One of the glass makers, a human man taking a break after just finishing an order a handful of minutes ago with his back turned to the forman and the young boy speaking was listening to the conversation intently. It wasn’t everyday a new mage would arrive within the city.

“I don’t know how, but he raised his hand near the ink pot I offered and he just controlled the ink and made it move across the page while I didn’t know how to react. He didn’t even brag or say anything that might indicate that he was proud of the achievement either.” The glassmaker smiled a wide smile unnatural of a commoner with no connections.

“That is interesting to say the least, do you know if he was affiliated with the guild or another organisation in the city? If so we might be able to turn this simple transaction into a larger more lucrative long term contract.” The dwarven forman smiled like a wolf as he spoke to the young boy, his intentions clear as the sun on that day.

“I.. I don’t know. He just had a simple room in the Free Parrot bar in the western district with some simple furniture like you said he would be. If he is a part of some group like the mages guild I didn’t see anything that he might have that proves it.” The boy said his voice quivering slightly as he knew nothing about the mage in question, he was also expecting his boss to be annoyed by his lack of in depth knowledge even though it wasn’t his fault. The glassworker however was more than happy with what the boy said and even had a few ideas on how to reward him when the time was right.

“That is unfortunate. But I’ll have you deliver the bottles every week from now on just in case you do see or hear something that can tell us more about this mage.” The forman ordered in a more casual tone that most would otherwise do, but both the boy and the nearby glassmaker understood that he was disappointed by the boy's lack of information.

‘Relax kid, I’ll see if somebody can put the fear of the gods in that jackass’s soul.’

**********

Another five hours later when the glass furnaces were off for the day the glassmaker walked as inconspicuous as he could in the direction of a meeting place where he could offer the information to a group that could be trusted and wanted this information.

The location was a cheap tavern towards the northernmost point of the southern district that was owned by a medium level member of the group. Entering the building he saw in the far corner a human woman dressed in a deep red cloak who was reading a book without a title. With a brief look around the room he walked over towards her and took a seat opposite of her. The sounds of casual conversation helped him relax and remind him he was in a public place where murder was unlikely to happen.

The woman didn’t react to his presence at first, instead she chose to continue reading her book when a waitress arrived next to the glassmaker and took an order for a soup while the woman was just ignored. The glassmaker was a little confused by this but suddenly realised that something was a little off about the woman and how she was acting, until suddenly she spoke up.

“Do you have a code name?” The sudden question caught the glassmaker off guard for a moment before he managed to answer. “No, not yet.”

The woman in red lowered her book for a moment to look at the glassmaker's attire before asking another question, though this one seemed a bit unrelated. “What is your job?”

“I am a glassmaker.” He replied as the woman in red looked at his clothing and nodded in agreement. The thick tunic and pants he was wearing to protect himself from the heat of the furnace was evident of working near one.

“Then we will be calling you the Glassmaker from now on.” The woman in red said without even a change of expression, and without waiting to hear about his opinion she wrote something down in her book that was likely the said code name she gave him.

“Now do you have anything to report Glassmaker?” She asked in a very flat tone that gave no indication of any emotion that disturbed the Glassmaker in a way he couldn’t describe.

“Yes, I have heard of a mage likely to be unaffiliated with most groups that is currently residing within a room in the Free Parrot bar located in the western district. From what I heard he is able to move ink around like how other mages move fire and water around.”

“That is certainly interesting Glassmaker, now how exactly did you come across this information? Given that you ‘heard of’ this mage I am assuming that you have not directly seen or spoken to this mage in question.” The red cloaked woman pushed against the statement the glassmaker made and was trying to force him into a corner and keep him uneasy, if she did that she could extract more information while keeping him from noticing just how important and valuable the information was worth.

“One of the people I work with, a young boy who handles some of the deliveries, told my boss about what he saw when he delivered something to this mage. He said the mage controlled ink like how many other mages control fire or water.” The Glassmaker nearly blurted out his response, he managed to stop himself from saying any more once the woman leaned back and wrote something else down in her book.

A minute later when she was done she spoke again without even looking up. “You are free to go now Glassmaker, return in a week's time and we will give you your deserved reward.” The red cloaked woman said with little emotion in her voice, like she was telling a servant to clean the floor. The Glassmaker wanted to say something, to rebuke her for how rude she was, but he kept his mouth shut out of the aura of ear that seemed to be radiating from her.

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Now that she was alone the red cloaked woman’s expression tensed up somewhat as she closed the book and placed it within her bag before standing up and walking up the stairs to the second floor. Up there was a small hallway leading to several rooms, she walked to the room at the very end and opened it revealing a small room with an open window filled with carrier birds all of light grey or black.

The woman chose one of the grey birds and wrote down a small message on a piece of paper she picked up nearby and tied it around the bird's leg before carrying it over to the window where it flew out and towards a decent sized wooded area within the city.

If anybody was able to see the woman through the window they would see her stern expression with a small hint of worry. She knew that her organisation, the Red Eye Cult, was looking for mages, especially ones with some ability for hydromancy but she didn’t know why. All she knew was it something their mysterious leader specifically ordered his followers to look out for and report to him whenever they did.

She didn’t know why but it made her feel uneasy sending the message, something about the request was just off. Wanting more mages was one thing, but he specifically wanted those with skill in hydromancy. She was missing something, but she didn’t know what.

*********

With the bottles in my hands I smiled softly like I saw an old friend after many years apart. It had been some time since I had done any alchemy and I was most eager to start again.

With a spring in my step I brought out all of the ingredients I needed for my healing potions and started grounding them up with the mortar and pestle like I always did.

I followed the recipe drilled within my mind and after ten minutes of brewing I was left with a bottle that was filled with the liquid that I could easily sell for a small handful of copper coins, but before I could do that I needed to cast one last spell. The simple alchemy spell that bonded the healing magic to the liquid allowing for it to actually be called a potion.

The spell was just a simple tier one and took a few seconds to cast, controlling it however to do what I wanted it to take a little longer. But I was more than skilled enough in both alchemy and mana manipulation to succeed and I was left with a light pinkish glowing liquid in a sealed bottle that was easily worth three or four copper pieces.

“Now to do this two more times today.” I said to myself as I put the bottle down and looked to the mess that I had left on the table and my apparatuses. I felt it was a little ironic that the longest and worst part of alchemy wasn’t the actual mixing or casting of the spell that gave the potions their magic, no it was cleaning up after each potion or batch of potions. Unlike brewers, leaving residual potions in your apparatuses was a good way to get mixed results and failed potions according to my old teacher Georgius. Thankfully I hadn't experienced anything like that yet due to my diligent cleaning.

Another half hour passed as I brewed and cleaned my temporary workstation with an end result of three healing potions that I could imagine would sell for around twelve copper pieces total if sold to the right people. ‘But to get that price I would likely need to sell this directly to the mages guild like I did before. But to do that I need to go through the whole certification process of brewing those potions with the other three alchemists watching. Thankfully I don't need the money right now, there was a bit of a wait last time.’

I quickly slipped the apparatuses and then the potions into my bag for safekeeping and I got ready to leave for the mages guild library. I wanted to take a look at the evoker level aeromancy books and see if learning something from them might help with the sound barrier.

********

I managed to find a few books that detailed evoker level training exercises and I began trying them out each for around five minutes before moving onto another. I didn’t try and push myself all that much, I just tried them out to see how they worked and if I could use them, when I was done with each I turned back to the sound barrier and tried creating one again with a focus around my feet.

The resistance I felt from the air trying to return to its original form was still there, but I wasn’t certain if there was that much of a change given its relatively small size, so I slowly increased the size until it covered my knees in addition to my feet. I felt a considerable change and the shape of the barrier warped slightly under the strain from the air trying to revert to its original form, but I held firm and kept it from breaking apart.

‘Gods this would be so much worse if I needed to actually move around with this thing. But I don’t need it to be huge and cover a full room, just enough to cover myself while staying low to the ground and a bit extra for any grass or other plants that shift as I move.’ I thought to myself while trying to calm and focus my mind towards the task at hand.

With a mental command I made the barrier rise even more up to around my hips, this was where most of the structural problems became far more apparent.

The outside of the barrier was almost rippling like a body of water as I was barely able to contain its form. I knew enlarging it anymore or moving around would cause the barrier to break apart completely so instead I just stopped and kept in how it was while focusing the entirety of my mana and my focus towards keeping it stable.

I remained there allowing my mana to flow into the barrier and keep it running, eventually I felt the barrier stabilise somewhat as I managed to somewhat improve my control.

/- - - - - -\

+ Aeromancy Level 21

\- - - - - -/

I didn’t open my eyes but I already knew what the feeling was. The mana I needed to keep the barrier stable was slightly smaller than it was before, but nothing significant enough to take my attention off it for even a second.

“Um, excuse me?” A young voice suddenly asked, breaking me from my task which resulted in my barrier cracking apart and popping like a wine bottle. I looked up with a mixture of surprise and annoyance evident on my face to the source of this distraction. But to my surprise it was a familiar face that I had first seen during my pyromancy lessons.

The spider person who I was certain was a male based on the deepness of his voice tried averting his eyes behind the hood of his cloak as he saw my annoyed expression.

Recalling how nervous and shy he was when we shared our classes I quickly calmed down and relaxed my face. “Do you need help with something?” I asked hoping I didn’t scare him too much.

“Um, do you know any good books on pyromancy or geomancy for beginners? I just started my classes and I want to try and learn as much as possible.” The thick accent the spider man had made it a little difficult to understand what he was saying even with my amulet translating everything he said. A small flaw with the spell that it didn’t account very well for accents, likely due to how many there were.

“Um, well I know of a few good books for novices. Here I will help you look for them.”