Chương 14: 1.1.14 - Marta's Charm

"Get ready Ash, breakfast is ready! We'll be heading to town after we eat." I was already up when Marta called from the kitchen. I just chose not to move as my legs were still aching from overusing Lightning Infusion yesterday. I finally decided to get up as I had a long day ahead of me. I needed to go to town and sell the Glimmerwasp Nectar and get some additional materials for my enchanting experiments. Walking normally was fine but heading down the stairs was a nightmare.

This was probably why those gym bros always avoided leg workouts. Marta was on the way up to get me when she saw me limping down the stairs.

"What happened to your legs? I thought you said you had no injuries?" I could only give Marta a sheepish smile as I continued limping down.

"It's nothing, just overusing my legs. I did a little too much jumping" I lied.

"Here, sit down. Let me take a look" Marta said as she guided me to the kitchen. My thighs looked a little swollen and a little red. This was despite the bodily boost from an Orange core coupled with my Nature's Constitution mutation. I could see her casting her usual Vigor as her hands glowed green and I felt a soothing sensation sweep through my legs.

"This is the most I can do. Hopefully walking to town with those legs will teach you a lesson to be less reckless next time" Marta said with a huff before she continued with serving breakfast to all of us. The sun was fully out by the time we were on our way to town. I offered to carry the pouch full of nectar until we reached town. It was a bit lighter now that I had decided to keep a little in a jar for our own use, risking the wrath of an imaginary Mr. White telling me not to eat our own supply.

Since I promised Marta no more hunting Glimmerwasp, in the short term at least, I thought it would be a pity if the rest of the kids did not get to try some. Selling the rest should net me enough coin to get me started with my project.

"Let me do the talking when we get to the apothecary" Marta said as we walked along the Old Mill Road.

"Why are we heading to the apothecary and not going to Garrick?" I asked out of curiosity, though fully trusting Marta to have my interest at heart.

"The nectar has medicinal and alchemical uses besides being a fancy dessert for the nobles. So the apothecary will be willing to buy it at market prices. Besides, Sylvia is an old friend, you don't have to worry about her short changing you""Old Garrick is wonderful but a merchant always gets their cut. I'm not letting him get a cut of your hard earned nectar that you risked your life for" Marta added. We reached the apothecary which was located closer to the middle part of the town.

The smell of dried herbs and bitter concoctions hit me full on as I followed Marta in. I passed Marta the leather pouch before we reached town to make sure that no one would suspect I was the one who harvested them. Though I doubt many people would think a barely eight year old boy had hunted down giant wasps that had venomous stings. Marta and Sylvia exchanged some small greetings while I looked around the store, curious to see what they had on display.

There were all kinds of herbs and reagents to one side but the main section had some bottles with different colored liquids in them. It seemed like potions do exist in some shape or form in this world. Something to take note of if I ever considered being an adventurer like Gallum. I only started paying attention to Marta's conversation when I saw her reach for the pouch.

"So the actual reason I am here today is that we came across some nectar." She pulled out the stopper on the leather pouch to let the nectar's aroma drift out.

"So much! How did you get this? You didn't suddenly become a hunter or adventurer did you?" Sylvia looked at Marta with a raised brow.

"A kind hunting team stopped by the orphanage on the way out. I had helped heal some of their wounds and gave them some food and water to replenish their supply. As a way of thanks they gave us some of the nectar they had collected." Marta lied, not really sounding convincing. I guessed even she found it a little far fetched herself.

"Awful lot of kind hunters donating to the orphanage lately. I heard from Garrick some time back some hunters also donated some boar to you." Sylvia said suspiciously.

"I don't know what to say, must be my charms" Marta said jokingly.

"Anyway, this is obviously too much of a luxury to use for me and the kids, so I decided to sell it to get more supplies for the coming winter. Do you think you can give me a good price?"

"Sure thing, I can give you the same rate I buy off the other merchants. The current going rate is about 2 small silvers per 10 grams of nectar." She took out an empty jar and what looked like a weighing scale in this world. She did some calibration which I guessed accounted for the weight of the jar. She then proceeded to empty the contents from the pouch, making sure to get every last drop.

"It is about one and a half kilogram of nectar you have! The hunters killed at least 10 wasps or more to get this much." Sylvia exclaimed. Marta glared at me when she heard that, giving me a look that said "We'll talk more about this later". I just feigned ignorance, angry Marta was a problem for future Asher to worry about. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"I'll round it up and give you three small golds for the lot" Sylvia said. Being a potions master or an alchemist must have brought in some serious moolah as she just agreed to pay a large sum for the nectar. This also meant the potions must not be cheap, as I carefully took a step away from the nearby shelves, afraid to break something.

"That's awfully kind of you, my charms must have worked on you as well" Marta gave Sylvia a playful wink which prompted Sylvia to just roll her eyes.

"Do you mind paying me in silver? I'm afraid nothing I buy would ever need a gold coin and silver is just more convenient""Of course. Just wait a minute while I put this nectar away". That was sharp of Marta to ask for change as using gold coins to buy anything and asking for change would just attract the wrong kind of attention. Especially for a place full of defenseless children that was managed by a single woman.

I saw Sylvia head to the back of the shop for a few minutes before heading back out with a small cloth pouch that seemed to be bulging with coins.

"Here you go, I don't have that many small silvers so I included some large silvers if you don't mind. You can count them" Sylvia said as she handed Marta the coin pouch.

"No need for that dear, I trust you. Thank you again for being so accommodating. We must be off now to get some supplies, I'll see you around Syl" Marta said as she kept the coin pouch.

"Well, you must invite me to your wedding if you ever take to any of the hunters that had fallen for your charms" Sylvia teased. Marta just laughed and waved goodbye as we headed out. I reminded Marta that we had to stop by the blacksmiths before we headed back as I needed to pick up supplies for my experiment. We decided to stop by Branwen's smithy to say hi and give the business to her boss.

"Hmmm copper plates and copper coils you say...." Branwen looked at me funny "What do you need them for?" I had not expected her to ask me that and just leaned into being a bratty kid and stuck out my tongue while saying "Mind your own business", hoping that she would leave it at that. She just stuck her tongue out back at me before saying "We have some low grade copper ingots which I can work into what you need.

Considering it'll take quite a bit of time I would need to charge you for labor, otherwise they wouldn't let me work on it for that long""I can get them to you for fifty small silvers, do you even have that much?" Branwen could not help but ask.

"No worries, but do you have any high grade coppers?" I asked as I handed her five large silver pieces.

"Unfortunately all the high grade ores are sent directly to the capital or main cities. The local baron only keeps the lower grade ores to be sold for the town's use. Besides copper coins and some ornaments, most adventurers don't use copper for their weapons" Branwen said. I picked up a copper coin at the mention of it from the pouch and looked at it then to the forge.

"Don't even think about it, the coins have other filling in them and are only coated with copper" Branwen warned. I dropped the coin back with a disappointed look.

"How long will it take?" I asked.

"Hmmm, three to four weeks. I don't mind working on it as it'll give me something different to work on but I need to complete some orders to repair some equipment first. Come back in four weeks to be safe" We said our goodbyes as Marta and I headed back to the orphanage. It was well into Autumn before I could collect the materials from Branwen. My body was fully eight years old now. Apparently I was born in Autumn, Asher being given to me as the falling autumn leaves reminded my birth parents of ashes.

Or so I was told. Commoners in this world did not really celebrate birthdays as they had no way to keep track of calendars. I was not sure if the nobles and royalty did but at least no one in the orphanage did, which was fine by me. Birthdays were overrated. I had not been idle in the last four weeks, I had read Enchanting Basics cover to cover a few times to ensure I fully understood the theory behind it.

I had also picked up a small hammer and a chisel from the smithy when I picked up the plates and coils, which elicited a raised eyebrow from Branwen. In short, enchanting was an extension of spellcasting but done through a medium or an object. The additional components were an energy or mana source, as well as the activation condition of the enchantment. The mana source could be replaced by a mana battery of sorts, enchanters usually used rare gemstones that can be recharged with a specific mana affinity.

Sapphire in this world, as an example, is a gemstone that holds water mana. The enchantment can also be manually powered if you had the correct mana type. The activation condition was also a form of rune, though not the kind of runes that we would typically use for spell casting. The Activation Runes consisted of runes that would activate the enchantment based on a manual trigger, a timer, or detection of some form of energy input. At first, it might just seem like enchanting was spell casting with extra steps.

But what was overlooked was two things that enchanting did. First was, it allows someone with one affinity to use a spell of a different affinity. Second thing was allowing for a more complex spell to be cast, as mages could only cast spells of their own affinity. The Grand Weave aside, most people used enchanting to achieve a more complex spell that required multiple affinities. In my case, I only needed enchanting to serve as the foundation to create the first railgun of this world.

Muahahahahaha, I laughed in my head. Kestoria POV Kes was playing in the backyard with Thal as the autumn leaves were falling from the trees. It was one of the last few chances to play outside before it got too cold when winter came about, and nothing was going to get between her and her playtime. It was her turn to catch the ball as Thal was about to throw it. She lost concentration when she suddenly heard a weird laughter coming from the tool shed.

"Muahahahahaha". Distracted by that weird laugh which sounded like Ash's voice, she missed the ball she was supposed to catch, and it landed on her head instead.

"Owh" Kes cried as she fell and landed on her bottom. Thal rushed over and checked her head "I'm so sorry, are you alright Kes?"

"Ash is doing his weird laugh again" Kes pointed to the tool shed.

"Hmmm yea, he's weird like that sometimes but he's a good boy. We wouldn't have all those boar without him" Thal said.

"Yeah... it was really yummy..." Kes said while beginning to salivate. Her tummy was beginning to rumble as it was close to dinner time.

"MUAHAHAHAHAHA" another weird laugh came from the tool shed, louder this time.

"Erm... maybe let's go see if Marta needs help with dinner" Thal said as she ushered Kes into the house.

"Okay! Marta said she is gonna use that sweet sauce Ash found today. I can't wait!" Kes said as she skipped into the house. Thal followed after Kes, only stopping briefly to look back at the tool shed as she shook her head. Author Note: This is the work of Josh Shoniix. This work of fiction will only be published on Royal Road and Space Battle for free. If you're reading this on another site or paid through Google Books, this work has been stolen.