Taking him through the gates, Matt watched as Bishop pulled out a small pendant from his shirt and showed it to the guards who nodded and let them through. Getting a glimpse of it, it looked to be a gold circle with a pattern engraved into it. It was a closed fist, with what looked like fiery energy covering it. Some kind of identification then Matt surmised.

As they walked past the fields, Bishop told Matt a bit about the history here. Apparently the mountains and woods near here were something that Bishop kept calling Wilds, and so a lot of adventurers and hunters would come by here and look for monsters and whatnot.

Eventually, as hunters started to build up a base camp, more and more people were drawn to the area and it quickly grew. As more people settled, they were also at risk of more monster attacks since they were so close to the Wilds, so the wall was built. Then some seventy odd years ago, the closest village on the other side of the forest was overrun and all the refugees moved here, making Jylen the biggest settlement on the edge of the kingdom.

And that history of adventurers has continued till this day. In fact, most of the town's economy was based on the adventurers, both bringing back monster parts and other resources from the Wilds. Apparently there were these stone golems in the mountains that kept generating, and they were somehow a renewable resource so most of the stone used in construction came from them. Neat.

Walking through the streets, Bishop was giving Matt advice on how to navigate the town and where all the best places were, but Matt was having a hard time focusing. Sure, this was a small village and he had grown up in a modern city, but he had never seen anything like this. The streets were just as busy as his home so that was already a small comfort, and the people were so interesting!

The first thing he noticed about the people was that not everyone was human! Standing at one of the market stalls that was selling some kind of cooked meat on a stick was a short man, easily around four foot tall, in thick, dark metal armor with a giant beard braided in intricate patterns with metal entwined throughout. He might have been able to be convinced they were human, if not for the pale gray skin that reminded him of stone.

He also saw a few more people that could only be what he described as dwarves, going about their day. Pretty much all of them had various levels of rock colored skin, thick armor and long beards braided with an impressive level of skill. He wasn’t going to call it out until he knew exactly what they were called, but it was a real solidifier in his mind on how he was in a fantasy world.

He also saw what he would describe as elves. Tall, graceful looking people with the long pointed ears typical of the race, however their skin was either an unnatural white that looked like ivory or a dark gray that was reminiscent of ash. They were all androgynous and had long hair, however what was interesting was that the lighter skinned elves had pitch black hair and the darker skinned elves had silver hair. He didn’t see any of them in heavy armor, all either dressed in mage-like robes or very light looking leather armor, with bows or thin swords, sometimes both.

And he also saw one person who was the most different from humans. They had fiery red hair that was tied back into a ponytail, with two dark red curved horns sprouting from their head. Their skin was a bronze color that wasn’t entirely unnatural and wouldn’t look out of place back in his old world, but had red scales covering their cheeks and various other places he could see. Sprouting from their lower back was also a long tail, similarly covered in red scales with darker red spines.

He saw plenty of people with various levels of armor and weaponry just walking through the streets and shopping at the various stands and tents that were set up along this main street. There was an incredible variety in the gear everyone had, even stuff that should have been either incredibly impractical or downright impossible to make, so he could only assume it was Shaped material. Just seeing all the possibilities made him excited.

He also saw a lot of people in robes, often carrying staves of some variety or another, and wearing different types of pointy hats with long brims. Matt was reminded of his excitement over the prospects of magic once again, and was a bit regretful he was unable to use Mana like them but he still believed that Shaping was the best power set for himself, and he never would regret his choice.

Speaking of his Shaping, there was also a lot of wood, both from the buildings, stands and just random wooden parts being carried by the people around him. It was a bit overwhelming to his material senses, and he was especially glad he held off on awakening fabric.

He had to focus on restraining his senses and unfocusing, making it so all the wood faded away in his perceptions. It helped a bit, but he was going to really work on blocking out the feelings when he was in a settlement. Especially if he gets more common materials awakened. That would be vital.

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Bishop took a turn and brought Matt up to a large building that saw a lot of foot traffic from other people that Matt would be confident to label as adventurers. He noticed that while not all of them had it exposed, a lot of them had the same pendant that Bishop did, but in different materials.

The majority looked like either bronze or iron, but Matt saw a few more people with gold pendants. It was probably a ranking system of some kind then. The building itself was big, three stories and made of a darker, almost black wood instead of the white wood that was popular, but still with the apparently golem sourced stone. There also looked to be a smaller, one story building attached to the side with a separate door, and adventurers going in with either large bags like Bishops or just carrying corpses from creatures that Matt couldn’t even begin to describe.

There also was a giant skull of what looked like a lizard skeleton, with sharp gashes covering the surface and a giant two handed fantasy sword stabbed through the skull between its eyes. The skull was mounted to the front of the building above a small entryway overhang. Matt stared up at it in awe before he was shaken from the moment by Bishop slapping his shoulder with a laugh.

“Come on lad, daylight's burning. You can look like a newbie later.” He directed while also walking to the smaller side building. Shaking of the moment, he followed quickly after the archer. Entering the building, he saw a large shop that reminded Matt of a butcher.

In the front, there was a main counter separating the entryway to the rest of the shop, with a tall, well muscled woman who looked to be in her late thirties or forties talking to the adventurers that were in line, inspecting their kills and trading coins for the bodies. She had dark skin and long hair that was tied back in a bun, probably to keep it clean when corpse bits were everywhere.

In the back there was a big, strong man with a giant cleaver that would definitely be seen as unwieldy back home, but he used it like it was nothing, faint red Aura flames burning off his skin when he swung. It was hard to see how old he was but it looked to be the same as the woman. He was completely bald and also had several other knives strapped to him, all equally larger than normal. He was at a large marble counter, cutting up some manner of giant reptilian monster.

Standing in line with Bishop, Matt watched in awe as the butcher in the back cleaved through the various corpses and expertly processed them. Matt was no expert but the various parts looked like what super expensive cuts of meat were represented as, just beautifully competent cuts. Eventually, Bishop and Matt were next in line.

“Ah, Bishop! How's it going geezer, brought me the usual? And who’s this, you picking up strays?” She asked him. Bishop laughed as he unslung his corpse bag and brought it onto a lower counter where people were dropping off the monster parts.

“Heya Kaia, it’s good. Inner circle has been good to me. And meet Matt, found him in the woods and saved him from a stalker. He’s a Shaper and looking to be a regular!” Bishop seemed friendly with the woman, apparently named Kaia. Matt waved at his introduction and Kaias eyes widened a bit.

“Wow, a Shaper? Hey kid, you awaken bone or leather yet? Can never get enough hands in the shop.” She asked with interest. Seeing the attention turn to him, Matt cleared his throat slightly and stepped forward.

“Ah sorry, just wood right now. And I mainly plan to be an adventurer, I don’t know how much I will be here.” He offered gently, trying not to offend her.

“Darn, what a shame. If you ever change your mind though, Shapers are in high demand. Now let's see here…” She said as she pulled open the bag and pulled out the first body, which was the tree stalker that almost killed him.

“Aha, I presume this is the offending beastie?” She said, pulling up the creature and turning it over, inspecting the arrow holes. Bishop nodded.

“Yup. The lad was taking care of another one but he was wrapped up when this one went for his neck.” Kaia nodded at Bishop's words, eyeing Matt over for a second before she set the corpse down and wrote something on a ledger Matt couldn’t see. She went on to the next creature, that was some kind of black furred mammal that looked like a squirrel with huge razor sharp claws.

“Still, being a newbie and taking care of a stalker on your own is mighty impressive. Nice one lad.” She praised, before changing the conversation to the different monsters that Bishop had killed. After a bit of negotiation, she handed over some coins that were in a stack. Matt looked down and saw several gold looking coins, some silver coins and two copper looking coins. Finished up with Bishop, she turned to Matt. “So, got anything for me newbie?”

Matt nodded and shrugged off his pack and set it on the floor, where he reached down and shaped the straps off the two tree stalkers and brought them up to the counter. Kaia looked over at them with a bit of confusion before her eyes widened in understanding.

“Right, wood Shaper. This is excellent condition. Any chance you left the cores or already removed them?” She asked him as he set the bodies back down.

“No, sorry, I already used them.”

“Oh well, it doesn't hurt to ask. Still, these are in great condition and will sell pretty well, I can do one and a half gold for these.” Looking over at Bishop for advice since he had no idea how much that was worth or if it was a good price, the older man nodded his head.

“Alright, thank you.” Matt said and with a nice smile, she handed him one golden coin and ten silver coins. They were round and an inch long, with a hole in the center that had a string looped through the stack, holding the bundle together as she handed it to him. Taking the stack of coins, he thanked Kaia and followed Bishop outside and into the main room.