The last two weeks had been very productive.

That Ildrick bastard couldn’t find any reason to punish me, he seems to be frustrated because of it. The good guy I am, I even asked what’s wrong with him. He played it off of course, but I was laughing inside, because of his predicament. Whelp, who can fault me for having a bit of fun?

My stash of money went up to a whopping 8 gold and 9 silvers. Selling ‚shadow of concealment‘ scrolls was more profitable than I thought. Of course, I left some of it for myself. ‚minor swiftness‘ sold not that good as the other one, but money is money. Luckily the buyers I found wanted it too.

The amulet is still a mystery to me, but I have the feeling, that when I break through to the 3rd stage of the soul, I can use it somehow. Shouldn’t be too long from now. I am at the peak of the 2nd stage of the soul. I figured out, that while making the soul seeds, I made 3 btw, I still can eat the rest of the apple and it helped a long way in my soul path. I am also very close to the late stage of the first stage in the mage path, but not there yet, I should breakthrough in the next 2 weeks or so.

Unfortunately, I am poor again. I used most of my wisdom and contribution points to retrieve golden apples, a set of beginner engraving equipment, some scraps to exercise on and two spells. Both of these spells were rather cheap. The main reason for that is, that for booth spells, you have to be very close to your enemy. A thing not every mage is happy about.

‚minor shock‘ is a lightning type spell, very effective at paralysing the opponent, but only in close quarters, thus the price was rather low, the difficulty of the former also helped to push it’s prize down.

As for the second spell, initially I decided for a defensive spell, more expensive, but staying alive is worth it. Here the parchments saved me. I translated two of them, I got faster at translating the more proficient I get in the language. One is about a ritual, the other is a defensive spell. The exact science behind it eludes me, but basically, it uses soul juice to make a thin defensive layer around the body, very effective against magical means, not so much for physical one. In the city, it is plenty.

Back to the second spell. It is called ‚dark hand‘. It is a darkness type spell. From the name, one can tell, but the spell works on touch. Luckily, it ignores common clothes, and magic resistant clothes only wakens the effect. The upside to its short-range is its power. The spell doesn’t have to travel through the air, so it is a lot more powerful, it can make major damage and also paralyses the person through pain and fear. Very useful.

Funny thing. In one of my experiments with engraving, out of boredom, I engraved this formula into a rock, loaded some mana into it and throw it up. I didn’t look out and it landed on my foot. Through this unexpected experiment, I got to know 2 things. First, the spell is effective, luckily I didn’t feed a lot of mana into the stone, so the pain was bearable. The second that it can make a decent weapon if utilized correctly. Spurred by this discovery, I ‚misused‘ ‚enslavement‘. I engraved it crudely into a normal iron dagger. I planned to add a dark hand too, but the material could only handle one minor engraving, and about effectiveness, ripping your soul open is worse than some pain. The amount of mana the dagger could hold was also very limited, thus ripping was my favourite.

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My crowning achievement in this time was a type of hand grenade. I stuffed two wooden bowls full with fireball scrolls, then put a metallic tube into a hole I made. This tube worked as a fuse. I loaded it with a basic mana storage engraving, then I out a send smaller one inside the cylinder with the same enchantment, but with the option of rapidly releasing booth engraving. Then one of the fireball scrolls overload and explode. Leading to a chain reaction.

You know overloading stuff always results in something violent. Overloading a transistor? It smokes out, no-big-deal. Overloading a fission reactor? Well everyone knows what happened to Chernobyl.

And I finally engraved spells into my soul. It was a bitch. Even with my advantages, it took me days to engrave one. Because of that, I only engraved 3. ‚shadow of concealment‘, ‚minor swiftness‘ and ‚minor soul shield‘. The first two for the reason of sneak attacking and/or fleeing and the last one as protection. In the limited time, I first engraved spell for protection and fleeing, for life protection. For offensive capability’s, I have 3 hand grenades on my belt, 2 soul rippers(that’s what I dubbed the daggers). And 3-4 of the other scrolls. For which I brought a rope with some basic defensive capabilities and a lot of storeroom. I am a walking armoury. Very atypical for most mages to rely on external items.

Having finished my thoughts, I make myself ready for my second excursion to the restaurant. This time I left my room and went towards the library, midway there I used one of the concealment scrolls. Turning around, I hastily left the building. I only have 10 minutes after all.

+++++++++++++++

In front of ‚Luke’s eatery‘.

It was already dark, but that didn’t bother me, instead I was overjoyed. The reason is that the restaurant has expanded a bit and looks a lot better than before. It seems that my investment has paid off.

Inside, I meet Luke again in his bedroom. The moment I enter, Luke wakes up, knees down and sais:

„master.“ He looks a bit out of the loop, but it seems that the integration finished a week or so ago, and now he is completely loyal.

„have you finished everything I asked?“I said.

„Yes master, the list is inside the desk and the cellar has been expanded.“ He said. Huh nice. But I don’t like the master stuff too much. What should I make him call him? Thinking this, I thought of something funny.

„Luke, from now on you will refer to me as Godfather“I commanded, giving off mafia vibes.

„Yes, ma-. Godfather“ He said hesitantly.

„Now show me the cellar, I am going to take the list with me, also I brought some more recipes“

I said.

Hearing this, his face immediately lits up. „Yes, godfather“ He then leads me to the cellar. It is about 10 m^2, not big, but I can work with that.

„Alright, use this as a normal cellar, I am going to expend it later. Oh and the money you earn, reinvest it into the restaurant, hire an additional cook.“ I said. With this, I gave him an engraved stone and a seed.

„hit him in the head at night with this stone then press the seed into his head“. I engraved the integration process into the seed. It is not particularly complicated. „Don’t worry about him then, he will wake up after 2-3 days. Then after another 3 days, work like normal, after that the seed should have integrated enough.“ With that, I left the shop.

Not wanting to leave any trail behind, I use another three concealment scrolls to get back to the tower. This time it was rather uneventful.

Feeling tired I got to sleep again.