Chapter 29 – Is there a strict standard for this?

While I was re-reading the ‘Basic Elemental Magic – Volume 2’ book, the clerks arrived at the store. Today Sherryl and Naya were on shift, while Anya was taking a day off. They have blond, dark green and light blue hair respectively, and are all on their late 20s, though they have plenty of experience as clerks.

“Good morning, store manager.” Both Sherryl and Naya said together.

“Good morning. I got a cake from Lalalu as a souvenir today, so please help yourselves to it.” I told them.

“Thank you!” Naya, who loved sweets exclaimed.

“Thank you for your kindness. By the way, yesterday…” Sherryl, who was more serious, started reporting an incident that happened yesterday. It wasn’t something big though, just someone being persistent on trying to make a production request to me even after being denied.

We’ll let them off this time around, but they’ll be banned from the store if they try this again. It’s also nice that the clerks can report who is banned directly to the guild, so the guards will be properly informed of who they should be more wary of… Having people hired from the guild is surely convenient.

It’s also helpful that they can always message me if there is an emergency, so this kind of report is more of a regular thing than something that I need to worry too much about.

“Thanks for the report. Please work hard today too!” I told them.

“We’ll do our best!” They said together.

I’m getting used to being around the clerks. At the beginning they were basically doing things all by themselves due to being older and more experienced, but now I have started being able to give instructions properly.

Though of course, I’m still mostly inexperienced, so I rely on them a lot… After all, no matter how simplified and practical the system is, there’s no way I could run a store by myself.

******

When I left the store, I was not in disguise in order to not make it obvious that I was the one who used that disguise. Instead, I went to a nearby crowded store and changed there. Since there were a lot of people inside it, it was easy to get inside a changing room without being noticed, so I could get into my disguise with ease.

… Of course, I didn’t really have a way to be sure that there wasn’t a dedicated stalker tracking me the whole time, but I think there wasn’t.

After that, I returned the book that I was reading to the library, and borrowed more books. Since my ‘Language’ level is over 50, I can borrow a total of 5 books.

I could read them within the library, but the fee of 1000 Nil per book isn’t meaningful enough for me at this point, so I prefer to borrow them and read during free times like when I was waiting at the store.

And so, I rented the volumes 1 and 3 of ‘Basic Elemental Magic’ and headed to the ‘Rental Production Facility’, which is where I spend most of my time within the game… It’s been quite hard to make use of all materials I have been purchasing recently, so I really spend a lot of time here.

Though I wonder if I should try going to a different ‘Rental Production Facility’. I always use the one near the South Gate, but they’re all supposed to have the same interior, so there should be no problems in picking a different one for a change. It might also give some credibility to the rumor of me using a different facility… Though I do go out in disguise, so I’m not sure if it would help much.

Moreover, it would take 30min to go on foot to the nearest one, or 10min if I took a carriage there… But well, if I walk, I will also collect market prices, so I guess it wouldn’t hurt… And a change of pace isn’t that bad either, so… Yeah, let’s do this.

I started the long walk towards the ‘Rental Production Facility’ on the West Gate. I always avoided this location due to being too crowded, but right now the South Gate is also starting to get too crowded because my store, Lolita, and a few other top crafters are all being near it… Having this many crafters in the same area ended up making the ‘Rental Production Facility’ always have quite a few people in it.

I was hoping that because of the extra number of people on the South Gate, the West Gate would be easier to navigate, but it seemed as crowded as always. By now, I most likely would have already been bothered by someone if I wasn’t in disguise… The ‘official mail incident’ really did make things more bothersome for me.

Oh well, that should calm down in due time regardless. Let’s just go to the ‘Rental Production Facility’ and start today’s work.

Though I wonder how long will it take for the the North and East areas to become busy too… I think that more people should eventually go there… Well, for now, it’s none of my business.

******

As soon as I arrived at the ‘Rental Production Facility’ of the West Gate, I rented a private room. As expected, it was just like the ones in the South Gate… Do they have some strict standard for this?

… Or well, I guess it is a game, so that’s just how things are. Let’s just get started on the production instead of worrying about this kind of thing.

Though this time, we’re starting with Magical Formations! I wanna try out the Water Shield Magic Circle after all! I got this recipe with much effort, so I have to try it!

I’m also using ‘Magic Paper’ that I crafted myself. My ‘Alchemy’ level has been rising steadily, and I can now make 3* ‘Magic Paper’ reliably, so I no longer need to buy it from expensive NPC stores.

Moreover, I ended up making a lot of them, so I have quite a few to use! I’ll work hard!

Not to mention that this ‘Magic Circle’ is more complex than the ‘Fire Bullet’, so I’m quite excited to try it out. It’s still at beginner level, but I can’t help getting giddy when thinking of making new ‘Magical Formations’!

******

In the end, it’s still a beginner level ‘Magic Circle’. The complexity did increase, but it wasn’t that much more exciting than the other ones, since I’m used to drawing them a lot by now… Though the more sources of excitement I have the better!

For now, let’s take a look at the finished result.

——

Magic Circle: Water Shield

Item/3*/2 Uses

——

I did get the regular 3* level, but the number of uses is one less than what I got from ‘Fire Bullet’. It can’t be helped because higher level spells consume more durability of the ‘Magic Paper’, but this also means that once I can start producing ‘Magic Paper’ with a level higher than 3*, the number of uses of those ‘Magical Formations’ will also increase.

Moreover, even with just two uses, this ‘Water Shield’ is definitely a good product. A fulfilling pastime that can also gives sales is nothing short of wonderful.

Though it was a bit surprising that there was a market price for this Magical Formation already. I was able to obtain it now that my Merchant lv is 81, so I could get the ‘Automatic Market Price Collection’ skill… And since this item does have a Market Price, it means that it was sold before.

I haven’t heard of this though, so I suppose the volume of sales was small enough that only the related parties ended up being aware of it. Especially because you don’t have much of a way of knowing if someone is using a ‘Magical Formation’ mid-battle instead of just a normal spell.

Well, I don’t really care about the history involved with it. The important part is that this has a Market Price, so I’ll use the Market Price when selling it.

Besides, even though this should be a rare item at the moment, I’m sure that more people will eventually find out about other recipes at the library. It’s only a matter of time, and of more people starting to use the library… And considering that I’ve slowly started to see more people there, it might not take that long for this to happen.

But for now, what I want is to try out even more recipes! I’m not done with my beloved pastime yet!