Beautiful customer

To earn money, Aren didn't have many ways. Other than being an adventurer, he didn't have any jobs. He did had thoughts of selling his blood to the headmaster, but he quickly threw that idea out of his mind. That man was very weird, it was best if he stayed away from him.

Among the people who pursue power, a mage's path was the most expensive.

Aren thought for half an hour and when he finally couldn't find another way to earn money, he decided that he should focus learning enchanting.

If he could at least enchant items worth ten golds in a day, then he could make five hundred golds in one and half month. But he didn't know how long he'd need to learn enchantment to do basic or grade 0 enchantment.

He then made a plan after thinking through everything. First, he'd learn other spells until he could do basic enchantment. Only after he started to make money would he start learning the spell model of lesser divination.

...

For the next thirty days, Aren committed himself to the harsh training of Claude. Even with his vast spirit and memory capacity, learning various complicated arrays to a took great toll on him.

Enchanment was not costly, but it certainly was the most difficult one, out of the three auxiliary subjects. To enchant an apprentice level fireball spell in a scroll, he would have to imbue two times more spirit in it than when the spell was casted. So making 10-12 enchanted scrolls in a day was his limit.

Aren put down the brush he was holding and looked at the bundle of scrolls by his side. Counting them, there were exactly twenty seven of them. Actually there were 29 of them but Aren had used two to test their power and the effects were great. They were even better than the ones made by Rahil. It seemed that he had a knack for enchanting.

Even though he just started doing enchantment three days ago he could already make 7-8 of them in a day.

Now he just needed to sell them somewhere for a good price. He had asked Rahil about this and the answer he got was magicwoods market. Toady he and Rahil would go to the market to set up his stall in apprentice market area. But before that...

Aren looked at his appearance in the mirror, long hair, dull eyes due to not sleeping and his thin body. He looked like a street beggar now.

Aren stretched his two fingers and everything in the messy room became orderly.

Mage hand.

In that month except for learning enchantment, he had also managed to learn two auxilary spells. One was the mage hand, which he just used and another was haste. For a typical apprentice with green ring aptitude, it would take whole two months to learn two auxiliary spells and that was without adding enchantment.

But Aren was different. As a previous Programmer, he could pull all nighters for a whole week with only two hours of sleep, if situation demanded.

After cleaning himself up and putting on a new uniform, he got outside with the scrolls in his hands. Rahil was already waiting outside wearing a leather bag.

"Put the scrolls in here." he said, pulling the mouth of the bag open.

After Aren did as he was told to, they went outside the Acadmey compounds.

Walking on the familiar narrow path of the magicwoods district, towards the market area; Aren saw the lives of people here, which was completely different from the outside world.

Here, everthing was magical. Carriages which ran without horses, Mages being teleported in random streets from other districts and various magical beasts performing was a common sight in this place.

Rahil brought Aren to the central area of the district. The place was more crowded than other places because of the presence of the market. Looking around, Aren noticed that he could recognise the place they were in; it was not much farther than than the place he and Cowen first came.

"Lets go, the area designated for apprentinces isn't here." Rahil clearly seemed to be familiar with the path they'd have to take to reach the marketplace for apprentices. Threading through the thick crowd of mages and apprentices, he led Aren to a bazaar of stalls.

The vendors there were all apprentices, with most of them being alchemists. There were enchanters too but not as many as alchemist apprentices. As for craftsmen, they were rarely seen.

In the whole bazaar, Aren only found two stalls of magical crafters which were naturally deserted; not because the goods displaced were not good enough but they were too expensive. Even the lowest priced item cost most than 300 golds. That was enough to scare away the poor apprentices and the rich had their own channels to get the magical items.

As Aren browsed through the various stalls, he was brought to a small booth by Rahil.

"You have to get permission from the supervisor if you are to set up a stall in this place." Rahil softly said to Aren, while looking at the rank one mage sitting there.

After he paid two golds to buy a permit order, Aren was free to set up his stall in any area that has not been already claimed another apprentice.

After thinking for a while, he chose to set up his stall near the entrance. He put the scrolls he brought in Rahil's bag on dispaly. He also put up a sign board stating 'selling enchanted magic scrolls' at a side.

As for the prices, he priced scrolls of every elements enchanted with apprentice level spell at 1 gold coin for each. But for the summoning scrolls and illusion magic scrolls, they were priced at 2 golds for each. It was a pity though, as he couldn't enchant divination scrolls and forbidden scrolls with his level of enchanting. Even for apprentice level spells, he would have to learn enchantment for at least two months for those two magics.

As there was a new stall setup, some interested customers would come to see from time to time but would quickly leave shaking their heads. The stall should first gain a bit of fame before the seller could price his goods this high.

They couldn't understand why Aren would foolishly price his scrolls at the ridiculously high price of a gold coin. Everyone knew that enchanted scrolls only cost at most 80 silvers.

Aren could understand what they were thinking when they left shaking their heads but he knew that his scrolls were special.

However, after three hours passed and he could only sell two scrolls, he determined that his prices might really be a bit too high. He was a little regretful too; if only he had learned the spell bestow fortune/ misfortune, he could bestow fortune to himself and... but an apprentice level spell might not have that much of an effect...

"I want a fire magic scroll." At this moment, a girl came to his stall and pointed at the scroll displayed on the center.

Aren looked at his customer who was first to by an elemental magic scroll and was stunned.

What a beauty!

The girl was simply too beautiful to be true. She looked to be about 16-17 years old, having blond hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a spotlessly white robe which tightly hugged her slim figure. Her skin was milky white and delicate, like that of a baby's. Those long eyelashes and the rosy lips which could capture the attention any man, further accentuated her charming face.

Looking at the girl, Aren was definitely convinced that she had an ''innocent sheltered princess'' type of aura.

"Hello...umm... that scroll." As the girl only got a long stare from this seller, she once again spoke up which seemed to have awoken Aren from his reverie.

"Oh yes, here you go."

As he passed the scroll to her, the girl simply paid a gold without complaining, unlike other customers. Then without another word, she left quickly but her attempts at not attracting any attention were in vain.

The moment she appeared in his stall, everyone's eyes were practically glued onto her.

When she left, there were already some other vendors selling enchanted scrolls, looking at his direction in resentment. How dare he sell a cheap scroll for a gold coin and to a beauty too! This scammer!

Even though several other enchanters were showing hostility, he was very calm. No matter how much they stare at him, they can't do anything else to him or the supervisor would surely punish these violators of the law.

After that, there were no customers that came to his shop. It seemed that some jealous enchanters were selling their goods for lower price than usual. They were definitely not letting this scammer to sell his scrolls here. If only that beautiful girl came to their shop, they would even give all of their scrolls for free...

However, their plan didn't go as they had expected as when the sun was about to set and Aren was about pack his scrolls for the day, that beautiful girl again came to his shop. She didn't even bother looking at the scrolls on other stalls no matter how other vendors shouted. It was as if she only came to buy his scrolls.

This time she took all of the scrolls Aren had, at the price he stated and even asked if he would be there tommorow. That made other vendors very angry to the point that veins were about to pop out of their skin.

'Is this girl trying to help me or kill me?' Aren thought, looking at her fading figure in the market.