Chapter 360: I’ll Give You A Thrilling Character
The night before Lancet left Golden Barracks with Espel, he sat alone in the dark of his room with Spectra’s customization panel floating in front of him.
After finally finishing the last changes concerning her catalyst, he was left to the silence after his thoughts. So, naturally, the next thing that followed was doubt.
What if everything he had just done right now still failed in some way? Could there be a circumstance where he would go to Rosenblum only to find out that the catalyst still wasn’t there even after everything he had customized to make sure that it was?
Lancet frowned.
That was the problem with changing lore instead of directly controlling people. Lancet could create the circumstances that placed Sacramenta in the Grand Auction, but he couldn’t guarantee every personal decision people would make between now and the moment he reached it.
There could be traffic, causing him to arrive late and discover the necklace had already been sold. Somebody richer could decide they absolutely needed Spectra Hexerra’s ancient catalyst hanging over their fireplace and bid an amount his three million Notes couldn’t hope to compete with.
Maybe someone involved in transporting it could move it somewhere else, another buyer could make a private offer, or something equally stupid could happen that Lancet had never considered.
He stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, the earlier satisfaction disappearing from his face. "Yeah. No. I’m not travelling all the way to Rosenblum and betting everything on rich people behaving themselves."
He needed a backup plan.
Lancet dismissed Spectra’s customization screen and opened Heroine Creation instead.
⸢ Name ⸥
⸢ Appearance ⸥
⸢ Personality ⸥
⸢ Role Assignment ⸥
⸢ Heroine | Villainess | Noble | Civilian | NPC ⸥
⸢ Backstory ⸥
⸢ Family | Birthplace | Event | Motive ⸥
⸢ Minor Details ⸥
⸢ Create Heroine ⸥
Lancet thought for a quick second who he wanted this new character to be. At this point, he had already made enough women dragged out of old history that the idea of doing the same thing again didn’t interest him much.
Even Espel was older than him, so this time he wanted someone different. Lancet wanted someone around his own age.
A Heroine who actually belonged to the modern world rather than (like in Solaris’s case) another legend who needed several paragraphs explaining why she had been dead for centuries.
That choice immediately made creation a little trickier. If she was around eighteen, then she needed to have existed during the same period as Renan and him, and everyone else in the novel.
Just like Espel.
𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂
Lancet needed somewhere in the lore that fitted the power he wanted her to have. Like with Baphomet and how it helped explain Spectra’s power without contradicting the canon.
Lancet sat there thinking through Chapters in the novel as much as he could remember. Since he was going to Rosenblum, it was probably best that the Heroine be there as well.
But once he remembered that city of trade, a family name immediately struck Lancet’s memories.
Asrephath.
His eyes brightened almost immediately.
House Asrephath appeared several times throughout the original story. They were one of the greatest magical trade families in the world, dealing in everything from magical weapons and armor to rare relics, catalysts, Dungeon treasures and expensive artifacts.
Whenever the story needed some absurdly valuable object to appear on the MC’s hand, the author just conveniently used the great Asrephath family as a method to explain how the item was obtained.
Lancet couldn’t remember the author ever explaining why they were so successful.
They were simply rich and they had their connections that allowed them to obtain three things.
Lancet’s grin widened. "I’ve found another free estate."
He decided to use the Asrephath family and to actually create the reason why they had been able to achieve their success.
After almost an hour of thinking, Lancet came up with a rough sketch and idea of his new, teenage Heroine.
He sat up to face the creation panel and began with the name.
⸢ Name: Opaline Asrephath ⸥
He chose Opaline because opals were rare mineral stones which were very expensive back in his former world.
⸢ Appearance: 18 years old, blue long wavy hair, golden eyes and soft youthful features. Blue, black and golden merchant-inspired garment, leather shorts with a half-gown drapping behind her. ⸥
He sent away his mind sketch of her and thought about her Personality.
⸢ Personality: Bubbly, energetic, curious, happy-go-lucky and stubbornly optimistic. Smiles through loneliness and mistreatment, loves her family. ⸥
With the basics done, Lancet skipped her Event and Motive and went straight to her powers, wanting to write down the hot idea steaming in his mind before he lost even a fragment of it.
What if the Asrephath family gained all their riches through their daughter? What if Opaline’s Class brought magical items to her?
It was an incredibly convenient ability for him to have in his team of Heroines, but it also would explain the Asrephath’s rise in power!
"For crying out loud, am I not just fucking awesome?" Lancet muttered to himself. "Like how do I even come up with this stuff."
High-fiving himself, Lancet typed down Opaline’s power.
⸢ Class: Merchant ⸥
A Merchant would be a Summoner, except instead of calling Beasts, spirits or people, the Class specialized in summoning magical commodities.
Weapons, armor, relics, catalysts, enchanted items and practically anything else that could exist inside the world’s magical trade.
It would be ridiculously rare, the first and only recorded Class of its kind, which made Lancet stop briefly when a thought occurred to him.
Would creating an entirely new Class interfere with the lore?
He considered it for a while and decided it shouldn’t.
Merchant did not require him to invent a new Class Group or change anything already established about Awakeners. It still fit comfortably inside the Summoner Class Group.
The only unusual thing was what Opaline summoned, and there were already enough weird Summoner Classes in the world that one more would not break anything.
Satisfied, Lancet went further.
⸢ Advanced Class: Universal Merchant ⸥
He had to do that in case creating her as a Merchant caused a ripple effect for more people to eventually awaken the Class. Since advancements were rare, Lancet was saving the most impressive parts of the Class for the advanced form.
And by making Opaline have the Advanced Class, he was making sure the ability remained extremely rare.
He spent the next several minutes refining the ability until he was happy with it.
⸢ Description: A Merchant is capable of summoning magical items or other magical commodity in a particular umbrella of magic. Universal Merchant can summon any magical item in the entire world. However, Merchants cannot summon items validly owned by another person. Instead, the Class can locate the owned item wherever it exists in the world. ⸥
Lancet smiled as he read it. "Yup, there’s my contingency plan."
If the necklace was sitting in the Grand Auction, then perfect. He would still take Opaline with him, but he wouldn’t need her help in this scenario. But if somebody had already bought it, moved it or hidden it somewhere else, she could find it.
There was also enough restriction to stop the power from becoming completely stupid. Opaline couldn’t decide she wanted King Romsgard’s best artifact and have it suddenly vanish from his hand. If somebody owned an item, she had to find them and actually buy it.
Also, locating an unbelievably powerful weapon did not make Opaline unbelievably powerful herself.
Merchant was a Support Class so she didn’t have the Grace to actually use most of these items. More importantly, her own Class restricted them from using it.
This suited Lancet just fine. He already had enough walking natural disasters on his roster, and he didn’t have any Platinum Archetype Keys.
He wanted her to cost Gold so he could finally spend his Gold Keys.
The familiar price window appeared over the creation sheet, and his smile vanished almost as quickly as it had arrived.
⸢ Calculating CP Cost... ⸥
⸢ Gold Rank Heroine Creation Cost: 4,400 CP ⸥
Lancet stared at the number, then he checked his CP.
⸢ CP: 3780 ⸥
Lancet slowly looked back at the creation cost. "Seriously? I guess her power is just edging a little close to Platinum. She’s way too functional."
He could remove some of Universal Merchant’s functionality, but that defeated the entire reason he was creating Opaline in the first place. She needed to be able to find or summon Spectra’s catalyst regardless of where it ended up.
So the power stayed.
That meant Lancet needed to attack the price from somewhere else. His eyes moved back over the unfinished sheet.
Motive and Event were still empty. Right now Opaline herself was little more than a useful rich girl with a convenient Class.
Lancet rubbed his hands together. "Alright, Coupie. You want a thrilling character? I’ll give you a thrilling character!"