"You are a level 2 too, Noa-sama. What title did the gods give you?"
The question floated over.
"Ah, as for me..."
Just as Noah was about to answer Haruhime, a gentle voice spoke from beside them.
"Artisan Spirit..."
A silver-haired maiden approached gracefully and stopped near Noah.
"This seems to be the first time we've met while you're awake."
The newcomer had beautiful silver hair and violet eyes that looked like lovely violets yet shone like clear amethysts.
She looked around fifteen, about the same age as girls like Alise.
Her whole presence gave off a cool, elegant feeling.
She wore an outfit mostly in white tones, creating a strong first impression that this was exactly how a healer should look.
But the playful way she opened with that line showed she wasn't really cold-hearted.
On the contrary, she was beautiful, smart, kind, and gentle.
Noah smiled. "Just call me Noah, Miss Airmid."
This saint was one of the few who didn't look down on him because of his age and appearance the first time they met.
"Then please call me Airmid too."
"Understood."
Noah didn't bring up the bill right away.
Instead he asked, "Airmid, this place buys materials, right? I'd like to sell one or two things I have with me."
"Materials? Of course. Please follow me."
Airmid led Noah and Haruhime to the purchasing counter.
Along the way, Noah used Appraisal on everything in the shop and learned quite a bit.
"So, what materials would you like to sell?" Airmid asked in her usual professional tone.
She had all the prices memorized.
No matter what was shown, she could give a fair quote right away—though for the first offer she usually started at about seventy percent of market value.
This wasn't greed.
The rarer the material or the deeper the floor it came from, the more wildly its price could swing.
Sometimes something sold for 15 million valis one day and dropped to 13 million the next.
Price swings on rare materials could be shocking.
If you needed to sell a 12-million-valis item in a hurry, getting only 7 million was normal.
Noah knew all this well.
Unfortunately, that common knowledge didn't apply to him.
"Well, it's a completely new type of material."
"What?"
Noah reached into his satchel, rummaged around and pulled out something that looked like a unicorn horn.
Airmid tilted her head as she studied the object in the boy's hand.
'Is that... a unicorn horn?'
'No.'
'Something's different.'
'What exactly is this?'
She searched her memory and was surprised to find she really didn't recognize it.
More importantly, was it even a material at all?
Could it just be a painted unicorn horn?
Or maybe not even that—perhaps a horned rabbit's antler that had been treated somehow?
'Wait.'
'Are you an idiot, Airmid!'
'This is material brought by the Artisan Spirit from Hephaestus Familia!'
'How could it possibly be some cheap trick?'
"This is...?" Airmid couldn't identify it at all, but she didn't reach out to touch it without permission.
Noah set the sharp, horn-like object on the counter.
Then he looked thoughtful.
'Right.'
'He hadn't given it a name yet.'
He had planned to just show its effects and sell it, but since he was the one who made it, it felt right for him to name it.
"Let's call this Life Root."
"Life Root? From the way you said that, it sounds like you don't even know what it is?"
"No, I know. I'm fully aware of its effects."
"But judging by your reaction, you just came up with that name on the spot." Airmid sounded a little doubtful.
Actually, if she could examine the physical object, she could spend time figuring out its real value.
After all, she possessed the ultra-rare Development Ability Mystery—a skill held by fewer than five people in the entire city!
"Didn't I say it? This is an unprecedented material, so of course it doesn't have a name yet. Haven't all materials until now been named by adventurers? Since I discovered it, naturally I should be the one to name it."
"Hmm, that makes sense." Airmid reluctantly accepted the explanation.
Then Noah began explaining what Life Root could do.
"Simply put, it can regenerate lost body tissues. What you might call... limb regeneration."
...
The moment Noah finished speaking, Airmid completely froze.
'Regrow lost body parts?'
Had she misheard him?
Indeed, adventurers' bodies were far tougher than any surface creature—the stronger the adventurer, the more ridiculous their physical stats became.
But even so, if part of the body was missing, it was considered permanent.
A cut was an injury.
Losing an entire arm was a disability.
Whether it was complete healing magic or advanced healing spells—even the legendary grand magic said to bring back the dead—none of them could restore a missing limb.
In the Dungeon, adventurers sometimes suffered the tragedy of losing limbs because of bad luck.
If handled quickly and properly, a severed limb could sometimes be reattached.
For example, by spraying a panacea on the wound and pressing the limb back on, relying on the body's insane regenerative power to reconnect the tissues.
Airmid was confident that if someone lost a limb right in front of her, as long as the wound hadn't fully necrotized, her magic would work just as well as a panacea.
So was that what Noah meant? Definitely not!
He specifically said it could regenerate body tissues!
Did he mean it would grow back like hair or fingernails?
With panaceas or magic, once the missing part was gone or completely necrotized, all you could do was heal the stump.
Lost arms or legs didn't magically reappear.
She had seen adventurers like that before.
There was a female adventurer from the Miach Familia who lost her arm in the Dungeon and couldn't get it back.
To save her life, Airmid had used her magic "Dia Fratel" to completely close the wound.
That also ended any chance of recovery.
The god of the Miach Familia, hoping the girl could live a normal life, spent the entire Familia's fortune to commission Airmid, begging her to find a way.
The only solution Airmid could think of was "prosthetics."
Using Mystery and her magic, it was possible to create three prosthetic limbs that worked almost like real flesh.
But that girl would never be able to work as an adventurer again.
Even though she was called the Dea Saint, Airmid had felt powerless countless times.
She wasn't a true saint.
Her strength wasn't enough to save everyone!
"Severed limbs… regeneration…"
Airmid stared at the material in front of her that looked like a unicorn horn, still struggling to believe it.
Slowly, as if guided by something, she reached out and touched it.
Under normal circumstances she would never do that.
Noah didn't stop her.
This was something he had created by fusing the properties of eleven different materials into a unicorn horn.
The moment he used Appraisal on it, even Noah, its creator, had been stunned.
He had even wondered if the Sage Fels from eight hundred years ago had forced the Philosopher's Stone into existence through sheer power.
But that was impossible.
The Sage didn't have a skill like Spell-Weaver.
So he probably had truly reached the depths of Mystery.
"It can be used directly, or its effects can be boosted by mixing it with other materials or using Mystery to turn it into a potion. Either way, the effect is real," Noah said confidently.
Airmid was speechless.
In her hands she held the future of countless adventurers.
If word got out that she had obtained something like this, every Familia in Orario would come running.
Depending on how it was used, it could even replace internal organs.
If someone's heart was cursed...
Who could survive having their heart removed and growing a new one?
Of course, that was actually impossible.
Because new tissue needed time to grow.
If it was a vital organ like the heart, the person would already be dead by the time it finished regrowing.
"Noah, may I ask where you obtained this?"
"Well, let's just say it's my exclusive supply."
"I see..."
"So, how much can you offer?"
Noah smiled as he looked at Airmid, but to her that seemingly adorable boy's smile looked like a devil smile!
He actually asked her how much she could offer.
That question had no real answer from the start.
5 million valis?
10 million valis?
Or 50 million? 100 million?
In the end...
"Why are you selling this to our Dian Cecht Familia?"
Airmid hadn't forgotten the boy's words.
It was true that Development Abilities like Blend and Mystery could make the material even stronger, but he had also said the Life Root would work even without any processing.
In that case, any adventurer who needed the Life Root would pay any price.
In other words, he had no reason to let the Dian Cecht Familia profit from it.