Elemental Cats

Eight thousand gold was slightly more than what he had expected. So far, during his journey, he had, in total, maybe spent the worth of a few golds but using silver and copper coins. And the things that had cost the most were using the portal and the things they had bought in Sleepless Brights, especially the spices. But in total, he had barely spent more than a dozen out of the several tens of gold coins he had gathered before he, Nil, and Lucy set out on the journey.

And while he had gotten a decent reward for reporting the Scorched Earth Rats to the Explorers' Guild, it wasn't more than a hundred gold coins. With his current finances, Toz was far from being able to buy a grimoire. It was to the point he temporarily regretted giving up the Rat King's body. Although he didn't know how much that would have given him, disregarding if he would even be able to sell it properly, it should at least have been in the tens of thousands of gold.

With his current funds, there was no way that Toz could buy a grimoire. And considering his slightly frozen state, Linda noticed it pretty quickly and moved the grimoires to the side.

"I am gonna assume it is your first time purchasing a grimoire?"

"...Yeah, that's right. I was not expecting that price. Sorry for needlessly taking up your time."

"Don't worry. Grimoires are seldom bought, so by the time you get enough money, they might still be here," Linda said with a smile. With her experience, it wasn't difficult to tell if her customer was an explorer or not. And while exploring might be dangerous and unprofitable work, it was also one where sudden riches tended to fall into peoples' laps.

However, she could also tell that Toz was low level, so she told him to be careful and that it didn't really matter how long it took before saying goodbye as he left the shop. He can't use a grimoire if he's dead after all.

Outside the shop, Toz wondered what they should do. But before deciding on anything, he wanted to find a place to take a nap and rest a bit since no one except Lucy had slept recently. Probably an inn since being outside would make it impossible to relax.

After getting a room, Toz gathered the cats, including Mindle, on the bed so they could discuss what to do. All of them wanted to go to Treblor Forest as soon as possible, but they also wanted to experience Roaring Skies, and it wouldn't be fun using a portal to get closer. And they were also low level, so even if they entered the Treblor Forest, they would only end up dying.

However, they had found several grimoires in Sleepless Brights that they couldn't afford at the moment. But if they stayed close to Sleepless Brights, clearing beasts and exploring to find resources and materials to sell to the guild in order to get enough gold to buy at least one grimoire, they would be delayed on their journey to Treblor Forest.

There weren't any grimoires for darkness, so the one grimoire they would buy wouldn't be of that attribute, and since Nil mainly used magic to create traps, he wasn't that interested in a spell that would be something other than creating traps. And so the grimoire would either be one useful for Mindle and Toz or one not useful for any of them except possibly Toz and a future companion.

Toz didn't mind staying a little while in Sleepless Brights if it meant he could acquire a grimoire, but he didn't want to force the others to stay if they didn't wish to. However, his worries were needless.

To get enough gold, they would most likely have to harvest rare resources and subjugate beasts, and if they wanted enough gold in a speedy manner, they would have to kill stronger beasts. Killing powerful beasts is always challenging in a fun way.

But to really make the big bucks, they need to get stronger themselves so they can take on even stronger enemies, so until that happens, they will have to settle for doing slightly easier things. While doing easier tasks to start gathering money, they will train hard and try to reach the fourth level. Even Mindle, who has yet to reach the third level, will try to reach the medium level as soon as possible. Repeatedly using mana in dangerous situations and forcing oneself to exceed one's limits tend to accelerate the speed at which one can train their mana, so going around accepting dangerous requests while training their mana was something that didn't sound that bad to the group.

Reaching the next level will also make their travels to Dormant Thunder and Treblor Forest a safer journey. While the start of the journey gets delayed slightly, the speed with which they will be able to move will be slightly faster. Although not enough to make up for the delay, it will at least shorten the travel time slightly. And fighting and exploring is just a bit more enjoyable than walking or riding a carriage monotonously.

Before the group gets to work and properly begins gathering gold to much a grimoire from Linda's Bookstore, there were a few things they needed to do. First, find out information about what makes the most money in a short time while still being enjoyable enough for the group to do repeatedly. Even if it isn't safe, that can be solved if the group breaks through to the next level. Unless it's too dangerous, then it might be more worth finding something else to do instead of waiting until they get strong enough.

The second thing they needed to do was get their Explorers' Badge upgraded so they can officially explore the danger zones and sell the materials they obtain to the guild.

Since they had already bought some information regarding the areas on the path to Dormant Thunder, the group decided to begin with finding out what they could about the things closest to Sleepless Brights.