Ren just nodded, going into his house after Lucian left. She sighed once again as her Uncle was not there, once again. Probably off god knows where doing god knows what once again with his friends. Still, tonight Ren was glad that her uncle wasn't here as he had a few things he wanted to take care of tonight first. The first of those two things being shopping in the Auction. There were a couple of things that Ren wanted to get from the Auction, plus he wanted to experiment some with his black magic and try to at least get the Black Mark ritual to Level 5 before the end of the night.
First came making dinner though, and with the Craft Skill not only was it easy and quick, but it also gave EXP towards said Skill. Not a whole lot, but every bit counted. Ren figured with the money he had to spend he could start getting into Alchemy, maybe create potions without having to rely on Mob Bosses dropping them, as to Ren's knowledge that seemed to be the only enemy capable of dropping them so far. That was for a later time though, Ren currently had alot on his plate already with Black Magic and the other thing he planned to learn. Stretching oneself to thin was not the best idea, but maybe it could be something he worked on at night or on rainy days when going out wasn't really the best idea.
For dinner though Ren decided something simple and really quick. So she just went with grilled mackerel since it was in the fridge. After today he just wanted to eat as quickly as possible and get to shopping on the Auction's site.
Craft Skill (Grilled Mackerel) (2):
--Auto Failure Chance: 17%
--Results: -13 (Success), -25 (Success)
It was done in a short bit, much shorter than normal thanks to the mysterious powers of the Craft Skill. Ren wrapped the meal he made for his uncle and stuck it in the fridge before eating his own quickly. After that, and the dishes that were piling up a little bit, were done Ren was about to dash up to his room, but got a window that made every cell in his body twitch with irritation. Ren guessed that this window didn't appear since his Uncle usually did the dishes, but he hadn't been do them this time, so Ren did it. After closing that window with a heavy sigh before quickly going to up his room.
By this time of day it was about 9:00 PM. Not much time for practicing the dark arts tonight in the part of creating new marks. He figured he could just drain his HP and keep reusing the ones he already has in his Brand. Might be enough to get it to Level 5. As well as imbuing a third mark into his Brand, which he could do now thanks to achieving a higher level in the Skill, but that took an hour to do and Ren wasn't sure if he wanted to attempt that while relaxing from the day's activities, especially after he saw what happened to Mike.
First he decided to go check out the Auction's site though, deciding to get that out of the way. Ren remembered the fact that if he mentioned the name of the Dealer who referred him to the auction when making his first purchase he would get a 25% discount as long as it was of D Rank or lower. He wondered if the others knew this and decided to send a quick PM to them all stating the following.
(This PM won't be received until well after everyone gets home at about 9:00 PM or so).
From: Ren Hitori
If you are going to buy something from the auction, you can get a 25% discount for your first purchase if you put the name Gin Kazuma in the coupon code box in the checkout screen.
The fact that it was only the first purchase though made Ren want to go ahead and buy a few things at once, make the discount a bit bigger. He knew that this was how these companies got you to buy more all at once to make them more money, but there were already several things Ren needed to get, so he figured it couldn't hurt to fall for that obvious trap to get a discount on a bulk purchase. This was money he got from the power anyway, so he figured using it for just Abyss related things was probably the best. It was just three things he needed.
A healing skill. There were no books on healing magic, but if Ren knew anything form games, anime, and manga was that Water magic or water users usually had some form of healing abilities. If water magic didn't have healing spells then he could learn how to use Frost magic for some damage causing spells that included AOEs or some neat CC spells including ones that froze enemies. Healing magics were probably the highest priority right now. Sure Ren had the First Aid Skill, but that took six seconds to use and required items like Bandages or other such items. Its combat usage was abysmal, making it more of a between battles quick HP restore kind of thing to cut down the amount of time they had to spend resting for HP to regenerate.
So naturally Ren's first purchase was a book on the basics of Water Magic. The next was that Basic Magic Ritual Kit, since Ren didn't have all he needed here for performing proper magic rituals. Some of the names of these things were kind of strange, it really did feel like shopping in an MMO's online store. Some of these things were just as expensive as the things in MMO game stores as well, in a comparative sense. That was already 90,000 Yen. With the discount it became 67000 Yen, but even that was a very large amount. The discount was only a one time thing for the first purchase as well, which was a business thing to make people purchase more their first time for a bigger discount, meaning they may purchase things that cost alot but that they don't necessarily need so it makes the auction and other sellers more money.
While Ren realized that he didn't have a credit card for putting this money on to pay for the online they did accept cash payments through delivery, but that made it take a little longer. Ren made a note to go get a debit card tomorrow for Abyss Auction purchases tomorrow from the bank, a more secretive one since he wasn't sure how her Uncle would react when he suddenly saw the account he gave Ren for an allowance suddenly getting tens of thousands of yen putting into it without Ren actually having a job.
After about thirty minutes of tinkering around on the auction's site Ren decided to forgo Alchemy. With the ability to find healing potions and mana potions on the boss mobs and food and drinks also giving HP and MP, Ren figured that it would be best to just sell anything alchemy based he found for money and focus on just magic. In the end though the things he did buy, after the discount, totaled at -202,500 Yen. "Sheesh... this is just all basic stuff as well and it may seem cheap, but that is only because of this one time discount that I have to use on my first purchase... I swear this is just like shopping on an MMO's site, everything is just as freaking expensive..."
Still, Ren knew that it was worth it. This stuff was to become stronger, so it was all worth it. Ren figured this stuff would make him more like his Dungeon Busters character Shimo, who was a powerful frost runic magic user, which is why Ren bought the things he bought. "Well... here goes enough money to buy a month's worth of games, or a week's worth for me." Ren just nervously laughed before clicking checkout and selecting cash as his payment. He wondered if he would have to send it out through the mail, which seemed strange.
Another message appeared though when he clicked checkout and Ren mumbled it out loud to himself. "Quicker delivery for Cash payments... 20,000 Yen? Also for an additional 5,000 Yen you can get a free Abyss Auction ATM Card so you do not have to deal with the inconvenience of cash transactions in the future" Well, normally Ren would have said no to such a ridiculous price for quick delivery, but this situation was different. This was the Abyss and they could get attacked any day now, so Ren went with yes. It would be worth the additional 20,000 Yen to get his purchases a few days quicker or however long it took to get here and the ATM Card was nice to, as it prevented him from having to risk the bank asking questions of why a 15 year old high school student needed an ATM Card. Not only that, but this special card could be used as a credit card online and it could be customized with a picture to, which was nice in Ren's opinion as a small little extra. After accepting the total amount of 227,500 Yen Ren decided to go about practicing some more Black Magic and watch anime at the same time, or so was the plan.
The moment he turned his head his eyes widened and he nearly fell out of his chair. Out of his window was... well...
something. A UFO for all intents and purposes holding a large parcel. Sure Ren heard of quick delivery, but a few seconds? No, maybe even less than that. Was this the power of the Abyss Auction? To find out where every customer who bought something was located exactly? Sure Ren had to put down his address when he made his account, but to be able to be right outside of his room before he even knew what was going on... that was quite... amazing and scary at the same time.
Ren opened the window and looked at the ufo, reaching out to take the present, but before he could the dome atop opened and a small, robotic voice came from the device that simply said "Put Cash in Here." Ren was quite tempted to take the present and smash the device, but he was pretty sure he would get killed by the Auction if he did. After all, he remembered attacking that dealer. His attack didn't even get to hit him as the Spinning Mana Blades just sort of broke right before they did, and Ren knew that wasn't his own fault. Not wanting to incur the wrath of an organization that was supposedly the face of the abyss, according to Saito, Ren complied with the command, placing the total amount inside the opening that then closed.
Ren was able to take the parcel after that, closing the window and watching the UFO depart as quickly as it came. "This certainly beats regular mail and any other super fast shipping services...I didn't even have to go and get it from my door nor did I need to bring my seal to stamp for anything..." After that Ren turned his eyes to the parcel, opening it up and, to his own satisfaction, but not the satisfaction of his inventory that just lost more than 2/3rds of the money in it, that everything he ordered was in here.
Ren got to work after that. Setting up the basics for the ritual kit on the floor. First he learned the new book he got, but figured it was too late to attempt anything new, maybe in the morning he could since he planned to skip school tomorrow as well. He decided to spend the next few hours grinding his black magic to raise its level, first using the two marks he still had on some random trash in his room. It didn't give as much EXP as using it on an enemy, person, or actual object meant for this, as Ren didn't have any, but it helped enough. The next few hours he spent in ritual to imbue new marks upon his Brand.
Ritual 1: 57 - 33 Black Magic Ritual - 4 Skill Bonus = 20
Ritual 2: 37 - 33 Black Magic Ritual - 4 Skill Bonus = 0
Ritual 3: 50 - 33 Black Magic Ritual - 4 Skill Bonus = 13
Some large amounts of MP and HP later and all three rituals were a success, Ren quite tired from all of that as three of the rituals in a row were quite tiring, the second one having been a much greater success than the others. Now it was about 12:30 AM. Ren decided to give it a rest on everything now and play Dungeon Busters for a few hours, immediately being swarmed with requests for parties upon logging in, but Shimo in the game usually went alone unless the dungeon required a party. After playing that for a few hours Ren hit the hay, deciding to call it a little bit earlier tonight since Ren knew that there was a big day ahead tomorrow full of practicing magic, the thought of which made Ren quite excited.