39 Ch.39 Shopping for materials
As he finished cleaning himself, he changed into his usual attire, which consisted of black pants, a tight black t-shirt that outlined his abs, a black belt and black socks. He simply liked the colour black. It didn't have any deeper meaning than enjoying this colour.
Giving a quick check on the egg, Jax confirmed that the lacrimas were doing fine before going downstairs to the kitchen. From the smell, he knew that Cana was currently cooking. With a happy smile on his face, Jax arrived in the kitchen and, seeing her in her apron Jax said good morning before going to the dining room to read his book until it was ready.
About ten minutes later, Jax was presented with two toasts, an egg, strawberries and a glass of apple juice. The breakfast looked even better than the food at the guild. Jax lifted his head and looked at Cana. "Thank you, Cana. I'm sure it'll taste good. If you can make this kind of food every time, I'll stop eating at the guild." Said Jax as he smiled at her and praised her cooking.
On the other side of the table, Cana also smiled while slightly blushing to his compliment before taking her breakfast, which consisted of a toast, an egg, strawberries and an apple along with apple juice. "When did you wake up?" Asked Cana as she hadn't found Jax in the bed when she woke up.
"I woke up at 5. I normally wake up at this hour to train until seven-thirty." Answered Jax as he ate a toast.
"I see." Said Cana before continuing. "Do you think I could join you in the morning?" She asked with a hopeful look.
"Sure. These days I do about thirty minutes of magical training before doing about two hours of physical training in various types of weapons." Said Jax as he finished his first toast.
"Wait. Do you use all the weapons in the training ground?" She asked with a bewildered look.
"Yes. I trained with Laxus and the older mages in the guild when I was younger. Since my magical training was doing well, I picked up the weapons and physical training. In my opinion, it's always good to have another option if your magic power is empty or it simply doesn't work. In those cases, physical skills are the best." Said Jax as he continued his breakfast.
"Do you think you could teach me to use those weapons?" Asked Cana as she simply stopped eating to stare at Jax.
"Sure, I can train you when I train in the morning. Although do you know which weapon you want to use? It took me a bit more than two years to learn to control those weapons and be proficient with them. And at that time, I spent almost ten hours every day doing intense training with my fairy magic to heal myself when I surpassed my body's limits. I wouldn't recommend this training. If I had another chance, I probably wouldn't dare to do this again." Said Jax while he smiled wryly with a little fear at the memories of his training.
"Yes. I would like to learn about daggers. Fighting with daggers in close combat or dagger throwing. It should go well with my card magic." She said as she had already thought about which weapon she liked best.
"Alright, how about tomorrow morning? We'll start training at five. You'll train with your card magic at the beginning, and when you feel it's enough, I'll teach you how to fight with daggers and how to throw daggers." Said Jax as he didn't mind helping her since it wouldn't take much time, and in the future, she may become a sparring partner for him.
"Thank you," Cana answered back as she now entirely focused on her food.
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At precisely eight, Jax and Cana stood in front of the door. They were ready for the day as she would accompany him to buy the materials needed before going to the amusement park. Since it was a first for the both of them, they were quite excited and decided to finish shopping as soon as possible.
Firstly, Jax stopped by the guild to withdraw some funds. The rare materials he would buy weren't cheap, and they were in a low quantity. As such, Jax took all his money from the guild as he knew he would spend a large part of it for his beast. He currently had 35 million Jewels and some extra after receiving the remuneration from his last job in Hakobe.
Their first stop was at the branch of the magic council in the city. While their work was to patrol the town, stop criminals and send them to the magic council's national branch, they also dabbled a bit into business. Their business was mainly about selling materials for the wizards in town, and consequently, most of the materials Jax needed were sold by them.
Thankfully, Jax lived in Magnolia, which was considered a big and important city. As such, they should have more materials than the small branches. Arriving at the building gate, Jax didn't see any guards, so he simply decided to enter the building. The building was made of stone with a roof made out of wood. A few large windows were on the left and right sides of the building. As he entered the building, Jax noticed how the floor was made of pale wood and was richly decorated.
On the wall in front of the entrance was a sign with three arrows pointing in different directions. The one on the top pointed directly towards the stairs, and next to it was written 'captain of the branch magic council of Magnolia.'. The second arrow pointed to the right with the words 'Request for help/criminal activity/jail.' This side was pretty explanatory as it was everything related to the criminals. Finally, the last arrow pointed to the left side, and the word 'Business.' was written. This arrow was also pretty explanatory.
Taking Cana's hand, they walked towards the left door and opened it without hesitation. On the inside were various shelves, and Jax could tell that they were all magical materials. Some could be considered dangerous while others not. However, there was one thing for sure. The branch was rich in materials.
Jax looked closely on the shelves and found four materials that could be useful for the Blizzardvern. Jax immediately moved to take the four items. The first one was liquid ethernano which was an extreme concentration of ethernano which eventually turned liquid. It was quite rare on the continent, and the magic council only managed to produce a small amount every year. Thankfully, it wasn't in high demand, so it wasn't out of stock. According to the book, he could use up to fifty millilitres of this material to increase the egg's affinity to ethernano, also known as magical power. Unfortunately, after fifty millilitres, it wouldn't have any effect anymore, so he decisively bought the maximum.
The second item was frosty metal. This kind of metal was once again not used very much by mages across the continent. However, for the Blizzardvern, it was an excellent resource as it increased their defence and the coldness of their body. This material was usually found deep in extremely cold mines. It was hard to find but didn't have much use except for using it when forging weapons. However, this metal was hard but heavy, and the cold made it extremely hard to use as material for forging. As such, this kind of metal wasn't widely used. For the Blizzardvern, it could only absorb this metal for a total of a day. Afterwards, the metal would become scrap as all the metal's weight and coldness would be absorbed by the egg. Each metal could be used for twelve hours, so he needed to buy two.
The third item, draconian frost-wind leaf. A rare leaf, which can be used for a monster with dragon blood. It was an herb that could be used a total of ten times. However, in between each herb, the beast needed to wait for a day before using the second one, so it would take a minimum of twenty days before he absorbed all ten leaves. This leaf had the benefit of increasing the dragon blood concentration in monsters with dragon blood. As such, this would be perfect for the Blizzardvern. However, not only would the leaf increase the blood concentration but also increase the affinity of the ice element and give the wind affinity and increase it as well. With the wind element, the monster would be faster and be able to use wind magic.
The fourth item he collected was arctic feather bones. While it had the word bone in its name, it wasn't a bone but a sort of wood that had the perfect properties to strengthen the bones of the Blizzardvern, lessen the weight, and increase speed. Along with the strengthening of the bones, the strength of the beast would also be increased exponentially. While one arctic feather bone might not have a tremendous effect, it was said that the Blizzardvern could use it a total of fifteen times which would significantly increase its future prospect.
As for the materials he still needed to gather, they were magic dust used along with his blood to create a telepathic link and make sure he had already tamed by the time it hatched. Magic dust was simply an artificial product commonly used. However, according to the book, it was tough to get some which he could only attribute to being written a hundred years ago.
Afterwards, he would need speed silver seven times which would increase the sharpness of its teeth and wings while also strengthening the beast's speed. It worked well with the feather arctic bones. The speed silver would have to be melted, and the egg would have to be put inside the melted silver for eight hours before immediately changing to the second speed silver for the best effect.
Then, there were two other materials he wanted to get. The first one was luminous cotton which could be used eight times, each time for a week. The egg would have to be wrapped in the cotton, and the effect was that the beast's intelligence would rapidly increase. The second one was ghastly skin fruit which not only increased the magical defences of the skin of the Blizzardvern but also of the eyes. However, the most significant effect was that it would strengthen the internal organs to protect them. The Blizzardvern could use the fruit a total of nine times.
