Rak and his travel companion are already on their third day, having slept out on the road at night they were fortunate enough to not encounter anything. There is always a risk of creatures curiously investigate things or perhaps a opportunistic person might turn into a thief and killer.

The journey was incredibly taxing on Rak, doing nothing for hours on end can be a type of torture. Fortunately the weather has been phenomenal, hot at times but cool winds are always blowing.

The two horses have gotten tired of the scenery and only occasionally find something new to get excited about, they still enjoy the long walks but three our four days of walking is a bit too much.

On the fourth day, just as the light of the sun is about to switch with the moon’s, Rak can see the silhouette of a city. The vision is blurry but from what Rak has been told about cities, they have large walls surrounding them.

The outer part of a city is largely empty but further out are large fields used to grow crops or raise animals. At this point it is quiet and there are no other people on the road, it has already been a few hours since the last carriage past them. Presumably because people don’t start traveling this late in the evening.

Rak has already entered the area of large fields, the scenery from a green wildlife to a brown and green fields filled with vegetables or golden fields of wheat. These sorts of fields are not like typical fields where people go out and harvest. They are constructs commissioned by City Offices and they naturally produce certain amount daily.

The maintenance of these fields include fending of various vermin, miscellaneous creatures that might stumble into the fields and insects. In addition to supply proper fertilizer and water. One field has a building associated with it where fertilizer and water are inputted in large containers. In some ways this is similar to Rak’s brewery in that the liquid inside the brewing barrels can be extracted instantly into other containers within certain range.

This type of field doesn’t produce valuable products but just food for the masses, with these they can feed entire cities for very low cost. It is possible to nurture vegetables and various other plants to the point where they provide stamina recovery, temporarily increase clarity and so on, but these can’t be done on a large scale and are far more precious. Such materials are also used to make other products that further increase potential benefits.

Outside the city walls are numerous small makeshift huts, tents or just general bedrolls, they seem to stretch all the way around the city walls. There are quite a few people in this refugee like camp, their clothing doesn’t seem too bad and they look relatively healthy.

“Why are there so many people out here?”

Due to certain limitations and general cost, cities set laws against people sleeping on the streets. The punishment can be light but if a person can’t pay the fine they will have to sit in jail for some time and once their time is up they get thrown outside the city and are ‘banned’ until their debts are paid.

It is possible to rent rooms, buys apartments or houses within the city but such things are to expensive. As Rak gets closer and closer to the gate with his two horses and a carriage, people begin to walk towards it, all holding miscellaneous items.

“What’s going on?”

The sudden swarm of people has put a little scare into Rak but soon this fear turns into surprise. Each and every person is attempting to sell things to Rak for exactly ten silver. No matter what the item is, ten silver is the price. As more people join in the prices drops to one silver.

It is good that Rak’s horses are curious as they are clever, their eyes darting about sniffing this and that.

“Do you know what is going on?

Rak’s little companion shakes his head, he is just as confused as Rak. When they get to the open city gates two men walk forward, one raises his hand in the air.

“Stop!”

“What is this?”

“Evening, sirs.”

“Good evening.”

While Rak doesn’t look like a wealthy man he also doesn’t look poor. Not to mention he is on a carriage lead by two fine looking horses. If he isn’t wealthy he’s at least working for someone of worth, those are the guards thoughts. The people hawking their wares have similar thoughts.

“Two silver for you and your companion, six for the two horses.”

“Oh.”

Having to pay to enter the city was a bit of a surprise but Rak quickly fished out eight silver from his inventory and handed it over to the guards. The guards inspected the coins for a brief moment before nodding and moving back to their positions.

The entrance to the city can be considered and alright neighbourhood, if you move along the walls you’ll enter worse and worse neighbourhoods and the closer you get to the center, the better they are and more expensive.

The roads are all colossal stones, some can be described as megaliths. There are also smaller paths between residence streets that have small near bricklike stones. The horses hooves smack louder and the horses themselves find this curious. If it wasn’t for the numerous new sights they would probably be stomping down with glee.

“Friend, where do you plan to get off?”

“Anywhere is fine. As you know I’m heading to the theatre my sister went to.”

From what this boy has told Rak, his sister hasn’t been in much contact since she left for the city.

“Ah. Well you can stay within me, I’m heading to Ravendus. This is a formation workshop within the city.”

“I’ll get off here then. Thank you for the ride.”

“No problems, I enjoyed your company.”

Rak felt especially magnanimous at this moment, to the point he was swelling up with emotions of a ‘giver’. Soon Rak was slowly making his way through the city, taking in the sights. The city itself can’t compare to the architecture of a modern city, but the smells, the types of people walking about and strange noises made it all a new experience.

“From what Ung told me I should head across the city and north-west district where this scholar is supposed to live and work.”

Already Rak’s map has been update with more detail, but only up to the point he has travelled within the city limits. Ung himself hasn’t been in Trove and most of his information has come through travellers and even the Chaos theory government system.

The traffic is a bit frightening in the city limits, on foot it wouldn’t be an issue but Rak’s carriage has to repeatedly stop for people walking on the streets or other stopped carriages. It is already late in the evening and the fatigue is setting in.

“Even if I get to the north-west of the city at this pace it’ll be late in the night.”

As the night arrives Rak continues to slowly shamble along, sometimes hitting a good stride but eventually coming to a crawl. At this point Rak is looking for a place to sleep for the night. There doesn't seem to be less people on the streets as it passes midnight.

“Where can I stay with my horses? Should I ask someone?”

Every building reaches ten to fifteen floors into the sky and some in the distance reach double if not triple that. These buildings all look like they are made from wood, steel and iron and yet reach such heights.

Rak is closing in on ten percent fatigue, making him a bit muddled headed. After travelling for five hours in the city, it is already three o’clock at night when Rak sees a building with what can only be described as an underground parking.

“What? Really?”

Exactly as the sign says, below the building is a large area with large booths for horses or carriages. On the way here there were quite a few of these places but this is the first one Rak managed to notice.

When Rak arrives he is greeted with guards in a similar outfit as those outside the city gates, they similarly ask Rak to pay. At this point Rak is a bit shocked after handing over fifteen silver for a day’s ‘parking’.

Included in this parking is food for his horses an area similar to a bed that helps animals recover. Rak himself could sleep in his carriage but he’s thirst for a bed and so he directly goes to the upstair hotel. Fortunately he only has to pay five silver for the cheapest room.

It at this point it dawns on Rak why all those people were outside the city. It is simply too expensive to stay within the city walls, even entering costs two silver coins. There isn’t too great a chance to be caught on the streets sleeping but tens of people do get caught everyday, and that’s exactly why there are so many people outside the city walls, most of which are ‘banned’ but have nowhere else to go.

Immediately upon entering his small room Rak falls on the bed and goes to sleep, the cloudiness of sub ten fatigue making him feel like his thoughts were slow as if he was drunk without the loosened inhibitions.

Falling to sleep and waking up happened in a flash. To Rak he felt he just landed on the bed and somehow he was now awake.

“Did I fall asleep?”

Character

Status

Constitution: 89/100%

Fatigue: 80/100%

Hunger: 4/100%

Clarity: 48/100%

Stamina: 99/100%

Abilities

Inventory

“Eighty percent fatigue.”

After confirming that he did indeed fall asleep the hunger pangs knocked on his door, not willing to eat the same dry vegetables and questionable pastries, Rak stands up and leaves the room

This hotel is one of thousands in Trove city and is considered mid quality. But even if it is above average hotel the hotel feels somewhat cramped. What Rak didn’t notice when he entered and left his room was that the distance between doors was eerily close. So close that his room overlap the other rooms, which should be impossible.

In a low quality hotel, the buildings are almost entirely doors with similar or smaller rooms than the one Rak slept in. These rooms are their own independent space. This is how such a large population can exist in cities and yet be still relatively ‘small’. Of course the city isn’t small but in comparison to the population it is a bit baffling. In addition to this, there are many residence buildings with empty apartments and even premium houses that are empty.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“How can I help you, sir?”

After getting down to the first floor Rak wandered a bit before finding the entrance to the dining hall. This time he noticed the anomaly, there was no way this huge dining hall fit inside this building. Not only was the ceiling higher than the ceiling outside clearly this dining hall was stretched to the point Rak had to question reality.

“I’m looking for some food.”

“We have a buffet for all customers, you can also order from the menu.”

“How much is the buffet?”

“The buffet is free for all customers.”

After filling himself to the brim rak couldn’t help but to let out a deep sigh. His stomach was a little inflated and he felt a bit heavy.

“Even buffet food is this good. Four star restaurants barely compete.”

Once again Rak couldn’t help but marvel at the difference between the real world and Chaos theory. The smells, taste and touch.

“I should get going.”

After going through his logs, Rak found that a delivery has been made to the four taverns in Whor town, giving him fourteen silver each for a total of fifty six silvers. In addition to this, there should be more requests within a few days giving him more income. Most taverns order the same amount each time but may do so at a different frequency.

Going down to the underground ‘parking lot’ Rak once again noticed that it is abnormally large in comparison to the area it is supposed to occupy. Shaking his head, Rak decisively ignores this incongruency, putting in the category of things unexplained. The two horses are already awake when Rak arrives, they have both eaten to their hearts content are just relaxing.

It is already late noon when Rak’s carriage makes its appearance on the streets of Trove. In the light of day, the city has an entirely different atmosphere but the traffic is still constant. The noises seem more lively and a few people have set up small stalls from either blankets set on the ground or small two wheeled wheelbarrows. These wheelbarrows seem to be customized to act as a sales stall.

These stalls are something commissioned from City Offices or ordered especially from something like a engineer or a specialized carpenter. The people roll out blankets are ‘illegally’ selling and can be randomly heaved to jail and get a similar penalty as those that are found sleeping in the streets at night, only steeper fines and longer jail time.

The commissioned sales stalls record the items put on it and their price, it is due to this that price cannot be negotiated and they have to be sold if the customer provides the coin. The blankets allow for negotiation as it it’s sales are not recorded and so they won't have to pay tax.

One thing people would expect in a large city is plenty of food vendors, but in Trove these are severely lacking and most restaurant are only there to add to existing service. The city sells vegetables, bread and gruel for very cheap. A person can fill their stomach for the day on something as cheap as two coppers, and of course in case they want to save that two copper they can randomly find a ‘unowned’ plot of dirt and plant vegetables or other plants.

Meat served in restaurants are more expensive as it is a luxury due to it being far harder to provide millions with meat. This is to the point where meat in a town or a village is five times cheaper or equal to that of general vegetables and wheat.

This is why the wares sold on the streets are almost all some sort of material known to be a part of a recipe in something that does give a person incremental benefit of some sort. There are also quite a few that are unknown by the general population but it still known to be valuable.

Materials marked with a green tinge in their text description are always materials in recipes that provide some benefit. In comparison, the materials used in Rak’s brewery are all grey, and is a part of why tier one beer can be crafted with such ease. There are tier one and even untiered beer that provide some benefit but they are of course rare in comparison and can’t be mass produced for wholesale.

Most of the items being sold by the street vendors are various tools, random mineral, large pieces of wood and herbs. There are also clothing of all types being sold, everything from generic metal armours to linen robes. Most of these are untiered but different from generic consumable, these provide at least some benefits and therefore their price is higher.

Currently Rak is on his carriage and has not had the opportunity to randomly browse these items, but it certainly would be an eye opener. These items have attributes such as increased strength, intelligence, agility, health, energy. Then there is armour and resistances. The rares of items can have things like a boost to affinity or increased physique.

These items that make sense in a game have yet to appear in front of Rak, but anyone casually strolling through a city would be introduced to them. The closest thing Rak has seen is the training bow he got from Alley, which he still has on his person.

That bow introduced Rak to damage, attack speed, cooldowns and energy. The damage and attacks speed are localized on the weapon however. The energy is the only attribute he himself posses and he could barely use that bow at the time. Energy is a part of the stamina status, the more a person uses their energy the more it affects the stamina status.

This is similar to how strength, dexterity and health the constitution status. As with the fatigue status, going below a certain thresholds causes an adverse effect. Intelligence and energy are tied to the clarity status in the same way. These are all ‘hidden’ attributes but large boost to any single attribute should be noticeable by the individual.

The status that ties all these things together is fatigue, any change in any of the other status has an effect on fatigue. Increasing the constitution increases fatigue points, increasing intelligence increases clarity to a degree and in turn clarity affects fatigue.

Decreases in any of these values similarly can have adverse effect on fatigue, but total fatigue values are never lost and are only the soft cap is applied. Unlike the normal soft cap, which is visible numerically, Rak for example slept in a decent bed granting him eighty percent fatigue soft cap, but behind this cap is another cap that related to all the other statuses combined.

The closer to the center of the city Rak gets the taller the buildings become and the more they look more aesthetically pleasing. At some point these high rises dramatically fall until a huge area is revealed. There are still buildings but they are sparse and gardens surround an enormous fountain. In a giant circle around his oasis within the city all the buildings facing the scenery are more expensive than entire buildings in the worse off neighbourhoods.

Currently Rak is on a road that goes in a circle around the ‘Trove gardens’. Which is a public area open to the public. Originally Rak entered the southern entrance to the city, one of four entrances. It has taken rak eleven hours to get to the middle, excluding the time he spent in the hotel.

The reason why Rak hasn’t asked for direction yet is exactly because he understands he has to cross the entire city before even entering the region where Ung’s friend the ‘formation scholar’ is supposed to be.

Ung has given you a letter to deliver to his friend, Kartofel

Rewards: nothing

The lack of descriptive information highlights that this is an open ended, optional quest given casually and made obvious by the lack of rewards. Nonetheless, all Rak wanted was a direction go walk towards, and Ung gave him one better.

Looking at his map, Rak notices he’s travelled a little more than half the circled road, and decided to take a right turn. This lands him in the North-west region of Trove city. Now he only has to find the small formation workshop Ravendus.

While Town planner Ung hasn’t visited the city Trove he has studied architecture and seen plans for a few cities. According to him, one of City Officess branches within the city should be alongside spread along the larger roads. On Rak’s map there seems to be eight directions where the roads are of similar size and other eight smaller roads that he can exclude.

“If I keep my eyes open I should be able to find a branch somewhere along this road.”

In a swarm of other carriages and various walking pedestrian Rak slowly makes his way, ever since he entered the city a subtle nervousness has been lingering in his heart. Even though he been in enormous cities and travelled all around the world, being alone in a foreign place can still be a bit overwhelming.

An hour into travelling this road Rak’s eyes are a bit red and somehow he’s got the illusion of a headache looming over him. This is because he has been focusing his gaze in an attempt to locate a City Offices branch. Fortunately at this point a very distinct building appears, it is specially eye taching considering it has spacious area around it and a familiar underground area for carriages or other modes of travel.

“You need a space?”

“Ye”

The guards in this underground area are wearing City Offices emblems on their right chest and light form fitting uniforms.

“This is your ticket, on it you’ll find your space. You have four hours, any hour exceeding four hours incurs two silvers cost.”

Unlike the hotel, City Offices does not charge for parking spots and offers it free for a limited duration. The underground area has a variety of animals in it, something Rak didn’t take great notice of in the hotel’s parking spot. Quite a few horses look more majestic than normal and his own steeds look to them with reverence. Most of the animals are horses but there is quite a variety of wild animals that have been tamed, only Rak has yet to see them.

Soon Rak has arrived to the City Offices branch entrance area. The area itself is large with six receptionist, tens of people are at each desk waiting to be served. The lines go neither fast nor slow but it still takes Rak some forty minutes until his turn.

“Good day, how can I help you?”

“Good day, I’m looking for some information on.”

Feeling a bit embarrassed Rak let out a cough.

“Information on scholarly jobs and some directions.”

“Okay, If you want to research scholars I can recommend you go to Trove’s library and talk to the librarians, teachers or professors there.”

“Oh, In that case can you help me with directions to that library and to a formation workshop called Ravendus?”

“Give me a moment.”

A familiar scene appears in front of Rak, a person waving their hands about in the air before pushing and open palm towards him.

“After looking up the workshop I know where it is located but I can only give you directions to the street its on. As for the library that is no issue.”

“Thank you.”

Seeing his map has already updated with two icons, one a grey dot with a street name and the other an official symbol for libraries.

“Anything else you need help with?”

“If it's not too much bother, how much would an apartment and an empty lot cost?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have that information but I can book an appointment with a government agent that deals with selling and buying real estate within the city.”

“Please do.”

“One moment then.”

Leaving the City Offices branch Rak is ten silver lighter and has an appointment with a real estate agent in two days, originally he could meet with one today but he decided he should deal with his current affairs first. And so Rak is directly going to Ravendus which is located just on the border of a the poorer side of the city and yet in an alright area.

“How incredibly expensive.”

From the moment Rak arrived in Trove he’s been steadily spending his silver. Granted he did go to a medium quality hotel and has two horses and a carriage with thim, increasing costs, but a normal person with no income will struggle to stay too long within the city limits.

The reasons for the ten silver cost this time around is directly because of his map information, five silver for each addition to his map. Getting a detailed map of the city can cost tens of gold as even the most trivial detail will add an additional five silver.

There are of course better or cheaper ways do things but Rak has now knowledge of them, and as is a tourist fate, he’s had to pay. If Rak buys an apartment, earns some reputation with the city and so on the costs of things well go down dramatically. Not to mention there are plenty of opportunities within the city, only one has to find them.

It takes Rak another hour and twenty some minutes just to get to Vikter’s street, where the Ravendus formation workshop is supposed to be. This street is straight and so it takes Rak no effort to find the fabled workshop.

“This is it.”

After confirming he’s found the right place Rak backtracks a few buildings back and pays fifty copper coins to store his carriage and let his horses rest for two hours. Not only is the place cheaper than the hotel before, Rak also doesn't haphazardly pay for an entire day.

Few minutes of fast walking Rak returns to the building in question. Most of the adjacent buildings seem to be workshops as well. Outside the building, one of seven signs reads “Ravendus” in large letters and below it in considerably smaller letters, “formation workshop”. There are six other workshop signs.

“This entire building has seven workshops?”

Inside, the entrance is rather lackluster and there are three things inside. An empty reception desk, there are no items on the desk and there is no chair. Then there are two doors, one normal size door leading to a stairway and one enormous door that leads to heavy duty elevator.

The elevator looks rather intimidating so Rak decides the stairs are good enough.

“Fourth floor.”

On the fourth floor stairway is a simple door just like the one below. Hesitating for a moment Rak decides to knock on the door. A moment passes and just as Rak is about to open the door is swings open, making Rak stumble a step.

“Hello?”

Looking up Rak is met with the face of a ink stained person. The ink has managed to hide the person’s age but their eyes are shimmering with curiosity, not dissimilar to Rak’s horses.

“Hi, there. I’m here to deliver a letter to Kartofel.”

“Kartofel! You got a delivery!”

Shortly another man arrives his face similarly covered in ink smudges only he is discernible in his later forties or early fifties.

“This is from Ung? Why is he sending me a letter?”

“I can answer that. I asked him about magic related jobs and he told me knew a scholar and I took his offer to introduce me. Nice to meet you, I am Abstinence Salvation, you can call be abstinence.”

“So it’s like this. Come in, come in. I am Kartofel Himd. I am a journeyman formation crafter I work here in the Ravendus workshop.”

After sitting down Kartofel opens the envelope which goes through some pleasantries and asks him to help Rak learn about scholarly jobs.

“You haven’t take up any job yet?”

“Not yet, no.”

“That’s good, that makes it easier. There are a few scholarly professions, formation related jobs are mostly supportive jobs, my job is named plate formationist. I draw and engrave formations onto flat surfaces.”

“Hohhh.”

Seeing the genuine interest in Rak’s reaction Kartofel smiled and pushes his chest out a little bit, feel a little proud.

“It’s nothing much but I do make some useful formations for the shop and we sell them to various stores in the city. This allows us to practice our job and at the same time make enough coin to get by.”

Feeling fired up Kartofel suddenly feels motivated to show off.

“Look at this, this is a recovery formation. It has one use and is a bit of a hassle to activate but it can increase constitution recovery by twenty percent and a flat recovery rate of five.”

“Oh? How do you use it?”

“It’s easy, you have to put it on the ground and then sit on it. After you’ve gotten in position you channel energy into from here and here. After the energy reaches this and this point it activates automatically. It takes about fifteen seconds to activate and lasts for two minutes.”

The formation has been draw in ink on a large scroll about the size of a poster. On it is a symbol with unknown meaning and then there are two circular points with lines leading into the symbol, these are where people channel energy into the formation.

“Are all formations like this?”

“No no. This is just a consumable formation, there are also reusable formations or smaller formations like talismans but those are far more detailed and difficult to create. There are also large scale formations like the ones all around Trove’s mystic wood, but that is a natural formation and not something made my man.”

With the subject of formations Kartofel has no issue chatting Rak’s ear off. It's not until Kartofel’s coworker awkwardly arrives in the break room that he snaps out of it. There are already four different formations on the table, all something Kartofel quickly sketched out for Rak’s benefit. Of course Raks can’t make out how these formations are made but their effect has been curious.

From what Kartofel says, most of their income comes from their recovery formations and explosive formation. The explosive formation is one time explosion that can used like dynamite or a even as a something like a landmine. There is also simpler formations that do things like heat or cool a room.

In the end of the day formation crafting is one of the support occupations that can become a main profession rather easily. From becoming a spendthrift and wantomly throw out talisman as a form to attack to setting up meticulous formations to guard an area, these things are all possible.

“How about other scholarly jobs? Do you have a mage ob as well?”

“Mmm. I am an Interim mage. I have no specializations at the moment but in the future I’m thinking about going towards nature or light affinity magic.”

Kartofel has a serious expression as these things have great impact in the future and can’t be taken lightly. It is not possible to directly walk to a light affinity mage and ask for a job advancement quest but practicing light affinity abilities and staying in light affinity areas might trigger a response.

“Where did you get your jobs?”

“I randomly received my formation job after reading a introduction to formations book. Later on when I was studying in the library I suddenly got my mage advancement quest. At that point i was already an Interim plate formationist.”

“You just received the quest?”

“Yes.”

“This isn’t all that helpful but it does match what dad told me. People really do just receive these job quests at random.”

Seeing Rak’s pensive expression Kartofel sat back in his chair and patiently waited.

“Does that mean I should just head to the library and look for some magic books and hope for the best?”

After a moment Rak came to and focused his gaze on Kartofel again.

“Thank you for all the help, Kartofel, I am in your debt.”

With a cheerful laughter Kartofel shook his head.

“What debt? Isn’t it just a conversation? Hows this, if you need any formations in the future you can come buy them from me.”

“Of course. These formations have opened up my eyes.”

“Good!”

Kartofel is genuinely happy to educate people of the greatness of formations, like a nerd sharing his hobby, always happy to find someone to drown with their spit.

After some pleasantries Rak is already out on the streets again heading to the library with the intent of searching for magic related books and perhaps browsing some support jobs like a merchant and what variations of the job there are.