713 Chapter 713

Now that Alaric had finished eating, he turned his attention towards Marcus who was cleaning up.

“Irene, we talked a lot about what I did today. But what about you? Did your meeting with the viceroy go well?” Alaric asked with a clear look of concern in his eyes.

Being a noble of Borealia as well, he understood the gravity of a personal meeting with the ruler of a territory.

Within the city of Lethallan, Count Vendrick was the most powerful man and pretty much whatever he said went.

If Marcus had somehow displeased him, it could give him a powerful political enemy.

“It actually went extremely well. The viceroy wanted to hire me for a job, and I managed to receive quite the payment. Speaking of which I have a few things to show you.”

Opening up his item box, Marcus took out four of the six skill orbs he had received as payment and passed them over to Alaric.

For a moment he stood them dumbfound, not knowing what they were.

But when he picked one of the orbs up and received the prompt to learn the skill within, his eyes went wide with disbelief.

He had heard and read about skill orbs in school, but this was his first time ever seeing one in person.

And not only that, but the skill within the orb he had picked up was legendary and something that anyone who could cast magic sought.

“Irene, this skill orb has the silent cast skill sealed within it!” Alaric shouted in shock.

In his surprise he also stood up abruptly and knocked over the four skill orbs that Marcus had laid out.

Frantically he began rushing around to try and pick them up, but before he could Marcus grabbed them with his iron threads and reeled them in.

Seeing that Marcus had retrieved the skill orbs, Alaric let out a sigh of relief and then bowed his head in order to apologized for being reckless with such valuable items.

“Oh, it is fine. I understand your astonishment. These are all fairly rare skill orbs. I just got them today as my payment.” Marcus said proudly.

Looking stupefied, Alaric could not really understand why Marcus was paid in skill orbs instead of gold.

Marcus seeing the expression Alaric’s face, understood why he was confused and explained that he had personally asked for them.

“I see, you really are incredible Irene. You are skilled enough to negotiate with a viceroy of a major city and have them hand over such rare skill orbs for your services.” Alaric said in awe.

He then cast his gaze towards the skill orbs currently being held in Marcus’ hand and looked at them longingly.

It was a perfectly natural reaction, and an unconscious one. But he could not help wanting for the high-level skill that all mages yearned for.

“Why are you looking at these skill orbs as if they are far off treasures you could never obtain. I specifically chose these four in order to make you stronger.” Marcus said with a wry smile.

A dumfounded look quickly overtook the one of longing Alaric had previous had.

It took him nearly a full dozen seconds to process what Marcus had just said, before making an incomprehensible sound of disbelief.

“Irene! What are you saying?! Those are the skill orbs you got as payment for your contract with the viceroy. There is no way I can take them.” Alaric said while shaking his head rapidly.

He had also done the same when Marcus offered him loads of natural treasures from the intelligent beast’s domain. Though in that situation Marcus got him to take them by saying he had plenty more and that his stats were already maxed out.

“Well, this is a bit of a problem. I picked these up to make you stronger. If you do not accept them, they are probably going to go to waste.” Marcus said in an over exaggerated tone.

“What do you mean Irene? If the others are rare skills just like that silent cast, I am sure they are incredibly useful. At the very least you could sell them for tens of thousands of gold coins.” Alaric said, still not wanting to take something so valuable.

“Yes, there certainly are all powerful skills, but I already have most of them, and the one I do not, is not something I feel I need. And if I wanted money, that is what I would have asked for in the first place. Now stop being obstinate and take them.”

Thrusting out the skill orbs, Marcus looked sternly at Alaric and with his gaze commanded him to take them.

Tentatively he did begin reaching out, and ever so slowly took ahold of each of the skill orbs.

“Now go ahead and learn them, I will not be satisfied until you do.”

Alaric looked down at all of the skill orbs in his hands and hesitated for a moment before activating the first one and learning it.

As the skill within was learned the orb flashed brightly for a few moments before going dark.

A few moments later it began to degrade, and small specks of crystal flew into the air until they became too small to see.

‘Looks like it worked.’ Marcus thought as he appraised Alaric.

On his skill list was now silent cast at level one. Giving him a skill that should have normally been impossible to obtain.

Marcus had learned from Aria that to get silent cast one had to have chant shortening up to at least level six, and normally practice many years to get the skill. However, using a skill orb circumvented this process and gave Alaric the high tier skill before he ever obtained chant shortening.

Alaric then went through each of the skills learning them one by one. And each time he had an absolutely stunned expression on his face when he found out what skills were inside.

“Seems that everything worked out well. Congratulations on learning silent cast, magic resistance, mana regeneration, and death magic.”