Derek shook his head at his friend’s excitement. His large friend’s current schema was garbage and unless he had access to many powerful resources he would never be able to get further than tier four. Each tier required subsequently higher standards to progress into them. Most notably, the person needed a powerful body to accept the higher demands of the schema at those tiers and a certain amount of mind to accept a larger and larger mana pool and elemental attributes.

Even with his garbage schema Garrett had more than enough body to progress, but his mind attribute was not sufficient. This would have led to Garrett hitting a bottleneck that he would have found incredibly difficult to overcome. With his new schema, the conversion rate for the mind attribute would be sufficient to carry him until the highest tiers. From there it was merely a matter of taking the risks necessary to gain the essence.

As the excited Alicia wrapped her sales pitch and his equally excited numbskull friend ate it all up, Derek couldn’t help but think that this girl was definitely fit to be his mother’s apprentice. He could only wonder what amazing new discoveries she would make in Schema crafting. Perhaps she would overcome that hurtle to allow for tier eleven schemas, or maybe she would come up with new and inventive ways to allow for more essence to be assigned per tier, like how Garrett’s new schema would work.

With the design of the schema explained, Eona finally shooed the three youngsters from her study. The others were waiting for them in the front hall so they joined their friends for the walk back to the dorms. The two groups said their goodbyes before splitting off towards their specific areas.

Derek definitely enjoyed this environment. He had made many friends since joining the school and more new acquaintances. There were no bullies like Jacob’s sons had been and the wealth possessed by his mother’s House meant he had little to worry about. To top that off, he and his grandfather had been able to earn quite a bit for themselves in this time.

The only negative was the violence he had been through. In just a few weeks Derek had fought three duels, been attacked with murderous intent twice, and participated in a raid with the guards that saw the deaths of hundreds. Thinking about that really made him realize that the concerns he had in that village in the mountains had only been small time. The stakes were much higher out in the rest of the world.

For many, this would have been very chilling. Most people do not want to live a life of danger, but for Derek, it made his blood boil. His father had been a questing knight and Derek had grown among the traditions of his clan. The Sword Ceremony had shown him so much. A part of him wanted to be in those dangerous situations so that he could test himself and grow stronger. That part of him demanded more.

The other part of him remembered the concerns of his mother and grandmother and those two parts seemed to have achieved a delicate balance. Derek knew that he needed to act with reason. Accept too much risk and he might die or be crippled, accept too little and he would never achieve his goals. He needed to keep his eyes on that middle ground so that he could achieve his goals without worrying his mother and grandmother too much.

The next few days Derek and the others continued their same routines. They ate at Eona’s house at breakfast. They worked for Ander in the forge in the morning before heading off to classes. They ate lunch in the cafeteria with Alicia and her friends before afternoon classes. Then finally they went to their weapons’ class where Derek helped the others improve under the watchful eye of his Weapons’ Master, Ovid Balder.

There were two interruptions to this schedule. The first was that next morning when surprising guests came to Ander’s forge. As they were wrapping up their work, Priest Cnut and Arbitrator Nolan came by.

“Derek, Ander, it’s good to see you. I have news from the Association. After you two were attacked, Baron Fontana reached out to the Association to negotiate with us to de-escalate tensions between our organizations. After several hours of negotiation, we were able to come to an agreement.

“In exchange for a mutually beneficial production contract, we were able to buy their foundries in the city for a reasonable price. We were also able to acquire the two iron mines that they possess in the Westmont area. These mines produce high quality ore that when coupled with the foundries in the city will mean that we will have no further problems sourcing iron.

“House Fontana has also become a five year probationary member of the Association and assuming they are still in good standing at that time, they will have the chance to become full members. Finally, to show their sincerity and concern after you were attacked they have asked us to deliver these gifts.”

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At this point, Nolan’s chauffeur and servants had brought a crate and two small chests from the back of the carriage. The crate possessed many very high quality materials for Ander’s crafting. These materials were rare and hard to find. With them Ander could craft quite a few powerful high tier weapons.

The two small chests were handed to Derek. Opening them, he saw a strange fruit in one, while there was a brownish red root in the other. Derek looked at them with curiosity. He didn’t quite know what they were but looking at the mana that came off them he recognized them as treasures.

Setting them down, he invited the others to come appraise them. Priest Cnut and his grandfather were only able to confirm their preciousness, but the Arbitrator had seen many unique items before. He smiled and addressed them, “These two are both very valuable enhancement treasures. The first is a Storm Plum. It is said they only grow on plum trees near the oceans. The regions they grow in must not only be near the ocean or another great body of water, but they must also experience many powerful storms to grow into a treasure like this. These are level two enhancing treasures and will permanently enhance the agility, mind, water, and wind attributes.”

Derek nodded at that. Level two enhancing treasures could only affect attributes that were under twenty. This meant that for Derek this Plum would only be able to improve his water and wind attributes. If he had gained access to this treasure before tiering up to tier two he would have gained far more out of it.

Even then, he was still pleased as his water and wind attributes were his lowest elemental attributes and he could expect at least five points of enhancement in those two. As a well rounded spell caster, he was definitely interested in improving his weakest elements. Though he would gain less than the maximum benefit from this treasure, he was still quite happy to have it.

Nolan pointed at the brown and red root vegetable and continued, “This is a thousand year Volcano’s Son root. These grow on hills or mountains where there is a large amount of fire and earth essence available. After a thousand years this root is now a level two enhancing treasure that will permanently enhance strength, body, fire, and earth element attributes.

“These two are worth at least two thousand talents each and could easily go at auction for twice or three times that. Coupled with the crate of rare materials that is of equal value, Fontana really has shown their sincerity today.”

Derek, Ander, and Cnut all nodded as they evaluated the gifts. Derek turned to Nolan, “Please convey my thanks for the two treasures. I truly appreciate them.”

The others nodded and Ander also expressed his gratitude. After a few more moments of discussion, the two clergy left. Derek placed his two treasures into his storage ring with a thoughtful expression on his face.

The second interruption was when Derek got called from class to go to the guard’s barracks by the entrance to the inner city. He joined his grandfather there and was surprised to see that Warwick Windreach was there along with his second in command and several of his officers. Derek smiled when he saw the man. In the last few days he had asked around for information about him and had been blown away by the kinds of rumors he had heard.

Warwick had indeed been a pirate in his youth. The more accurate word would have been privateer as he had a letter of marque from the kingdom he worked for. During that time he was one of the most wanted men on this side of the continent. He then accrued legends for himself working as a mercenary for years before returning to his piracy whenever he could. The man was now the Harbormaster for Windreach city and had finally settled down. He was now one of the top five most important people in the city and sat upon the council.

The old man brightened up when he saw them enter. Signalling to his men, he spoke up loudly, “Ander, Derek. Come over here, I have your prize money from our captured goods. It was a great haul this time. Between the facilities, bounties, ships, and supplies the prize was a little over sixty thousand talents. You each will receive one portion and the four guard forces each receive one portion.

“That means you each earned ten thousand talents from this. Haha, to think boy, when I was your age I had to work for years to earn this much. Lucky kid. How about you give most of it to me so I can do something useful with it, like go get drunk?”

Derek was both excited and embarrassed by this turn of events. He knew he would get a portion but he had no idea how much it was going to be worth. Ten thousand talents was what his clan back in Redwyrm would make after ten years from that cedar grove. Thinking back on what he had gone through, it was easy to get emotional now that he had so much, but the old man’s shamelessness helped him keep himself together.

Derek finally spoke up, “Thank you, Harbormaster, but I have some Ideas about how to use it. I am certain it won’t go to waste.”

Smiling the old man turned to Derek’s grandfather, “How about you, old goat, want to contribute to your ol’ pal Warwick’s grand crusade to get drunk?”

The old fellow just laughed at that and replied, “Well, I all of a sudden came upon some cash so maybe we can do just that. Derek, go on back to class I will have people come take your portion back to your mother’s place.”

Derek smiled and waved to them before heading back. He was already trying to think of what he would do with the money and treasures he had just gotten.