t confused and so she was able to master it swiftly, and with that out of the way I moved on to Anput, ignoring the ancient pottery that was currently being bid on as I instead focused on the future.
Trying to make something work for someone who already was capable of creating an arsenal of her own on a whim was tricky, so I had to go over ideas rapidly as I parsed through them and tried to figure out what would fit her best.
There was the obvious flaming breath spell that would be an alteration of either a fireball spell or a gout of flame, but that was something that I wanted to do after I knew I wouldn’t accidentally damage her vocal cords with the tattoo, so I needed something else.
The other obvious spell that came to mind was a set of Ritual Circles on her Achilles tendons that would give her yet another boost to make her more agile, but that felt rather bland too, especially if we did actually get those boots made...
It was a bit harder to come up with something unique for Anput since her fighting style was almost entirely reliant on her weapons, and trying to add anything to that was a gargantuan task since it would disrupt her flow rather easily, and any support type spell didn’t need to be tattooed since it was either extremely quick to cast or it wasn’t that important in the grand scheme of things to warrant taking up space on her skin.
Perhaps a shield type spell would do well for her as well, something that would require less metal for her to carry around, or perhaps I needed to think of different types of support that she could make use of; support didn’t always have to encompass buff spells after all.
They could be crowd control as well, but the problem of creating some sort of crowd control was difficult as a tattoo, though that only made me think about the spell Batu had cast multiple times, the one that used a stomp as a trigger; imagining that but with metal instead was certainly an idea, perhaps spears instead of thick spires...
" -p is a loose parcel of 50 assorted Mana Crystals harvested from Milki Mine! Each and every single crystal is of high quality, and there’s a little of each element in here this time! The experiments over at Milki have proven to be successful, thankfully! Starting at 55 Gold!"
I raised my hand right away, my attention pulled away from the notebook in front of me - the half written spell sitting on the page waiting to be completed - before pursing my lips as I calculated the prices in my head as someone else began to bid, raising the price to 60 Gold.
50 assorted Mana Crystals of ’high quality’ would be worth up to... probably around 175 Gold before I would begin feeling idiotic on the spending, and the real cut off would be 225 Gold, but depending on how many people seemed interested in this, I might just be driving the
Price up...
Though as I looked around after raising my hand again, not many seemed that intrigued by a parcel of Mana Crystals, which made sense since they weren’t like gemstones; they needed far more care and expertise to be made use of, and that meant hiring someone else to make them into something you could sell, so it was an investment not many would be willing to make. My hand went up again as I glanced at the man bidding against me, the older gentleman raising a brow as he stared at our table from the other side of the hall, trying to figure out who we were; another woman raised her hand next, and we began to gauge one another as best we could as we began to bid on this parcel in earnest.
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