Growing 6

Explaining to Willow where he got all the bricks was a pain. He ended up just telling her the truth, a truth she wasn't pleased to hear at all.

There were a fair amount of tears shed, but Lux thought he might as well have gotten it out of the way now so his mother wouldn't be surprised next time he brings some weird shit home.

After spending a good hour or two convincing Willow that I wasn't going into the mountains to kill myself, but to practice magic, she slowly but surely came through.

But that never meant she liked it, far from it. She wanted to have Barend accompany him when he was going into the mountains from now on, and while that was a fair request, Lux couldn't have a fake mage there while he used true magic.

That'd end up with him having to either tell Barend the truth about magic, or risk having the Mage Association called on his ass.

Although she wasn't the most competent mage out there, Barend still managed to graduate from one of the Griffon Kingdoms lesser academies, and in turn being a part of the mage association. A group that would probably do anything to get their hands on Lux's knowledge.

So sadly, to keep his mother happy he'll have to let Barend accompany him once in a while.

With that hurdle passed, Lux could get to selling all of his bricks. Which is more of a pain than you'd expect.

The merchant caravans are pulled by horses, and that means that as much as they might want to, they can only buy a limited amount from him before the weight becomes too much for the horses to bear.

Adding the space that the bricks would take up on the caravan, they'd be forced to take a limited amount to allow space for the rest of their items.

And that wasn't even the worst part. The fact that he was a child made it difficult for people to take him seriously, and after multiple failed attempts to bargain with them himself. Lux had the bright idea to bring Barend along with him to negotiate a price.

Thankfully she never asked for a cut, and helped him out of the goodness of her heart. Definitely not because she loved to flaunt her Mage status around in their face and watch the unit price rise astronomically as the merchants fought each other to curry favour with her.

'Filthy stinkin arse lickers man' Lux thought of the scene unfolding in front of him.

It made him wish that that his body would hurry up are grow so he could refine the utter fuck out his mana core without his body exploding.

To a common person, a mage is an awe inspiring existence. Causing many to flock to their sides in hope that they would gain the benefits of being associated with one. For merchants, they're mostly in it in hopes they might get a Mage escort for their goods, or in rarer cases someone to contact when their health takes a turn for the worse.

For both things, they'd expect it to come at a cheaper price since they were doing it for a 'friend'.

Selling the bricks took up the entirety of the days leading up to the darkest day festival, and even though Lux managed to sell more than expected, he still had plenty left over that he'd no doubt be selling at the Spring festival next time it comes by.

Now though, he was checking out the stalls in the bustling festival market with Willow. With a substantial sum of money gained over the past few days, he managed to convince his mother to expand the plot of land they owned to make space for more cattle.

Of course, he would have to tend to their upkeep, unless he wanted to pay someone else to do it, but that's not a problem.

Why you might ask?

Meat.

Well, that's about ninety percent of the reason why.

Lux has hardly ever had meat since he came to this world, those few times being on festival days such as today, and even then it was limited to a skewer or two. All the meat they earn from slaughtering the cattle gets sold since it goes for a lot.

But poverty is now over for the Lux and Willow household. There will be meat! And lots of it!

He might even see if there's any good spices for sale so he can cook himself and Willow some food that actually has some semblance of flavour.

For a relatively lesser reason, Lux wants to attempt to create magical beasts by attempting to awaken their mana cores. Since his lab does have any wards placed, it at least needs a guard dog.

The reason why he doesn't just catch an animal in the forest and try to turn it into a magical beast is because he'd have to effectively prison said animal until it turns.

Therein lies the problem, magical beasts are intelligent and he's got no idea if the newly turned magical beast would recall it's previous existence, but if it does, he doubts it would harbour positive feelings to its warden.

With farm animals this shouldn't be a problem. For a start, they are domesticated animals so they don't have a problem with humans, nor should they hold any negative feelings towards him for keeping them on the farm, where they are well fed and looked after.

Plus testing on the farm animals is more convenient since he'd be able to check on their process without having to run into the mountains.

Catching sight of an unusually wide stall that was selling farm animals, Lux dragged Willow over to inquire about the prices, while he inspected the animals.

The stall had quite the selection of animals for potential buyers. The merchant was selling everything from Mogar's cow variant that shared many similarities with his homelands' highland cows, to strong, well fed horses that would've been perfect for a well off family.

When his mother came over after getting the prices, the two of them picked out the best looking animals they could find. Splurging quite an amount, they ended up claiming ownership of: ten of the excessively hairy cows, five goats for the milk, five pigs that would either become magical beasts or become dinner, and four sheep so that we could have wool to make warmer clothes and blankets for the winter.

It pained Lux to see a huge chunk of his newly acquired wealth go into the pocket of the cattle rearing merchant, but he knew that it was worth it. Also knowing that he could easily earn the money back at the next festival softened the blow.

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