Schalt the merchant. from the merchant family... with merchant contacts.

On his way to Blue Dream, the Inn Schalt owned, Zatu couldn't help but slow his steps marveling at everything he passed by.

With his new mana sense Unbreon had gained a completely new look.

Every house had its walls brimming with mana runes, his neighbors that until yesterday didn't seem much different from himself, now exuded an unfathomable impression to his new sense.

Which made sense since he did live in the inner core of the city, where most residents were tier 3 and upwards in their classes.

He did know about this before, but the difference between having heard Arbo talk about it and feeling the dense presence of mana around him was simply worlds apart.

…

After a few minutes of walking the five story tall building entered his view.

Its tall marble walls exude luxury and elegance.

Making it a favoured spot of rest for the rich merchants that passed by Unbreon on their way to the Kingdom's Capital.

Reaching Blue Dream Zatu makes his way to the reception.

"Good evening Maira, would you know if Schalt is already up?" He asked the young woman sitting behind the counter.

"Good evening mister Zatu. I believe so, in recent days Boss has been waking up early."

At that Zatu raises an eyebrow, ever since he started working at the night market a few years back he rarely if ever slept at night.

"What happened to him? Another girl?"

Maira nodded before looking to both sides and motioning for Zatu to come closer.

When he did so she started to whisper in his ear.

" I heard a daughter from the Redhammers sneaked up to his room the other day… you didn't hear it from me, but rumors say she is from their main family line."

Zatu's eyes go wide in surprise, the Redhammers a well known family in Unbreon.

With their patriarch being part of the city council and their absolute control over the smithing sector, there were less than 20 families that could equal them in influence.

And of those only a handful would risk openly defying them.

It wasn't that there were no other smiths in town, but since nine out of ten great smiths were either from their family or allied to them, that might as well be the case.

'Hopefully this won't be a shit show.' 

Zatu thought to himself, having seen many tears shed because of his friend.

Schalt had a good heart on his chest and a good brain in his head.

But when it came down to romance things got complicated real fast.

'Well, thinking will tell me nothing, better just ask him about it.'

Then with a smile Zatu pulls a platinum coin from his space pouch and slides it across the counter.

"Thanks for the gossip Maira, I'll be going upstairs."

Maira's heart skips a beat, seeing Zatu treat platinum as if it was bronze always caught her by surprise.

"M-m-mister Zatu, this is too much! If Boss finds out he'll scold me again." 

"Then just don't tell him about it." Zatu chuckled, already going up the stairs, not bothering much with her reaction. 

…

Soon Zatu reached the fifth floor and knocked on Schalt's door.

"Yo Schalt! You there?" 

In seconds Schalt opens the door and shakes Zatu's hand in greeting.

"Hey! Zatu what happened?" 

He asks with a confused smile as they go inside. 

Prompting Zatu to ask back.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm happy to see you Zatu and I have a lot to talk about its been a crazy week, but today is your training day and you don't skip those without reason, soooo, what brought you here today?"

"Can't I just be visiting a friend for fun?"

Schalt raises his brow, casts a skeptical look at him and doesn't even bother to answer the question.

"Fiiiine you got me!" Zatu answers with his hands up in surrender. "Something good happened, and I'd like to celebrate with you and my old man tonight, but also I need your help with something." 

"Count me in for the celebration! What is the good news? But first, what can I help you with brother?"

"Guess what, I need your help finding a lightning mana meditation technique."

Schalt nods instantly at that.

"Oh that's easy, I'll just send a letter to the family's headquarters…. Wait, you Awakened?" 

Zatu nods.

"Yeah! Just today.'

 "Congratulations Zatu! Welcome to adult life!"

"Thanks Schalt."

"Just for asking sake, what kind of budget are we looking at for the meditation?"

Zatu stopped, he had just no idea how much skills like that could cost, but in doubt it was better to give a bit of surplus.

"I don't know, like a few thousand platinum, if its really good I could squeeze ten thousand for it."

Zatu says with complete seriousness, causing Schalt to scoff at his lack of sense.

To put in perspective 1 platinum was equivalent to 100 gold, 1 gold could be traded for 100 silver.

An average family of five could live comfortably with 10 gold a year.

And most families in the outer city survived on a single gold or less.

So the price his friend had quoted was, to say the least, completely retarded.

"Of course you'd say something like that." Schalt sighs to himself. "Bro, the most expensive trade for a technique I even heard of was like 100 platinum, and it was used as an example during my training on what a crazy upsell would look like."

Zatu though looks at him skeptically, that sounded much less 

"So a thousand works huh?"

Schalt facepalms, regretting even trying to put some sense in his friend's head.

"You know what? Fine, give me 200 platinum and I'll get a mana meditation tailored for you by tomorrow night." 

Zatu nods and pulls out two ingots of platinum from his space pouch.

In each of the ingots the number 100 was carved.

 Schalt took the ingots and started to write a letter to send to his contact in the family's main branch.

"What class did you get by the way? I thought you were going for a sword related one."

"It's a sword class, Magic swordsman, it's a combat class that uses both sword intent and mana! "

Schalt nods, writing it down on the letter. 

"Nice, sounds strong. What effect are you looking for in your mana meditation anyway?"

Zatu tilts his head with a bit of confusion.

"Something of lightning type mana?"

Seeing his response, Schalt concluded he didn't know much about mana meditation.

An uncommon thing, but not surprising considering Zatu's dedication to the sword.

"Just like sword meditation effects vary based on your understanding of the sword, the mana effects vary based on how you cycle and where you gather them on your body, not just in element but other things as well."

"Hmmm, okay, what does that mean in practice?" Zatu asked, still confused.

To which Schalt went further.

"You can think of it as a mini passive skill that improves as you meditate, for example, my element is water, but the effect I chose for my meditation is a boost to my memory. So day to day it doesn't feel much different, but comparing my memory now to the one I had a year ago, the difference is like night and day."

"The boost can be both general or specific, and the more specific the stronger and faster the effects the results."

Hearing this Zatu paused to think for a moment.

'Okay, this sounds useful and I can see two paths for it.' 

'In one I get something to complement my fighting directly, like a speed, strength, reaction speed or even a full body boost. That way I could more easily match enemies with higher levels.'

'On the other, I can double down on mana regeneration, be it passive or active. That would reduce time spent on mana meditation and end up increasing the amount of imbue lightning i can cast.'

'The pros of the first option is a higher strength at the same level, which is good and appeals to a part of me.'

'But the real question is, in the same time frame would that make me stronger than if I were to imbue more lightning into my sword?'

At that Zatu shook his head.

'Maybe short term, but considering imbue lightning is an accumulation skill, increasing the speed I can accumulate would eventually always end up stronger.' 

In this way Zatu made his decision.

"I want to recover the maximum mana possible with the least amount of meditation necessary. Is there one that boosts mana regeneration?"

"Yeah, those are quite popular with crafter classes."

Schalt answered, writing his wish down on the letter before standing up and bringing a small vial from his kitchen.

"Now just drop a few drops of blood inside this." He hands the vial to Zatu. "It's so the archmage can adjust the meditation according to your body." 

Without hesitation Zatu pulls his sword from his hip and makes a small cut on his finger.

Squeezing at the sides small blood drops soon fill the bottom of the vial.

When done, Schalt takes the letter, the vial and the ingots to a jade-like pedestal made entirely of a blue rock.

This was a teleportation pedestal, a device that could transport things to other teleportation pedestals in instants, even being great distances apart from each other.

At first invented with the idea to connect the cities within the kingdom.

If successful one wouldn't have to cross the beast infested forests to travel between one human settlement to the next.

But sadly the space element jade required to make it was absurdly mana hungry and extremely hard to acquire.

Making its purpose reduced to delivering letters and small products to those that could afford.

Zatu had even heard rumors that under the Unbreon tower there was an emergency teleportation pedestal large enough to teleport people.

Though how true that was or how many people a teleportation pedestal could actually transport was something he didn't bother looking into.

With his mana sense Zatu watched as Schalt's fingers tapped against the numerous mana runes that permeated the pedestal surface.

This wasn't the first time he saw Schalt operate the pedestal, but without the mana sense it just looked like someone tapping randomly on a blue stone.

After a few moments the pedestal bursts with light and the items on it disappear.

Schalt turned towards Zatu.

"They should deliver by tomorrow night at the latest, possibly earlier if they have a magical researcher at hand. I'll send it to you if they do."

Zatu taps his shoulder.

"Thanks for the help, Schalt."

Schalt nods, stretching up a bit.

"Don't worry about it, you literally overpaid for it." He chuckles. "Anyway now that you have awakened and all that training paid off, what do you plan to do now Zatu?"

"For now I'll take a week to level up a bit and after that I'll probably get a guide and go after some beasts in the outer south district and after that... " Zatu pauses to think before shaking his head. 

"I'll think about that then, the important part is just to get as strong as possible before the Beast Waves come."

Schalt cringes a bit at that, he was still a child and at the kingdom's capital when the last waves rolled out and even there the number of bodies he saw from the walls had shocked his mind.

"Be careful brother, I've been hearing from customers that beasts are stronger and more numerous than in the past."

Zatu nods.

"I'll be careful and yeah Arbo told me something similar, apparently we are two beast waves away from the peak of the hundred year cycle."

Schalt trembles a bit at the idea, according to his family records almost a third of the kingdom had fallen in the last hundred year beast waves.

"In times like this I don't know if I'm happy or sad to not be a combatant."

Shaking his head, Schalt decided to change topics.

This cataclysmic problem was still more than a decade away anyway.

"But on a side note do you have a guide in mind for the outer south district?" 

"Not really, why? You know someone?"

"Yeah my girl actually has a friend that used to live there before it fell down in the last decade waves, if you want to I can help set up a meeting."

"Is this friend of hers good at it?"

"She is pretty well known in the area, at least most of my acquaintances in the night markets knew her moniker and had good impressions, only con is she charges significantly above market rate, a fact I doubt you'd care about anyway."

Zatu decides to go with the recommendation, after all his original idea was to ask Schalt for help finding a guide anyway.

"I'm up for it."

"Great! Your rest day is this Saturday right? How about I call her Blue Dream more or less around this time?" 

Zatu stopped to think, today was wednesday and a part of him wanted to just skip his rest day and keep training.

But then again, he did think that every week anyway and knew that doing so worsened his results long term.

'And if I use my rest day to meet up and maybe get a glimpse at the district I could both rest and be productive at the same time!'

Zatu smiled at the idea.

"Saturday sounds good, but I'd prefer the meeting in the morning, that way I can maybe visit the district in advance."

Schalt thought for a second, he wasn't quite sure in which hours the guide worked or if she had Saturday free.

'How much would Zatu be willing to pay to have her change her schedule to fit his needs?' 

An absurd amount floated on his head, making him decide to approach the situation from the other side.

'Well when I asked the market rate for guiding was around 10 silver per day, we know she charges more, so let's double and go with 20 silver per day.'

'I don't know her character well, but very few could refuse a week of payment to clear a single day, even more so with the chance to get a big customer.'

'So my max baseline should be around 1 gold and 40 silver, but realistically I should be able to get her with 30 to 40 silver even if she is booked.'

'Also I have to warn Schalt about the prices, else he might say some insane number and get overcharged like hell.'

'Which he might do anyway, but at least I did what I could.'

School sighs in his head, before giving 

"I'll get that for ya, by tomorrow I should have her confirmation and just remember the price for guides is around…"

Just then as he ended his sentence the pedestal shined with a pulse of light, distracting Zatu away from his friend.

'Could my meditation have arrived already?'

When the light dims, though only a letter is there.

On the top of it the words 'To Schalt S2' were written with a cute font.

"Is that? From the Redhammer girl?" 

Schalt jumped a bit in surprise.

"Who told you about Lyara?"