Time in the village was very slow, every day Renata would be practising her magic so that she would be ready for the future, it was a slow process. Joan had begged Renata to teach her how to use magic but Renata was simply unable to teach her as Joan did not have the same voiceless casting capabilities that she did. Although one did not need to have the ability to cast voiceless to use magic, it would otherwise require knowing what the chants were. The chants for any spells could be gained in two ways, the first way was to learn an already existing spell chant. The second was to derive words of power from a spell formula that would bring out the effect. The latter option would take months to convert even the most basic of spells whereas the the first option relied on having access to pre-existing chants. Right now the best path was for Renata to try and convert some of her basic spell formulae into chants. Out of all of the elements to have water was the least dangerous for a child to learn so right now Renata was trying to convert her most basic water spell *water ball* into a chant for Joan.
Although Renata now had an extra workload she didn’t really end up losing much of the time she was previously using to practise, if anything it gave her more time instead. This was because Joan was now around her when she was using magic. This meant she could pretty much practise all day, even when she was playing. With everything steadily progressing Renata was ready to move on to her next project, enchanting. The one problem with enchanting was that Renata would need an object with an enough or better quality to enchant. If someone was to put even the most basic of enchantments onto a normal rock it would simply explode, the same went for normal plant matter and just about anything you would find easily around the area. Low level enchantments were normally cast on weak metals such as copper and iron, and were most useful when placed on to things like weapons, tools, and accessories.
For Renata there seemed to be two ways she could get things to enchant without stealing. She could either buy them from a merchant who travelled through the village or she would have to find a way to get the local blacksmith to make something for her. Both options had one crucial flaw and that was that she was fresh out of cash. To remedy this she could either find some other way to purchase the stuff or she would have to find a way to make money for herself. The currency that was used by the village was fairly simple, there were copper, silver and gold coins. One hundred of a lower denomination would equal one of the next highest denomination. It would be far simpler if Renata could just use the coins to store the enchantments but sadly the metal they were made of was simply far too impure and purity was a very important factor when choosing a good material to enchant.
Renata had spent quite some time thinking about what would be the best way to earn enough money to buy the rings she would need for enchanting. With all of the knowledge she had from her previous world and the things she learned from her centuries in Zagon she had plenty of skills and abilities which could be used to make money but it would be hard to find something she could do that would not give away who she was while also be something that someone her age could feasibly think up. She came to the conclusion that the best way she could earn money would be to find herbs and try to farm them, potions were present in this world and they were very valuable which meant that the materials that were used to make them would also be valuable. While it would be weird for a child to start crafting perfect potions it wasn't so weird for a child to plant a few herbs, harvest them and bring them to an apothecary that could process them.
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Renata was in front of the apothecary with Joan, the building was on the edge of the village in the direction of the forest. It was a simple one story home made of planks and logs, with a thatched roof. The door had a sign hanging over it with the image of a mortar and pestle painted on to it. Joan didn't know why they were there and Renata had refused to tell her. "Ren, why are we at miss Sarah's home?" The owners of the local apothecary were Sarah and Aaron. Sarah was the actual alchemist whereas Aaron dealt with all of the other things that came along with running an apothecary, such as finding ingredients. Renata glanced over to Joan for a moment before replying "money", Renata opened the door and walked inside, a bell rung as it did so.
A musky and potent smell assaulted both Renata's and Joan’s noses as they went in, it reeked of something similar to wet grass mixed with bleach. In the front room there was a table that was obviously used for business matters, there were also plenty of boxes and barrels scattered around, some full and some empty. Joan was curiously looking around all the different boxes while Renata waited silently. Before long a woman came to the front room from the back with a confused look on her face, Sarah. "Oh hello there! You're Jeral's kid and Ferald's kid aren't you? Did they send you here for something?" Sarah was wondering why two kids had come into her shop, it normally wouldn't be the place children would be interested in. "Nope, I'm here because I want to learn about some of the plants around here. Joan's here because she wanted to come too." Renata didn't ease Sarah's confusion by saying this, for someone so young to even think about being interested in plants was beyond strange but she guessed she could humour her anyway. "Why would a little one like yourself be so interested in plants? Shouldn't you be off playing in the river or tormenting the local poultry?" Renata shook her head as she replied, "Nope dad said that to get things I need money. He told me you use plants to make things for money so I want to know what plants are worth money." Sarah was taken by surprise at the entrepreneurship of the young child, it was very weird. Before Sarah could say anything else Renata decided it would be best to take control of the conversation before her proposal was rejected.
"So are you able to show me what plants I can make money with?" Sarah wasn't sure whether or not to even bother with the kid but frankly she had little to do today and she was bored, so she went with it. "Hmm, I suppose I could, but all of them grow in the forest, without your father there is no way you're going there alone so I don't think you'll be able". Renata smiled, this was the exact line of thought she knew Sarah would go down. "But if you give me one plant with seeds I'll be able to grow my own right here, then I can sell them to you". "Sorry kid, I don't think you'll be able to do that either, to grow herbs outside of the forest is really difficult and only experienced herbalists can do it. I doubt you'd be able to, no matter how much you want to. Even I can't grow my own herbs, that's why Aaron has to go into the forest so often to get the damn things". Renata only continued smiling, she was going to get what she wanted. "If you give me five seeds and tell me where the plant normally grows and what it looks like I'll grow them. Just give me a chance, please!" Sarah was reluctant but no amount of resistance could hold against the sheer power that was the watering eyes of a child, it was simply an impossible task to say no to such a cute face. "Ugh! Fine, I'll give you a few seeds but just stop with the waterworks, you're worse than Aaron when I don't cook apple pie. Just wait here, I'll go get them."
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Renata was going home with Joan after getting her seeds and asking her questions. Joan was still as curious as ever. "Are you really going to grow them Ren? Sarah said it would be really hard". "Pfft, hard? This is child’s play for me, you can help too if you want. I'll need someone strong to help me you know". Joan was giddy at the idea of getting to help, just like any child would be. Renata was ready to put her new slave... friend with benefits to work. After getting home Renata went inside and brought a shovel out to the back of her home where Joan was waiting. "Okay Joan, start digging I'll make the fence", Renata went around the outside of village and started picking up sticks from underneath all of the random trees, specifically willows. After coming back she began to plant the branches into the ground and weave them in between each other until she made a nice small fence around the area Joan was digging, it was around three metres by two metres with the height being around a quarter meter. "Joan work harder. I want this whole area dug up, when you finish digging, I want you to dig it again. If you do a good job I'll let you play with my tail after." With that Joan quickened her pace and began digging like her life depended on it.
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Renata left and went around the village to gather all of the supplies she would need. First she went to the local pig farms and using her skill in bartering, she managed to borrow buckets for the day and brought back buckets of dung to the patch Joan was digging, to which Joan complained but Renata dismissed her cries and told her to keep working. Renata next went to the butchers home and went out to the back and took some of the waste bones, once she had a small pile she stopped bringing them back and started using earth magic to crush them into dust. Although it took a lot of mana it was not an issue for Renata. Renata then mixed the bonemeal and dung together with the shovel and began to dump it into the the ground. "Joan, dig and mix." Joan didn't enjoy her task but she persisted for her reward. Renata brought fish guts that were also found behind the butcher’s home and dumped them in too. The final thing she did was to empty several buckets of water into the ground. Joan was muddy, smelly and overall not very happy. Renata and her went to the river to wash after their hard day of work. The sun was beginning to set. Joan took full advantage of her time and played around with Renata's tail, something previously forbidden to her, she enjoyed herself, much to Renata's dismay and strangely it seemed to make her slightly aroused.
When Renata got home she was greeted by a rather stern looking man who was wondering what she had done to his back yard. It had taken more than a few cute smiles and big eyes to properly explain herself but in the end Jeral simply gave up, he stood no chance after all, his daughter was the most cute evil troublemaker he knew and she was good at it.
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The next day Renata was ready to plant her seeds. The seeds she had gotten were from a white thistle plant, when it grew it was a tall herb that was prickly and could sting you if you picked it in the wrong way. Its natural environment is normally the outskirts of forests. The herb itself was rather easy to grow but the reason why it was still better to pick wild ones was due to the quality. The pure white milk that could be found in its stems was a useful ingredient and if the plant was grown in the wrong area the milk would often turn black and become useless. Renata had made sure that the soil that she used for the plants was rich in minerals, which is one of the things she was going to do that would help the plant grow. The use of bone meal and even dung as fertilizer was unknown to the villagers as the level of technology and general knowledge was extremely low in this world. That fact alone would put Renata's knowledge leaps and bounds above that of the farmers and herbalists of this world but that was not even the only thing she was going to use to her advantage. Plant magic was a combination of earth and life magic, and since Renata was already training her earth magic it would be possible for her to use basic plant magic to aid the growth of the herb. It would become troublesome if the villagers saw that she was doing something that a child her age would never think of so she made sure to make her activities hidden, Renata made sure to hide her knowledge of magic and technology.
There were many different uses of plant magic but one of the more useful was the low level spell *Enrich Seed*. The spell could be cast on a seed when it is in soil that is already rich in nutrients, it would force surrounding nutrients to nourish the seed so it would be able to grow to it's full potential. Normally using this on everyday crops would be rather time consuming and in general not worth it as it has a high mana cost. The real use of this spell was in making crops or more often than not, herbs, to grow in soils and areas where they normally would never grow. Better yet, if a magic caster were to cast the spell often while re-fertilizing the soil the seed would become the highest quality plant it could become. If the goal of the herbalist was to cultivate a perfect herb then this was the spell they needed. Sadly this spell did not increase the rate of growth as some higher tier versions of it do but that was not needed. It would also be really weird if Renata came back the next day with perfect fully grown herbs, no one would believe her unless she showed them her magic and that was a can of worms she didn't want to open.
Because Renata had not yet done much for her mana pathways in the terms of plant magic she found it really hard to even cast the basic spell from the magic type even though she was mentally versed in the highest tiers of plant magic. It took most of the day and more mana than even a seasoned archmage should normally have, but she finally ended up casting the spell on one of her planted seeds. The cast prompted her with an expected message, acknowledging her achievement.
Enrich Seed {Apprentice lvl.1}
A basic spell from the plant magic school. Must be cast on a seed that is in enriched soil, some seeds require specific types of enriched soil for the cast to be successful. When cast the spell will force the seed to become enriched.
Cost : 350 mana
You have gained 2 intelligence points!
You have gained 2 wisdom points!
Thankful for minor increases in her stats Renata proceeded to enrich all five of the seeds she was given, an easy enough task for Renata as she had pretty much infinite mana at this point, so long as it was less than her total she would have no issue in casting the spell. Right now after the new gains her current mana was five hundred and ten, meaning she would have to fill her mana back up after every cast but it still only took her less than a minute to cast all five spells and that was with her terrible pathways for plant magic. With little else to do besides basic weeding and the daily spell casts Renata left the seeds to mature into fully grown plants. She wasn't certain how long the white thistle would take to grow as Sarah didn't know either when asked but Renata assumed as it was a common herb it would likely only take a month or two at most to become fully grown, at which point she would be able to sell the milk for a nice profit and she would have lots of seeds to make the next batch far larger. Thankfully she had a sla… friend with benefits to do all of the hard work for her.
With her money troubles seemingly solved, Renata went back into her usual routine. Daily earth and air manipulation training, converting her *water ball* spell into a chant and lots of time playing in the village with Joan. Jeral didn't question Renata much about her strange behaviour concerning the plants, and he didn't want to know why she was using dung and fish guts to grow them. Jeral merely accepted it after Renata gave him another cute face that he couldn't ignore. The next few months were peaceful and Renata was waiting for her plants to grow because that would be when she could really get the ball rolling, she looked forward to the day when her efforts would pay off.