117. Puffles’ Appetite

"Is this really alright?" the half-elf tucked below his arm asked, as Seth left the lowest layer of the commercial district. Even with <Map> and after having walked this way three times it was hard to orient in his anthill-like maze of tunnels.

"Oh, sure. I think? Maybe you should not leave the shop when you are alone." Seth sighed.

"It´s probably too late to order that new forge today, right?"

Marn blinked a few times until he understood what his employer meant. "Ah, yes, I guess."

Seth put the elf down when they were back in the workshop and went to the smithy to put handles on and finish the weapons. He wanted them on the shelves tomorrow.

The next day he brought Fin and Puffles with him to the smithy. He had asked Fin to accompany Marn on his way to the dwarven shop. She also urged him to show her his shop. Although the front was unimpressive, she complimented him on the interior and the appearance of his clerk. This made Marn, the clerk in question, blush wildly.

Puffles on the other hand had asked to accompany Seth to his workshop. The Ivicer had suddenly stopped his meditation and asked to watch him work. He had often watched Seth making items, while they were on the airship. Maybe he was interested to see the difference when he worked in a normal smithy?

Seth started working after the fairy and the elf left and Puffles sat on a table in the back. He had just finished a blade when he heard an odd clatter in the background. It was different from Cerberus punching scales. When he turned around, he saw the small Ivicer rummaging in the pile scraps that were left from the golems work.

"What are you looking for?" the Ivicer flinched when he heard Seth asking from behind. He had been caught!

Kyu-Kyuu-Kyuurg!

~T-The great me has nothing to hide! No! I simply inspected the...the quality of your materials! Yes! ~

"I see. Nothing to hide. Then" Seth bowed down and picked up one of the scraps. "... why is there a bitemark on this?"

Kyuu Kyurg.

~ I- I have no idea! ~

"Come on Puffles, the Mighty." he said and picked him up from the ground. The Ivicer had grown quite a lot now and it was hard to simply cradle him like back then. "You can tell me e~verything. Are we not partners? I want to help you. I can´t help you if you don´t tell me. Come on, tell me! Let me help you." he kept whispering to the young Ivicer.

Kyuu.... kyurh kyu!

~A-Alright, the mighty me shall allow you to help me. I need specific metals for my development but I simply can´t find them in your shop. I tried tasting some, but they are not the right stuff. ~

"You want to eat other materials? Does that mean you can make threads from different materials?!" Seth guessed immediately. Puffles had tried to hide this, since he knew, that Seth would start to stuff him with materials again, to get even more thread.

There was nothing bad about this, but making thread all day long was really boring! He was a great Ivicer, a divine being. It did not seem right that he had to spend his time making materials for a blacksmith, even if he was his partner. He could no longer withstand Seth´s stare and nodded.

"That's great! Hmm, let´s try the ones I have with me first." Seth actually had not that many metals in his possession. There was gold, silver, high-quality steel, ancient bronze, dark steel, and a pinky-size piece of mithril.

Seth was still looking into his inventory to see, whether he had picked up any other metals. When he looked back on the table, the little stick of mithril was missing.

"Didn´t I already take out the mithril?" he looked back in his inventory, but could not find it. Then he heard the nibble. On the ground was Puffles and he looked just in time to see the rest of his mithril vanish into the Ivicer's mouth!

"You-!" he was about to get angry, when he remembered, that he was able to simply buy more here in Ora. Well, "simply" as in, for a lot of money.

Kyuuu...

~I´m sorry. I couldn´t stop myself. It´s similar to how you react to sweets...~

He sighed.

"At least we already found one thing you want to eat. How many do you need? Is it like ancient bronze, or is It an alloy with more components?"

The caterpillar thought for a moment.

Kyu- Kyu- Kyu

~ Three~

"Then we could go shopping," he suggested. They closed shop and left. The material market had its own square in the commercial district. Surrounding the square were specialized shops where you could order specific material in all kinds of quantities. Unfortunately, few of these were not fit for window shopping where you could see a lot of different things.

So instead, they entered the market, a kind of bazaar. Here anyone could open a stall for a small fee and sell anything that could be judged as material. Most of the people here were Adventurers selling monster products like bones, scales, and organs. But they often also had weird minerals or rocks and drops from monsters like stone giants.

Seeing the chaotic scenes of stalls that ranged from actual structures to simple blankets on the ground, Seth had a bad premonition.

"Puff. If you want something, tell me. Don't. I repeat don't just eat something without telling me. Did you understand?" he told the big caterpillar with a menacing aura. Puffles could only nod. They had crossed about half the bazaar when the Ivicer suddenly stopped.

It was a blanket filled with all kinds of rocks or ores that showed some sparkling inclusions. Puffles stopped there as if spellbound by this rock. Seth actually recalled it into the pet space so it wouldn´t swallow the stone without warning.

"hehe, you pet seemed quite interested in my wares." the street vendor said with a crafty smile. Seth had a feeling, that this stone would not be cheap. He looked at the stone with <Blacksmih´s Eyes>

<Serenum Ore, Crafting material, Rare

The ore of serenum, a golden metal that has a good affinity with light and fire. Often called the sun gold it can lead to mysterious effects when used in jewelry. Can be refined to Serenum>

Similar to gold, it was a soft material fit for jewelry.

"How much?" he asked out of politeness. If it was too much he would-

"2 gold, hehe!" the vendor said rubbing his hand.

"Have a nice day," he said and simply left. It was a good thing he was able to stop the Ivicer from simply swallowing that ore. Even if it was rated rare, 2 gold for a barely fist-sized piece of ore was way too much.

"Ah! Hey, wait! This is a really good deal! This ore is very rare, you know? You probably won´t find any more of it anywhere on this bazaar." the man called out to him.

"Oh really? Then how about I go to one of the stores and ask for Serenum. Are you saying they won´t have any?" Seth asked interested. Maybe the man was saying the truth, I explained why they had looked through half the bazaar without finding anything. In Seth´s opinion, there were two reasons why there was no Serenum on the market. Yes, it might be so rare that few people sold it. Or it was so plentiful and cheap, that people did not bother selling it in a stall. They could simply sell it to the stores and save their time.

Judging by the heavy sweat on the man´s forehead when he mentioned the actual name of the metal, it was the latter. At least, the vendor was not telling the whole truth, that was for sure.

"Ngh. O-Okay. 20 silver." the vendor said begrudgingly. This was a 90% decrease!

"10 silver. No more." Seth said mercilessly. The man almost started crying but accepted the trade. Who would believe his poor act, this man had probably still made a profit.

"Here." Seth gave the piece of ore to the Ivicer after summoning it again. The caterpillar greedily gobbled it up. After confirming that this was the second of three ingredients they kept going. They hoped to find the third ingredient, too.

They had searched the whole market, but they were out of luck. Puffles had not found the third material, yet. They were still not out of options; they could still take a look at the stores in the vicinity. Although only a few displayed the materials, Seth had to visit them anyways to ask for mithril and serenum. The latter was not as rare and cheap as Seth had expected, but it was far from the price of the mithril.

They started window-shopping in the different shops and asked to see samples. Some shops would not, but many did actually have a small collection of samples to show to customers. It was a measure they implemented especially for a blacksmith that looked for fitting materials. As expected from a place that valued blacksmiths highly.

It was the 7th shop, when Puffles finally reacted. It was not one of the samples shown to them, but a reddish stone in a tray on the counter that caught the Ivicers attention.

< Dusk Ore, Crafting Material, Uncommon,

The ore of the dusk iron. An extremely hard and brittle metal that is hard to refine because of its high melting point. Can be refined to dusk iron>

"Do you sell this, too? Dusk iron?" Seth asked curiously pointing at the stone.

"Oh that, no." the owner said with an embarrassed laugh. "it´s not very sought after and hard to refine, so we don´t have a regular stock of it. This was sold by a customer this morning." as if he saw a chance to get rid of a dead article he continued talking.

"Are you interested? It´s not much, but I have another box in the back. If you take it all, I can give you a good price."

Seth agreed and got a whole box of 20 more or less fist-sized rocks for the paltry sum of 1 silver. It was really dirt cheap for an uncommon material. This gave Seth an idea. As they kept looking for the cheapest price for mithril, he also kept asking for the <Dusk Iron> and was able to collect 2 whole stacks of <Dusk Ore>for less than he had paid for the <Serenum Ore>

Before they left the market Seth bought twenty ingots of each of the others, paying a whopping 80 gold for the mithril and 18 gold for the serenum. These bars were each big enough to make a short sword out of and Seth really hoped the Ivicer would not need to eat all of it.