Two tier 4 Ice affinity magic seals and two tier 5. With those four spells Damion gained over 100,000 credits for the Magic System Shop and the quests gave him a boost on his way to getting the System to the next level.

Frost Fire was the edge he needed against nobles and anyone else that might seek to harm him or his family. Exile was good, but just as he avoided Thomas Sorin's Vacuum Bubble, Exile could be avoided by stronger opponents than him. The spell was a restricted spell for a reason, it could easily harm its caster and get out of control. Once cast, the spell would consume and expand, consume and expand. Just like a wildfire in nature. As long as it had fuel, it would continue to grow and destroy everything in its path and could only be stopped by someone else that knew the spell.

Having learned the spells he wanted, Damion started scrolling slowly through the other spells in the message holder from Mage Teft. Now that Damion was at B Rank, his spell limit had increased and from the upgrades he had purchased from the Magic System previously, he could now learn 45 different magic seals. However, he already knew 33. The next increase in spell slots would cost him over 5,000 credits. For now, he did not want to learn any new active spells, but he did want to browse a bit and see what type of spells he might want to learn, to fill in any gaps in his abilities.

There were a number of possibilities Damion saw, but he decided to hold off on learning any of them until he researched those spells more. He wanted to be sure that he was not going to give himself another dud like Clean Water. Or end up with a spell that did basically the same thing as one of his existing spells.

Instead of purchasing new spells and spell slots, Damion thought it was about time he upgraded his equipment. Since he was now B Rank, he decided it was time he had B Rank armor.

The Deinosuchus leather armor he had been using was already C Rank and he did not think it would cost much to increase the four pieces to B Rank. He also decided to boost up some of his other gear too, like his mask and hood of cooling and his cooling undersuit and maybe even his Belt of Purification. Upgrading his various artifacts would also help him get a better understanding of how much the System was going to charge each time he upgraded an artifact through the Shop.

'System, purchase Upgrade Non-System Artifact.'

{Please designate an artifact to upgrade.}

'Upgrade my Deinosuchus leather armor, the chest piece, the arms, legs and boots to B Rank.'

{Affirmative. Calculating cost…}

After a moment a list of the artifacts and the cost in credits to upgrade each appeared in his mind.

[Deinosuchus leather cuirass, cost 740 credits]

[Deinosuchus leather vambraces, cost 490 credits]

[Deinosuchus leather greaves, cost 510 credits]

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[Deinosuchus leather boots, cost 440 credits]

'System, why is the cuirass so much more expensive?'

{The Deinosuchus leather cuirass was badly damaged and repaired previously. Not all materials and enchantments are aligned resulting in a higher cost to optimize.}

'System, make the upgrades.'

Damion recalled having to get the armor fixed after his fight with the White Griffin guardian of the Holy Forest dungeon. The damage had been pretty bad, but he thought the repairs had brought the artifact back up to peak condition. Looks like he was mistaken. Still, about 2,000 credits to upgrade four pieces of gear from C Rank to B Rank was not a bad price to pay.

To be profitable to him though, he needed to make sure he was asking for the right fees. The System would give him 1,000 credits for every B Rank core and the cheapest B Rank cores on the market were 50 gold. It was next to impossible to buy a B Rank artifact for 50 gold which would make the trade, 1 artifact upgrade for 1 core, seemingly a good deal. But as Damion just found, not every artifact would give him a large profit margin.

'Two. I'll charge two cores for each Rank they are going to. If they want to go from F Rank to E Rank, then two E Rank cores. If they want to go from F to D, then two E Rank cores and two D Rank cores. Unless I come across an unusual piece of gear that requires more for some reason, I see no reason to vary my prices. The more standard pricing I have, the easier it will be for people to know what to expect. At least for armor and utility artifacts that pricing should be fine. Weapon artifacts though might require three cores for each upgrade, maybe more, after all a B Rank weapon artifact from the System costs 3,000 credits.'

{Upgrades complete.}

'System, purchase Upgrade Non-System Artifact for my Belt of Purification to B Rank.'

{Affirmative. Calculating cost…}

[Belt of Purification, cost – 300 credits]

'System, do the upgrade.'

The next pieces of gear Damion decided to upgrade were his cooling undersuit, his mask and hood of cooling and his new spatial stretching backpack, which were all D Rank. He wanted to see what the cost would be to upgrade them all the way to B Rank.

{Upgrades complete.}

'System, purchase Upgrade Non-System Artifact for my cooling undersuit, mask and hood of cooling and my spatial stretching backpack to B Rank.'

{Affirmative. Calculating cost…}

[Cooling Undersuit, cost to C Rank, 35 credits. To increase from C to B Rank, 500 credits. Total cost 535 credits.]

[Mask and Hood of Cooling, cost to C Rank, 23 credits. To increase from C to B Rank, 500 credits. Total cost 523 credits.]

[Spatial Stretching Backpack, cost to C Rank, 19 credits. To increase from C to B Rank, 250 credits. Total cost 269 credits.]

'System, go ahead with the upgrades.

After a few moments Damion received the message from the System that all his purchased upgrades had been completed. In just a few minutes he had spent 3,807 credits but gained 8 pieces of B Rank gear. Next up on his list were B Rank System artifacts.

The question he had though was, should he upgrade his existing ones. That would cost him 3,500 credits. Or should he purchase new B Rank artifacts from the Magic System Shop. It would be nice to see if there was a difference between the B Rank and the C Rank artifacts from the System, but what should he do with the pieces he decides he doesn't want to use.

Sure, he could keep them in the Magic System Inventory, or stow them in his personal spatial storage, but he didn't want to end up with multiple sets of gear floating around in storage. For now, Damion decided he would just upgrade his C Rank artifacts, he had other purchases he wanted to make and having two sets would be a luxury he did not need. In the future he might decide to pick and choose between the various pieces and equip only the best, but for now he did not want to waste the credits.

'System, upgrade all equipped System artifacts to B Rank.'

{Affirmative. Cost to upgrade all equipped System created artifacts will be 3,500 credits.}

'Proceed with the upgrade.'

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