24 Inside the city
The port city of Neima had two storage areas. One was located on the east side of the piers and was mainly used by merchants looking to store their precious goods or fishermen who needed a place to organize their catch of the day.
The other warehouses were located on the west side of the pier. But unlike those on the east side, these warehouses were much larger and had multiple layers of enchantments to prevent the goods from being stolen.
These warehouses were privately owned by the syndicate and were used as places to butcher the corpses of monsters hunted by the various mercenary clans and adventurers in the city.
One of these warehouses was specifically rented by the Giant Clan, one of the three most powerful mercenary clans in the port city Neima. Inside were multiple corpses of monsters such as giant spiders, bus-sized reptiles, or some deadly amphibious beast.
But the most striking creature in the warehouse was the huge black horned snake, which was over 20 meters(65ft) long. This was the horned basilisk that the giant clan had brought in a couple of hours ago.
Every part of the horned basilisk's body was a real treasure worth hundreds of gold coins. Even if its Rehi crystal had been extracted before the clan members found it, the creature's corpse was still in perfect condition so its total value was still quite considerable.
However, each part of the horned basilisk had to be extracted through a series of extremely delicate processes and required the use of several specific tools. All with the objective that the extracted materials would suffer as little damage as possible to make the most of their characteristics.
Of course, this whole process was incredibly long and tedious to the point that it could take almost a whole day of work. Unfortunately, by the time the horned basilisk arrived it was too late, so none of the workers were in a position to perform such a delicate complex dissection.
Therefore, the warehouse workers decided that it was best to wait until the next day to begin the dissection process.
So, after applying some spells on the corpse to prevent further deterioration, the workers closed the warehouse and went home.
Of course, none of the workers were worried that someone would try to steal the corpse. After all, no one would be foolish enough to try to steal from one of the most powerful mercenary clans in the city.
Even if someone was that stupid, the warehouse had multiple layers of defensive spells and an alarm spell, so it was practically impossible that someone would be able to break into the warehouse.
Unless of course, they were already inside.
...
{The solar energy in the environment has disappeared}.
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{All of the user's stats and skills}
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{All of the user's stats and skills return to normal.}
...
'Finally!!'
At that moment, the lump in the snake's stomach began to move. Slowly, the lump crawled out of the stomach and soon reached the snake's mouth.
The basilisk's jaws opened revealing a skeletal-looking being. Marcus crawled out of the creature's carcass and when it finally emerged he dropped to the ground.
'Iugh... Even if it worked, this was a bad idea. A wooden horse would have been much better than this.'
...
{The [Monarch of the eternal garden] is impressed with your good luck}.
...
'Ugh, go f**k yourself.' Marcus got up from the floor, grabbed a piece of cloth he found in the storeroom and began to wipe off the saliva and stomach fluids of the giant snake that remained on his body. 'But that certainly was a stroke of luck. If just one thing had gone wrong I would surely have died... Again.'
After nearly six months of arriving in this world, Marcus had finally been able to find and infiltrate inside a city.
A few hours ago, while the sun was still dipping below the horizon, Marcus had made it through the jungle of Ranemal and finally found traces of a civilized society. But there was a problem.
In this world, the undead were creatures considered the natural enemy of all living things. The moment Marcus set foot inside the city he would be seen as a threat and eliminated. But despite all that, he still wanted to go inside.
Therefore, at the same time that Marcus was struggling to extract Rehi crystal from the horned basilisk, he was also devising a plan to enter the city undetected.
The only drawback was that Marcus had no information about the structure of the city or its defenses, so all options for infiltration had a high-risk rate. But it wasn't like he could just walk in the front door like a normal person either.
Then just as Marcus was planning to delay his infiltration for a couple of days to gain more knowledge about the city, his [Energy Sense] had detected a group of people approaching.
The group seemed to be composed of about twenty armed men, which were being led by someone who was at least as strong as the horned basilisk.
As it was not yet night, Marcus is still suffering from the negative effects of solar energy. Therefore, his chances of fighting or escaping from the group of armed mercenaries were practically nil.
Faced with this situation, Marcus panicked and without much time to think about it, he ended up hiding inside the corpse of the huge basilisk.
Of course, as Marcus was not an inhabitant of this world he did not know that the corpse of the horned basilisk was a real treasure for this group of armed men.
When the mercenaries found the corpse, they had their suspicions. But they immediately assumed that the basilisk had been killed by a monster that after devouring Rehi crystal abandoned the rest of the corpse.
After that, the armed men took the corpse of the horned basilisk, put it on a large cart, and by the time Marcus finally realized what was happening, it was already inside the city.
Then, he just had to wait for the workers to leave the warehouse and for the solar energy to disappear from the environment to regain his skills. Once it became dark, Marcus finally came out of hiding.
'Although I didn't expect to use the Trojan method to infiltrate, I certainly must admit that it was a miracle that this worked. Now, the first thing I should do is get out of this horrible slaughterhouse, find some clothes and a place where I can shelter from the sunlight.'
Even if Marcus made it into the city he was still a skeleton. If anyone saw him walking the streets of the city they would surely kill him. Besides, he still needed a place where he could hide during the day.
So once Marcus got his thoughts in order, he headed towards the exit of the warehouse.
But, just as he was a few inches away from opening the door, his arm touched the air and was hit by a sudden shock of energy that knocked him back. At that instant, a glow of blue light appeared in the air revealing a wall of energy that was in front of the door.
'A protection enchantment?'
Monster corpses were incredibly valuable. The price of the Rehi crystals of these monsters alone could be worth anywhere from a few hundred silver coins and up to thousands of gold coins in a case like the horned basilisk.
For these reasons, the syndicate had spent a lot of resources just on the infrastructure and defense of the warehouses in the western area. If someone wanted to destroy the defenses, they would at least have to have the strength of a wizard of the 4th Rehi realm.
'Sigh, I honestly wanted to try to get out without breaking anything, but it looks like that will be impossible...Deteriorating mist.' Marcus raised his left arm, cast the spell, and a few seconds later black smoke began to emerge from the palm of his bony hand.
The black smoke made contact and soon, it began to spread until it covered the entire wall of blue energy.
*Weng Weng... Crack...Crack!
Within seconds, the wall of energy began to vibrate and crack, producing a sound similar to glass shattering.
Currently, Marcus' magical abilities were comparable only to those of a wizard at the beginning of 3ird Rehi realm. So, if he had been a normal magic user he would never have been able to break the protection enchantment.
However, Marcus was also a necromancer.
The reason why necromancy was considered the most dangerous magic among the magic users of this world was not only because it was taboo to revive and control the dead.
While elemental magic spells required Rehi as a source of energy, necromancy spells and incantations used necrotic energy for their proper activation.
But unlike Rehi which formed naturally in the environment, necrotic energy did so through contamination and corruption of energy.
This allowed necromancers to use the properties of necrotic energy to create spells and incantations specially designed to contaminate and destroy the Rehi of elemental magic spells.
These spells gave necromancers an overwhelming advantage against other magic users and were the reason they were so hated and feared.
If it were not for the fact that necromancy was weaker in the day and that there were people who specialized in countering necromancy spells, necromancers would have been considered the most powerful magic users and would be the supreme rulers of this world.
*Crack... Crack... Crash!*
Under the effects of the black smoke, the protection spell finally reached its limit and shattered like a china plate. The black smoke continued to spread, rusting the metal and rotting the wooden door of the warehouse.
A few seconds later, the door collapsed into a pile of dust and rotten wood.
*WANG-WANG-WANG-WANG!*
'Whups. Time to go...Shadow Mantle.' Marcus cast the stealth spell and his entire body was enveloped in a cloak of dark shadows.
The moment the warehouse door was destroyed, the alarm spell was activated and the guards were quick to notice. But by the time they reached the warehouse, Marcus was already gone.
****
*Whoosh*
A shadow moved between the rooftops of the buildings, hidden by the darkness of the night.
After escaping the warehouse, Marcus stealthily moved through the city until he reached the commercial district located in the central area of the city.
Marcus wandered the streets of the city as he looked at every sign on every storefront and listened to every word of the conversations of the people of the city. He deduced that currently, it must be two in the morning, so the streets were deserted except for a few drunks and guards patrolling the streets.
'[Analyze language]'
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{Command confirmed}
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{Renmani language detected}
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{Do you want to learn the language}
[Yes/No]
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[Yes]
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{ERROR}
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{The user's Wisdom is too low to perform this action }
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'Tch... I should have known this would happen.'
In the nearly six months since his transmigration, Marcus had been analyzing and studying the capabilities of the system, as well as its restrictions and operation.
One of the things he understood was how his statistics influenced the rest of his physical and mental capabilities.
It turned out that, of all his stats, wisdom was the one that encompassed the most capabilities. For it represented not only accumulated knowledge, but also the ability to memorize and learn, as well as one's perception and intelligence.
In this way, Marcus could increase his wisdom through constant learning and accumulation of knowledge. However, if he wanted to learn something more quickly such as a language, he would have to use stat points to increase his ability to process information and increase his space to store new memories.
Marcus' current problem was that his memory and learning ability had already reached their limit after learning the Guerrmanic language, the different types of magic spells, and combat skills.
'I guess I have no choice... System, put all my remaining stat points into wisdom and analyze the language again.'
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{Command confirmed}
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{WIS 78»108}
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{User's Wisdom meets requirements}
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{Downloading language information.}
....
A few seconds later, Marcus was able to understand every word he heard and read every letter on all the posters and signs in the city.
But immediately, Marcus' eye sockets locked onto the sign for one particular store.
[Oscar Batier's Tailor and Accessory Shop].
