Anton woke up the next day at around seven in the morning when he checked the time on his browser. His father wasn’t in the room. He remembered falling asleep alone and he didn’t even feel Anders coming in and now he woke up, his father was gone already. He was not worried about Ander’s health or something like that since every one of them was healthy due to his auras.
Anton knew that Anders was excited about the merchant empire that he was building and that’s why the man was very energetic. He remembered that once Anders told him that when they settled in a city somewhere, he would buy a mansion for them to live in. Anton’s father was just sad that his mother wouldn’t be with them to share their upcoming prosperity.
Anders envisioned a grand life for them. Staying at a mansion while doing his merchant business while he and Anna studied to become powerful wizards. He prayed that his father’s ambition would happen and thought that he would do everything he could to realize Ander’s dream.
Outside the room, everyone was eating breakfast and Fenix was already there as well as their newly hired wizard tutor, Frederick.
Anton sat beside his Father and started eating breakfast. There were lots of food on the table and it was laid down buffet style. Fenix and Frederick looked like they were competing with each other on who would eat the most.
“Anton remember to return after lunch so you can start repairing items. You will also need to repair the carriages and carts that we will be using tonight so they will be ready when we leave tomorrow,” Anders told him and Anton just nodded.
Anton took a bath after breakfast then he went downstairs to start his adventure in the city while Fenix was following him.
“Do you know what my sister will be doing?” Anton asked Fenix.
“Budolf and Kudar will be guarding them while leading them to the high-end bazaar. She was planning to spend this morning shopping there. What about you, where do you want to go first.”
“Where do you suggest we go first?”
“Let’s go visit the church first since you would be able to see great art there like the murals and sculptures. There’s also a chance that we would be lucky to see a healing session by one of the priests there.”
Anton’s interest was raised when Fenix mentioned that he might be able to see priests or clerics performing healing magic. At first, he thought of asking his city guide how healing magic worked. Were they like a wizard who needed to memorize their spells using a spell book or was their magic provided by a deity? Anton decided to hold off on asking since he thought it would be better to ask Frederick once the mage started teaching them since his asking was akin to telling the boy that he didn’t have the common knowledge available to everyone.
When they arrived at the church, Anton fully expected to be impressed by the building and it didn’t disappoint. The church was a grand structure surrounded by magnificent statues of heroic beings. Anton saw that the church was surrounded by painters trying to paint the statues in their canvasses and could see that the artists were impressive. He didn’t know much about painting but what he saw so far inspired him to talk to the painters.
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At first, he thought that the painters would rebuff him and tell him they were busy painting but they were surprisingly accommodating. They answered all of his questions without hesitation and when he was one of the painters who had several impressive-looking paintings by his side if he were selling those, the painter suddenly looked like he was injected with chicken blood.
Fenix then whispered to him that artists were always hungry and everything they did was for sale.
Anton then purchased several paintings he liked from several artists and allowed Fenix to haggle and pay. Since he bought a total of seven paintings, he asked someone to deliver them to the inn where they were staying for a fee and Fenix was the one who handled the negotiation again.
The tour guide was very careful with Anton’s coins and Anton thought that Fenix may be thinking that he would be able to keep the coins that would remain once Anton left the city.
Unfortunately, no healing session occurred that day. They went inside the church so Anton could see the murals and they were indeed some of the finest pieces of art that he had seen, not that he had seen many aside from the ones from the internet.
Anton then remembered that he only had one coin purse remaining with one hundred silver coins inside it since he had given all the coins to his father and Nemina to manage.
“Fenix, how many coins do you have left?” Anton asked while they were walking.
“The purse that you gave me only had thirty silver coins left.”
“Here take this purse. It has one hundred silver coins in it. Remember to take your remuneration from the purse and the rest will be my spending coins. I’m planning to go to the high-end bazaar as well to purchase things, do you think that coins would be enough?”
Fenix laughed when he heard Anton’s questions.
“Your remaining funds are not enough for those shops. The items there cost gold coins instead of silver.”
Anton was a bit disgruntled at the thought that he would not be able to shop at the said bazaar. He could earn coins again by repairing some items and selling them but then thought that he wouldn’t bother anymore.
“Will we find magic items there like spell books and wands and stuff?”
Fenix laughed again.
“Do you think that nobles would allow those items to be sold especially when there’s war with the undead? Maybe in other cities, there are magic shops and there were some here before but according to my father, they’re all closed now by the order of the king since all of their products were purchased by the king and the nobility.”
Anton was disappointed to learn that he would not be able to acquire magic items but then he could get a lot of magic items from his Diablo II system anyway so he didn’t bother with it anymore and told Fenix that they should focus on sight-seeing and eating. He then thought of an experiment.
“I want to experience the life of a minstrel Fenix. Let’s go somewhere where we can change clothes and busk in the square that we’re allowed to!” Anton got excited at the thought of experiencing becoming a minstrel. They went to a clothing shop and bought regular clothes then the shopkeeper allowed Anton to change clothes inside since Fenix pretended that he was some sort of noble playing outside the noble’s quarter.
Anton and Fenix went outside the shop wearing regular clothing while carrying a lute and Fenix mentioned that he still looked like a noble playing as a minstrel while laughing. He just shrugged while he followed Fenix who was leading him to a square where he could busk.
While walking, he thought of which songs to sing and thought that old rock and roll ballads would probably be the best songs to choose since they were loud enough and unique enough.
Before they arrived in the square they would perform, they ate some street food first for energy. While they were eating, Anton made a list of songs that he would play, and after thinking of ten songs, he thought that it should be enough.