Ether Stones

The succubus eventually found someone who could tell her where to find the black market. From the information she received, she found out that the physical location of the black market had been moved recently due to the influx of people. The black market had many things which it really shouldn't, take for example, secret techniques of various sects. More people meant a larger supply range while a larger supply range generally meant more people stolen from. Thus, with the help of various notable shady individuals, to not be found out the black market dispersed itself amongst various artificial which were only accessible through magic gates found all over the town.

Which was why the succubus found herself entering an alley found between a bowyer's workshop and a bakery. Her gold eventually found its way onto the bakery's second window sill, she didn't have to wait for long before a gate opened behind her. After putting on her newly acquired mask she entered the gate. She found herself in a neat reception area with five counters ready to serve visitors and some sort of resting area opposite that. After looking around a bit, she walked to the closest counter. Behind the counter sat a man who seemed to be in his late twenties, a polite smile was plastered on his somewhat handsome face.

"Greetings dear customer, what can I help you with?" he spoke enthusiastically and politely. Something you shouldn't find in the black market of a small town out in the middle of nowhere.

"I have some spells to sell and I might buy whatever catches my eye," the succubus answered.

"Understood, I'll arrange right away," the man answered quickly, "As the customer may have heard, we recently had to adopt certain safety measures for the sake of our beloved customers and respected staff members." Somehow he said that with a straight face, "Some of those rules stipulate that customers and staff are to swear a few minor oaths."

Saying this he took out two Oath Stones.

Pointing to the one on the left, "This Oath is to be sworn by staff members." Revealing the back of his hand, an image of a quill in an ink well surfaced on his skin. The image resonated with the Oath Stone indicated by a similar image showing up on the Stone. Checking the Oath the succubus found out that the 'staff' is forbidden from revealing the information of any customers, they are not allowed to withhold information about any products they sell as long as it doesn't reveal anything about the supplier without the suppliers permission and any information about the black market is to stay on the premises of the black market. This oath basically made it safe for the customers to sell anything they want.

Pointing to the one on the right, "This Oath is the one that customers are obligated to swear, regardless of whether they desire to continue to the black market or they wish to leave this area." Definitely the most polite way she had been threatened thus far in her life, they'd done subtle before but no one was as good as the guy in front of her. Checking the Oath she didn't have much problem with it, the matter of her affiliation could be described as confusing even to her, so obviously that entire section had various gaps which she somehow fell in, hell even she wouldn't have thought they existed if not for her particular circumstances. The other part was that no information is supposed to leave the black market. At least they were nice enough to add the part about the Oath expiring after thirty years but, with the right resources she could tear it down in a week, so yeah.

Now she checked the Oath Stone itself, just to make sure there weren't any hidden conditions. And sure enough there were two, the first one was that who ever forcibly tore down the Oath early would die and the second one was that the Oaths are slightly different from person to person, that made it easier to identify who bought what and keep track of them since the Oaths are supposed to resonate with some other formation.

She had a powerful babysitter for the moment so they probably wouldn't bother her for the moment and since her plans for the next while include going to the opposite side of the continent, they aren't likely to meet each other any time soon. As long as she was careful in the following towns are likely to have black markets under the control of the same power she should be fine until she finds the necessary resources to tear the stupid Oath down safely.

After swearing the oath she was given a green metallic card and pointed towards a man standing conspicuously by the near-left corner. Walking over, she presented the card to the man who merely scanned it with his spiritual energy a bit, after which he activated a gate.

On the other side of the gate, the succubus found herself in front of some magic consoles. Scanning them with her mental energy she found out she was supposed to enter what she wanted in the black market, to which she answered 'to find a shop where I can produce some spells'. The console then transmitted some locations with relevant to her, after selecting a location she tapped the card on the console and went through the gate that opened.

The shop she wanted was pretty close to where she reappeared. She had selected it since it was one of the few that allowed her access to Knight Stage Spell Disks for free if you ignore the Oath that deals with payment should you waste any. According to the information the owner of the shop has a considerable number of connections in the black market, he probably had the information she needed so she considered him the best choice.

In the shop, a redhaired man with sideburns sat behind the counter seemingly going through some documents. He lifted his head up slightly at the entrance of the succubus and calmly waited for her to reach the counter.

"What do you want?" was the first thing that came out of his mouth. He found it weird that the little guy in front of him didn't go to any of the shelves to check what they had on stock.

"I heard I can imprint some spells here, I was wondering if you'd give me a shot at a Knight Stage Spell Disk," the guy wasn't that much older than her, sure he was notably stronger than her but violence was currently forbidden down here so she could talk to him however she wants.

The redhead stayed quiet for a bit before asking just to be sure, "A Commoner wants to imprint a Knight Stage spell?"

A mere nod was the answer he received. He didn't care, this was the black market, the only thing that mattered was money. He brought out an Oath Stone and signaled for the succubus to read the Oath.

She already knew most of it so all she had to check for was hidden conditions and look at the minor details that the console skipped over. Confirming that everything was fine with the Oath she swore the stupid thing.

The redhead sighed at that sight before he signaled for the succubus to follow him. He lead her to a back room where he gave her some low quality Knight Stage Spell Disk and left without a word.

The succubus approved of the man's behavior, there is no good reason to save someone from their own stupidity.

For the spell she decided to make it an area of effect of the lightning element. Due to the quality of the Spell Disk, she couldn't make something too complex but it should still be something amazing enough to get the shopkeeper's attention. The spell she decided on could be described simply as a substantial amount of lightning flooding outwards. To add complexity, she made the spell have to modes. The first would cause a dome of lightning to flood out in all directions which hurt the range, while the second would push out a rim-shaped pulse. The size of the rim could be adjusted, the thinner the rim was the greater the damage and range.

It took a whole three hours to be done with the entire thing, mostly because she was imprinting something way above her level and had to slow down so that mana expenditure and recovery could balance each other out. You weren't allowed to stop midway during the imprinting, doing that would hurt the quality of the spell or just ruin the Spell Disk.

With the Spell Disk in hand, she knocked on the door to get the shopkeepers attention. A moment later the man came in and his eyes immediately went on the Spell Disk. He could tell that it wasn't ruined, which was more than he expected. Hell, he had expected that the girl would ruin the thing in the first minute. Even if the spell wasn't viable, the girl had already proven her skill. If the spell wasn't viable, he would get the girl to repay him with interest, which basically meant thousands of high quality Commoner Stage spells for free.

The next moment that hope was vanquished though, but he didn't mind. Not only was the spell viable but it was also extremely stable and powerful. It wasn't everyday you came across such a powerful imprinted in a low quality Spell Disk. In fact it was almost impossible, spells this powerful could only come from powerful organizations and using low quality Spell Disks was beneath them. Looking at the girl, even through the cloak and mask you could tell she was drained, he couldn't help but curse the new 'safety measures'. They had just cost him this golden goose.

"I can give you fifty thousand ether stones for this spell, if you can make anything better, I can probably get whatever you want."

The demon smirked under her mask as she said, "You can keep that spell as advance payment, I'm gonna need a lot of things."