The Itinerant Merchant

Yale followed the young merchant until the latter decided to set a camp when the sky turned dark.

In the distance, Yale changed his clothes by ones more luxurious, which he found in one of his spatial artifacts.

After waiting some time, Yale asked Wyba to dissipate the Body Illusion and started to walk towards the camp.

"Who is there?"

The merchant stood up when he heard someone near his camp.

"I don't have bad intentions. I only want to ask some questions."

Yale wanted to avoid having any conflict with the merchant, Yale didn't doubt that he would beat him in battle, but he wanted information, not beating the merchant.

"Why asking me?"

The merchant didn't detect any lie in Yale's words.

"Because you are the first one that I feel that will be able to reply to my questions."

The merchant still didn't sense any lie in Yale's words, but he wouldn't trust Yale with only those few words.

"Why do you approach someone you don't know to ask some questions? You should wait until going back with someone that has some relation to you."

The conversation was going just to where Yale wanted.

"Because I have no other way. I know that I have planned to come here in the past, but I forgot the reasons, and I don't even know where I am right now. She is the only one I know here, and obviously, she doesn't know the answers to my questions."

Yale pointed at Wyba, who was on his head while saying his last words.

The merchant didn't know how to reply because Yale's words were all true; he even started to feel pity towards Yale as he was treating a beast as a person. The merchant thought that Yale had been alone for too much time.

However, as a merchant, he wouldn't say those words as they could offend the other party.

That was something important to remember while being an itinerant merchant; one should avoid offending others because they could be potential trade partners in the future. After all, making enemies wasn't the best method to increase his wealth unless he was so powerful that he didn't care about enemies, which wasn't the case.

Furthermore, he could sense that the other party was at the same level as him, as long as Yale had no bad intentions towards him, the merchant would also choose to avoid the conflict.

"You seem to be telling the truth. Given the situation, I understand why you are looking for some answers. Alright, for this time I will answer for free, I will feel bad if I ask money for answering questions to someone with amnesia."

Usually, as a merchant, he would charge with money or valuables for answering any questions others asked to him, but as he felt pity for Yale, he decided to do it for free. The merchant wanted to increase his wealth, but he wasn't as desperate to use someone in Yale's situation to that, he still had some morals.

"I can only make guesses about your reason to be here, but you are in the Zuatania Republic, near Trade City, the best commercial city of the republic. You really have forgotten even that?"

Yale nodded his head.

"I remember about Zuatania, but I don't remember anything about a Trade City. I also remember about a merchant association."

The merchant laughed after hearing Yale's words.

"I traveled a lot, but this is the first time I find someone like you. You should look for a healer to treat your memory issues later, but it will be expensive. Trade City isn't a place for poor people, and there isn't any other place near when you can find a good healer."

Yale remembered the people in the village. They indeed seemed poor. Probably for them, living in Trade City was a dream that would never come true without external help.

"I am not surprised that you remember about the merchant association. If my guesses are correct, your reason to be here is the same as mine. It would be weird if you can forget about that because it is something on which we bet our lives."

Yale was hearing the merchant with attention; the explanation was reaching the point he wanted to hear.

"Our republic has a serious lack of good practicing methods, and obtaining a personal teacher is extremely expensive, only the extremely rich ones can reach the Rank 1, and that is only thanks to the Zuatania Merchant Association! They have hired a lot of experts in different areas, as long as you have enough money to pay, you can learn anything. Without them, even with wealth, it would be impossible to improve, and our republic would be doomed to decline. The best part is that you even have the chance to be employed by them after turning strong. That is my dream."

The merchant guy seemed excited, saying those words. It was clear how important the merchant association was to him and probably to everyone who wanted to become strong.

However, Yale suspected that the Zuatania Merchant Association was the main reason for the lack of practice methods and teachers because they monopolized them to obtain more wealth and power.

"However, the best isn't the teachers. At our age, even with them, we wouldn't be able to reach Rank 1 before sixteen."

The merchant thought that Yale was of his same age due to Yale's external appearance, and thus, he thought both were in the same situation.

"The merchant association is the only place in the whole continent that sells the Apprentice Pill! A miraculous pill capable of boosting the practice level of anyone who hasn't reached the Rank 1!"

Yale wasn't sure that his objective was that pill. He really needed to advance quickly, but he didn't feel confident in pills because his Origin Qi was different from other sources of energy, even though in the outside seemed the same.

However, as pills couldn't be conserved for a long time like weapons without losing efficiency, it made sense that such a pill wasn't stored into the Special Realm, and his previous life planned a way to obtaining it afterward.

"I am working as an itinerant merchant to being able to buy one of those. My family used almost all our wealth to buy a spatial artifact giving me the chance of commerce with the small villages of the grasslands. You should also be working to obtain an Apprentice Pill. That is the main reason people like us are here, in these grasslands."

Yale felt envy of the merchant's family. They sacrificed almost all their wealth to give him a chance. On the other hand, one of Yale's two families ignored him while the other had a faction who wanted him dead due to his mother.

"I can't say that it isn't the reason, but I am not sure either. Anyway, thank you for the information."

The merchant had explained a lot of details to Yale when even a short answer would have been enough, so Yale was thankful to him.

"I don't know if you have enough money with you to pay it, but after I return to Trade City, I can guide you to a famous healer to try to recover your memories."

Those words touched Yale. He didn't expect that the other party would worry that much about him, given that they had just met.

The truth was that the merchant felt that Yale's situation was too pitiful, and he also thought that he wouldn't do it any better if he had lost his memories, so as long as it wasn't a big effort, he chose to help him to find a good healer.

"Probably, finding a healer is a waste of time, I doubt a healer would be able to help me recover my memories."

Yale didn't want that the other party made the effort of looking for a healer for a task that Yale considered almost impossible.

"How can you be that sure? Have you asked a healer to try it before?"

The merchant didn't understand why Yale was refusing to go to visit a healer.

"No, but I also know some healing magic, and my memories are not that easy to recover. I recovered a bit of my lost memory before, but I almost died in the process. I feel that recovering them isn't only difficult but also dangerous, so I am alright without those memories for now."

The merchant was shocked at Yale's words because healers were also scarce in the Zuatania Republic. Even if Yale wasn't extremely proficient in it, the chances of making a great profit from the villages were extremely high.

"Are you serious? You know healing magic?"

"Indeed. It isn't my specialty, but I am able to use a bit of healing magic."

The merchant thought a bit before continue speaking; he decided to make a bet.

"What do you think about traveling together? With your healing capabilities, you can make a lot of profit, but with you lack common knowledge due to your memory issue, I doubt you will be able to do it alone. If we go together, we can gather enough money to buy two Apprentice Pills. This way, you won't need to worry about negotiating the fees. That is my specialty."

Healing was one of the best professions in the Zuatania Republic. The only bad part was that not everyone could train that magic. After Yale said he could heal, the merchant decided to bet that together they would make more money than alone.