Chapter 4: Foundation

As everyone gathered up with the acquaintances that they came with, Max hurriedly brought Charlotte and Ross together.

"If you two believe in me, don't spend your coins on a recipe. I'll find a way to get top notch martial spirit recipes, but you'll have to listen to me when I tell you what to spend your coins on."

Charlotte and Ross were a bit surprised, but quickly agreed knowing that Max wouldn't do anything to harm them.

"Do you mind if I decide the routes you to develop in so that we all are compatible with each other?"

Charlotte shook her head, but Ross joked, "As long as you don't try to take the limelight."

"Ok, we'll split into 3 types: melee, mage and tank. Ross and I will be the offensive side of our group of three, but we'll focus on different specs. I'll focus on speed and strength supplemented with magic, while Ross will be magic and speed supplemented with vitality. Charlotte, you'll be a thorny tank that focuses on defense and vitality supplemented with magic. Mainly because I'm worried about you."

Ross couldn't help but object, "Where'd you get magic from and I don't want to be easily squished."

"Magic comes from the intelligence points, just like in video games," Max explained," the spirit attribute is kind of like mana. As for being squished, that why I said speed and vitality. You can just run away and if you get nicked, your vitality will be able to support you for a while. Basically at the beginning you'll have to be like a pesky fly that annoys everyone with your magic. But later as you learn powerful spells, you'll become more OP. While you do that, I'll basically be a bolder that flies everywhere and knocks everything in my way while being supplemented by magic. How cool is that? Charlotte will use magic in order to add a large thorny effect, so when people try to attack her, they'll get damaged too."

Seeing Charlotte about to complain, Max already knew what she thought," Relax Charlotte, you won't really be a meat shield. It's just that I'm most worried about you so I want your defenses to be buffed."

Charlotte was still a bit unsatisfied, but acquiesced as she knew that Max has always been stubborn when it comes to things he deems as important.

"Now when it comes to martial spirits, what is the most stable thing you can think of? Our first martial spirits will be used to build up our foundation, so don't think of those flashy powers."

Ross thought for a bit and eventually came up with, "I would say the most sturdy thing is the Earth, I mean we've lived on it for a long time."

Charlotte disagreed, "Water can't really be broken."

"You are both thinking too broadly," Max shook his head as he continued, "A martial spirit isn't really an element, those are too powerful. Most are just plants, animals or just aspects of life that are associated with different elements. For example, in my opinion trees are the most stable and it is in the life category. They have roots and grow up. Once they are strong enough, they can branch off and support new life. The most important thing is their long lifespan. So when it comes to our first martial spirit, we'll be making different types of trees mainly because they are the most symbolic for stability."

Ross was quick to catch up with the idea, "So we'll each have a tree that goes along with the route we want to develop?"

"Exactly, now let's start buying the materials each person needs because we'll need some of the limited items in our shop."

Right now the shop still had most of the limited ingredients because people were still hesitant about which limited materials were good. Max had a huge advantage because his future knowledge led him to know which items were good. In his past life he was super envious of those lucky and quick thinking individuals that used these rare ingredients for their martial spirit. Now it's his turn to use them to buff up his team of 3.

Thinking of the bright future that was ahead of him, he started to think about what tree spirits were suitable for Charlotte and Ross and opened the shop.

[Shop]

-Recipes

-Equipment and Weapons

-Ingredients

-Consumables

Seeing the options, Max and the other 2 quickly chose Ingredients.

[Ingredients]

-Dirt: 1 coin

-Grass: 1 coin

-Stick: 1 coin

-Tree: 5 coins

-Slime: 5 coins

...

-Arctic Fox: 50 coins (limited to 5000) - 4312 Remaining

-Arctic Snake: 50 coins (limited to 5000) - 4891 Remaining

...

-Little Phoenix: 1,000,000 coins (limited to: 5)

-Little Dragon: 1,000,000 coins (limited to: 5)

Looking at these options, Max couldn't help but chuckle. The little spirits basically had no potential and were a huge pit. No one actually saved up to 1,000,000 coins to buy them. The martial spirits with the most potential are actually those that are combined with ordinary or semi-ordinary items.

Scrolling to the middle, he quickly found the first ingredient for his starting martial spirit.

[Ingredients]

...

-Lucky Leaf: 77 coins (limited to 777) - 463 remaining

...