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 as. A part of me knew I could just ask the system, another part of me had an inkling that it would be absurd, and another part just wanted to see things with my own eyes.
To me, a deep ocean blue scroll appeared in my hands, but to the others a skill stone was resting in my grasp.
"T-That's!" Adam freaked out immediately.
He grabbed the skill right out of my hands without even asking first, making my eye twitch. I felt the urge to smack him across his face, but it wasn't worth it. The skill stone must've been that good for him to react so excitedly.
"This is a perfect skill stone!"
"A perfect skill stone?" I mumbled to myself, but Adam took the initiative to try and explain.
"Yeah, a skil—"
"A skill stone that is in the perfect parameters of its grade?"
"Y-yeah." He caressed the water skill with fervor. Honestly, his eyes were quite concerning…
"Mei…" I whispered. "Close your eyes, okay? This isn't something children should see."
"?" Meiomi didn't say a thing. She just nodded her little head obediently and covered her eyes. I gave her a little head pat as a reward!
"To be honest, sir, this skill stone qualifies for way more than what I initially offered. Perfect skill stones are so rare that any appearance doubles the standard market value of the skill!"
"So I get to choose 18 B-grade items after fees?"
"That's right!"
"Oh." My face distorted a bit. I didn't even know what to choose with the rest of my choices, and here I was getting sudden wealth.
"How about this. I have some things I'll take out that might catch your eye, and you can decide from there?"
"Sounds reasonable." Nodding my head, Adam rushed to the back with loud sounds echoing all the way back up here. My eyes glanced at Sarah, whose face was a little pink—either from embarrassment or something else entirely—finding her a tiny bit above the average I originally pinned her at. I didn't think long about this since Adam came back up within the next second with a new ring around his finger.
"Here!" He handed the bland ring to me, then continued, "This spatial ring has some items that I think might be good."
Nodding to his words, I had to ask for some support.
'System, how do I use this thing?'
[Just channel some mana into it.]
'That's it?'
I listened to the system and channeled some mana into the ring. It glowed with a faint dark purple light. My mind suddenly found itself in a dark space with various items floating around me. There were a variety of weapons, armors, and even other skill stones that Adam hadn't shown me.
[Host, there are 23 items in here. While I can't show you their specific traits, I can offer advice. Keep 17 items plus this ring and invest it into Meiomi.]
I-Is this outside interference? The system was quite shameless, but I appreciated its advice. I planned on doing the same thing anyway.
I removed two duplicate swords, a staff, a starry-looking skill stone, a pair of lingerie… and ignoring that, the last item I removed was a spear. They were all probably impressive, but Meiomi didn't need too many weapons and useless looking items.
What was left in the ring after my removal was:
1 tian sword, 1 two-handed sword, a katana, a kimono, a jacket, a pair of silver earrings, with the other 8 items being variations of the kimono. Then, the skill stones from before, making a total of 17 items.
As to why I didn't remove these kimono duplicates? Honestly, it was because I thought Meiomi would fit perfectly in these eastern-type clothes.
Cutting the flow of mana to the ring, my mind was pulled back to the store where Adam was waiting patiently and Sarah was staring holes into me with heat in her eyes that she didn't even bother to hide anymore.
'I told you it was my good looks.'
[Don't piss me off.]
'Bahahaha~'
The items I removed were on the ground lying without a care in the world. I also just noticed the others around, watching our little transaction. Somehow, I cut out all of the mundane details, which wasn't a good habit to have. It was just so hard keeping the average in my eyes; they all just blended together.
"I took out a few items to get 17 total plus this ring. Is that okay?"
"Yes! Yes! Let me just process things and if you don't mind…"
"No problem." I threw back the ring and let Adam do his thing. He entered some things on a tablet with a dance of his fingers, his eyes not leaving the screen for an instant.
His whole process took all of five minutes.
"Here you go, sir." Adam handed me a pretty long receipt with the ring used as a paperweight until my hands could fully grasp it. With the ring in my hand, I pinched little Mei's face with my other, causing her to finally open her eyes. I grabbed one of her hands and slid the ring onto her finger like I did with the five-elements inheritance ring!
[You've invested…]