Assimilate All Talents

"How did you know that?" Sol was a bit surprised at how accurately she had assessed the price he was willing to pay for the Mimic Eye of Replication.

Before answering, Madeline raised her pipe to her lips and took a deep puff, using it to quickly recover from her initial surprise. Then, she spoke.

"It's my law technique, [Golden Eyes]. It allows me to see the value of everything. And you should know, value isn't a fixed number, it varies from person to person. What shocked me just now was that the moment you saw the Mimic Eye of Replication, you instantly valued it at 50 gold. Do you know how much other A-Rankers have paid for these?"

"No?"

"7,600. At its lowest. Only ten of these eyes were made, with six already sold. While these are only ranked as unique by the system, they allow you to copy any skill you see. Don't you realize how useful that is? You could copy a powerful escape skill or even ones that greatly increase your attributes, like [Limit Break] or [Berserk]. You could cover a weakness or even copy a healing skill. There are endless ways to make use of this," Madeline explained, hoping that if Sol understood the item's potential, his perceived value of it would rise.

But even as she monitored his evaluation through [Golden Eyes], she saw that his appraisal hadn't budged an inch.

She was truly amazed that such an item held next to no value to him.

"It's like I'm trying to sell wood to a woodcutter…"

"I just don't have a use for it myself." Sol shrugged, offering no further elaboration.

In all honesty, he wouldn't have paid even a copper for it, but he thought it could be at least somewhat useful to Amber.

'If she had one, she could copy any of my skills, but there wasn't much of a need for that.' Amber already had an excellent balance of abilities in her repertoire. While she might benefit from some of his skills, like [Overpower] in an emergency, he didn't think it was worth spending a large sum on something that would ultimately be temporary.

As for Thorwyn making use of the eyes… Sol had little confidence in the young Raijin figuring out when best to use such an item with limited charges.

Madeline exhaled a slow puff of smoke, watching Sol with a mix of amazement and mild disappointment. She had assumed that even if nothing else in her vault caught his attention, the Mimic Eyes surely would. These were coveted by A-Rankers, they would spend thousands of gold without hesitation to get their hands on them. And yet, to Sol, they might as well have been common trinkets.

More than being surprised, she was disappointed in herself—disappointed that she had failed to offer him something that truly piqued his interest after stating so boldly before.

Just to be sure, she let her gaze sweep across the room, her [Golden Eyes] scanning Sol's perceived value of the other unique items and materials. None were valued higher than 500 gold.

That was a problem.@@novelbin@@

She couldn't very well sell them at that price. Most of these treasures had cost her far more to acquire than what he was willing to pay. It was rare for someone's valuation to be lower than the market price—most people overestimated an item's worth, especially when it came to rare artifacts. Sol, however, didn't seem to operate under normal rules.

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With a sigh, she closed the box containing the Mimic Eyes and turned to him.

"I have to apologize. It seems I don't have anything that satisfies you."

Sol, however, simply shrugged. "It's okay. I don't mind."

In truth, he was somewhat relieved. He didn't have much gold anyway, so he was glad nothing had tempted him too much. The last thing he wanted was to be put in a position where he really wanted something but couldn't afford it.

As they turned to leave the chamber, Sol spoke up casually.

"Earlier, you said you had ten Mimic Eyes and sold six. But I only saw three in the box. Where's the last one?"

Madeline paused mid-step, then let out a small sigh. "The tenth one… That one was the best of them all. But also a failure."

Sol raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

She glanced at him, then at the vault behind them. After a moment's thought, she turned on her heel and walked back inside. Sol followed, Thorwyn staying close behind.

Madeline approached another podium, smaller than the one that held the previous box. She reached for a sleek, dark case, then opened it to reveal its contents.

Inside was another marble, but unlike the three foggy white ones, this one shimmered with a misty orange hue.

Sol's eyes narrowed as he activated [Analysis].

[Mimic Eye of Learning

Legendary

Durability: 1/1

Skills:

[Perfected Mimicry] Lv 1

[[Perfected Mimicry] Lv 1: The Mimic's law technique. Copies any skill seen and when used permanently bestows it to the user. This process imbues the skill onto the user as if it were learned naturally. Cannot copy talent skills. Uses remaining equal to durability. Currently copied skill: [Commune with Beasts]]

Sol's brows furrowed. Unlike the previous Mimic Eyes, which were temporary-use copies, this one allowed permanent skill acquisition. However, there was a catch, it had already copied a skill.

Madeline must have noticed his reaction because she gave him a wry smile.

"I see you understand the problem."

She closed the box and leaned against the podium, her expression unreadable.

"These eyes were made from the ten eyes of an A-Rank mimic. When it was slain by a group of A-Rankers, the eyes were sold to me. I had them processed into usable items by a skilled enchanter. Only one of them turned out to be legendary. The rest were unique, just as expected. But unlike the others, which came empty, allowing the user to copy a skill of their choice, the legendary one was already imbued with [Commune with Beasts]. I believe it was because the Mimic, before being slain, copied that skill from one of the A-Rankers that slayed it and it was retained in the eye after death."

She flicked the pipe in her hand, ashes falling onto the marble floor. Continue your saga on My Virtual Library Empire

"That immediately lowered its value. A Legendary item, yes, but a single use one locked to a non combat skill. I still received offers for it, but most were collectors interested in it just for the bragging rights of owning a legendary item, but no one was willing to offer more than 20,000 gold."

She chuckled at the mere mention of the number. "I refused those offers, of course. I paid much more than that to acquire it originally. I even reached out to the Tamers Guild, thinking they might be interested, but even they weren't willing to pay a high price for it. Almost all tamers already have [Commune with Beasts], and if they ever needed a translation, they could hire someone who did."

She took one more glance at the marble and sighed. "And so… it's been sitting in my vault. I've all but given up on selling it. I refuse to make a loss on something like a legendary item and would rather keep it myself if that's the case."

Madeline exhaled slowly, then turned her gaze back to Sol.

He was silent, staring at the orange marble with a pensive look.

Then, after a few moments, he spoke.

"So… what would you want for me to take it off your hands?"

Madeline tilted her head slightly. "What do you mean?"

Sol looked up at her, a faint smirk on his lips.

"Earlier, when I told you I didn't have a lot of gold, you said, 'Value isn't only determined by the amount of gold you carry.'" He paused, then added, "That means you must already have something you want from me. If it's not too excessive, I'm willing to consider it."

Madeline blinked in surprise before chuckling. "You're sharper than you look."

She smirked, amused that he had caught on to something she had only mentioned in passing. "You could make a great merchant if you're always this astute."

"It was a lucky guess." Sol replied with a shrug.

She didn't believe him, but she didn't push the matter. Instead, she nodded.

"There is something I want from you, or more specifically..."

She turned her gaze toward Thorwyn.

"Him."