Out on the street earlier, Ye Chui had already seen a good many orcs, but thinking it over, they had all seemed to be male—every one of them a strapping warrior build, standing at least two meters tall, tusks jutting out, faces fearsome. That didn't stop Ye Chui from nursing a small hope about what a female orc might look like; at least that pair of lovely legs coming down the stairs was plenty attractive, once you discounted the green.
As the orc came down the stairs, her figure emerged bit by bit: those legs, a slender waist, and then... a chest that was frankly absurd.
By this point Ye Chui couldn't help letting out a holy shit. Orcs were a born warrior race, and their style was rough and rugged—which could also be defined as simple. This female orc, for instance, wore very simple clothes.
Calling it clothing might be a stretch; it was more of a war skirt suited to combat. The hem split high, and the top was cut very low. If you didn't look at her head, this was an absolutely alluring figure.
The original Hammerhead had surely seen this female orc before—probably a clerk here, or the owner—and if Ye Chui had simply thought about it for a moment, he could have pictured exactly what she looked like. But he hadn't thought about it. He wanted to savor the pleasure of discovering beauty.
Then...
Ye Chui deeply regretted the artistic sensibility that had just come over him: an orc face with tusks jutting out appeared right in front of him, a chicken leg clamped in her mouth, and the crunch-crunch made anyone instinctively wonder whether she was chewing up the bone along with it.
Blood-red hair spilled carelessly over her shoulders; judged by modern tastes it might have had a certain messy beauty, but right now what Ye Chui felt was pure mess—he guessed the orc had forgotten to comb her hair this morning... or did orcs simply never comb their hair at all?
"Ho, we've got a customer." The female orc quickly spotted Ye Chui hugging two books. She reached up and pulled the chicken leg out of her mouth the way someone plucks a cigarette from their lips—and sure enough, not only was the meat gone from the top, a chunk of bone was missing too. Beaming, she came up to Ye Chui. "Little mage, are you here to buy magic books? Welcome, welcome."
"Uh, hello..." Ye Chui snapped out of it, and Hammerhead's memories finally surfaced one by one: this female orc was Kara, owner of Kara's Magic Bookstore, an orc woman of the Fang Tribe. The Fang Tribe was one of the five great orc tribes, set apart by tusks even beefier than other orcs'. In that tribe, tusks were the standard of beauty—and this Kara, so people said, was a famous beauty among the Fang Tribe...
Kara clearly knew the former Hammerhead. The mages in Stan City could be counted on one hand, and running a magic bookstore as she did, it would have been hard for her not to know them.
"What book are you after this time? I hear this morning you used magic scrolls to play a rank-four swordsman to pieces. Interesting. Whatever book you buy today, your big sister here will knock ten percent off." Kara smiled, brimming with allure.
Of course, that "allure" was probably how it felt to her; from Ye Chui's side it was more like a bloody maw full of tusks—that "your Sister here" of hers was enough to make his skin crawl right off his body. Ye Chui made up his mind to treat the ten-percent discount as idle chatter; he was a grown man, and there was no way he'd take advantage of a little thing like that!
At the same time, what surprised Ye Chui was that barely two hours had passed since his duel with Kairui, and this shopkeeper already knew about it? He wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. He put on a faintly bashful look and held the two magic books out to Kara. "I'd like these two."
"Hm?" Kara glanced at the books in Ye Chui's hands, her brow furrowing slightly, and gave him a rather strange look. "You're sure?"
Ye Chui hadn't said anything yet.
Kara just kept talking on her own: "Of course, even if you weren't sure, you have to be sure now. Any book on this shelf, once it's in your hands, counts as bought. No returns, no exchanges. Ten gold coins for the two."
"Ten gold coins?" Ye Chui blinked.
A lavish meal at the Molan Flower Restaurant, the finest in Stan City, cost only eight silver coins, and pawning Anthony's Magic Cottage had only raised a loan of ten gold coins... and these two magic books were worth ten gold coins?
And what else had Sister Kara said? Once you pick it up off the shelf, no returns whatsoever!
Ye Chui suddenly realized he might have made some kind of mistake.
It was indeed a mistake. A big one.
"Hammerhead, what... what do you think you're doing with magic language books?" Debbie's voice suddenly rang out beside him, flustered and furious. "Don't you know the rule here? Magic books you can look at but not touch—touch one and you've bought it. And magic language books cost an absolute fortune. Most important, books like that are completely useless! Magic language can only be learned with a master teaching you personally!"
Debbie's words lit a lightning flash in Ye Chui's mind, and he abruptly thought of something he had been overlooking all along.
Because of their unique nature, magic books were all expensive, and among them the textbook sort—magic language, spells and the like—were expensive beyond expensive.
Also, although the bookstore did sell magic language books explaining how to comprehend magic runes, that alone was not nearly enough. Magic runes were profound and hard to grasp; they could be regarded as characters, but they weren't truly characters with concrete meanings, because each rune was, so to speak, a special emotion or thought bearing a deep and subtle imprint.
Learning magic language absolutely required a master's instruction and personal transmission.
It was like that thing between men and women: watch all the videos you like, without any practice you'll never become a master of that particular art...
Of course, you couldn't call that an absolute rule—there might be the freakishly gifted who, just by watching, could grasp the flavor and the knack of it and become a peerless master. Don't get the wrong idea, this is about magic language.
But such people were very, very few—at least Debbie didn't think her dim-witted Hammerhead had that kind of talent. She nervously licked her lips and gave Kara a pleading look. "Shopkeeper, can we please not buy these books?"
Kara gave a gentle, warm smile—though the gentle and warm part was probably only Kara's own subjective impression; in Ye Chui's and Debbie's eyes it looked more like a sinister grin... She went on, "Of course... not. Oh—you wanted this encyclopedia too? Seeing as you're buying two magic language books, I'll just throw this one in for free."
Ye Chui: "..."
Debbie: "..."
Kara shoved the half-gnawed chicken leg back into her mouth and crunched away without pause, hands on her hips, a hint of a smile drifting across her green, tusked face. "Well then, little friends, is there anything else you two would like to say?"
"There is..." Ye Chui said weakly. "Big Sister, does that ten-percent discount you mentioned still count?"
Kara's Magic Bookstore was famous for its uprightness: magic books, once touched, must be bought—buy them whether you want to or not, buy them even if it kills you! And the power behind Kara let her carry that "uprightness" through to the very end, so even someone with Debbie's temperament could only give in and behave.
In the end they spent nine gold coins and left Kara's Magic Bookstore with one encyclopedia and two magic language books, and Debbie's little face was dead white. The joy of coming into a hundred gold coins two hours earlier seemed to have vanished entirely; she was in a fury right now, which made that huge greatsword on her shoulder look even more dangerous...
Ye Chui carried a stack of books in his arms, a wry smile fixed on his face, feeling thoroughly fleeced—and yet... he didn't regret those two astronomically priced magic books. In fact he'd have liked to buy a few more magic books to understand this world's magic theory in more detail, but one look at Debbie's angry little face and he abandoned the idea.
Sifting through Hammerhead's memories, Ye Chui learned that studying magic required a master's guidance; magic language, after all, was a profound kind of written language, and only through the spiritual perception shared between master and disciple could one accurately grasp the meaning contained in each rune.
But finding a teacher who could instruct in intermediate magic language and advanced magic language was harder than climbing to heaven, and even if you found one, the apprentice fee alone was by no means something ten gold coins would cover.
In fact, Old George, a peak rank-three mage, was fully qualified to study intermediate magic language—but because he had never been able to find a master, he had remained a rank-three beginner-level mage.
And yet it wasn't impossible to learn magic language from the books alone—only very hard. Only a few had ever managed it.
But a few didn't mean none. Ye Chui had become a hacker by teaching himself, groping his way forward step by step, and to him this was simply one more interesting challenge. With the attitude of a top student (self-styled), he welcomed the challenge...
And watching Debbie huffing along ahead of him, Ye Chui couldn't help thinking, maybe I should find some way to cheer up this little girl who has nobody but me.
Soon, after they left Stardust Avenue, he spotted a bunch of seven- and eight-year-old beggars loafing by the roadside with nothing to do, and his eyes lit up.
"Debbie, I've got a way to make our shop's business a whole lot better..."
Begging for recommendations and bookmarks~~~~ fantasy is so hard to write~~~~