Soren awoke the next morning feeling refreshed and after a quick meal, began to navigate through the city to a nearby weapon and armors smith, and found a beautiful elven woman tending the forge, upon entering she paused her work and looked him up and down, her eyes lingered for a bit before she managed to recover for she had never seen a creature like him before. The Smithy asked, "How may I assist you little one?"

"I was wondering if you'd be able to make me a suitable weapon as well as fit me with some armor I have quite a bit of this cold-iron ore, lunar ore, and snake skin for materials and trade, also I am close to my coming of age ceremony."

The smith's mouth dropped slightly but quickly recovered from it, she just has not seen someone other than a dwarf being that small.

Soren pulled all the materials he had gathered out of his dimensional space.

"Sure! That shouldn't be an issue, the lunar ore and cold-iron don't mesh well together but I can make you a weapon out of the lunar ore since its better quality and Ill fit you with a mix of heavy and medium armor so you can keep your mobility if you want to exchange it for the rest of the ore you have," replied the smith excitedly

Soren smiled in agreement

I'm close to becoming an adventurer in full now.

He began to browse around the shop for a while, he had decided to wait.

I wonder how that lunar metal will turn out for the weapons and armor, I definitely think it'll enhance my fighting style for sure.

The elven smithy would come out periodically to get size measurements for Soren's armor, his currently small stature made it so the smithy would comment here and there how cute he was. There came a time where the smithy just couldn't take it anymore and decided to play with Soren's ears which resulted in a strange noise coming out of Soren's mouth while the smith just giggled. After the elf quietly walked back into her workshop Soren had walk around the shop briskly for a few minutes to calm himself down, still discovering new things about his body and its urges. After a few hours the smithy came back out with a body full of armor. "These should fit you perfectly, You have a metal chest piece that's sleeveless but it protects your most vital areas, bracers for added blocking and protection on your forearms but still keeping the weight light, and a face covered helm not only for protection but also if you want to hide your identity. As for the leathers from the snake I've turned these into breathable and flexible pants that were less tight on your body, one of the things that you needed the most since the black pelts were crudely made. Last but not least these boots are on the house, they are the only ones that'll fit your feet," stated the smith giving Soren all the details.

The smithy laughed a bit at the part where she called out his tiny feet which made Soren's ears burn slightly, she insisted on treating him like a child.

"I cannot thank you enough, that's a huge help to me and umm... sorry for my attire it was kind of...unavoidable," Soren said apologetically.

The smithy nodded and paid no mind to Soren's bashful demeanor, "You can go change over there, it'll be just a couple more days till your weapon is ready, but now that you're dressed properly you don't have to stay here and I'll be able to concentrate better."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Soren nodded his understanding and went into the storage room to change, everything did seem to fit him perfectly. An elf's craftsmanship is nothing to scoff at, having multiple centuries to harness their abilities. Soren left the shop and since he felt like he was fairly safe within the city he decided to keep his helm in his dimensional space. Soren walked around the city taking in the sights not really going anywhere in particular, now that he was in armor though, people seemed to not notice him as much since he wasn't walking around nearly naked. Soren was able to walk in between people and go fairly unnoticed due to his small stature, while doing so he began to notice the diversity of the city. Humans, nearly always, were the most populated, there were elves, dwarves, and beast-folk. The beast-folk were by far the most unique of the races, some were animals that walked on two feet that had, at a minimum, human level intelligence while others were mainly human in appearance with animal features similar to how he looks as a lesser astrabi. With midday fast approaching Soren wandered into a shop to grab some food, a portly dwarf whose age was impossible to guess came by where Soren was sitting.

The dwarf came to take his order, "What can I ger fo yer?"

"Some meat and water please"

The dwarf looked Soren up and down then chuckled a bit, "I ne'er saw a boy yor size ask fo wa'er ow bout juice?"

"I am 14 sir I don't think I want to be patronized no juice just water please"

"o' dolally yor un small as me whelp ain ya"

"hahaha that's funny coming from a dwarf"

The dwar lf glared at Soren until he gulped before having a big belly moving laugh, "Aint it? Funny lad" The dwarf had said as he was walking towards the kitchen to get the order. Soren was smiling to himself that he indeed turned fifteen soon.

I wonder if I will still get a class since I'm technically a monster race. That dwarf was difficult to understand. I wonder if I'll keep evolving into much bigger things. That's a scary thought.

Soren's thoughts went all over the place and before he knew it he was staring down a boar steak, and mushrooms with a glass of water. He paid the dwarf and readily ate his food, which he thought was delicious.

Maybe I should look into spices for when I travel I never knew how much of a huge difference they could make.

Soren finished eating and left the small tavern looking for an adventurers guild

I currently need a way to make money

He had asked around and came to a giant, and unfortunately run down, building an old worn out sign that read Twilight Dragon that creaked as it swayed in the wind. When Soren had asked around this was the only guild that was currently accepting new members. He walked in and the inside appeared to be worse than the outside. Tables were overturn beer and blood was spilled on the floor that nobody bothered to clean, the tables that were upright had people sprawled about unconscious. The complete guild was in major disarray, nevertheless, Soren walked up to the counter to see a bear beast-folk, the more animal kind, four times the size of himself or larger behind the counter. "Welcome to the Twilight Dragon guild, my name is Bruno, what can I help you with," said Bruno from behind the counter.

He had said his introduction very unenthusiastically, not having the energy to try and boast about the place. It was his job to say those words he really didn't want to be bothered. "I'd heard that this guild was accepting new members and I wanted to join," replied Soren.

Bruno raised his eyebrows, "You want to join here? Its not that we aren't accepting other members, but take a look around. The Voracious Poison Guild has been taking our contracts and bullying us out of revenue. There is even a guild tournament that happens every year where the first place guild gets a huge sum of money as a bonus and we are always in last. We even have trouble recruiting strong members, not that any of us are sloths either but being incredibly outnumbered makes things difficult.

"I'm set on this guild, I promise I will do what I can to turn it around."

Bruno sighed, "Well then, Welcome to the Twilight Dragons Guild."

With that Bruno grabbed a stamp seal and stamped Soren's chest piece with a black and silver dragon flying in a circle.

Time to grab a quest.