Chapter 5: 005 – Preparations

Hmph, I ended up footing the bill in the end.

It was a total of 6 coopers, I only had salvatores, and 1 salvatore is 100 coopers…

Needless to say, it was a really awkward situation.

Sigh… should I just go back? It’s still not too late.

No!

If I can’t deal with something like this, how can I call myself a man!

Let’s look at the bright side of things, at least I have a bunch of change now!

Yes, things are going fine!

Very well, what’s the next thing I should do?

That bastard said something about caravaning, and while I just nodded and said I’d look into it, I don’t really know what that is, so that’s a problem.

It’s some sort of merchant thing, right?

Hmm, maybe it’s when merchants travel from place to place?

I think that makes sense.

Very well! I’ll go look for merchants that look like they’re leaving Paprika and ask if I can tag along.

 

* * *

 

Paprika is a bigger place than I thought it was…

But I managed to find my way into the city gates!

I just had to wander around aimlessly for a few hours.

This place is not too different from the rest of Paprika, but the city wall is visible from here, it’s at least half a dozen men tall, the gates themselves are really tall too, and there’s a bunch of different wagons around here.

There’s also a single guard in here, this guy looks like he hasn’t slept in a decade.

We really are understaffed…

The guard looks at me, and I look at him…

He looks like his soul could leave his body, before simply turning away and acting like he didn’t see me.

Thanks.

I begin looking around here, and I find three people alongside a big poofy wagon!

One of them is a really dark skinned woman with long black hair, she’s wearing 2 big belts that cover her meager chest, black spats with a belt on top, one belt in each wrist and armored boots that cover up to her knees, her overall figure is lean and fit, but you can see scars all over her body.

That’s a total of 5 belts!

I can’t compare, I’m only wearing 1 belt…

Anyway.

She also has a massive sword on her back, it’s almost as big as she is. 

As a blacksmith that seems like something out of a nightmare.

She’s talking with a big guy.

Then there’s another girl sitting in the wagon, she seems bored and is playing with her blonde hair.

She’s wearing a red beret, an orange-ish jacket with a tight fitting shirt that leaves a good view of her midriff, a loose skirt that reaches halfway to her knees, tights, and some leather shoes.

Her hips are quite big and she’s really busty too!

She’s quite high in the ranking of good looking women I’ve seen so far, first place even!

And I’ve seen like 3 women so far, so she really has a lot going for her!

However, the guy the first girl is talking to is the one who really catched my attention.

He’s short and looks middle aged, but is wearing some colorful robes, a blue beret on his blonde head, is wearing an abacus as a necklace and has a massive backpack on his back. He’s also quite rotund, this guy eats well!

His appearance yells merchant no matter how you look at him.

I approach him. “Hey, you look like a merchant.”

“Hmm?” He was talking with the lady, but turns towards me. “Of course, call me Anton Antonescu. However, I must beg your pardon, I’m occupied with another matter right now…”

“I’ll take care of this!” The blonde girl jumps out of the wagon and approaches me, she seems excited to have something to do. “I’m Antonia Antonescu, merchant extraordinaire! What can I help you with?!”

So loud… “Are you guys leaving Paprika soon by any chance?”

“Yes we are! Our little caravan is leaving for Basil tomorrow at midday! If you are interested, it’ll be a 10 coopers fee!” She fully opens both hands, to really show that it’s 10, I guess?

How cute.

“Basil?” That place is not that bad. 

Valentina Basil, the young mistress of that place, hates my guts,  but if I want to leave Epice I have to do it through Sesame, and if I went through Thyme I’d have to go to Cinnamon first before getting to Sesame, while Basil is directly connected to it. 

I could just walk straight to it through the wilderness, but I’ll follow that bastard’s advice for now, if only to get value out of those 6 coopers.

I nod and give her the money. “Very well, I’ll see you people tomorrow at midday.”

She puts the money in a bag she had tied to her waist. “Yes! You won’t regret this!” She grabs my hand and aggressively shakes it.

Such a firm handshake!

I do my best to return it.

“By the way, can you fight? We hired a mercenary to guard us,” Antonia points at the ebony woman with her thumb. “But monsters have been more rowdy than usual this season, and there’s more bandits too, this whole place is a mess.” 

I laugh nervously internally, I know it’s not my fault, it’s still embarrassing to have my clan’s faults pointed out so casually.

I’m not going to do anything about it though, it’s also not my problem now that I’m leaving!

Hehe, how devious of you, Octavius.

“I don’t have a lot of experience fighting, but I do know some spells.” 

“Very well!” She nods.

After some other small talk, I leave the city gates.

I’ve made a very important step for my adventure!

Now what?

…

Do I actually have any offensive spells?

Bartholomew said that I could use caravans as a means of gaining some experience without putting myself at too much risk, but do I actually have something to gain experience with?

I’m not sure…

It seems I put the cart before the horse here.

I mean, I’m sure punching someone while <Body of steel>  is active would hurt a lot, but I’m not exactly a fist fighter…

<Flame>? 

That’s more for starting the forge than anything else, maintaining it for long isn’t really possible and it’s not like I can launch the fire…

Same with <Create water>, that’s more for cooling off stuff.

I could really do some damage with these in the right conditions, but I don’t know if they’re combat-ready.

There’s <Bubble>...

To be honest that’s the spell I’m the least familiar with, I just grabbed it because I don’t have any affinity for the wood or light elements, only fire, water and metal, so my choices are quite limited when it comes to spells.

I can make a bubble with this spell, then launch it at something…

This is an offensive spell, it’s just really pathetic…

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That exhibitionist woman is going to be cutting monsters in half with that sword-like thing, and I’ll shoot bubbles at them!

Could I even call myself a man if I allowed that to happen?

Definitely not.

Thankfully I was smart enough to bring the schematics of the spells with me.

I’ll have to really whack my brain in order to come up with something, and if I can’t do it then I might as well die.

It’s becoming night, so I hurry into the tavern where that bastard scammed me out of a meal.

I have absolutely no idea where I could spend the night, so if worse comes to worst, I will take the blanket that guy was talking about.

 

* * *

 

It didn’t take me long to rent a room.

Apparently they do that.

I had to pay 3 coopers, so it was pretty cheap.

This room seems cozy, with wooden floor and walls, there’s a window looking outside, a bed a third the size as the one in my room, it’s also pretty hard, and a desk with a small toadstool, also, I can extend my arm and touch both walls of the room.

Ok this place is really rough, but I like the roughness.

It’s so new…

And it’s not like I’m planning to sleep either, I need to find a way to make my spells not suck!

I can have a few all nighters, I have a pattern of magic and no one to stop me!

Let’s review what I know of spells.

First, the most basic thing about spells is that they need mana as fuel, and to have mana I need to burn elemental energy with a Vyers method, which are breathing techniques that use air to burn the elemental energy.

However, if one’s breathing is troubled while in the middle of burning elemental energy, it won’t end well.

I heard it happened to my uncle Primus, and that he literally burned alive in the middle of a fight because he got interrupted.

I never knew him, but Quarta always seems sad when talking about her father.

Anyway.

After getting the mana, I can’t actually control it, I need to infuse it with elemental energy in order to do so…

Of course, we could try using spells that only use elemental energy, but the problem with that is that elemental energy is extremely gentle by itself, you can’t even hurt a fly with it alone.

I’ve tried.

Then there’s the topic on how much elemental energy you want to infuse into the mana, because the more it has, the easier it’s to control, but the spell will also be weaker.

There’s also 2 different types of spells, major spells and minor spells, major spells are the ones I’d cast in combat, and for general use, while minor spells are used to support major spells.

Then there’s 2 ways to cast spells, by hand and with a magic circle.

Doing it by hand is supposed to be faster, but that depends on one’s skill, and if I mess up the spell it can hurt me really badly, I once broke an arm when I failed to cast <Body of steel>.

A magic circle will be consistent most of the time, as long as it’s drawn properly and isn’t damaged, it also needs to be fed enough mana to cast the spell, and maintain it if the spell needs that.

Not all spells work as expected with those either, if I draw a <Body of steel> magic circle in a napkin or something, I can’t use it to turn a part of my body into metal, but instead the napkin would turn into metal.

And magic circles become exponentially harder to draw the more minor spells the spell uses, since you have to draw those too, so you end up drawing magic circles on top of magic circles, and you have to do it in a way that neither circle interferes with the other while the minor spell circle supports the major, or with absolutely massive circles so that you can draw the minor spells inside them…

I’d say I’m better at drawing magic circles than I am at casting spells manually, since that’s an important part of forging a good artifact, but I don’t think I have that option here, I don’t have any materials on hand to draw the magic circles and make them last…

I also don’t know if I have enough time to draw many of them, drawing a magic circle is a long and tiring process.

So I’ll have to do it by hand!

Very well, I think that should be all, now it’s time to see the insides of <Bubble>!

<Bubble> {

const M, const EE,

const CHANNEL

node ElemE : WATER

node Mana

 

node bubble = CHANNEL.<createBubble>

bubble.<launchBubble>

 

minor <createBubble> {

…

}

}

 

minor <launchBubble> {

node StoredMana

node ReleasePoint

cycle (StoredMana) {

ReleasePoint.release(StoredMana)

}

}

}

 

And that's that.

The spell makes a bubble, and then launches it by storing mana and releasing it.

The M and EE constants are me defining how much “1 mana” and “1 elemental energy” units are worth, while the Mana and ElemE nodes are me defining the actual amount of mana and elemental energy the spell will be using.

A channel is the place where I release the spell, the smaller the channel the less mana one has to use, but the spell will also be smaller and harder to cast.

The smallest channel I can use is the tip of my fingers, though technically the smallest channel in the body is the eyes, but people who use those are crazy, and I want nothing to do with them.

While the largest is my palm, but it’s the most common channel, anyone who can cast a spell can use their palms to do it, so it’s not particularly impressive.

The spell itself is very simple, but it also doesn’t have much fire power…

I open the window, take a deep breath and setting the fingertip of my index finger as the channel, I cast <Bubble>.

It takes me a second to create the bubble and fire it!

I hit a bird, and the thing falls into the ground where some lucky cat or homeless person may feast on it.

I’m such a noble young master.

I’m quite proud of my aim,  I used to go on hunting trips with Septimus and Novena all the time when we were younger, but I ended up getting attacked by a monster in one and ended up badly hurt, so we had to put a stop to those.

I can cast this spell about two dozen times before I run out of water energy for the day, and half of that if I use my palm instead of my finger.

It can’t do much damage to actual monsters though.

Enough of that, I’ll spend the night experimenting and try to come up with something!

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