North Tarak [foot of the Torrent mountain range], local time [1793.11.23]
“Heh, I am not sure how you managed to not realize it was a joke before using it—”
Because it sounded better in my mind…
“—but it’s a legit method to train youngsters, so don’t sweat it. Anyhow, protective enchantments are active, so speak freely,” Faran said, leaning back.
Zeph sighed. “I have two parcels generating Mana with me. Landlord Oric is looking for a guy under… Red’s protection,” he explained shortly, deciding to keep at least some discretion. Just to be sure.
“Oho, she messed with someone’s plans again. I kind of expected that, but at least she delivers,” he said thoughtfully.
‘Again’? Jesus…
“Hmmm… I don’t have equipment on hand for safe transport… Eh, let’s just store it,” he decided.
After rummaging through cabinets for a minute, he brought back a wooden box and Zeph deposed the pouches inside. It was impossible to say if the box was enchanted or special in any way.
“By the way, can you tell me what was inside? Getting any information from Red is a pain…” he asked as Faran was placing the box back.
“As it should. But I suppose it’s not a secret,” he started, sitting down. “Those are fragments of organisms with Souls intact, at least partially. Parts of Myconid hive-centers, most probably. Bastards are almost impossible to kill without a Soul perception specialist, there always is one half-hibernating spore hidden somewhere. Or a hundred. But if you have a good specialist with you, degrading them to one fragment is possible.”
“And then use for Soul enchanting, isn’t it?” Zeph tried to confirm his guesses.
“Yes, among other things. But the exact process is confidential. It’s not that easy to integrate the body fragment without breaking the Soul links,” he confirmed and sighed tiredly. “Red is one of the better specialists out there, and one of the few that are all right with this method. If only less of them were ending up in the temples… You know how the religious sort reacts to the idea of using Souls. It’s unreasonable. They are unreasonable. The idiots,” he complained with sorrow in his voice.
Well, that was informative. Good thing it isn’t exactly common knowledge, I would look like an idiot or worse…
Talking with Faran was surprisingly pleasant. Zeph liked the rational approach to reality the merchant was showing. Especially his desire to develop new technologies. Faran had an open, critical mind, his love for money was the only thing Zeph couldn’t directly relate to. They spent almost an hour discussing new inventions and innovations, even those inaccessible on the open market. Although, Faran was the one speaking for the most part.
Walking back to the inn, Zeph was in a great mood. He couldn’t wait to speak with a Scholar if even a merchant was able to provide so much useful information, especially because he wouldn’t have to pretend to possess common knowledge anymore.
It took him a while to walk back to the inn. As he entered the room, he found Aisha and P’pfel already eating dinner.
“Welcome back. All good?” greeted Aisha. P’pfel only nodded, as his mouth was full.
“Yes. The delivery should arrive soon, we earned a little over 50 gold,” he said, quickly sitting at the table.
She nodded, not interrupting him until he was full. It was obvious he was starving.
The dinner was bliss, he felt like he could get used to this life.
“Come with me. You need to collect your overdue entree,” she said, standing up.
“Eh, I don’t think I can eat any more, though…” Zeph complained but followed after her.
She smirked. “I am sure you will find enough space.”
She ushered him into the kitchens, or so he had thought initially. He was greeted with a big, circular room with rows of terraria settled on shelves. The place was elegant, full of potted plants, and dimly lit. Small animals resided in a few of the terraria, all seemingly asleep. They had them all: birds, snakes, lizards, small critters, even big insectoids. But strangely, they weren’t separated by species.
He was quite fascinated by the diversity. Only a few species were similar to those from Earth, mostly birds and snakes, the body-shapes and anatomy of the rest were alien to him.
Aisha moved with purpose to the counter at the end of the room. A lady in a suit similar to Kwan’s was manning it.
“Greetings. Rooms 27 and 28 if I’m not mistaken?” she asked with a professional smile.
“Yes. Seven courses for one person should still be uncollected,” Aisha answered.
The lady checked something quickly and handed them three small metal plates.
“That is correct. Here you go, terraria number 17 to 19. Have a nice day!”
Aisha nodded and started walking to the indicated shelves. Zeph already had an idea of what was going on.
Terrarium number 17 had two snakes, four small birds, and two kinds of plants inside. The snakes had a body width of a small finger.
It roughly corresponded with the amount of meat he ate yesterday.
“You insert the plate in the slot, switch off the safety here, and activate it here,” Aisha explained quietly, pointing at a toggle switch, then at a button.
He followed the simple instructions, and soon he could hear a silent hiss of released gas blowing into the terrarium. The breathing of the sleeping animals was slowing down, and the leaves of the plants started to curl up. A moment later he received a System notification.
Congratulations!
You have killed [Hazelworm– lvl 20]. (x2)
You have killed [Philomel – lvl 36]. (x3)
You have killed [Philomel – lvl 37].
You have killed [Pree Carron – lvl 20]. (x4)
You have killed [Yellow Lupis – lvl 25]. (x5)
You have earned [Soul fragments]!
Gru reported that only one bird has sent a fragment of its Soul away, a pittance in comparison to how frequently wild animals did that. They didn’t know of any examples for plants with Souls, though.
Zeph repeated the process two more times. Before they left the room, he saw a waiter entering from the back door, pushing a trolley in the direction of the three terraria.
They returned to Aisha’s room, as P’pfel already cluttered the bigger one with his equipment for enchanting, starting the preparations as he impatiently waited for the delivery of reagents.
Zeph started bombarding her with questions almost immediately.
“So that’s why there are so many stores with meat? They are all keeping living animals? Is it always this… tidy? And I have an impression that younger, smaller animals would be more… efficient…”
Aisha sat heavily in an armchair, sighing with resignation. “Just as I expected,” she said, looking at him. “Thankfully, we have time for a longer lesson. First of all, young Souls are smaller and don’t leave much fragments. Not to mention, System Onji doesn’t support the process in the case of young beings, so you would gain almost nothing. As for the stores, we have a classification for them…” she started explaining.
As always, a huge chunk of culture stems from cooking and food culture. After all, a lot of everyday life is centered around this basic need, even more so in the context of the System and Levels.
For places providing the entree, so an opportunity to kill the livestock before it was processed or the equivalent, five main factors dictated the class of the establishment and prices.
First, the level of creatures sold.
Second, the quality of cooking, if it was provided.
Third, the type of creatures. The easiest to breed were the so-called hive animals, or speaking technically - eusocial animals, because they were growing the fastest and had uniform levels, above other things important for farmers. The amount of Soul fragments they gave was the lower, the more dependent on the collective were the creatures. Thankfully, for hive mammals the difference wasn’t that big.
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Fourth, the diversity of creatures. Taking Soul fragments from one species had diminishing returns, decreasing the leveling speed down to 40% at the worst. In exchange, a person would instinctually understand a lot more about the body structure, behaviors, thinking patterns, etc. of that species. Aisha didn’t want to tell him more about the why, but he could already guess.
Fifth, Soul contamination. To grow one’s own contamination before level 100, one has to kill creatures with similar contamination over and over, then take corresponding body modifications at the Exchange. It’s a difficult process, dedicated only to the most determined.
As so, a class system for food-related establishments existed to simplify the whole affair.
Class-zero stores sold ingredients or meals with no entree. It was a dirty-cheap food, and actually very diverse, as every subjugation or expedition was a source of large quantities of fresh meat, and most of the plants were of non-Soul variety. Most often, people perused such stores during festivals and celebrations. As so, the Earth’s standard food stores were basically ‘junk food’ shops in this world.
The truth of the matter was, their society was unable to starve – the number of animals they had to kill in self-defense and training was enough to feed everyone. Not to mention, dangerous animals from the wilderness were usually quite big, providing a lot of food.
Class-one stores offered their clients an opportunity to personally kill the livestock before workers processed the bodies for meat and materials. The levels of livestock didn’t go above 20, and the price was determined by the levels. There were only a few mass-bred species, so the diversity was low. Rakes, insectoids, and birds of different kinds were the core of farming. The animals had to be small, to increase the amount of Soul fragments people were paying for.
After all, the size of a body wasn’t corresponding to the ‘size’ of the Soul, or a condition of the links the Soul required.
Class-two shops were similar to class-one, but instead of being ingredients-only, they also served meals from killed animals. Of course, mundane plants were also used in the cooking process.
Class-three shops were selling goods made from animals with levels above 20, and from plants possessing a Soul. The meals had to be made from creatures with an average level of 25, at least. A higher average level of entree had to be paid extra for.
It was important to note, plants and plant-like hives were avoided like fire, so those resources were scarce.
Class-four shops did the same but had a much wider variety of smaller creatures and higher-class cooking quality. Smaller creatures meant more could fit in one meal, so the client received more Soul fragments. Most of the accessible animals weren’t of the hive type anymore.
The ‘Old Nagger Inn’ was a class-four establishment, actually.
Such shops were places where non-hive creatures were commonly used, eliminating any penalties to leveling speed and maximizing the efficiency.
Class-five shops were additionally selling creatures with chosen Soul contaminations. But the animal and plant husbandry farms dedicated to this business were few and far between. The creatures had to be raised in specific environments for a long period of time, often requiring a few generations to pass before individuals with significant Soul contamination emerged between the crop.
Class-six, or so-called ‘Special class’, stores were a place where Soul-bonded creatures were sold. Instead of being sold for food, though, their bodies were usually used in crafting. Energy Enchantments and other modifications they gathered during the lifetime were still present in the body after death, and if the butcher and the crafter knew what they were doing, extracting them and powering with Mana was possible.
Zeph, fascinated with the idea, asked many specifying questions. Aisha grumpily answered most of them but ignored the ones straying from the topic.
It was a very tedious agriculture business because it required the farmer to raise a number of creatures until they were close to death. The creature itself had to agree to the proceedings – be ready for death. But instances of a premature wish of this kind also existed. Being high-level, Soul-bonded, and older guaranteed some degree of intelligence, after all. Aisha left a lot out of the explanation, as it was more about Soul-bonding itself than animal husbandry. But creatures raised that way not only were high-leveled, they often possessed a Soul contamination and their deaths guaranteed their caretaker a significant amount of ‘positive Soul-wound’ fragments.
It was risky, mentally straining, and oftentimes not executed to the end, but a farmer with enough short-living Soul-bonds could easily guarantee himself enough levels to prolong his life early and rise his chosen Soul contamination in a safe environment. The discussion if it was worth it was a topic of decades, though.
Class-six establishments were also a place of a peaceful death for all bonded or more intelligent creatures. They took in old or dying beings from asylums and retirement homes for bonded creatures, but also old pets and animals of burden.
“Most of our livestock is actually required to feed the higher strata livestock, but the economy up there is totally different, so I will leave it at that. Some of the shops dealing with higher strata livestock are set on our strata for the people of races that are above level 100, but the high-level livestock cost is ridiculous,” she finished.
“Aren’t people abusing this? I mean, they would waste food, but could easily level up to 100 by killing everything a farm can produce?” he asked, curious.
“And get worthless Class specializations, because they didn’t train anything? Ah, well, that’s a little beside the point, isn’t it?” she admitted, tapping her cheek a few times. “Buying that much from the market without the council’s approval is prohibited… But it’s possible if it’s their own farm, I suppose. Assuming they are rich enough... Paying to maintain their own farmlands is one thing, you need around a thousand level 25 animals to gain one standard level. That’s a lot of wasted money.”
Zeph choked on his tea hearing that. “O-one level?! H-how long would it take normally, again?”
“Hmmm, about half a year, if one can afford a class-three ingredients or meals every day?” she said thoughtfully. “Yes, around that. Ignoring the possible exchange of Soul fragments for UP.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank Gods it’s not that horrific…”
“For most of the population it’s impossible to dine like that before level 33, though,” she said with mirth. “And you cannot really ignore the UP before that point. So, welcome to the upper-middle class, ho, ho, ho,” she said, faking the laughter of a lady.
P’pfel entered the room at that moment, grumbling loudly.
“Finished already?” Zeph asked.
“Not really, but there’s nothing more I want to do without reagents. Here are the papers,” he said, giving Aisha an envelope and sitting in an armchair to relax. Somehow, he looked spent and impatient at the same time.
“So…” Zeph started, trying to go back on topic. “All in all, you all have too much meat?”
She shrugged. “Not really. Low-level hive farms use what they can to increase the number of critters, so nothing is wasted entirely. More critters mean more high-leveled livestock… It is a constant balance effort between amount, numbers, levels, and space available… But I’m not an economist. Don’t you have questions that fall more into my expertise?”
He thought over it for a moment. It was pretty hard to remember what he wanted to ask about when prompted like that. His mental list of questions decided to hide itself in fright, it seemed. I need to take some paper and write it down at last, dammit!
“How come some plants can have a Soul?” he asked finally.
“They have some sort of a brain,” she said. “Easy to discern, because they can also move. Well, in most cases.”
“It’s not that easy,” P’pfel the professor interjected. “Otherwise, making a weapon with a Soul for Soul-bonding wouldn’t be possible.”
“Those are just technicalities. After the Soul is fully formed, it can endure quite a lot before the links break off, so making a weapon from body parts is actually easy. What isn’t easy, is the creation of a new link to an inert Soul. How do you do that without a brain?” she said dismissively.
“You and your barbarian ways. A true Soul-bonding weapon is made of no body parts, it’s pure enchantment!” She glared at him. “…P-probably pure… Anyway, no body parts, I am sure of it! How do you explain that?” he started to get riled up.
“Okay, okay. Before you continue this discussion, I have more questions,” Zeph said loudly, raising his hands in a placating gesture.
Thankfully, this was enough to get their attention.
“So, I understand that you need something with a Soul to Soul-bond, but are there any requirements for a Soul-link?”
“No, you need a fully formed Soul to Soul-bond, and restrictions on the number of bonds exist,” Aisha corrected him. “As for the Soul-link, you can do that to anything that is alive but doesn’t possess a Soul. So, anything living that doesn’t have a brain. The entity will be strengthened by your Soul, but not to the full extent.”
Before Zeph could ask more, P’pfel interjected again. “And again, you simplify. What with the golems? Do you think they are living? And yet, Soul-link is required to make them.”
Aisha frowned. “Is it a Soul-link if it doesn’t require to be within the Veil, though? In the first place, how could we know without seeing one? You are just retelling rumors.”
“Ha! Then, what with the vehicles of…”
Zeph surrendered. There was no stopping them now. He could stay and listen as the topic was important, but instead of polluting his mind with uncertain and incomplete knowledge, he would rather satiate his curiosity before the delivery arrives.
He asked Aisha for some spare money, to which she just threw her pouch at him, too invested in the dispute to even look in his direction.
As so, he left the quarreling pair behind and walked out of the inn.
He was still in his disguise and Aisha was yet to show herself in the city, so it should be safe to tour a little.
He visited the nearby shops to see what was available, diving into the maze of terraces. All of the buildings here had glassed windows, so the shops actually had storefronts, even if most of them also placed small booths outside. Most were of the normal kind, like flower shops, clothing stores, or small restaurants and bars. But he also found more interesting ones.
The one selling enchanted items had too high prices for his modest wallet. He was interested in buying some items to try and learn a Spell version of the enchantment, but he would have to leave that for later. The items didn’t do anything extravagant, anyway, so he planned to visit a bigger establishment with more advanced enchantments.
Near it, he found a store with animal parts, like bones, pelts, and claws. Some of them even had Energy Enchantments still intact, but most of the merchandize was of mundane nature.
Who even needs those things? he wondered while buying some himself. Maybe Alchemists? It is more of a chemistry, though… Witches? Is that a thing here?
Finally, he found a class-one butcher shop, a place he was most curious about.
It’s actually quite funny that butchers don’t kill animals, he thought while entering the shop.
The smell wasn’t that awful, but he found it hard to breathe for a moment. It actually smelled less of blood and death, and more of animals, like in a pet store or stables. On the walls of the smallish room, rows of shelves hosted small cages. Inside were sleeping animals of a few kinds. Seeing the labels, he decided to take a closer look.
And that answers one of my questions… he thought, a little horrified.
Rakes… Rakes were everywhere. Grotesque, reeking, dirty, and thankfully sleeping. The dominant species of this shop.
Rats with wings?! Are people really eating that? He looked at the counter. A small line of people holding cages full of Rakes… the butcher shoving one of the small abominations into a mini-guillotine for a woman to kill. The blade didn’t seem sharp, or even clean.
Cold shivers ran down his spine when she released it on the creature. He understood now. Those were the potatoes of this world. Available everywhere and in every shop for cheap.
He evacuated immediately, promising himself to avoid shops of class-two and below at all costs.
They may not need refrigerators, but for god’s sake what is with this lack of hygiene?! Or are microbes unable to survive in Mana environments at all? No, that should be impossible, the whole ecosystem would fall without them… he reflected, speeding back to the inn. He had enough touring for today.
The old man at the entrance informed him the wagon just arrived. Happy to leave the thoughts of the little horrors behind, he walked straight to the stables behind the building where Aisha was already waiting for him.
It was time to create his first enchanting prototype.
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