"Woah!"
Meiomi ran around in excitement, seeing all of the different items out and on display. After she finished accepting the B-grade skill I had given her, I decided to take her to one of the many stores that dealt with adventure things. Skill stones, weapons, armor—all of these were types of things that a civilian wouldn't really waste their money on.
The place in question though was the most reputable one I could find while scrolling the internet while she was lost in the comprehension of the B-grade skill: "Bluegate Pavilion." Their logo consisted of a Bluegate opening into a building filled with rich colors.
"Mei, come back! We can look around after, but I need to do what I planned first."
Little Mei came back, really holding in her excitement. She was trying her best not to lose it, but I knew how much this little one loved mysteries. Magic to her was the escape she used to not be lonely without her loved ones.
The two of us walked up to the glass counter where a girl my age was working. Her appearance was well-kept, but to me it was nothing compared to Elena. This girl screamed basic in every way, but this wasn't an insult to her by any means. Her brown hair was tied into twin tails and her green eyes lacked... lacked light.
"Hello. I would like to make an exchange if possible," I said, grabbing her attention.
Her green eyes suddenly burst with vibrancy that she hadn't had before. I'm pretty sure it was because of my good looks, but I wouldn't want to act like Elena so perhaps it was for a different reason. Okay, completely unlikely that it was for anything else other than me, but a man must know when to be humble.
[Oh my god. You are infuriating.]
'Ah, be quiet! A man has to have confidence in himself!'
[Pfft. Arrogance is more like it.]
I rolled my eyes and focused back on the employee. My eyes caught her name tag, and even her name was basic.
"My name is Sarah, and I can help you with that! What would you like to exchange?"
"I need to exchange a Middle A-grade Water Skill for four B-grade skills of Fire, Earth, Lightning, and Wind."
"U-Um, are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure. Neither me nor my sister can use this skill, so I would much rather get two skills for the two of us that work," I said with a smile.
Obviously, I was lying, but I couldn't exactly leak that little Mei could use all five elements. Most people were attuned with one elemental skill set in this plane. The above-average could be attuned to two or three. Then geniuses could acquire four, while God-given talent could achieve five different elemental types—or they could be like me and be limitless!
"Okay. I-I'll have to go get a manager, so one moment please!" Sarah bowed and left in a sprint to the back. A few seconds later, a middle-aged man followed behind her with a smile on his face. His appearance was the exact same as Sarah but just being a male. I wouldn't even doubt if this was her father or something.
"Hello, my name is Adam Newgate, the manager of this branch. I was informed that you would like to exchange an A-grade skill for B-grade skills. Is this right?"
"Yeah."
"As you may know, each major grade in skills is 10x minimum that of the previous grade. So, you can rightfully exchange for ten B-grade items or skills if you'd like, but of course we do charge a 10% fee for exchanges, so your total you can grab is nine B-grade items."
"Sounds fair to me. I probably don't even want more than four, so I guess can I get money?"
"If you would like, we can exchange it for money."
"Cool then. Do you have anything related to these four elements here?" I showed him the list on my phone and his green eyes noted everything down with quickness.
He walked to the right and picked out four different stones that matched the color of the elements that I was looking for. A red stone, a purple stone, a brown stone, and a lime-green stone, with all of them emitting a faint glow.
'System, any way to tell what these skill stones do?'
[Not unless it's a system-connected item or if your disciples or lovers have the skill already.]
'Aw, that kind of sucks.'
[If you get lucky in your daily item pulls then you might get an ocular-related ability.]
'Noted! Thanks.'
[Yep, my arrogant host.]
'...'
Promptly ignoring that little bit, I asked Adam about the skills in question.
"What kind of skills are these?"
"Ahem." Adam cleared his throat then continued, "This Wind stone has the Gale Steps skill which improves dexterity and movement. The Fire stone to the left is a disruption-type skill to stun enemies. The Earth elemental skill is an AoE-type skill which turns the ground to quicksand. As for this Lightning skill, it's very strong against ghost or evil spirit monsters, and it's a guardian skill which summons a spirit related to lightning."
I raised a brow listening to all of this.
"These are only B-grade?"
"Yes, sir."
"They sound much more impressive than their grade."
"Well... a variety of reasons limit them to B-grade, but the most glaring is that the skills themselves don't match the requirement for A-grade evaluation."
"You've got my curiosity now. I've never really cared to learn about that, so what is the criteria for A-grade then?"
Adam seemed a little shocked at my words, which might have been a fair reaction. He definitely thought I was some skilled adventurer to get an A-grade skill.
"In order for a skill to get even a chance at any evaluation, we read the mana's density and purification level. If it meets said requirement, we go through whatever grade that information tells us and start with a checklist.
For A-grade, the checklist—well, let me add that if we have someone with an identification skill we use them gladly—but in the case that we don't, A-grade skills have to have a 90% mana purification level and a minimum mana density of 10¹⁰ joules."
'Joules? Never thought I'd hear that here.'
The knowledge that I received didn't mention anything like this. It was nice to have this benchmark now because the scale of each grade seemed more clear in my eyes. If each major grade increase was 10x stronger minimum than the last grade, I could gather that B-grade abilities fell into a joule density of probably 10⁸ to 10⁹. Of course, this was assuming that this followed the 10x minimum rule, which is probably where the purification level comes into play in skills that meet the joule count but don't compare to proper A-grade skills.
Theoretically, a B-grade skill could have more than 10⁸ or 10⁹, even exceeding the minimum A-grade amount, but that purification level must deal with something vital.
"I can understand the mana density, but what is the mana purification percent for?" I asked to put everything together.
"Great question! It just simply refers to how much of the skill will be retained after accepting it. A 90% means that you'll receive 90% of the skill after acceptance."
"You mean to say that skills that have lower percentages can turn out to be completely different skills when accepting them?"
"Correct. All of these skill stones right here have a 99%, but fall into the B-grade mana density of the minimum 10⁷ with the lightening skill falling into the maximum 10⁹."
I nodded my head and pulled out my A-grade water skill. Curiosity spread through my body at what something from the system would be graded at. A part of me knew I could just ask the system, another part of me had an inkling of a feeling that it would be absurd, and another part just wanted to see things with my own eyes.