Inside one of the many stores within the eastern district that contained a variety of different products Arthur looked through the glass ware section for a cheap set of alchemy apparatuses. Eventually he found a set that was listed for two silver coins, the set was quite basic but also new compared to what he was given when he began his apprenticeship under Georgius several months ago. As he thought about this he gave a small chuckle, he recalled the pitiful amount of money he used to make compared to what he earns now not even a year later.

Arthur quickly paid for the apparatuses and left, leaving his total net profit for the day at a single silver coin, though he wasn’t annoyed by this at all like he might have been in the past. He was doing this for his worker who for quite some time was collecting him various plants almost everyday, teaching him how to make his own potions and buying him a cheap set of alchemy apparatuses wasn’t unlike what Georgius did for him, minus the dying part.

Once the apparatuses were paid for Arthur slipped them into his dimensional bag and exited the store for one last stop before he headed home. Since he no longer had anyone to collect plants for him he would need to buy them from some of the stores that did. ‘I’m betting these business owners have a way to grow these plants. Once I reach the rank of evoker within the mages guild I am going to start looking into that and see if I can do that myself.’

The store Arthur had been going to for the last while for an extra bit of ingredients was called The Cracked Cauldron, it mostly sold alchemy ingredients and some basic potions that Arthur was able to make on his own along with a few more expensive potions kept behind glass that shimmered slightly every so often indicating their magic power. The woman who owned the store was middle aged and didn’t appear to try and cheat or overcharge Arthur for his money. Once inside he bought around nine times what he usually would have for three silver coins, this would hopefully last the whole week.

“Same place as the last time sir?” The woman asked as she watched Arthur fill out the details on a cheap piece of parchment that acted as a delivery document with all the important information for Arthur to add from his address to what he was actually ordering.

“Yeah, most of what is out there has stopped growing and has started to wither if it hasn't already.” Arthur said as he manipulated the small amount of ink to fill out the information.

“You collect your own ingredients?” The woman looked at Arthur with confusion.

“No, I had someone else do that for me. He told me earlier this morning that he couldn’t find enough to keep doing his job, so now I am forced to buy more ingredients from stores like this one.” Arthur said as he finished writing everything he needed to and pushed the parchment back towards the woman who quickly looked it over before nodding.

“Alright, I should have someone send the ingredients to you by around noon tomorrow. But if for whatever reason they haven't arrived by then you should have it by the day after, if that doesn’t happen come back and I will hand deliver it to you personally.”

“Thank you, and have a nice day, miss.” Arthur quickly departed the store and headed back to the southern district to have something to eat for lunch as it was around that time of the day. He had some soup that he made a day ago that he was interested in having a heated bowl of for lunch since he always made enough for several days.

As he walked he passed through the marketplace of the southern district like he normally did on this route. He likes to take a look at all the things that the vendors were selling. Occasionally he would see something interesting like the coat hanger or the wardrobe he recently bought. He noticed that several of the merchants were selling thick clothing and jackets that they went several days before, they listed their products as winter clothing and winter jackets.

The word winter sounded very familiar to Arthur, but whatever it was it lay just outside of his mind's reach. But based on the thickness of the clothes and jacket Arthur could tell that this winter thing was definitely something cold, the extra layers would help in keeping warm and based on the fact that the merchants were trying to sell these to anyone and everyone meant that it was something that everyone would be dealing with.

‘I’ll have to go back to Georgius’s old tailor for something for winter. He will probably have something that will fit the style of a mage while allowing me to keep warm.’ Arthur thought back to the older man who owned and ran the store, he briefly thought back to when he first bought his nice clothes. The memories rising up from the depths of his mind and staying with him as he returned home.

He quickly entered his home and took a seat in his chair as he currently did not have anything planned for the day, the shopping trip for the apparatuses and ingredients was a lot quicker than he was expecting. This left Arthur quite a bit of time to work on that journal he wanted to do just like Brexius did.

Arthur pulled out a simple leather bound book that he also purchased at the store he bought the apparatuses from, the book wasn’t all that big compared to some of the stuff he had bought like his own set of apparatuses, but the fifty page blank book did end up costing him two more silver coins. Thankfully ink was not an issue, if he really needed to he could use his magic ink in an emergency.

Placing the book on the table he quickly brought out one of his normal ink bottles and readied himself to begin writing things down. But he paused and thought to himself just before the ink touched the page. ‘Where exactly should I start this at?’

It was a very logical question, he could start the first entry today or he could start at the very first thing he remembers down in the depths of Dom Badaher. Both options had their benefits and their downsides but one would be a bit easier to do and he could always go back at a later date and write about his days in Dom Badaher.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Like what he found in the journal of Brexius he started by writing the date, which was The Eleventh of Limestone, 1148. Followed roughly by a line of space between Arthur began writing everything he did starting with waking up early today and even going over how he bought the very leather bound book he was currently writing in. Once he was done he had already covered two thirds of the page with ink.

When he was done he left the book faced up and open on the table to allow for the ink to dry, closing the book at this point would just cover the opposite page with the wet ink and ruin it. Despite his skill in hydromancy he wasn’t good enough to collect ink or any other liquids from materials it's been absorbed into.

Writing didn’t take all that long to do, leaving with a lot more time left in the day before he had to eat and then sleep, so he decided to practice his aeromancy some more by following the power exercise that he had recently been doing under Henry’s guidance. Staying in his seat Arthur made himself comfortable before conjuring a ball of air between his hands, he pushed the air closer and closer together with his magic power until it started to become difficult for him to maintain.

He kept this pressure up for around ten seconds before easing off a little bit and allowing himself to relax his metaphorical magic strength for around ten seconds before starting up again. He continued this for around an hour and by then his mana was close to exhaustion even with a few brakes every so often.

It was a little after lunch by this time so Arthur brought out some of the soup he made recently and heated it up with what little mana he had left. It wasn’t quite as warm as he wanted it to be, but it was enough that its taste was half decent. Soon that bowl of soup was quickly eaten by Arthur and he sat back in his chair while he waited for his mana to recover.

While he waited he decided to record this magic exercise within his journal and for how long he did it for to pass a bit of time, by this time the ink he had put down the first time had started to dry a bit. Quickly he recorded everything and pushed the leather bound book off to the side where it was less likely to be disturbed.

To continue to pass the time while his mana recovered at a snail's pace Arthur brought out Brexius’s journal to look at the diagrams of all the golems he within, he made some comparisons to the clay golem that he saw at Henry’s repurposed church. He eventually came to the conclusion that the purpose of each designer were very different, while Henry’s were more of a multi purpose golem with the ability to speak somehow the ones designed by Brexius were clearly made for fighting and manual labour. Things like speaking likely were a hassle to integrate anyawas based on what Henry said about it.

********

Knock knock knock. Arthur stood up from his chair where he finished breakfast just a few minutes ago and walked over to the door and opened it. On the other side he found Gaelin waiting while also wearing the jacket Arthur gave to him the day before. “Good morning sir.” Gaelin said in an uncertain tone as he stood in the doorway.

“Good morning Gaelin, please come inside.” Arthur quickly waved the young elf inside and brought him to his spare/alchemy room where the apparatuses he bought for him were alongside his own. Gaelins eye lit up at the sight of the equipment and he took several steps forwards to get a better look at it. To him the glass that made up part of the set was no different than the beautiful gemstones he heard stories of the ancient dwarven kingdoms digging from the deepest parts of the earth just above the abyss. Turing to look at Arthur he wondered if this was even real.

“Did you study the recipes I gave you yesterday? Because I am going to have you make a few of those for me now.” Arthur walked past Gaelin and began collecting an assortment of different plants from the nearby boxes that were labelled, he then placed those collected plants on the table right in front of Gaelin roughly separated. Thankfully Gaelin was able to differentiate each plant from his time learning to read and collecting plants for Arthur.

Taking the parchment with the recipes out of his pocket Gaelin made sure he knew which non magical potion he wanted to make with what he was given. He chose the first one on the list and it was the nutrient potion, under Arthur’s direction and watchful eye Gaelin grounded up each of the ingredients and distilled them into a brown liquid that was certainly the potion in question.

While there was only the one potion created and it wasn’t all that concentrated compared to what Arthur was able to do it was still a good first attempt. Gaelin looked up to Arthur with wide eyes wondering how he did, and he was happy to see that Arthur was smiling.

“Good job Gaelin, while it could definitely use some work that is well done for a first attempt.” Arthur watched as Gaelin gave a soft smile as he was being congratulated, it wasn’t something he saw very often from the young elf, sometimes he would see it when he paid him but that was only semi-regularly.

“Thank you sir, do you want me to brew another potion from the list you gave me?”

“Sure, how about the drowsiness potion.” Arthur suggested while pointing to the second potion on the list. Gaelin smiled and nodded before starting up again with another bottle at the ready. Like before Gaelin followed the instructions by grinding up the necessary ingredients and listening to Arthur’s guidance when it came to distilling the liquid into a proper potion, by the end of the process Gaelin was left with a cloudy white liquid that smelt like a nice candle.

Gaelin handed the potion off to Arthur who spent a minute looking over the potion, when he was done he handed it back with a smile. “It looked well done, but the only way to be certain that the potion works is to test the potion yourself. Typically this would be done in batches allowing you to keep most of what you brewed for yourself, but in this case you just have the one. But don’t worry you will have many attempts today to try again, be thankful you don’t need to collect your own ingredients like I did while apprenticing.”

This continued on for another hour before Gaelin managed to brew more than a single potion at once, once he showed that he was able to do this semi constantly depending on the potion Arthur had him stop and decided to give him a demonstration of proper magical alchemy by brewing a batch of basic healing potions.

Throughout the process he showed and explained why he was doing everything he was doing, once he was actually casting the basic alchemy and restoration spell that gave the potions its healing magic he made sure Gaelin could see everything that happened.

“Now see that the liquid in the bottles is glowing a little, that means that I was successful in casting the spell, but to be certain that nothing is wrong I will need to test out one.” Arthur picked up one of the potions at random and drank its contents and conjured up a small knife to give himself a small cut. Soon the cut healed proving the potion worked and Arthur felt no side effects.