Ch 4. The Sale

The door opens with a gentle rustle. Elder-Wizard Camilla does not even need to look up to know it was his darling granddaughter Stelvia. Aside of her, no one else has the guts to enter his office without knocking.

"Grandpa, I'm back." Stelvia announces her entrance in her lively and youthful voice. Camilla gave her a warm smile, and looks dotingly at Stelvia, but he then notices a disfigured looking metal lump in her arms.

"What's that?" asks Elder-Wizard Camilla with a frown. 

"This is some peculiar implement I just found, called a magitech fan. Come take a look, grandpa." Stelvia answers happily, while placing the fan on her grandfather's table and smoothly pressed the raised button on the fanstand.

"Clack!"

The clover-shaped metal pieces which Camilla thought was some decorative addition begins to spin slowly, and when they spin faster, it brings forth a cooling breeze.

"Is that a sigil in there?"

A tristar Elder-Wizard like him posseses a heightened sense for magical energies uncomparable the likes of Reim. The second the fan is powered up, he has keenly sensed and discovered the critical element of the magitech fan.

"You're right, grandpa, dont you think this thing is really interesting?" asks Stelvia.

"It is quite charming," commented he while pressing the button himself, and immediately gleamed the magical principles behind the fan's functioning. This is just some elementary  lvl 1 Whirlwind sigil, nothing unusual." he said looking back at Stelvia, and continued slightly admonishingly: "Stelvia, if you have free time, you should use it on your studies; not waste your time on some trinkets like this."

The reason Camilla pours so much heart onto Stelvia is, besides being really sweet and kind-hearted, her extraordinary talent with wizardry. Three years ago, she was accepted into Lamparle Kingdom's top wizardry academy, the Royal Academy of Lamparle, which is regarded highly even across the continent. On top of that she is also a guild qualified wizard.

With such achievements at the tender age of nineteen, she is no doubt a gifted wizard. This is why he is strict and sets high standards for his beloved granddaughter.

"Okay, grandpa." Stelvia answers tersely, and quickly slips out of the room. She knows well enough that if she stays, her grandfather will give her a lecture.

Seeing this cheeky granddaughter of his "escaping", camilla helplessly shakes his head (And keeps his prepared lecture for the next meeting. *Gasps*!).

Getting back to his research, suddenly Camilla realises something unusual.

"This is not supposed to..."

Camilla looks back at the magitech fan Selvia left behind. He points a finger at the fan, and the colossal mana in his body begins to surge out.

The sigil at the base of the magitech fan abruptly brightens, and the previously steady rotation of the fan blades exponentially increase in speed, so rapidly that the whole fan rattles wildly.

A second later, "CRASH!", the axle breaks off, and the fan's blades crashed screechingly onto the protective wire frame. The fan blades breaks into pieces, and even the thick protective casing was seriously warped out of shape.

Camilla withdraw his hand, puzzled at what had ensued from his supposedly simple test.

The reason he suddenly thinks of examining the magitech fan, is he suddenly occured to him that a Whirlwind sigil is only the most rudimentary of Wind-type sigils, and the corresponding Whirlwind spell is the most rudimentary of spells.

When casted by the wizard directly, the force of the spell may be slight stronger. But the wind casted will not blow so steadily. Wind spells are usually violent and unstable, like any force of nature.

But this fan has been powered on for over ten minutes, and within this ten minutes the fan has been releasing an unnaturally steady stream of wind, with no undulations whatsoever.

"How can any wind spell accomplish this?" ponders Camilla over and over. He suddenly realises, even with his understanding of magic as an Elder-Wizard he cannot accomplish such a feat.

He turned back to the fan and with a flick of his hand, he slits the fan open with magic, exposing the sigil at the bottom of the fanstand.

Camilla brings the sigil, which is engraved onto the interior of the stand, close to him and studies it carefully, letting not even the slightest line pass.

But when he finish analysing the sigil, he is surprised to find, there is a big part of the sigil he cannot completely comprehend.

Perhaps he can make a facsimile of the sigil, but he could not make out why the sigil is redesign in such a way, and how the sigil operates to allow the fan blades to spin so steadily.

"Who the heck redesigned this sigil?"

###

Heinze looks out at the measly passerbys on the streets outside his shop, and turns to see atop his desk a non-stop spinning fan, producing a steady stream of cooling air.

Yesterday, a young wizard, who introduces himself as Xuyi, brought three strange looking things he called magitech fans here, hoping Heinze will help sell them. Initially he was going to say no.

This strange looking things, he is not sure if they will sell.

But seeing that Xuyi is a frequent customer, and buys all his day-to-day necessities here, Heinze agreed to help him. Furthermore, Xuyi did say it is okay if no one buys them, and told him just to leave one of the fans turned on like this, and that's all he needs to do.

That aside, with this fan turned on, puffing out cool air, Heinze feels the air in his shop circulates better, and felt much more comfortable.

"If I cannot sell it off, maybe I can buy it myself, Xuyi did say that with only a low-grade power crystal, the fan can run for three whole days."

A lofty man walks into his shop, breaking off his thoughts.

"Hey, Carl my friend, what brings you here so early in the day?" Heinze greets the man promptly. Carl is a frequent customer of his. He has messy and dense brown long hair, and a full equally messy bread, and his face is rough. His large build towers above Heinze

He waves his muscular arms, and greets Heinze thunderously: "Heinz, no nonsense, make haste and bring me a mug of your cold beer, the heat is killing me!"

"Right up!" Heinze gave him a jovial welcome, and briskly poured him a cold mug of his best beer.

Carl chugs down a few gulpful, and let out a mighty big sigh. Suddenly he realises something is off. "I say Heinze, how come your shop is so much cooler than out there in the streets?"

He then realises there is cool air carressing his back. "How strange, where is this breeze coming from? The air outside is as still as water. You wouldn't have installed a magic sigil in your shabby shop, would you?" Only magic can explain this.

"Even if I can afford the sigil, i will never afford the power crystals," replied Heinz and then points at the whirring magitech fan, "it is this magitech fan which makes the breeze."

"Magitech fan?" Carl goes closer for a better look at the magitech fan, feels the cool air it makes, and bangs loudly on the table, grudgingly cries aloud, "You bugger Heinz, what's with keeping such a treasure to yourself! Tell, how much is it? Don't you dare tell me it is not for sale!"

Heinze's eyes flickers with delight, he deliberately stalls a bit," This fan...it costs quite a bit."

"You think I don't have the money?" Carl glares at him. "Just say the price, as long as it not exorbitantly expensive, I will buy it. If this hellish weather goes on any longer, I will even install a Large-scale Ice-Frost Sigil in my residence!"

Heinze's smile brightens. Carl may look like a barbarian, but he has brains and he can bear great hardships. While running a small business, and manages to hit it off with a local tycoon, so he is far from poor, and he can definetely affords the expense of a Large-scale Ice-Frost Sigil.

"Of course it is not that expensive, the price is..." Heinze is a bit hesitant, so he raises two fingers in response.

"Two gold coins?" Heinze nodded yes. Carl immediately digs out four gold coins and smashed it on the table, "That's dirt cheap! I'll take two of 'em!"

Heinze was stunned, "Two?"

"What? You don't even have two of this fan? I couldn't just buy one. My brat will pester me to no end if he doesn't get one too."

"Of course I do." Heinze immediately takes out two magitech from the racks, and handed it to Carl.

Just as Carl is about to leave, Heinze realised he forgets to tell Carl about the Power Crystals.

"Wait up, Carl, I forgot to tell you, you need to plug in power crystals, or else it won't work."

"Why didn't you say so?" it does not take a wizard to know that anything that has to do with magic will need power crystals. "Does it use up a lot? If it will cost me the same hundreds of gold a month, I would rather go for the Ice-Frost sigil."

"Of course it doesn't. This big of a power crystal will power it for three days nonstop." 

Carl looks at the power crystal Heinze shows him is not even half as big as his thumb, and a low-grade one at that. He gave Heinze a warm, bone-crushing pat on his back, and said with a hearty laugh: " Just this bit of a crystal? That costs peanuts!"

He ends the banters with a wave of his arms, picks up one fan in each arm, and leaves humming a jovial tune.

Heinze turns to look at the four shiny coins laying on his table. He sold two magitech fans by just letting it lay around? For four gold coins in just one go?

Did Xuyi promised him a 10 percent commision? It means this transanction earns him a 40 silver commision. He hardly earns 1 gold daily from running this sundry shop of his.

40 silver nett earned for two fans. If he sells twenty? Or even two hundred...

While Heinze is busy daydreaming, another customer has entered his shop.

"Hey Heinze, I bumped into Carl earlier, and he told me about some magitech fans you are selling. Can you let me have a look? If it is good, I'll take two of them, too."

"Huh?" Heinze is just about to tell him that he has only one left when another customer comes in, and also asks for two fans.

As more and more customers keep coming, that the small shop becomes slightly cramped, and Heinze's heart beats faster and faster.

Can it be that he has just struck jackpot?!