Chapter 89 Setting Up Shop

“Ok, we’ll start with the back legs first.” Jay said, brandishing one of his many butchering knives.

He spent the next hour showing Trenly how to butcher; starting with the leg, then moving onto the rump, flank, brisket, ribs, backstrap, foreleg, chuck, and finally the neck.

“The shanks are good too, but I usually save them for myself. They make a good little snack, and people don’t typically buy them.” Jay handed Trenly two shanks.

“Thanks.” Trenly smiled, adding them to his inventory.

Clearing the table, Jay prepared it for the next carcass.

“Make sure you always wipe down the table. People can taste the difference otherwise. Have you got the ox-badger?”

Trenly nodded, bringing out the large ox-badger.

The ox-badger had the body and head of a badger with the legs and horns of an ox. It was not as big as an ox, about the size of a sheep.

“This one has a bit more fat compared to the deer, but basically, mostly all the other animals you butcher will be somewhere in between these two. This time you cut, and I’ll guide you.”

Jay handed him the knife and cleaver.

“I see. Sure.” Trenly nodded, grabbing the tools.

Jay guided Trenly through the process, and before they realised, it was butchered.

“He didn’t make many mistakes. Seems like he’s a natural” thought Jay.

“Now we can just put them on display, crumb them, or make them into sausage… but for now, just store it in your inventory. We can get some out when we need it.”

“I’m not sure if the inventory will stop things from spoiling though…” Jay scratched his chin..

“Oh, it does.”

“It does? How do you know?”

“I just do… I thought it was common knowledge?”

Jay shook his head in disbelief “Wow. Well… I’m glad I know now I guess?” he smiled at Trenly “We’re learning new things every day huh?” he chuckled, causing Trenly to smile too.

Jay proceeded to show Trenly how to make sausages, but couldn’t show him how to crumb them as he had no eggs – though he told him the process. It’s a pretty simple one too, so he just trusted him with it.

“Try to have about 200 sausages and about 80 crumbed pieces. That’s usually how much people buy, but feel free to make more if you sell out; if you don’t sell everything you can just use it yourself.”

“Sure.”

Jay showed him the prices as well as the small meat display and a few other business functions. After the process, Trenly was ready to run the shop himself.

“I think you’re ready” Jay nodded. “Feel comfortable running the shop by yourself tomorrow?”

“I’ll give it a go… will I need to buy more carcasses for tomorrow?”

“The day after tomorrow. There should be enough here to sell for the next two days. Every second day we just open a bit late as we have to buy stuff from the market… other than that I think you know everything. Usually I get about three carcasses of similar size to the deer, so you may run out, but that’s fine. Just close if you run out.” Jay shrugged.

“Awesome… Well, we will just see how tomorrow goes. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Great.. Uh, just let yourself in tomorrow. I might not be here” Jay shrugged. “Dungeon stuff… ya know?”

“Oh, right… Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe.”Trenly pursed his lips, shrugging.

– – –

~3rd Monastic Academy, Mirror Reality 34~

Norgrim was sitting at his desk, stroking his long black beard as he went through some papers. Periodically, he would glance at a floating plant on his desk which had a light-blue glow to it.

Norgrim was the headmaster of the 3rd monastic academy, an institute designed to protect those who were deemed too dangerous to remain living.

Jay would obviously fall under the banner of being too dangerous – as well as those who had soul, law, dimension, love and micro type magic.

Suddenly, a knock came from his door.

“Come in,” he said, looking up from his work.

“Oh, William, hello. Any news?”

“Yes. I found an interesting person… though it appears, you will be getting a message about him soon enough. He’s not strong at the moment though, and he seems to be quite cautious – but he was given special treatment by the guild master at Losla.”

“I see… Well, let’s just see what this message says. You have been keeping your eyes out of restricted areas I hope?”

“Yes, sir.” he nodded with a straight face.

“Good, good… anything else?”

“Yes. The royal court also received a prophecy, though I wasn’t able to see what it said.”

“I see… Thanks, William. I’ll have some people pry into it.”

With a nod, William left. He had usually reported to Norgrim every few days; his unique class which was a mix of soul and nature. While he didn’t fully understand one of his abilities, it still allowed him to see ‘important events’ that would most likely affect him somehow.

“I can’t wait to meet that guy…” he thought as he entered the white-stone hallway of the academy. “He surely must be someone important.”

This was called the 3rd academy, as the first two had been destroyed by the safety bearer’s. Thankfully, the constant attacks by the mage hunters caused one of the students to develop their abilities to such an extent that they could create a separate pocket of reality; this was where the school currently operated.

There were 6 academies in total, and the 5th and 6th still operated in hidden parts of the real world.

Of course, not everyone would want to join the academy, and for those who wished for a quiet life, they were allowed to live in a separate community within the pocket dimension, or simply leave to risk getting caught in the real world.

Most people who came joined the academy however, only leaving to join the community to start a family, or after they got injured, or were simply too old.

Norgrim was currently the headmaster of the 3rd academy. One had to have a sharp mind to avoid and scheme against the safety bearers, as well as a powerful class to keep the students in line – thankfully, he fitted both roles.

Oddly enough, his class was not considered unique when it was first discovered: He was a [Mana manipulator].

While nearly every adventurer, mage, hexamist or practitioner of manacraft manipulated mana, Norgrim’s class allowed him to take it to another level.

Mana was like the fuel source for all magic, and before him, magic was helpless.

It would be like comparing someone who could cause a splash in the water with their hand to someone who could stop an entire river from flowing with their mind.

He could not only snuff out spells without a thought, but he could cause mana burn or even fill someone’s mana up.

Constantly emptying and refilling some of his enemies mana pools had caused them to fall into a state of numbness; permanently catatonic.

It wasn’t long before he was branded as a threat. Seemingly overnight, the mage hunters created a way to deal with him.

Thankfully he escaped; his picture was plastered all over the kingdom, but he was soon recruited into the 1st academy as a student, all those years ago. Over time, he rose to become the headmaster.

It was quite a fitting position as no magic worked on him.

Norgrim was relaxing in his chair, thinking about what he may have for dinner when suddenly

a distortion in space happened, a small rift of darkness and light opened up, and a messenger orb floated through.

While this was a common occurrence, the messenger orb this time was coloured black – a top priority, top secret message.

The last time he got one of these was when the mage hunters were attacking.

His eyes widened as he got up from his desk; running to the window he grabbed it immediately before putting it into a golden chalice, which was required to open the message container.

He snapped his fingers and all the mana was sucked out of the room – no magical listening devices would work under such circumstances.

His eyes darted across the paper as he began to read.

After gripping the paper firmly, he loosened it a little as he read – there was no attack.

Finally, he sighed in relief. Impending danger was not coming, but rauther an opportunity, or dare he say it – hope.

The message was of course the one that Sullivan sent all those days ago. It had already made it past the checkpoint between dimensions where it was put into the black priority orb.

“A necromancer? A human necromancer?” He almost couldn’t believe what he was reading. He almost couldn’t bring himself to. Necromancers were undead creatures of legends, intelligent beings that only the most powerful adventurers may ever see. Even then, it would only be a glimpse.

They were naturally illusive creatures, summoning more undead so that they may never see the front lines of battle.

Their army would march one direction while they would march another.

Chasing a necromancer meant charging through an army of ravenous undead – and these would not be slow-moving undead either; when undead are summoned by a necromancer, they would always be fast and aggressive, like a rabid pack of wolves bearing down on a defenceless prey, sprinting much faster than humans could ever hope to.

“If we could get a powerful necromancer on our side, perhaps we would no longer have to hide… No, why limit ourselves to hiding? We could even conquer, carve out a chunk of the world for ourselves… Maybe they would have to hide from us!” he gripped his fist tightly, smiling broadly.

He now had work to do – recruitment.

“I’ll need to dispatch the acquisition team immediately.”

Immediately he ran to his desk, getting a communication crystal.

“Lannister, urgent mission. Retrieval of…” he checked the message.

“Retrieval of two uniques. Names are Jay and Anya. Location is Losla village, in the south-western part of Astrata. Priority is Jay. I’ll send you the details.”

“I’ll start the retrieval preparations.” Lannister replied.

“Lannister… this is important, perhaps a key in our future. Take Lara with you.”

“I see… I’ll bring her too, thanks. We won’t let you down.”

Lannister could tell Norgrim was serious, he even had a hint of desperation in his voice.

“I wonder what Jay will bring to the academy.” he thought as he started writing down what he need to do: a list of rituals, ingredients and plans he would be doing over the next few days – the steps needed to head back to the real world and then bring others back to the mirror reality.

The first step was of course information gathering.