As Melvin stepped into the alchemy shop with an absent-minded look, he was greeted by the warm scent of exotic woods that filled the air. The interior was adorned with exquisite woodwork, giving the space a rustic yet refined ambiance. To his right, an array of chairs lined the wooden wall.

To his left, a polished wooden counter stretched along the wall, behind which stood shelves filled with glass containers of colorful potions. Each container sparkled in the dim light, their contents swirling with mysterious hues and magical energies.

The bald man walked behind the counter and looked at Melvin's absentminded expression with a peculiar gaze, and he reminded, "Hello?"

Waking up from his reverie, Melvin took a brief look around the shop, he then remembered to thank the shopkeeper for his help before he started explaining his situation, "I was injured with poison, but a mysterious expert along the way helped me pause it momentarily. Now I need some treatment or else I'll die soon, what do you have that can help me?"

From behind the counter, the bald shopkeeper gestured towards his wound and asked, "May I?"

Not understanding what he meant, Melvin replied with an uncertain tone as he lifted his shirt with his left hand once again, "Sure..."

The shopkeeper stretched out his palm in the direction of his wound, and soon very faint and barely visible red dots started appearing out of his palm and flew towards Melvin's wound.

At first, Melvin wasn't even able to see anything before he started feeling itchy around his wound, and it was only after a while that he was able to discern some very faint reddish mist in the area between his wound and the man's palm.

After a minute or so, the shopkeeper had a shocked expression as he explained, "What a profound power, who is this expert?"

Melvin who was already anxious and his left hand lifting the shirt was slightly shivering felt irked by the answer, and thought, 'I said mysterious', but faintly smiled and said, "Sorry I do not know, it was just an old man."

The shopkeeper had an understanding look as if he expected such an answer, and answered jovially, "Well, you're in luck boy. If that expert didn't help you would have died by now. We also have a potion that can remove that poison, and it's worth one Mana Stone."

Melvin who was expecting to hear a number of gold coins as he had already learned about their currency from the stalls and shops he passed by along the way, was floored, and thought, 'Mana Stone? What is that?'

For some reason, just that simple question managed to chip down most of the hope he had about survival, and asked with a somewhat quivering voice, "Ho.. how much gold is a mana stone?"

The shopkeeper realizing that this young man probably didn't have any money sighed and explained impatiently, "A Mana stone is usually around five to eight gold coins. But we don't accept gold here, nor do we do conversion."

Melvin's gears started turning trying to think of what he could possibly do, and the first thing that he thought about was go to Karl and ask him to lend him this Mana Stone.

Although he knew it would be rude and awkward, he was certain that with his legendary class, he would be able to pay it back soon.

Unfortunately, he knew that Karl would have left for the ceremony with his friends by now, that much he was certain about from the fact that when his friends came they didn't even sit but remained standing waiting for him to finish.

'Should I go talk to the guard and tell him to lend me money?' Melvin pondered but quickly dismissed that thought as well. Not only did he not have any clue about even the man's name, but he was sure that there was a very peculiar relationship between him and the previous Jacob.

Moreover, there was also the matter of dark mages and all of that ordeal that bugged him.

After thinking for some more, his previously blank stare regained focus and he stared at the shopkeeper with a mad expression pleading, "Can you give me a loan, please? You can put as much interest on it as you want, I'll guarantee you that I will pay it in less than three days."

Shaking his head the shopkeeper immediately refused, "I apologize, but we don't do loans here."

Not accepting such an answer, Melvin grabbed the man's hand and asked once again, "Aren't you guys the children of the shop owner? Please make this exception, I guarantee you that you will not regret it."

The shopkeeper forcefully pulled his hand away with such a force that Melvin felt as if his shoulder was dislocated, and as he began to walk out of the other side of the counter where a small door was he added, "No, Gerrald, isn't my father. It's a big chain of alchemy shops and if I give you a loan I will lose my job. I have kids to feed, I can't help you with that."

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Soothing the aching pain in his right shoulder with his left hand, Melvin asked, "Is there any other alchemy shop in the city that can help me?"

"I am afraid not, most people in the city enjoy the ceremony very much. Moreover, it's subsidized by the royal family, as a show of respect for the royalty and the guardian beast even if you don't want to go to the ceremony you can't be open for business otherwise the guards will make it difficult for you." Answered the shopkeeper after he pushed the waist-high revolving door open and walked out from behind the counter.

His eyes swiftly glanced around and caught the eyes of his teenage son who was looking at everything, and inwardly he felt complicated. The two of them could be said to be of the same age, and the feeling of sentencing this young man to death made him feel terrible.

He looked towards the young man with the red shirt and shoulders slumped forward as he stared into the potions with a blank look and offered, "Although I don't have any money currently, I know a friend who works in the Adventurer's Association and he can give me a Mana stone for five golds coin. I'll close down the shop and wait here for you inside for twenty minutes. Go bring the money."

Hearing the shopkeeper's offer, Melvin's eyes regained their luster, and uttered repeatedly, "Thank you, Thank you", and immediately walked out of the shop.

The shopkeeper didn't say much but just waved his hand, he then followed after Melvin and said to the teen in front of the shop, "Your mother always takes a while to get ready so we might as well wait here for a little longer."

The boy smiled and entered the shop once again before the bald man closed it shut.

Melvin found himself in front of the shop with a complicated expression on his face, his mind was abuzz with questions thinking of how to get his hands on five gold coins. For some reason, his mind kept turning back to Karl, but he knew that the chances of finding him in such a big city were abysmal.

'I can only go ask that guard...' He concluded, and with that, he began walking towards the southern gate. Along the way his mind kept moving moving from one question to the next, 'What should I tell him? What if their relationship isn't great? What should I say if he asked me about something I don't know? What if he suspected I took over Jacob's body after he noticed how different our mannerisms were? Does a guard even have that amount of money?'

Each question gave birth to another one, but the answers he was looking for seemed out of reach regardless of how much he thought. The fact that he was just put into this world made all of the solutions he thought about pointless since they were based on knowledge, not on this one.

As he was briskly walking along the empty street and the closed stores, his eyes couldn't help but notice two small boys around twelve to thirteen years of age that emerged out of the end of the sidewalk he was walking on, out of one of the narrow streets that were flanked by both the towering walls and the first row of houses from the other.

They were running frantically with stiff and scared expressions. Their ragged clothing hung loosely from their skinny frames, suggesting they had seen better days. Dusty and worn sandals barely clung to their feet as they scampered about with an air of urgency, their tired faces betraying a sense of desperation.

One of them turned his eyes to the left, and quickly met Melvin's gaze, the moment he saw him all of the boy's previous fears and weariness seemed to evaporate and were replaced with a huge sense of relief and joy.

He quickly shouted something towards the other boy next to him, who more or less had the same expression as they started running in his direction with teary eyes.

The moment Melvin saw that, his steps came to a halt, 'What in the world is happening', he thought with a stupefied expression as he watched the two boys running towards him.

When the duo reached spitting distance from him, their already turbulent mental state seemed to reach its peak as the both of them burst out in tears with their legs barely being able to hold their weights.

Melvin who was looking at all of this felt as if his heart was stuck in his throat as he shouted in his mind, 'I am about to die, I don't need this.'

Looking at their quivering mouths, he couldn't help but feel bad and started comforting two by tapping on their shoulders, "Calm down, breathe, what happened?"

However, they seemed to be going through a lot of emotions rendering them unable to even utter coherent words and all he heard was some teary mess that didn't mean anything which made him all the more anxious and impatient.

After a minute or two of that, the taller blonde-haired one of the two slightly calmed down and said, "B...b.big brother... something terrible happened."

"What?" Snapped Melvin impatiently.

The other short brown-haired boy then continued to explain, "You know that demonic horse that belongs to one of the coachmen who lives on the other side of the neighborhood?"

Melvin hurriedly nodded although he had no idea what was happening prompting the boy to continue, "He went wild last night and that coachman wasn't even in his house, and the monster managed to break free. But.. but..."

Remembering what happened the boy was about to burst out into another bout of crying, but Melvin started shaking his shoulders snapping him out of it and demanding, "Then what?"

"He... ate Leo yesterday... And now a big group of big coachmen surrounded our shack saying they don't want us to report it to the guards... or else..." The boy started to cry once again when he heard that, and then he added, "We have been looking for you the whole night..."

Finally understanding what was happening, Melvin had a pondering look on his face. He knew that from how the boys were acting they naturally knew Jacob, and not just that they were apparently very close and depended on him a lot, hence their earlier outburst and relief.

'I have no time for this now...But this is a good opportunity to investigate what happened. The people close to him don't seem to be expecting his death...' Melvin concluded, and then he helped the two boys to stand and said, "Come with me.", with that he continued walking towards where the guards were stationed before.