043 Rinlin's Guest

Nico returned to the rooftop of Killo's Restaurant Inn the following night. He inspected his surrounding carefully with Minko's new enhanced power.

From the vast sky to the building cementitious rooftop, Nico could see the shadows symbols and manalines floating everywhere.

Nico watched the wind shadow symbols move through a regular potted plant. The slow moving shadow symbols floated toward the plant. As the symbols floated through, it slowed down ever so slightly. After another moment, the symbol floated out.

Nico was entranced by the particularly of the shadow symbols movement.

Nico swam toward the Karkardo egg, nesting next to the potted plant. Again, Nico carefully watched the movement of the symbol shadows. The shadow symbols moved into the egg, some converted into manalines, some stayed and some passed through.

Nico had already known that the Karkardo egg were capable of absorbing shadow symbols. The particularly that occurred in the potted plant, also occurred in the Karkardo egg.

Nico had always assumed that the shadow symbols were floating and weaving freely around the space and the objects. However, on closer inspection, they weren't moving as freely as he had initially assumed, they were moving through distinct routes. It was like the world was made up of a complex system of vessels, nerves and meridians.

Although he could not see them, he knew they existed.

Nico read through the Accessory Enhanced Inspection again. The hundred pages of texts were not simple to understand, but he had a better understanding of it now then he did before.

The system defined an accessory as an object that could be worn and used by the wearer such as ring, bracelet, necklace and earring. Since the recipe was for an enhancement, the object must be a manafied object in order for the recipe to work. Manacores were not accessories and even if he had Pesticide, he wouldn't use it to experiment with.

Nico had no choice but to spend 40 gold pieces on a sound crystal pendant.

Nico took out a sound crystal pendant he bought from the Fenrir Shop. According to Manager Bosin, the sound crystal pendant could record sounds for 2 minutes. He simply had to activate it with spirit force or aura.

Nico stared at the flat round crystal, like an enlarged and green opaque poker chip. It had two distinct sides, the front was inscribed with the Kelseran word, "record" and the back had the word "play." There was a tiny manacore within the pendant.

As Minko, Nico activated the crystal from the "record." Suddenly, a large ring dispersed from the crystal. Within the large ring, vibration shadows gathered within the crystal. After two minutes, it stopped.

Nico activated the play button, but there were barely any sound.

Nico activated the crystal again and recorded his voice. "Hello? Testing. 1, 2, 3."

Nico played the recording.

"Hello? Testing. 1, 2, 3," the crystal echoed in Nico's voice.

"Whoa," Nico was slightly amused. "No wonder this thing is so expensive. I guess this would be interesting for the people here."

Nico looked at the Enhanced Inscription recipe box.

"With a manalink, relocate the branch connection from third node to the seventh node. If connection cannot be made, relocate the node to the following three nodes. If the node connection exists in two out of three node, then connect it to..."

Nico was going to receive a headache if he continued reading. This was worse than a computer's troubleshooting manual. Nico painfully explored all the options.

After rereading the inscription recipes, he read through the wand recipe, which was more complex and required many ingredients that were near impossible to find, especially the center core of a manatree.

He studied until it was dawn.

****

"Ah, this is the life," Rooster sat on the wooden dock by the watermill.

His fishing pole jutted out along the side with its fishing line moving along with the flow of the river. An amateur fisherman would wrongly assumed that a fish was biting into it.

Rooster enjoyed the fresh spring breeze, slowly warming up by the incoming summer sun. Despite not being a farmer, Rooster quite like the lifestyle.

"Baa! Ba! Baaaaa!"

"God dangnit, those managoats!" Rooster got up and chuck a piece of walk toward their direction.

He would roast them up if he had the chance. They were so needy and always hungry for food! Why did they have to eat so much!

One of them was growing fat.

Rooster left the dock area and refilled the fodder bin. The managoats stopped complaining and enjoyed their meal.

After feeding the manabeast, Rooster returned to his home in the village.

Rooster passed through the market streets on his way from home. The streets were as lively as usual, with vendors shouting for customers.

"Howdy Rooster!" cried the beet vendor. "Fresh beets today! 2 copper pieces for a bushel."

Rooster refused the offer. Nico had enough vegetables in the farm to feed him. Spring vegetables were given to Shirley, Hana and some of the villagers as gift. Rooster harvested the vegetables and distributed them per Nico's request.

Rooster entered the KEU Bank outlet.

"Hey Chatty, anything from the kid today?" Rooster asked.

The little small Bank outlet had three booths, one was for mail.

"Yeah, you have a letter," Chatty replied and flew the letter toward Rooster.

Rooster snatched folded up letter and opened it. "Why the f*** would you name my goats Hairy, Even Hairier, Fatty and Skinny! I'll have you know they are Go-one, Go-two, Go-three, and Go-four."

"What is he complaining about? His names are worse than mine," Rooster waved to Chatty. "Thanks Chatty."

Rooster walked down the streets and headed to the residential district.

"I heard you have a guest waiting near your house!" A street vendor yelled.

Already? Rooster was surprised. He was only waiting for one person.

Rooster returned. In front of the wooden gate was a young man, dressed commonly, although it could not hide his bearing and board shoulder. He straightened up and bowed as he saw Rooster.

"Mah, my! My favorite student!"

"You say that to all your students," the man shrugged. "How are you Sergeant Warick?"

"Why so formal!? If I remember correctly, you're the one that started the name Rooster."

The young man smiled remembering the good old days 15 years ago. Things were different then than it was now. He had changed quite a bit since then.

"What are you waiting for Yuer?" Rooster was already at the footsteps of his small home. "Get inside."

They walked into a house. The small vestibule led into a small living area with a table and four chairs. Yuer sat down on one of the chairs, and Rooster prepared some tea.

"Are you here alone, or with your squadron?" Rooster asked from inside his kitchen.

"My squadron is still stationed in Fort Hendrix. I'm here is Rena and our guards."

"You're married?" asked Rooster. Rooster recalled that Duke Magan's daughter was also named Rena. "Duke Magan's daughter?"

Yuer nodded. "Just recently."

It must had been really recent if the news hadn't spread to Rinlin yet. A duke daughter getting married would have been passed along by the merchants. Yuer likely traveled out as soon as the marriage ceremony was over.

"So this should be your honeymoon. Why are you here?"

Yuer hesitated to answer. "We might stay in Rinlin for a bit."