“Tough? That's one way to put it, not what I would use to describe her though.” Aurelio took a seat on the stool behind the counter while he and Arthur spoke. “I still got her to take the potion though, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“Why was she being so difficult? Did she have a bad experience with alchemy in the past?”
“Being an alchemist comes with a lot of stereotypes, most of which are bad and cause distrust in the common people. It's like what my mother always said when I was a child, a few bad apples will spoil the bunch.” Aurelio said as he took a cloth from his back pocket and began to wipe down the counter top.
“But you shouldn’t worry about that, now is there anything I can help you with Arthur?”
“Yeah, Master Calvus said it's time for me to learn magical alchemy.”
“Oh, well congratulations on that. It took me a month longer to get his approval for that, did you have any questions about it?” Aurelio gave a soft smile at the good news for his fellow apprentice.
“Yes I do, to learn magical alchemy Master Clavus said I need to learn how to cast first tier spells, but he doesn’t recall the name of the course.”
“And he told you I attended recently so you should ask me. That's alright, the course is now called The Fundamentals of First Tier Magic. Each tier has a similar name with the only difference being the spell tier.”
“Thanks, that should save me a fair bit of time. Is there anything else I should know?”
“Yes, it will cost you 15 silver coins to enroll in the course and you will be there for a whole month.” Arthur's eyes widened at the cost. It was far more than he was expecting.
‘Fifteen silver coins to enroll, that's just five silver shy of a whole gold coin. I suppose I am lucky that I don’t have a lot of expenses so I can afford it with my savings. Other people might not be so lucky.’
Arthur reached into his dimensional bag and pulled out the pouch he received for his last task from Captain Tasius and took out fifteen coins before he returned the pouch to his bag. “Lucky I have enough right here.” Arthur waved his hand full of the coins.
“Well you don’t exactly have a whole lot to spend your money on, but you could buy yourself a new set of alchemical apparatuses. The ones Master Clavus gave you are getting a bit worn down with all the use you have been getting out of them.” Aurelio gave a small chuckle as he pointed out the state of Arthur’s equipment.
It wasn’t so much as Arthur being cheap, but more so that he didn’t know where he would even go about buying a new set. But with all the money he has saved up he should be able to buy something decent, or at least in better condition.
“I know, I know. But I don’t know where I would buy them from, I don’t even know how magical alchemy will change things. Will I need a new set specifically for magical alchemy? Will the one I currently have be fine? Truth be told this is all quite new to me. I didn’t even begin using magic until roughly two months ago.”
Aurelio smiled as Arthur vented his frustrations, it was nearly exactly the same as what he was thinking when he was in his position. The only difference was he was learning magic for a while longer than just two months. ‘That's why Master Clavus took him as his apprentice, I should have expected something like that. Now any achievement he earns will have his name attached as the man who taught him.’
“There is a reputable company called Tindustries that has a store here in Antium that sells all sorts of stuff, including alchemy related appliances. Most of what they sell is simple stuff for the common people who only need to ground up various plants. But if you ask around there you can find some high quality.”
Arthur paused a thought for a moment. ‘A new set of alchemy apparatuses might be good for my work and I have a lot of savings.’ Arthur let out a sigh, not of anger but simple reluctance.
‘I might as well at least look at what they have, if they don't have anything good I will do it some other time.’
“Tindustries was it? After I enroll in that course I'll take a look and see what they have.”
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“It's probably for the best, and you will thank me when you have nice new equipment to work with.” Aurelio pointed his finger at Arthur as he spoke. “And you probably won't need to worry about replacing your equipment for a few years after, they are built to last after all.” After continuing their short conversation Arthur and Aurelio left to eat something for dinner and spent the rest of the day doing their respective tasks.
Arthur awoke at almost eight o’clock in the morning on the dot, the first thing he did after eating a few slices of toast with cheese was go straight to the mages guild to enrol for the The Fundamentals of First Tier Magic. Being so early in the morning and the first day of the week he did not need to wait for long and was soon given a form to fill out and a small booklet listing all the possible courses he could take as well as their prerequisites. But since he was only interested in the one course he did not take long and returned with the fifteen silvers to pay the fee.
“Thank you sir, I will go ahead and put this right into the system.” The woman running the enrolment took the grey crystalline sphere and with a bit of magic put the information into the system and turned to speak with Arthur. “You should receive your new schedule within the week, if for any reason it doesn't happen please return here and you will be given a copy.”
Arthur tanked the woman and began to look for the Tindustries branch located in Antium.
‘Would it be in the industrial sector or close to the marketplace, since it could count as both based on the description I was given. Tsk. I should have asked Aurelio where it was.’
Arthur decided that he would look around the various marketplaces because the store would likely count as a general store over a craft building based on the variety Aurelio said they had. After a few hours of searching and asking around, Arthur managed to find the branch in the western district close to the central marketplace there.
The building was rather large and built more like a warehouse rather than store, but the large sign and large inflow of customers proved his initial assumptions otherwise. Upon entering the store Arthur discovered just how large the building and the selection was, there was everything from clothes to pastries to even a butcher, but Arthur paid those little attention, he was more focused on the alchemy section.
It was a bit smaller than he was expecting, only a small handful of shelves with various amounts of different products and a handful of general use apparatuses. Not exactly what he was looking for. Arthur was about ready to leave when an employee noticed him and walked up to him. “Good morning sir, do you need help with anything?”
The employee wore a simple looking white shirt and brown pants and a bright orange apron with the company's name written in white, just like the sign on the outside.
“Yes, I was told that I could find some high quality alchemy apparatuses here. But I do not see any that fit my needs.” Arthur turned to look at the employee while he thought back to what Aurelio said about asking around.
“Oh, and what might your needs be?” The employee looked a bit flustered by Arthurs tone, so she asked what he was looking for in as polite a way as she could.
“I'm an apprentice alchemist, so something rather durable and effective would be required.” Arthur turned back to the items on the shelf, taking note of a few things that might actually be useful to him.
“Oh, I know of something that might interest you. I will be right back sir.” The employee turned and rushed into the back where most of the excess products were stored. She had a customer like him before, another alchemist looking for the same thing, so she recalled where the rest were like.
On the way she took a large cart to place everything inside as taking everything one by one would take far too long. When she found the sorted high quality alchemy apparatuses she took a mortar and pestle, a retort, a heavy calcinator, and an alembic.
She didn't waste any more time and quickly pushed the large cart of expensive apparatuses back to the customer smiling the whole time. ‘With another large sale like this I will definitely get another large commission just like last time.’ The woman was very excited as the last time she sold such expensive equipment she earned enough to make a few well placed investments in a few prominent merchant guilds with great returns.
When she returned to the shelf where Arthur was standing the employee was panting slightly from pushing all the heavy equipment for so long. Arthur quickly walked over to the equipment and looked it over and he was not disappointed, it was of very high quality and he would get a lot of use out of it.
Noticing the employee panting Arthur chose to push the cart to the store counter where the employee counted up the price of all the apparatuses and gave him the total. “3 gold coins sir.”
The employee smiled while Arthur had to stop himself from scowling at the mere mention of the price. ‘Three gold coins!? That is sixty silver coins and more than half of my savings. I just hope I can earn it all back with this new equipment.’
Arthur reluctantly counted out and handed the employee the whole sixty silver and she recounted just to be sure. The announcement of someone spending sixty silver coins attracted a bit of an audience from the other shoppers who went there specifically to avoid spending so much money.
And when they saw what Arthur was buying they began to even gossip about who he was and why he was buying such equipment. Arthur was only able to hear bits and pieces of what was said and even then he could tell it was mostly just blind speculation with a touch of conspiracy theories.