With the arrow gone with the wind, Will felt a peculiar kind of emptiness. Is this what it feels like to run out of spells?

He started to prepare again. This time, he forwent some of the obviously redundant parts of the preparation phase, cutting down nearly a minute of casting time.

He repeated the process, getting more proficient and a little faster at it each time.

Magic Arrow (I) stored in a spell slot. Magic Arrow (I) stored in a spell slot. Magic Arrow (I) stored in a spell slot.

Finally, he felt full in a magical sense.

As expected. Four spells per spell level is the maximum for a wizard.

Will brought up the interface again and quickly scrolled down to level two spells, and his eyes were immediately drawn to the spell called Invisibility. It could be essential to his survival if this world was as scary as the world of the video game.

You know the spell Invisibility (II).

And he realized he did. Sort of.

Hmm. This is... much more difficult!

He started the preparation sequence, but it ended up demanding ten minutes of hard concentration. In the end, he had the Invisibility spell prepared, but it left him with a headache.

Invisibility (II) stored in a spell slot.

For a while, Will let his mind remain empty and still as he watched the handful of small clouds floating in the almost clear sky.

I'd better not test that one now. He knew he could need the spell for an emergency exit at any time, and preparing another one would be a literal pain in the head.

The redundancies in Invisibility didn't seem as obvious as they were in Magic Arrow. Will felt like it would take some thinking to get the preparation phase down to a more reasonable length.

I'd better get back to the missing feat. He decided to scroll through the list of feats again. Near the end, one of the crazier ones caught his eye. Upon further inspection, he realized that the description was different from the game.

Available feats: Planar Creation (Epic): Allows for easier usage of mana in spatial applications. requires level 26 requirements not met

It used to be something about preparing for godhood and making a spatial pocket for storing things, Will recalled.

Under the rules of this more realistic world, the description seemed to have morphed into something generalized and open-ended.

Will could imagine that spatial magic could be used to make a hidden storage pocket, but here it didn't seem to simply become available upon selecting the feat, like it did in the game.

The description also implied the feat wasn't necessary for spatial magic but that it only made it easier.

Interesting... Will wasn't sure what to make of that, so he returned to the task at hand.

The list was long, and Will spent minutes drooling after several feats. Since the interface didn't seem to force him to make the choice now, he ultimately decided to save it for later. After all, you could put off the choice in the game as well.

Will's stomach made a noise, and he realized something.

Crap. Am I perhaps broke and homeless? Inventory!

An inventory opened up, but it was empty indeed. Furthermore, it only had six slots, unlike the several dozen you were supposed to get even without any predatorily priced DLC's.

Will felt for his pockets, finding several in his robe, pants, and tunic and one pouch tied to his belt. However, each of them was just as empty as the inventory.

Will returned to the inn.

"Hey! Did my bed by any chance come with a breakfast? I'm a bit peckish."

"It is afternoon, esteemed customer. We'll serve the evening meal at seven."

"Oh, crap. Is there any place nearby where I can get something to eat?"

The woman pointed him toward a marketplace, so Will started walking. As he did so, he reviewed his options by invoking the spell list again.

Could you remove those spells. Hm? And also those. They won't help me now. Perfect!

Mend Item, Minor (cantrip) Crude Homunculus (1st) Featherweight (1st) Identify (1st) Perpetual Light (2nd) Mend Item, Major (2nd) Craftsgolem (3rd) Fabricate (5th) Telekinesis (5th) Ground Shaping (6th) Command Weather (7th) Prosthetic Limb (8th)

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The interface obeyed his thoughts again, organizing into a much shorter list consisting of spells he could immediately see some monetary value in. Sadly, only the easy ones were within his immediate reach. He instinctively knew the homunculus spell required a suitable puppet he didn't possess, so that one was out, too.

In the end, he settled for the repairing cantrip.

Will picked up a rotten piece of wood he spotted on the way to the marketplace. Upon arriving, he saw a couple of stalls selling vegetables, a farmer standing in front of a cart half-full of potatoes, and even some bread being sold in front of a stone house with a smoking chimney.

He saw signs displaying prices of the goods, and his eyes were drawn to the writing.

Man! That isn't English! They're not even using the alphabets that I know!

Yet he knew the script. Sort of. He went easily through the lines, picking up the meaning along the way. When he mouthed the words to himself, he realized he wasn't speaking English, yet the language felt completely natural to him.

Will shook his head at the strangeness and put it out of his mind. He found a dry spot in the shade where he sat down.

Now, let's see...

A relevant cantrip came to his mind immediately upon thinking of a way to make fire. It turned out to be a truly trivial spell for him—much easier than even the simple mending cantrip.

After a few seconds of preparation, Will's finger was producing a small flame, which he directed at the sign.

He wrote the strange script almost as easily as he could read it, and soon he had a sign saying "I can repair your items with magic!"

A customer appeared soon—a slightly graying, middle-aged woman who was carrying a broken basket.

"Do you do cheap repairs? Or just fancy stuff?"

Will was sitting on the cobblestone floor. It was dirty, lumpy, and uncomfortable. Apparently, that wasn't enough to convey his desperation.

"Anything goes for now," he answered.

He took the basket, examining the severed rattan pieces at one side. Luckily, no material was missing, so the job should be easy.

Will prepared the cantrip for half a minute before it was ready to trigger. Immediately, he could feel the potent mana gathering at his fingertips, ready to move according to his intent.

He pushed the broken side of the basket flat again and drew his finger along the points where the rattan vines had broken apart.

Rotten bits flaked away. Healthy wood unnaturally shifted along the thin vine toward the broken areas, where it settled down. Fibers reconnected across the broken points, making the vine seemingly whole again.

The result didn't exactly look like the original weave, and Will had doubts about the strength of the mended material, so he made the fixed spots a tad thicker than the rest of the vines.

"There you go. I suppose it wasn't much, but I hope you can pay me something."

Will knew he could easily be suckered when he put it like that, but the job had taken just five minutes, and he had no idea what he should charge anyway.

"Well," the woman began, stalling a bit as she considered. "A new basket could cost me a copper or two, so I guess I can give you an iron bit."

"Alright," Will said and offered his palm while the woman digged for something in her small purse.

Soon, he received something that was clearly not any kind of coin, but literally just a lump of iron.

"How many of these make up a copper around here?" he asked uncertainly.

The woman looked at him strangely. "Ten, of course. Is it not ten everywhere?"

"Hm? I guess it could be..."

After the first couple of jobs, he bought half a loaf of fresh blackbread for two iron bits in order to finally sate his hunger. The taste was pretty strong, but it was good enough to eat even without any toppings.

Two hours passed while he went through several customers with easy jobs. After a while, Will began to suggest suitable prices per job himself.

It turned out the first woman might have been a bit stingy, given how others agreed to pay him three to five bits for a few minutes' job.

A short line had gathered in front of him. People had been looking at him working his magics and some got curious enough to try it out for themselves.

Finally, a tall man with a piece of armor stood in front of him.

"Mister Magician, can you fix metals?" He asked politely, although Will felt the title sounded a bit funny.

"Sure. I already did a couple of copper kettles without a problem."

"Well, this is proper steel," the customer informed him and lifted the piece higher.

From its shape, Will figured it was probably a greave. Or perhaps a long bracer for a really big guy. It wasn't a beautiful product by any stretch, but it looked functional. Or would have, without the long and wide, rusted hole right through the shin part.

"Steel shouldn't be a problem either."

"Shouldn't, huh?"

"Yeah... Look, I'll start easy at first. Even if I mess up, it won't do much damage."

"Hmmh." The man frowned. "Fine, I guess."

"And should it work out just fine, let's see... Will you be able to pay four coppers for the job?" Will tried, hoping it was a reasonably cheap offer for fixing a potentially valuable piece of armor.

The man frowned. "Why so cheap? You aren't a scammer, are you?"

Will grimaced. At least I guessed it would be cheap.

"No sir. I think I can afford to call myself an accomplished wizard. It's just that I haven't been working with steel in a while, so this will be a rehearsal of sorts for me," he fibbed quickly.

The frown lightened a bit. "Well, I suppose you can't really ruin it much further without truly fucking something up."

"I couldn't have said it better! Worst case, I'll just end up removing too much rusty material."

The man finally let go of the piece, and Will put it on his lap.

He dug out several lumps of iron from his pocket and got to work.

Since some material was missing, and he didn't want to just stretch the remaining stuff and make the plate thinner, he had to add some more metal.

The rusty edges around the hole flaked off like they should, and the new material stuck to the steel just as tightly as if it had been welded to it. The work took twenty minutes—mostly because Will was being extra careful—but it looked like steel was basically just as easy to handle as rattan or copper.

"There you go," he finally said. "The patch is just simple iron, so I made it a little thicker than the surrounding plate."

"Ohh," the man hummed happily as he knocked at the repaired area, finding it solid.

He pulled out a sheathed knife from his belt and used its metal-tipped blunt end to strike at the armor. It remained mostly undented as far as Will could see.

"Yeah. It should be good. Here," the man handed five coins to Will. "One extra for a job done well. You could have easily demanded at least eight copper!"

"Oh. Thanks."

"I doubt our smith would have even looked at it unless I offered twenty."

"I see." Will wondered if the man realized he had just put a mage's fair wage below that of a smith. I'm just using a cantrip, so maybe it's reasonable?

Once his customer left, Will threw the payment into his empty inventory with just a thought.

Action log: Copper coins (5) stored.

All of the coins stacked into one slot. Nice!