The blood soaked thieves that Jude and Ellie dragged to the gate startled everyone at the site. No one wanted anything to do with Jude or Ellie and everyone kept their distance. The guards at the gate noticed the commotion and ran over at high alert.

"What is the meaning of this!" A guard asked.

Ellie answered first, "These two thieves attacked me in the forest while I was out gathering materials. They planned on raping and killing me, but I was saved by Jude here."

"Is that so? I will need to verify that they are Thieves. Wait here." The guard then went back to the gatehouse and returned with a small stone.

"This is a class stone, it will identify the thief class and verify your words." Said the guard.

The guard placed the stone, one at a time, in the thieves’ hands. Each time he would say, "Abyrvace ckam doyjyd, ." A blue screen would then pop up and show their class. It indeed said, Thief!

"I'm sorry I doubted your words," the guard said, "But I'm sure you understand that we have to verify that they are thieves first."

"I understand," Jude said.

"Very good, you've completed the Thief Arrest quest twice." The guard then handed him 10 silver and Jude got a notification that he gained EXP and a new level. Level 7 wizard!

The crowd that surrounded them was then dispersed by the guards as Jude and Ellie entered the town.

“Here I want you to take half of the reward.” Jude said to Ellie.

“No, I couldn’t, you saved me after all.” Replied Ellie.

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have been able to carry both of them back.  You did half of the work so I want you to have half the reward.”

“Ok, then I will accept it!” Ellie wasn’t hard to convince.  She had gotten into danger because she was so poor that she had to go out and find her own materials.   This lead to the thieves chasing after her.

To say that she was broke was an understatement.  Ellie was 16, which meant she had been here for a year already.  The little bit of money that her parents had sent with her was already gone.  And like the other freelancers, she had chosen not to join an organization.  Crafters who joined an organization lost their choice when it came to how they leveled.  Most were forced to stay Craftsman and those who got a proper upgrade didn’t get a choice in that either.  

Most women would be forced to go into Tailoring as their Craftsman profession. Ellie wanted to be a blacksmith or artificer.  Artificer required many extremely precious materials, so that was not looking likely.  Blacksmith was her other choice and while it was more feasible than Artificer, it too required a lot of money.

She made most of her money now repairing gear for others.  But it wasn’t always good business.  There were many other freelance craftsmen who were in competition for business.  But the worst case scenario was when a person just would not pay.  As a craftsman, she had decent strength, but if it was a warrior of level 5 or more, there was nothing she could do.

When Ellie received the silver from Jude, she nearly cried.  Finally, she would be able to sleep somewhere that wasn’t the street!  Perhaps even eat a decent meal!

“Come on, let's find an Inn together,” Jude said casually.

Ellie froze.  Was he that kind of guy?  Would she resist?  Should she resist?  Did she want to resist?

Jude noticed her reaction and quickly said, “Separate rooms of course!  I still need you to look at my gear and repair it.  I would like to think we are friends and since you are my first friend here it is only natural to stay at the same inn, right?”

“O-oh, yes of course!”  Ellie went from frozen, to confused, to nervous, to happy so fast it was hard to see each transition.

“By the way, do you know where a good inn is at?”

“Yes!  Follow me!”  Ellie had been here long enough to know which inn was better.

***

Jude had already guessed why Ellie liked this inn, it was called ‘The Steel Flower.’  It was like the embodiment of what Ellie wanted to be.  Still this had to be better than picking an inn at random.

The stay per night was 10 copper, which was also a silver.  But Jude had a lot of copper pieces, so he paid for both rooms and dinner.  Ellie wanted to reject his offer, but he told her to pay him back with repairing his gear.

They sat down at a table and waited for their food.  Jude wasn’t sure if the was the most expensive or cheapest inn, but it was clean.  In the corner was a musician playing a lute near the large fireplace.  This created a nice, home ambiance.

“The food might be a while, what do you need repaired?” Ellie asked.

“I have a sword and my clothes and that’s just about it.”

“Let me see the sword.”

I pulled out the and handed it to Ellie.  She took a detailed look at the weapon, noticing all the nicks and cracks.  Then she viewed the straightness of the sword.  Finally, with a nod of her head she pulled out the leather bag she always wore and unrolled it.

She took out a small hammer and some other tools, then she began to tap specific areas on the sword.  Jude noticed that with each tap cracks would disappear or a chip would fill in.  It didn’t take long and the sword was whole again.

“Here you go,” she said.

“Wow, that was amazing!” Jude replied.

Ellie smiled, “Thank you!”

“Now for your clothes,” she continued, “I will have to use a different method.”

She took out something that looked like a tuning rod and hit my chest.  However, he didn’t feel a thing, it was like it struck a solid object when it hit the tunic.  The rod then played out a quiet low tone and flashed a range of colors.

“I’m sorry to ask, but can I borrow 3 copper?  I only have the 5 silver you gave me earlier.”

Jude was confused, but gave her the copper anyway.

With the copper on the table she once again used the tuning fork object to strike the copper.  The copper disappeared and gave the fork a light glow.  Then with a hammer, she hit the fork which transferred the glow to the hammer.

After all this, she lightly tapped Jude with the hammer and he watched as everything he wore stitched itself back together!  All his gear was now 100% back to normal!

“That was really cool thank you!  But why did you fix it two different ways?” Asked Jude.

“When I fixed your sword, I used my skill combined with my knowledge of sword craft.  Doing it that way doesn’t cost money, but does take longer.  I’m not very skilled at tailoring, so I used in the default manner.  This of course uses a medium, which was what the copper was for.” Ellie said.

“I see, so this is the evidence of your desire to be a blacksmith huh?”

“Well, yes and no.  You see, competition between freelance crafters is pretty high.  To gain advantage over others I took this route so that I could charge less.  Swords just happen to be the most common weapon.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Brilliant!  And don’t worry about the 3 copper, if you can help me sell some wolf skins that will be more than enough to pay me back.”

“Deal!  Wait, where have you been keeping those pelts?”

“In my of course.”

“Your whatsit?”

Jude wasn’t exactly sure how to explain this, “My , it’s like a place that I can store stuff.  I guess it’s a special skill.  That’s also where I keep my money.”

He demonstrated by flipping his hands several times, each time another coin would come out.

“That’s an amazing special skill!  So all your pelts are in your ?  How many do you have?”

“Let’s see, I have 17.  It’s getting a little heavy so I would like to get rid of them as soon as possible.”

“Just don’t pull it out in front of other people ok?”

“Huh?  Why is that?”

“Because people will think you have a .  Then you will have no end in trouble with people trying to take it from you.  At least not until you are more powerful.”

Jude knew what a storage ring was from the different fantasies he had read.  A storage ring was very similar to his but in most fantasy settings it was a very rare item.  The greed of people was a real thing and with so many starving freelancers out there, it could really mean a lot of trouble.

***

That evening Jude retired early to his room.  He had a lot of skills to look at and rank up.  He had never thought to rank up, but after feeling the weight of all the pelts and money (10 coins was about a pound in weight) perhaps he should.  But it would be a low priority for now.  That was because his strength was at 13, 10 was the average human’s strength, so 13 meant he was 30% stronger than an average human.  Even with 17 pelts and 8 pounds of money, he wasn’t too burdened.  And now that he had spent some of his money he was even lighter.  Soon the pelts would be sold and he would weight almost nothing.

He decided to focus on Spectral Eye, Source Magic, and if he had time, to strengthen Spectral Shield.

Spectral Eye

Rank 0

Creates an eye for scouting and spying.  The eye floats and moves according to its master's will.

Jude was now more used to the different kinds of skills and with his Modicuit he was able to successfully cast on the first attempt.

The eye magically floated in front of him and disturbingly a second point of view appeared in his vision.  This quickly made him feel nauseous so he closed his real eyes, only viewing from the spectral one.

With his eyes closed his stomach quickly settled and he began to play with the .  It quickly became a lot of fun, much like flying around a quadcopter. 

He opened a window to let it outside but quickly found out that its range was about 10 feet.

The eye disappeared, but he successfully got a rank up from 0 to I.  The description now added: range 10.

It didn’t take long for Jude to get to Rank III which extended the range to 100.  He now freely flew the eye outside.  It wasn’t long before he decided to check in on his new friend next door, Ellie.

Peering through the open windows, light curtains ruffled in the night breeze.  Jude was meet with the glorious sight of Ellie half undressed with a wash pot and towel cleaning herself.  His blood quickly became hot at the sight!  Resisting the urge to continue looking he dispelled the eye.   

Now that Jude was in the body of a 15-year-old boy, his urges were going to be harder to control.  Luckily this time he didn't succumb to temptation.  If Ellie found out, he might ruin his first and only friendship in this new world.

Jude tried to regain his concentration on practicing and refining his skills, but he didn’t have much luck.  After seeing Ellie, he just couldn’t keep focus for long.

Source Magic

Rank I

Identifying the source of all things

Identify

Rank I

Identify low-level items and reveal their stats.

He managed to get a basic understanding of but wasn’t able to get it to Rank III.  In fact, all of his attempts to get a skill passed Rank III so far had been futile.  After getting to Rank V, he had hoped to be able to do the same with some of the other skills.  However, getting passed Rank III was a lot tougher than he thought.

Perhaps his first attempt was just a fluke.  Or maybe he hadn’t spent enough time yet on it.  After all, in 2 days he was already level 7.  Most people here spent years to get that far!  Freelancers like him took even longer.

However, this was all thanks to him getting his first skill to Rank V right away.

Sill, each time he tried to work on a skill, Ellie would show up in his mind.  In the end, he wasn’t able to get any more accomplished that night.

***

After breakfast at the Inn Jude and Ellie headed out.

“Where should we go to sell these wolf pelts?” Jude asked.

“Traders district of course!” Ellie replied.  “There you can sell anything.  Merchants come from all over to take advantage of the market here.  Everything is low priced, but high quantity.”

“Can I buy a new sword there?”

“Yes, they usually range from 15-30 silver.” 

That would be 1.5-3 gold.  But I guess most of these newbies don’t have gold.

“You have 17 pelts,” Ellie continued, “they usually go for around 5-10 copper depending on quality.  But if they have too many holes they might not be worth anything at all.”

Luckily Jude had just cut the heads off, so there were no holes in his pelts.

“Depending on how good of quality they are, you just might be able to get an upgraded sword!” Ellie said.  She sounded happy, but Jude could see some sadness there too.  It was her dream to be able to make stuff like swords so it was understandable.

This gave Jude an idea, “When will you be able to make swords?”

Ellie Replied, “I’m still only level 3, even after a whole year here.  To get the blacksmith class, I would need to reach level 5 as a craftsman.  Then I would need a blacksmith to teach me the basics.  After that, I would have to spend time making things like ingots which would raise my level up high enough until I could start making swords.”

“So you need weapons to repair right?”

“Yes,” she said sadly.

“Can you also dismantle weapons?”

“Yes,” she said now curious.

“And do you get experience for that?”

“Yes, every time I use a craftsman skill I get experience.  But who would want their weapons dismantled?”

“I know a bunch of goblins who would.  Before I found you, I had been fighting them for a while.  Most of their weapons broke through our fights and I only picked up a few.  But if you could fix those weapons and then dismantle them, you would not only get double EXP, you would also get the materials you need to start being a blacksmith!”

“T-that’s an amazing idea!  But would you really want to help me that much?  How would I repay you?”

“Think of this as us starting our own Organization!  I will help you and you will help me!  Right now neither of us has any support and no one else wants to support us.  But if we join together we will—“

While he was talking Ellie quietly said in a voice that he couldn’t hear, “You aren’t talking about ma-ma-ma-ma-marriage?”

“—More and then we will find others like us and we will continue to get bigger and stronger.  You won’t have to be forced to be a craftsman or tailor, you can be a blacksmith or even an Artificer!” Jude ended.

Ellie thought for a moment, “Yes, I would like to join.  And what is our Organization going to be called?”

Jude couldn’t fall asleep the night before so he had stayed up thing about this.  He finally settled on an old guild name he had created with friends in the first MMO he ever played.

“Ageless Wanderers!”

“No.”

***

So their team name, (or party name, or guild name or organization name whatever they were) wasn’t named just yet.

Now they were at a merchant who dealt in furs.

“Let's see what you have,” the pelt merchant slapped the table, “put them here and I’ll look over them.”

Both Jude and Ellie carried the furs and put them on the counter.

The merchant began looking over the furs and started to be pleased.  Most furs he bought were whittled with holes from swords, spears, knives and the like.  But these were all pristine!  But as the further, he got down the stack the more surprised he got.  At first, it was just pelts from and as one would expect, their pelts were small.  But then they started getting bigger!  There were 10 pelts and 5 pelts, a nice haul.  The last two really surprised him, they were pelts!  They were a higher quality pelt that could be used to make a magic item!  And more importantly, they didn’t have holes!

This was a miracle.  Any merchant or crafter here in this town would go crazy of this, but he was a professional and kept a straight face the whole time.

“The quality of these pelts are passable.” He said, “I will give you 9 silver pieces for the lot.”

Jude didn’t know the value of what he had, so 9 silver sounded reasonable after getting 10 silver for the two thieves.  But Ellie was a Craftsman and knew better.  This was her first time really looking at the pelts and she too was surprised at their quality.

“9 silver?!”  She said angerly.  “For pelts as perfect as these?  I think 9 gold would be more appropriate!”

“9 gold? Are you crazy!” the merchant replied, “I’ll admit, there are a few pieces of fur, I’ll give you 2 gold because I’m feeling generous today.”

He didn’t show it, but the merchant's palms were now starting to sweet.  9 gold was too overpriced, but not by much.  This girl might actually know what these pelts are worth.

“8 gold.  We can always try somewhere else.”

“3 gold.  I’m not a charity you know.”

“7 gold.  There’s also that guy named Zander right? He buys pelts.”

“4 gold.  Zander even cheaper than I am!”

“I think we can meet at 5 gold right?  That should still leave you some room to make money.”

This girl was good. “Fine.” The merchant said disgruntled.

“Give it to us as 3 gold, 5 silver, and the rest copper please.” Ellie sounded almost sickeningly sweet.

“Ugh, fine.”

"Wait, I also have these fangs," Jude said.

***

“You are amazing!” Jude said after they left the merchant.

“Nah, these things you pick up when you are a crafter,” Ellie replied.

This made Jude wonder why she always seemed tongue-tied around him, yet with the merchant, she was like a shark in water!

Next, he bought some necessities, food, water, clothes and a few potions.

Lastly, he bought Fine Bronze Sword.  It wasn’t magical or anything, but it did have better damage than his last weapon.  He went from 2-4 damage to 4-8.  A significant boost!