104

The market was as full as ever. The double ascent had caused this to burst in recent years. It was normal to see traffic jams, and the queues to enter the paintings were not few. Luckily, Adam was not lacking in money, and he could go to the most expensive candy store in the entire market just so he wouldn't have to waste time in line.

On the way, there were not a few people who looked at the gray robed children with suspicious glances. But the guards were not worried: they had known Adam for a long time, so they were more worried about the outsiders who came coveting to participate in the war of the middle 4 floor shelves.

While the bookshelves that controlled this area could solve the problems caused by the greed of the librarians, it was annoying for them to do so and many times they ended up ignoring their rules if so many librarians were crowded into a hex. That's why there were guards on floors with a high population of librarians, plus being a guard should have some secret benefits that Adam didn't know about.

Swimming through the sea of ​​people, Adam was finally able to find the store he was looking for, luckily there wasn't much of a queue and after waiting a bit he was able to enter the painting of the candy store.

The store seemed to be made of brown wood and very finely decorated, since there weren't many children. Their real business was pastry making and selling chocolates and bills, but there were also sweets in various barrels scattered around the store.

The store had two parts, the reception area for customers and the kitchen area where food was prepared, but the aroma of rich cakes cooking always filled the reception area, encouraging customers to overbuy. There were counters everywhere stocking: cakes, bills, chocolates, and sweets.

Adam knew this store from his childhood, he used to come looking for something that didn't taste like cave mushrooms, when the monotonous taste bored him. As Adam entered, a reception greeting was heard from the back of the store:

—Dear customer, welcome to Don Pastore's patisserie. What do you want to celebrate this time?

Then a fat man with brown hair came out of the kitchen area. The man was dressed in a slightly stained black robe and a pastry chef's hat. The pastry chef had a kind look and a very neat and careful black English-style mustache on his mouth. Noticing Adam, Pastore with a smile said:

—But if it's Adam, I haven't seen you in my store for a long time, boy, don't tell me that I'm finally going to bake you a cake as a gift for having obtained the black robe.

Adam's face was full of embarrassment, he couldn't believe that he really remembered his name, he didn't remember the name of the store owner. What Adam didn't know was that there weren't many kids on these floors, and the few that were there couldn't buy candy as often as Adam did, so it was easy for Don Pastore to recognize him. (Besides him being a redhead, there weren't that many redheads on these floors)

—No, but it won't be long, it's not the time to celebrate yet—Adam answered sadly, he knew that the tradition of librarians was to buy gifts for themselves every time they reached some important goal in their lives—But I came to buy sweets for my distant descendants

—I see, you can take what you want—the pastry chef answered with a friendly smile—take one of those boxes and fill them with the sweets you want.

The baker pointed to some not-so-large square boxes containing several glass jars, customers were supposed to take a single jar, but the baker knew that Adam just took a jar box full of candy every time he came.

Adam remembering the past took three boxes and gave one box to the two children, the box contained space for nine jars, for Adam it was easy to carry the full box, but for the children it could be a bit complicated, but for the sweets they would do

—Can we put whatever we want?—Hermes asked, looking at the barrels full of sweets all over the shop.

—Yes, yes—Adam replied, proceeding to look for his favorite candies —I'll also take a box, so just take what you want and put it in the jar—

Adam hadn't been here in a while, so he was kind of excited, maybe seeing the kids running around the store like crazy, but he really felt like he was back in a happier past as he walked through the barrel-filled aisles with sweets.