CH 20

“You’re leaving in three days, right? When exactly?”

I ask as we finish having breakfast.

“In the morning. There’s a large caravan headed to a town close to the beast kingdom, so we’re going to be making use of one of the horsebuses.”

“Not an escorting quest?”

“It’ll cost money, but it’s nice to take it easy once in a while. But if the number of escorts decreases on the way somehow, we’ll step in.”

“There are a lot of ways to get around…”

“Why don’t you come with us too?”

“I better not. I think I’ll just be imposing too much if I keep going like this.”

“Don’t be afraid to be spoiled by your two big sisters over here. Especially Chris.”

I look over at Chris, and her face is bright red. She’s teasing her.

“That sounds tempting, but no. I’ll show you how much I’ve grown next time I see you.”

“I see. We’re going to take it easy for a short time, but what about you? Are you going to accept quests?”

“Yes. I accepted a medicinal herb picking quest yesterday, and was asked if I didn’t want to pick more. They practically begged me to do it, because the alchemy guild and the chemist guild have been pressing them. Apparently their inventory is gone because no one has been accepting these quests lately.”

“What a simple soul you are.”

“They told me they’ll give me a bonus if I pick a lot, so I’m planning to pick them all day long for two days. And sorry about yesterday, I had something on my mind. No, that’s just an excuse, isn’t it?”

I lower my head to Chris, and she whispers ‘all right’.

I’m busy for the next couple of days.

I pick medicinal herbs in the morning, have lunch, and practice alchemy. Once I’m done with that, I go to the guild, sell materials, and buy magic stones.

Magic stones can be bought in the guild, but can also be found in general stores in small quantities. They’re sold as fuel for magic items, so the average citizen can buy them. Apparently magic items like the lanterns that adventurers use in dungeons and monster repellent are popular.

However, I find out that monster repellent magic items are always in high demand, so they’re expensive and hard to find. There’s a store that sells them, but the prices are out of my reach for the time being. I ask them if five gold coins isn’t too expensive, and they tell me it’s actually cheap.

And so, because of this, adventurers who don’t have a lot of money to spend buy disposable monster repellent. The effect is pretty low compared to a magic item, but I hear there’s a lot of demand for those too.

I go around some stores looking for magic stones, and I find out through Appraisal that the quality of magic stones can vary even if they come from the same type of monster.

Also, big doesn’t necessarily mean high quality, and there are processed and unprocessed ones. Different magic items take magic stones of different sizes and shapes, so there are way more unprocessed magic stones, that people can then have processed to match their magic items.

I buy unprocessed high quality magic stones, fifty of them. I also buy ten lumps of iron ore, leaving me with two silver coins.

I’m going to have to make a living with medicinal herb picking for now.

“Status open.”

Name – (Sora Fujimiya ) / Job – (Jobless) / Race – Otherworlder / No Level

HP – 300/300 / MP – 300/300 / SP – 300/300

Strength…290 (+1) / Stamina…290 (+1) / Agility…290 (+1)

Magic power…290 (+1) / Dexterity…290 (+1) / Luck…290 (+1)

Skill – (Walking Lv29) – Effect – (User won’t get tired no matter how much they walk) – (Get one experience point with each step)

Experience points – 18/30000

Skill points – 7

Skills learned

(Appraisal Lv8) / (Appraisal Obstruction Lv4) / (Parallel Thinking Lv4)

(Sword Master Lv4) / (Physical Strengthening Lv5) / (Presence Detection Lv8) / (Natural Recovery Boost Lv4) / (Presence Concealment Lv4)

(Magic Energy Control Lv6) / (Basic Daily Life Magic Lv5) / (Spatial Magic Lv4) / (Alchemy Lv5)

(Cooking Lv2)

Since my Appraisal level has gone up, I decide to check the descriptions of the jobs again, and learn that it’s actually possible to change jobs. But it comes with a warning that once I pick a job, I’ll be unable to change it until Walking levels up.

So the worst timing would be just after I level up.

But in order to increase the success rate of Alchemy, I should become an alchemist to receive its correction effect.

I can’t fail. After all, Rurika and Chris are leaving tomorrow.

I pick the Alchemist job, and the (+1) in my stats changes.

Strength…290 (+0) / Stamina…290 (+0) / Agility…290 (+0)

Magic power…290 (+50) / Dexterity…290 (+50) / Luck…290 (+0)

Magic and dexterity have a +50 correction, and everything else is gone.

Did my MP get the same +50? Apparently the affected skills also receive a similar correction in terms of proficiency.

I can’t help but wish I knew about this sooner, but I didn’t know if I could change jobs, so I think I still did the right thing. From now on, I’ll be more proactive when it comes to picking jobs.

“Let’s begin.”

I concentrate, and picture a transmitter. I’ll make a magic stone its core, and iron ore its base.

A pendant should do nicely for its actual shape.

First, I send magic energy to ten magic stones, and the magic stone in the center that’s connected to the others starts changing into a darker color. The other magic stones on the other hand gradually lose their color until they’re transparent. They look like glass.

When I grab the remaining magic stone, it cracks and turns to dust. Did I put too much magic energy into it?

Next, I try to be careful and hold back the amount of magic energy I pump into it. I try to make sure the light that connects the magic stones doesn’t break, and make sure not to fill it up too much again. Because I’m doing it more slowly, it takes more than twice as long as the last one.

I grab the magic stone, and this time it doesn’t break. After using Appraisal on it, I see it has become a sorcery stone. Its quality is low, perhaps because of the low amount of magic energy.

I do some image training to remember the feeling of making magic energy flow into it, and its amount.

Just as I’m about to start again, I stop, and check my status. After checking my MP, I drink a mana potion.

I slap my cheeks and get ready to start again. I don’t have to get it right on this one, I have three more chances. I’m going to remember the feeling from before, and slowly increase the amount of magic energy.

But as a result, my stomach is full, because every time I use Alchemy I drink a mana potion. I couldn’t drink another one if I had to. Maybe I will after some time passes.

I made four sorcery stones in total. Two are low quality, one is average, and one is high. Now I need to picture a transmitter while using iron ore to make the base, and I’ll be done.

After taking a break, I start working again.

If I’m going to use the low quality sorcery stones, I have to use both to make up for their low quality. Maybe I should make a bracelet instead of a pendant. First I use the ore to make a bracelet, then I insert the sorcery stones while sending magic energy into it. And of course, I increase its strength to make sure it doesn’t break easily on impact.

“That’s one, and the rest… I should make them pendants.”

I make the bases and chains, and attach sorcery stones. Nice, I don’t need any other artistic skills. I just have to design them by imagining something I know. This is definitely not plagiarism or anything. But I wonder if they’ll recognize them when they see it.

I line up the three items I made, and send more magic energy into them. These are made to look like the spirit amulets I heard about before, but rather than having the effect of telling others they’re all right, they have a function to search for their location.

“All right, I’m done.”

It’s like a main telephone and extensions. By sending magic energy to the main pendant, I can find out where the extensions are. If I hand this to them, it will save me the trouble of looking for them when we can get together again. I just hope they don’t throw them away.