Chapter sixty eight

         I arrived at the back of the store in the middle of all the orderly shelves. I went out to the front of the store where I found Lidia taking care of a customer, I waited for her to finish then said,

       "Good morning Lidia, how's business going?"

       "Good morning John, it is fine I guess. It isn't as good as it used to be with the magic items but we do OK for a general store."

         "That's actually why I'm here, this storage ring is filled with merchandize I made before I disappeared and never had the chance to put it in the store, should tide you over for a few days, I'll enchant some more items by then."

            I gave her a storage ring filled with goods and she received it gratefully,

           "Thanks John, this will probably help a lot. It is actually pretty silly having a store called 'enchantments r us' and not being able to sell enchanted items."

             "Well I have some things I need to buy so see you later at the house."

               "See you later John."

         I walked out of the mall and walked around the city looking for materials I was running low on ,like different metals. I needed things to put my enchantment on. I had tried to enchant one of my illusion constructs but there was a fundamental problem with that. The very meaning of enchantment is using a rune to reach through the object to its ether counterpart , then by affecting that you can make the fundamental properties of the real object change, similar to how turning an object would alter it's shadow.

         The problem is although the illusions I created were solid , they were not real, they didn't have a counterpart in the ether. This means that they interact with the world in very limited ways, for example it has zero electrical and heat conductivity, it did not ever burn in any temperature, meaning in a rock paper scissor game between mages I could crush a fire mage pretty easily. But this same property that is really useful when fighting against many opponents makes it impossible to enchant. To use the previous metaphor it is like a shadow without an object, since the source object is missing you can't manipulate the shadow in that way.

          So I had no choice but to go around and buy things that would be useful to enchant. I bought a lot of necklaces, bracelets, and rings. I also went to a blacksmith and bought all the rods of steels he had. Thankfully he used steel rods to make knives and swords so I was able to buy plenty. In fact I bought so many for what the blacksmith thought was a generous price that he let me have his miscellaneous scraps and pieces for free.

           Afterwards I was just walking through the street , enjoying the sights of this incredibly beautiful city while eating a cone of ice cream I bought from a street vendor to cool down from the heat , when I saw something  that did not belong in this picturesque and happy scene.

             A couple of older teens in red were shooting little tongues of flame at a small mousy looking kid dressed in white, at least what was left of it. It seems the 'game' they were playing was trying to burn as much of the mousy kid's clothes without seriously burning him. He was running frantically trying to escape, but their longer strides gave them an advantage over the smaller kid. Although they were chasing the kid down a crowded street in broad daylight nobody was trying to stop them, they just hurriedly got out of their way. Their chase was taking them in my direction and I was inclined to interrupt. There are a few types of people that I hated on principle and unluckily for these little punks, bullies were one of them.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

               Still eating my ice cream I approached the three bullies and their victim, at this point he had given up and collapsed onto the sidewalk in the fetal position trying to cover his face and most of his body. First I simply got between the approaching bullies and the fallen kid. I wanted to see how they reacted so that I can gauge the severity of the lesson I was going to teach them.

           I knelt down next to the kid and asked, "Are you alright?"

            "Get out of the way asshole, we are in the middle of something." , Dumbass 1

            "Yeah get out of the way , or do you have a death wish?", Dumbass 2

              Dumbass 3 just giggled stupidly.

               I ignored them and continued inspecting the kid, who seemed to be too distraught to talk. Although singed here and there, he seemed to be physically alright. I guess this means the three idiots won't feel too much pain in their coming lesson.

               "You asked for it, don't blame us when your ass is on fire!" , after loudly exclaiming that ,Dumbass 2 threw a tongue of flame in my direction, before it got to me it hit an invisible wall and fizzled out.

                All three of them seemed to be confused as to what happened and Dumbass 2 tried again with similar results. I created invisible bands around their arms and legs , so that they couldn't move or escape.

               "Who are you?.. Well whoever you are , you can't do this to us , do you know who we are?"

                "No I do not, and nor do I care. You are spoiled and sadistic teenagers who need to be taught a serious lesson. Hello, I will be your teacher this evening."

              Their haughty and arrogant expressions where slowly melting off their faces to reveal glimmers of fear. Good, they were finally starting to understand.

                "Our lesson for this evening is a simple one, don't do unto others what you don't want done to you."

              I carefully shredded their clothing only nicking them lightly here and there and left them in their underwear, afterwards I released them and they ran away in their tidy whities .

              By the time they had turned a corner , my ice cream had run out , so I got another one from storage. One of the great things about storage was that time didn't pass in there ,so you could store as much ice cream in there and it wouldn't melt. I was just starting my second ice cream when I noticed that the kid on the ground had gotten up and was just staring at me.

        So I did the polite thing and said, 

         "Here kid, have a cone."