"Tsk! Of course those girls would send a tricky er my way." the womaions flipped to mild annoyan an instant and it was clear she was ag before.

  "Almost had me believing that you had lost trol of your emotions for a moment there , still my point stands." I said still smiling.

  "I 't make an offer loathe as I am to admit it. Whatever THAT is is without preothing like it has ever existed as far as I know, as a result I have no idea how much it would be worth." she said with obvious annoyance.

  "Well we seem to be at an impasse then. Tell you what , you tell me the actual price range of a grimoire a me take one of those books on magic over there and I'll let you have that stone, sound good?" I offered calmly.

  "Do I look like I was borerday brat? Those books are valuable in their ht and what would a low level adventurer eveo know what a grimoire costs anyways, not like you afford one. Besides theres no telling if you are ripping me off with this stone." she said with a scoff.

  "You said it yourself, that stone has no pret. Surely that alone ands a respectable prio?" I asked and the woman looked hesitant to disagree.

  Seeing this I pressed a little more like a devil whispering in your ear to make a bad decision. "Look at it this way if it pays off I'll be the o a loss here instead and by no small amount to boot." I said with an urging tone.

  "Fine! Fine! You take one book but I chose the book!" she said annoyed.

  "A pleasure doing business with you!" I said with a grin.

  I ended up leaving the shop with a rather basitroductory book on magid the price range of a grimoire. I wasn't surprised to learn that the public price of a hundred million valis was the starting point of the things not the average selling price. The high end of the range was three hundred and fifty million valis with the true average price being roughly between two hundred million and two hundred ay five million valis frimoire.-

  With my objective plete and some time to kill I headed back to the church to experiment with cursed tool crafting some more. The book on magic was frankly useless to me but that wasn't true for Bell who was quite jealous of my magiot bitter because he's a ball of innod warmth but envious all the same. You may also be w why I wasn't throwing myself into the duo grind my brains out since I was still so weak. The answer was because there was no reason to rush, the path to godhood is a marathon not a sprint.-

  All rushing forward would aplish was to make my path either very narrow and rough or cut it off entirely as I'd slip up along the way. My goal wasn't going anywhere and as much as I may reject the standard craftsman path that didn't mean that crafting wasn't an important part of my own. Creation aru in equal parts if you would, I kill and sughter in the duo fuel my growth but I also use my power to craft marvels of power that ba that scale. My stats were easy to raise but my prowess as a craftsman needed stant experimentation and discovery.-

  In terms of pure time iment it should be obvious which of those two sides took the most to raise properly. Anyways once I got back to the church I was surprised to find Hephaestus there with her captain.

  "Oh! Did you get what you were after Alex?" Hestia asked curiously as I walked up.

  I nodded "I did. I'll be heading down below to experiment for a while now since I've got some time to kill." I said casually.

  "Oh? Perhaps you have some more fasating creations in mind like these s?" Hephaestus said in a ahat made me sigh.

  "You weren't supposed to share those you know." I said sternly to Hestia who looked embarrassed.

  "No reason to bme her si's not her fault really. My visit was not something we had scheduled so she tried to hide the thing from me but Tsubaki has sharp hearing as a level five and found it. I must say it's a marvelous creation to say the least, revolutionary even. A method to unicate with a persardless of distance or location is aremely valuable thing. I'd like to ission some if that's not too big a problem?" the red headed goddess said with a smile.

  I would also like to point out that I ositive she was not here for Hestia to begin with. It was small things that weren't like st time she was here. Her clothes were nicer more "dylike" if you prefer and also more revealing. She had her hair clearly washed and styled and had on a small amount of makeup that none who is ever near a fire would be caught dead wearing si was oil based. I wasn't dense enough not to realize that she was here peacog for my attention.-

  "That's between you and her, I'm just the craftsman. Btw I preferred you without all the extra stuff, felt more authentic that way." I said casually before heading down below.

  I wasn't just messing with her either as I gehought she looked better as she was before. She was clearly unfortable with all this extra stuff on her and in those clothes which took away from her natural charm. I liked tomboys, no point in denying it really. Perhaps I might give romance a the future but for now it would only distract me and I didn't . Anyways while Hestia was left to iate with the red haired goddess I focused my attention on my current resource cursed tool idea. See there was a rather booming magiarket but a severe ck of products avaible that created resources like water, food and healing at the cost of mana.-

  This is where I came in with my reusable magic items that I could charge a stupid amount of money for a away with it too. Some gods oddesses may try and make moves to possess me if I made it obvious I was the source but I had a pn for that. My cursed teique is a lovely thing that would let me quite literally ge my face, skin color, void eve if I was careful so good fug luck trying to figure out who I was after that. If I was also wearing anic clothes I could ge those as well so trag me was a nightmarish task.