Chapter 59: A Day in Zhiqe

Now that this was out of the way, Seth could concentrate on all the small things that had cropped up until now. The easiest thing was to finally scan the Ancient Bronze trinkets that held some damaged enchantments!

He had 5 trinkets that showed sign of simple magic circuits! When he scanned them, he got fragmented circuits? Luckily 3 of the 5 were complimentary and turned into one enchantment that could increase the wearers defense and health regeneration. So, it did something similar to the endurance attribute. The other 2 fragments stayed in his catalog as parts of a circuit. This meant he now had 3 magic circuits to increase health, durability and damage.

He had nothing to enchant at the moment, so he continued with smelting. He had a lot to smelt. The weapons in the armory, the scraps he got in the dungeon, the ancient bronze... but first came his electron bars! He would split them into gold and silver bars. Another thing he wanted to do was smelt the jewelry he had brought with him from Deltan. He had found out that simple jewelry was not worth much more than the materials it was made of, if it had no effects.

Another thing he realized was, that most enchantments needed a secondary energy store or source to take effect! It would normally either be the user supplying the magic, a gem stones storing the magic or a magic core from a beast.

It was something he wanted to try later, because the special weapons he made with soul infusion did not need him to input magic power. Seth wanted to see, if he could make permanent enchantments, if he managed to connect the magic circuit with the power of the souls.

But this was something for a lot later. Now, he first harvested all the gem stones from the jewelry and smelted it down. It was too hard to enchant already finished products, so he could only save the gemstones for later and get the raw materials.

Putting the jewelry, which was also an alloy of gold and silver, and the electron bars into the furnace, Seth started concentration on manipulating the furnace. He could distinctly feel the difference between <Fire Affinity> and <Fire Affection>. He could feel the temperature a lot more distinctly and he felt that the fire itself tried following his will on its own accord and it needed a lot less mental power from Seth.

He minutely controlled the temperature in the furnace and once the contents were fully melted the silver, gold and other metals in there started separating into different layers corresponding to their density. Once the alloys had separated he was able to drain them one by one and turn them into ingots. He ended up with mostly gold and silver, but also some small pieces of metals like platinum and copper.

Interestingly platinum was worthless as a crafting material for equipment, because it conducted magic even worse than steel.

After splitting all the precious metal and gems and putting them back into his material chest, he decided that this was enough for a morning work and went for lunch!

-Chefs Day-

There he was again! The palace chef was sweating blood and tears watching Seth decimating the food he and his colleagues kept throwing at him. He was a bottomless eater and they could barely keep up with the speed he swallowed their creations! Did he even chew! The chef had a serious suspicion than Seth was just sucking it in and swallowed it like a snake!

It would not have been as bad, if that fairy was not seriously trying to compete with him and ate several times her own body weight! The blacksmith was one thing, but where did that food even go, once it entered this deceptively cute tiny mouth! Free food was probably the worst deal the lord could have made with this man!

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Once his stomach´s demands were pacified, Seth went back to the armory. Fin followed him after lunch and watched him do his work. He spent the rest of the day smelting down the <Metal Scraps> and broken weapons he got from the dungeon and turned it all into 4 full stacks of <High-quality Steel> and one stack of generic bronze ingots. He stopped in the evening to go and have dinner with Fin, the Lord and Ikram.

-Fins Day-

Fin had left the palace after a lonely breakfast. Seth had not woken her up, so they could eat together and she felt a little peeved. Did he fear her stealing his food that much? She would totally decimate lunch as a punishment!

"Just you wait!", she thought with tiny clenched fists.

That said, she had no idea where to continue today. She had spent the last days to look for an information broker or some underground organization to find the guild master. Even organized crime and shady businesses had given up on Zhiqe!

There were no professionals to find! It had been easy to find the information about travelling. People often wanted to leave this place. She just had to visit a local commerce guild, even so it didn´t look much better than the desolate adventurer guild.

Fin was not in the mood to look at bars or local businesses. There were little people with loose lips getting drunk at this time of the day. The biggest problem was that there were just no people who still knew the guild master. It had just been too long.

In the end Fin decided to try her luck with the guild, again. Maybe Olivia had some tips who she could ask.

"Someone who knows the guild master?", Olivia asked puzzled after the fairy had requested a conversation in her office.

"Hmm, maybe there is! Wait a moment!", she stood up and opened a cabinet beside her desk to skim a bunch of folders. After a short while she put a document before the little fairy standing on her desk.

"This is the form of a retired adventurer. Old man Jenkins was one of the older regeneration of adventurers. He retired some time before the Ivicer Incident. If he is still in town, he may be able to tell you more about the guild master and her whereabouts.", Olivia asserted.

Fin nodded, "Are there any more of the older generation?"

If Old Jenkins did not talk, it would be good to visit someone else.

"Unfortunately, they all either left, or died. After the younger generation vanished many of the old ones came forth to try and help the situation. Although the system alleviates many problems, age still has a price. Many of them vanished in the swamps." She looked absentmindedly into the distance, "Maybe this was also one of the reasons the guild master had given up. Watching this many old friends and people she saw grow up die... Everyone except Old Jenkins left afterwards. As long as they still had savings, they rather moved with their families to Oriekot."

So Old Jankins was Fins only chance! The fairy thanked the head receptionist and soon left he guild. She had met Mary on her way out. The girl was very motivated and friendly to Fin. She felt very indebted to the fairy for what happened last time and invited Fin for a small brunch.

Fin was not in a hurry and accepted. They actually went to the eatery where Fin and Seth had stayed until recently!

"Hi, Harmond! The usual!", she greeted the innkeeper and ordering at the same time. Seeing the mountains of food that came on Fins order, Mary got goosebumps. She had invited the fairy and wondered whether she would be able to financially recover from this...

But looking at the innocent smile of the little sunshine calmed her heart and made it all worth it! They talked about how Seth was occupied with his work and Fin was bored looking for the guild master and her problems.

"Grandpa Jenkins!? You think uncle would know about it?"

"It´s my only chance!", Fin answered with a smile and slobbered her dish clean.

Old Jenkins was her grandfather and the one who had helped her get the job in the guild. Mary offered to ask him to meet Fin in the coming days and they split up. Fin returned to the palace to look for Seth.