The Flying Emporium

The day passed just like that, with no major events.

Miriam and Timothy kept challenging each other. After creating something like a copy of the other person by entering their stats into the target dummy in front of them, they competed by having a damage race and seeing who could ‘kill’ the other person the fastest.

On the one side was a [Berserker] whose strength lay in the classes’ large health pool and the ability to grow in strength when receiving damage. On the other side was a very damage-oriented mage who was allowed to free-cast without having to care about his mana, his cooldowns, or enemies set on interrupting him. Just by the nature of the competition and that of their classes, this improvised competition ended so quickly and in such a lopsided fashion that Tim couldn’t even bring himself to taunt Miriam or take any kind of pleasure from his victory.

So they chose to face each other directly again. Until they grew bored with that as well. They searched for a new target and somehow managed to coerce Krey into entering the ring with them.

It turned out the Society’s squad leader was easily able to deal with both of them at the same time. So easily, in fact, that even after their match, the two still had no clue as to what Krey’s class was. But instead of feeling demotivated this just seemed to fire them up even more. Krey indulged them for some more hours, with only a few breaks every now and then to restock their potions.

The damage dealers of the Lion’s Head guild stopped their training about forty minutes after Andreas had returned from his small exchange with Severin; Just when the buff of their previously consumed elixirs expired. But even after a few hours of constantly hitting the same target over and over again, not everyone was yet tired of it. Quite a few people soon either joined the three others, and either began to spar on the spaciously paved training area or kept occupying the three target dummies; While some adventurers clearly preferred to experiment on their own, others got together in small groups to further practice their coordination.

All the while Severin enjoyed the entertainment provided by the bunch of battle maniacs and simultaneously browsed through his System with the help of the tablet-like screen.

He wasn’t able to find any soundproofing options in the System’s store and therefore made some vague plans to, at some point in the future, relocate the whole training area underground.

It might’ve been a higher priority for him if he suspected it would fulfill the requirements of his still outstanding [Growing your Business I] quest, which asked him to expand his business, but he doubted it. Besides, he soon learned that as long as not fifteen or more people decided to unleash their magic repertoire all at once, the volume was still very much bearable.

‘It might even serve as some form of advertisement to draw the attention of some random passerby,’ Severin tried to tell himself.

All in all, Severin was very pleased with his current situation. Even though he hadn’t made back the money he spend earlier, in fact not even the money he paid for the three dummies, just like he had planned, the overall consumption of his goods had increased. Most noticeably that of the weapon oils, which had been the item with the least demand so far. But now that Andreas had decided to mostly imitate the stats and resistances of one particular boss, which possessed exceptional physical resistances, things changed in Severin’s favor.

Severin was sure that as long as this group of adventurers managed to return from their upcoming raid alive and well, it was impossible for him to not make a profit on this investment in the long run.

What helped to further lighten his mood was a quick look at his character sheets.

More sales not only meant more money but also meant more crafting for him to do. Which in return meant more [Alchemist] experience points.

When Emily had joined him as an [Employee], the level of Severin’s crafting subclass had been at level twelve. Since then, his job-specific experience bar was filled six more times, almost seven. Even though those level-ups didn’t come with any exciting new recipes, the benefits he received were still to his great satisfaction. The passive skills and perks happened to greatly increase his and Emily’s efficiency.

He couldn’t help imagining a whole variety of overpowered and never-seen-before items or tools he might get his hands on in the near future. After all, the [Alchemical Item Combinator] had been his level ten reward; The one for level twenty surely had to be even more amazing.

More important than his [Alchemist] experience-bar, however, was that of his [Shopkeeper] main class. Since the bar had barely seemed to fill up - even after all that time he was still only level two - and with the remainder of his character screen being depressingly empty thanks to him seemingly not having any of the stats one would expect to find on such a screen, it was not something he checked very regularly. So only by coincidence did he now realize that his next level up was just around the corner. If he was lucky, he might even achieve it before the guild group set out.

Even Severin had to reluctantly admit that regarding his level-up rewards, the System had been rather generous, so far. He couldn’t help feeling excited and once he shared this realization with Emily, it fueled all kinds of speculations and kept both of them busy for the remainder of the day.

The next day pretty much started in the same vein; Though some people would’ve sworn that Severin’s assistant more than on other days tried to encourage them to keep on training as much as possible.

That was until in the afternoon, the appearance of a black dot on the horizon, as so often before, announced a new arrival.

“About time he returned. I mean, that should be Harold, right?”

“Hard to say at this distance, but…”

“No way that’s him. Look at the size of that thing. It should be even bigger than the one the Society had arrived on.” Krey could only nod in agreement with that statement.

“It’s Master Samuel! He’s back. I’m sure of it.” Timothy soon recognized that the approaching flying ship belonged to his mentor. Though they didn’t get to travel on this particular flying artifact all too often, simply because of its size that was way too enormous for just three people at a time, both Timothy and Miriam were familiar with it.

“Right!” The latter confirmed the words as she was looking forward to showing off her progress.