The three days off were spent mostly working on our strategies as we now had three new experiences to talk about. The other time was spent watching the other battles in the arena for the first years to see our competition. In between all of that was just meandering and enjoying the sights and sounds of the end of the year academy tournament and all it brought.
There were shops that only existed around the arena during this month. Traveling adventurers that had treasures, gems, weapons and armor from exploring the kingdom would create their own stalls to sell their collections. A lot of the plant beasts that were considered more of the civilized beast masters would run most of these stalls for the adventuring beast masters as they were better with the paperwork and of course they did for a charge. However this month would still bring the adventurers to be at the stall helping with the sales as well as trying to bring prestige to themselves.
We continued to stick together as a group of six but since we wore armor in the arena when all eyes were on us that no one knew what we looked like outside of our armor besides our classmates. They knew not to call us by our team name as that was the only public knowledge about the team's identities to keep issues at minimum. Plus who calls their friends by their team name even if they are the best team on the planet?
The best interaction we had by far was the booth that had a t-shirt sales man with lots of random teams put on shirts. He called us over "You need to get the best team shirt possible, team Arcanum." This caused all of us to stop in our tracks thinking he knew us as them when he continued "Not a fan of them, that's ok we have Muhlhauser Academy's best Shunki t-shirts."
Joey couldn't help himself, "No we definitely are fans of the best team Arcanum as you say, I will take a size 8 if you have it or an extra small adult." The man gave him a grin and grabbed a shirt showing a pose apparently we were in during our introduction of the first fight. I looked at it closely and liked it so I asked for a small for myself. The rest followed suit which Abby then pulled out a token placing it in shop keepers hand who stood there shocked not expecting to be paid in royal coin. That royal coin was worth more than all of his shop being sold ten times over, he repeatedly said thank you as we walked away.
We were now sporting the team shirt and comments were being made about us and our team shirts. The comments were fun to hear, the same as the shop keeper, everyone commenting had no idea we were team Arcanum.
Travis tried to comment back but was called a fanboy which caused all of us to laugh and just give up on even trying to change anyone's minds. The fact that they had no idea we were them was also an advantage because if they were talking about us so openly without knowing it was us, I didn't want to imagine how they would treat us knowing who we were.
I remember that last day before the tournament began and we had decided to check out the last section of stalls that we hadn't explored yet. We had separated into three groups as we searched the stalls with Adam and myself going our own way with the two girls being another group and lastly Travis and Joey went their own way.
Adam and I came across a stall that caused both of us to stop in our tracks. The stall had several items that were rich in arcane energy. Adam looked at me, "Wispy needs to let us know what's best!" The next hour we walked around the stall looking at each item, testing the items that we could test. There were several armbands and trinkets that were rich in arcane energy and Wispy didn't have all the details until they were worn.
It also made me wonder if Wispy had all the answers for Maddy when I was giving her information about her possible gear when we were in the armory. Then I thought about the items there versus these, these all seemed to be custom unique pieces while the ones in the armory did seem to have a mass production feel to them in some ways. These items were made by one person who did a good job but didn't have a standard mold for everything or anything for that matter.
I ended up only purchasing an arcane gem that I could put in my dimensional storage and it gave me an increase to my mana pool. Adam saw what I purchased and grabbed the store's storage of them which was 5 more and he handed me 2 of them so we each ended up having three. He too added it to his dimensional storage and purchased a box to do what I had set up. I thanked him profusely and he told me not to worry about it, that it didn't really cost anything.
To me it cost a fortune but I wasn't one to argue with him. He then grabbed an armband that fit him and the armband that fit me that both also increased our mana pool and mana regeneration by 10%. He purchased them and handed me the armband that was my size. Once again couldn't believe what was going on and he started to get mad at me for thanking him.
We left the stall after we had spent over an hour there and somehow at that moment the four others were looking for us and were approaching the stall.
"Perfect timing!" I pointed out trying to get a smile out of them. They all were smiling in their own ways and I can remember how much joy all of us were in that day at the arena market.
"Did you find anything good?" Adam asked of the group approaching us.
"We found a jewelry stall that had lightning and life magic in their gems and necklaces. Then finding out about the dimensional storage and the gems giving us boosts we purchased their gems. We found arcane for you Adam, and for you Jordan we found a necklace with all 7 elements that the owner had been trying to sell forever but no one wanted something that had 6 expensive gems they couldn't use." Abby explained as she handed Adam arcane gems similar to what we had just purchased. Maddy walked up to me and put the necklace over my head and onto my neck.
I felt crappy for not purchasing anything for Maddy as Adam suddenly produced an armband I didn't see him purchase but it had a lightning gem similar to the arcane gem in the armband we each had. I then thought about the gems in my box given to me from Maddy's uncle and even though it was gifted to me, a life magic gem would be more beneficial to her than me. There were also two of those that were given to me so giving her one there was no way her uncle would know even if she told him about the gift.
It was a bit behind the rest of the gift giving but when I handed it to Maddy she blushed and quietly thanked me. She placed the gem in her dimensional storage and looked back up at me wanting to say something but didn't. I also wanted to say something but everyone was cut off as the end of the tournament day fireworks went off not far above our heads. The explosions were deafening and blinding but also fun, no idea why fireworks do that to you but you end up just staring in pure enjoyment.