The Hero’s Supplier

"Show's over fellas, off you go." Lorie put her crossbow on her shoulder and waved at the crowd with the other and walked off.

'Even though things turned a little sour, I still have the market under my rule' Hands let out a small smile of victory.

"Shouldn't someone go check on the Trolls?" someone from the crowd spoke up.

"…" Hands.

"…" rest of the leaders.

Everyone wanted to know what the kid meant when he asked the Leaders to go check on the Trolls, but no one dared to order the Leaders to go check.

"Who said that? You think beating the Troll is so easy, is it? Why don't you go check on them right now? ", Hands bawled. He had enough of this nonsense for the day. "If a puny kid could have taken care of the Trolls, would we have just sat around trying to get strong for nothing? We have all lost people trying to bring down the Trolls. The Leaders here are here to protect everyone. We cannot have some street rat walk in here just to sow seeds of chaos among us, can we?"

The crowd nodded their heads hearing these words. What else would they do? Speak back to a Leader and get thrown from the bazaar like the kid?

Slowly the crowd dissipated.

But of course, there would be some who would brave through to go check on the Trolls in the building. The ones who went were those who had good [Vitality] stats or had some skill related to Stealth.

What they saw inside the building astounded them all. The fearful Trolls were nowhere to be found anywhere. All that remained of their presence were their garments. Obviously, these garments were also picked up for sale.

Soon the news spread through the bazaar, like wildfire.

"The Trolls were not there anymore"

"That kid was right!"

"I could tell he was an expert with a glance!"

"Why did Hands have to go so far as to throw them out?"

"A brute with no brains."

The mob immediately changed its mind.

When the Leaders came to know that the Trolls had disappeared, they were astounded. They understood that they had erred in not hearing Rick out. Maybe they had lost out an important ally. All of this happened because Hands had to go overboard with him.

 "Jay must have known that the information was genuine. Maybe it was he who killed it."

 "He might have other vital information as well."

 "Even otherwise, because of this episode, we lost two strong Heroes."

 All the leaders had similar thoughts. They all were lamenting the fact that they did not choose to go as well when Jay had left.

 But there was no use of crying over spilt milk. What was done was done. The only thing they could do was to make amends and try to better the soured relationship. They knew what they had to do.

By nightfall, it was Hands who was thrown out of the bazaar.

---

While all of this was happening, the perpetrator of the events, Rick was miles away. He along with Jay and Samira returned back to his house. At the moment he was back in his room fiddling with the Communication Rune Stones.

He talked with Jay and Samira about what they planned to do next. Samira and Jay already possessed immense combat ability, this was obvious. Although they wanted to stay together and adventure, Rick knew he could not travel far away from the Central City Library, at least for the moment. So it was decided. Rick would stay back, while Samira and Jay would stick together and go to become stronger. Jay and Samira already had a good teamwork which was obvious during the Troll hunting.

After that Rick showed the others the Communication Rune Stones. He gave one of the stones to Samira. Immediately the runes on the stones lit up with a blue hue. 

'Wow', Rick's eyes widened as he thought.

 "Did you just say something?" Samira asked. 

The discovery shocked them. The stones always gave off a light hue whenever it was used. With this, the two possessors of the stone could communicate with one another just a thought. And not just the mere thoughts, the other could even sense the emotions of the person as well!

This was truly miraculous!

There was only one draw-back. The stones would only work within a distance of around half a kilometre from each other. Any further and the runes on the stones would dull down again.

Rick decided to give the stones to Samira and Jay. With these, they could adventure around with much more ease. 

It was already late before everyone was done discussing their plans. Rick showed Jay to the guest room and all three of them retired to their own rooms.

---

Back in his room, Rick could not fall asleep. He had a lot of things to do to make sure Samira had the best resources available with her.

He never wanted to suffer the humiliation he had suffered today. It was lucky that Samira and Jay were with him, else he might have actually been killed off. But this was also an eye-opener from him.

 A weak person was weak. No matter anything else. The reason for his failure today was because he was weak, nothing else.

"I will not let anyone show me down ever again," Rick vowed. 

"But I cannot just charge through one enemy after another. I will be smart about it." Rick could not just roam about killing everything in his path. 

He needed to gather the information in the Lemegeton as well.

The Lemegeton! It was his greatest strength, as well as his greatest fear. The grimoire was a treasure trove but most of the information was still sealed.

He kept fiddling with the Communication Rune Stones in his hand.

He wanted to do two things with these. He wanted to make a few more of the Communication Rune Stones first. Second, he wanted to be able to increase the range of the Communication Runes

He took out a notebook from his desk. Carefully he drew the rune lines on the notebook.

He slowly sketched about. But nothing! He tried again and again. He tried making them from different edges and different starting point, but nothing. One after the other, all of his attempts ended in failures.

It was past midnight and he still did not get anywhere. But he refused to give up. He kept going. 
The piles of wasted paper kept growing on as a failure after failure kept piling up.

It was more than six hours since he had been at it but all that came out were failures. He doubted if this method would even work. 

“Whoa! I can’t give up!” Rick loosened himself and kept at it.

He picked up the pencil again and started drawing again, refusing to give up! He had only drawn three marks…

Ding

[Congratulation!]

You have successfully identified the Sound Rune.] 

[The Sound Rune is being stored in the Lemegeton]

Rick received another notification.

Ding

[Congratulations!]

[You have successfully crafted a Low Ranked Sound Rune Scroll]

"What!" Rich hurrahed in a shrill voice! At last, his nauseatingly repetitive task was bearing fruit.

 Rick immediately checked the description of the Sound Rune Scroll.

[Low Ranked Sound Rune Scroll]

[Lowest quality of Sound Rune Scroll created on ordinary paper. It will capture the first sounds heard when it is held in a person's hand. It can be activated by tearing the paper through the rune.]

The description was quite straightforward. Rick looked at the talisman in his hand.

 The markings he had just made looked like an upside-down cursive 'J' with three lines running through its breath.

 "Test one for Sound Rune.", a smile came upon Rick's lips as he cleared his throat and spoke.

 Then checking it one more time, Rick ripped the page in half.

 Just as the notification had promised, the talisman had captured the first sound heard. The sketches on the talisman lit up lightly and then…

 "What!" a high pitched noise echoed from it!

 The product was not a failure, the rune did resonate the first sound it heard. Realizing what had happened, Rick let out an embarrassed chuckle.

 "But how does it even happen?" Rick was fascinated by the rune. The way the runes would glow when activated and then fade again fascinated him.

 Rick knew there was only one place he could get the information he wanted.

 Rick took out the Lemegeton from his jacket pocket.

 Since the Lemegeton had unlocked the Beast Encyclopedia, the pages of grimoire were being constantly filled with new information every moment. Not just that even old information was continuously updated.

 For instance, the information about the Winged Serpent originally only said that its blood was lethal when used against deer and Ogres. But after Rick had successfully killed the Troll, the information had been updated…

[The Winged Serpent: It is very agile and hard to kill by a novice hunter.

The blood of the Winged Serpent has Poison Essence. It is harmless to humans but deadly when used against mutated deer and Ogres. It is unknown if it is effective against other creatures. It has also been discovered that it is not effective against goblins and kobolds.

This discovery was made by Dale Stoudenmire, who is also the second man to clear a dungeon solo.

This information is not known to the public.

The Winged Serpent is also effective against Trolls.

This information is not known to the public]

The Lemegeton contained information of every beast anyone had come across. All Rick had to do was will it, and the information regarding that Beast would appear. However, not all the information was complete...

[Unknown Ants: It has not been observed. Its bite is painful to humans.]

Usually, Rick spent all his spare time pouring through this information.

 But right now, he had more pressing things to look for. Rick immediately skipped through the Beast Encyclopedia and finally found what he was looking for.

 The start of the page had "Runes" written in a large font.

 Under it was the one rune Rick has just drawn, the Sound Rune.

 "How do runes work?" Rick muttered.

 Words appeared on the book.

[Runes are created when the etchings made become capable of storing the World's Essence which is also known by many other names, Chakra, Mana, Qi]

"What is this World Essence?" Rick continued.

[The World's Essence is the energy around the Earth which can be harnessed to possess great strength and further gain the ability to cast spells, enchant and other abilities]

Rick's heart started pulsating fast reading till here. If this was to be true, would he be able to start learning spells?

 "How can humans harness the World Essence?" Rick carefully lipped in suspense.

 But before Rick could read what the Lemegeton replied, a notification appeared

Ding

[The first requirement of summoning an inanimate object has been fulfilled! Please check the Lemegeton for further information.]