Luckiest Youth in the Wilderness

Glin left the Valarian residence not long after the trouble. He was lucky that no one saw him beating Dennis' friends otherwise he'd be wronged as the bad guy.

He soon arrived in front of the ingredient store where he planned to sell his eight months of harvest.

The store was big and consisted of two floors. Like most of the big buildings in the city, it was also old, about three hundred years old. The date of its foundation was carved on a black walnut slab, just after its name: "Bartheon Treasures, since 2037 New Mage Era."

There were four known eras used by mages in the continent. The present era is called the "New Mage Era" and has started from year 1. Second is the "Dark Era," lasted for a millennium and ended at year zero; it was the era of turbulence when various powerhouses clashed against each other, ruining the entire continent and left everyone lost. Third is the "Old Mage Era" also known as the "Ancient Era," it started from ten millennia ago to three millennia ago: the era of rapid development of many kingdoms and magic. All before ten millennia ago is in the "Lost Era," no one knows what happened there but every great mage in the present knows that magic at that time is near incomprehensible in the present.

Glin naturally know all of these. He was a nerd and a bookworm when he was younger, always fascinated by anything related to magic. Only to be devastated, discovering that he wasn't born to be a mage.

Glin casually entered the building. The room was peaceful. There were only three people inside, excluding him: a white-haired old man wearing eyeglasses and two silver armor clad guards with blue underclothing and smooth silver helmets with heraldries, each on a corner of the room. It's been long since he last came in here. He went directly to the white-haired old man sitting behind the reception desk.

"Oh, young mister, good morning, what can I do for you?" greeted the old man lively when he noticed the sounds of Glin's shoes approaching. When he looked at Glin, he somehow felt that the latter was familiar, slightly tilting his head. Then he recognized the emblem attached on Glin's shirt: a sword and a sun behind its hilt. "Your hair's too long, I almost not recognize you. Are you here to buy Ember Seeds?"

"Haha… No Old Sir, I'm here to sell rare ingredients." Glin smiled.

The old man was surprised when he heard the youth in front of him. Sell items? Did this kid went out to explore and search for ingredients? He's very young for that but it makes sense, he didn't see him anywhere for a long time.

"You no longer need Ember Seeds?" the old man asked again as he took a big book and a quill.

"Yup, unfortunately," sighed Glin.

Hearing him, the old man suddenly stared at Glin as if analyzing someone's appearance. Soon he said, "so that was it. I was wondering what the hell happened inside the Valarian house."

The old man sighed, feeling pity for Glin.

Glin only smiled and opened his bag, fishing out a few bottles containing rare items inside. The old man was surprised when he saw the items because he thought the youth was not really talking about real "rare ingredients."

"Old Sir, I have here three pieces of Millennium Tree Seed. This is the rarest I have. I was very lucky to find it by accident from a certain bird's feces." He pushed three bottles above the table, each containing a nut-like seed.

"You should thank the Cloud-ruler Falcons. They feed on the fruits of that giant tree. If you didn't find feces of those giant birds, you'll have to travel across the deadly forests extending 6,000 kilometers Southeast, just to get these rare seeds."

"I'm indeed very lucky, hearing that," Glin laughed. "But I wouldn't be so generous, I'm giving you that for twenty golds, no bargain."

Twenty gold coins was already a big sum of money: Every gold coin is a hundred silver, and every silver coin is a hundred copper coins. For something to be sold at this price means it indeed a treasure. Of course, Glin was well aware of this.

Millennium Tree Seeds were used by Beast Tamers to boost the growth of their pets. Feeding a few refined Millennium Tree Seed to a snake beast is basically like 'starting a plan of raising a humongous beast that can destroy Stonewill city in a day'. It can actually speed up growth and increase the chance of evolution of a beast. But of course, knowing its expensiveness and difficulty of gathering, it's not something than can casually be fed to pets.

Twenty golds, but even hearing the youth's words, the old man's eyes still lit up. He quickly took a piece of white cloth and cleaned his eyeglasses before grabbing one bottle from the table. He took out the seed from table and observed it carefully.

Soon, he let out a smile. Then took him just a few glances for the other two bottles of Millennium Tree Seed.

"Deal! Next item," said the old man lively as he listed "3 pcs. Millennium Tree Seeds" on the paper.

Glin smiled. He again took two bottles containing a fluid-like semi-transparent scarlet jelly and gave it to the old man.

"Fire Essence Jelly? You must've been troubled acquiring these." He shook the bottles, observing the bouncy motion of the fluid-like substance inside.

"You can just think of me as the luckiest youth to explore the woods," laughed Glin. "I found it from a not-long-abandoned nest of a Fire Elemental Beast. I never fought those beasts. I'm still young and I don't want to be scorched to death so soon."

They both laughed.

"Give it to me for nine golds each," the old man offered a price first.

"Old Sir, you're so generous, deal!"

The old man quickly wrote a record when he heard Glin. He secretly smiled as if he wasn't really generous. A profit of 1 to 2 golds from each of the item can already be satisfying.

"Red Spirit Berry, seven golds each," three more bottles knocked on the table. Glin was full excitement. He's going rich! When he recalled how Dennis casually dropped these treasures to the ground earlier, he couldn't help ridiculing the fool guy for his ignorance.

The old man nodded without a word. Glin just proceeded with the next item.

"Absorption Crystals, four golds each," Glin took out a slightly bigger bottle containing six hexagonal-shaped glass stones tainted with faint green at the size of his fingertips.

"I can only give you three golds each for these," the old man received the bottle and took the three crystals to his palm.

"Judging from its faint color, these are low-qualities," the old man added disappointedly.

"Alright," Glin didn't mind much of the old man's words he just took another bottle, this time containing a slimy-green liquid. "This is my last one, and it has some kind of rapid growth effect to plants. I don't know a lot about it but it's a blood of some kind of a parasitic beast, a worm-like one. It found it on a rotting corpse of a big Tri-horned Devil Elephant."

The old man took the bottle closer to his face and shook it slightly.

"What was it like?" he asked without turning his glance away from the bottle.

"It had tough white scales," Glin sighed as he recalled something from three days ago.

"As I thought. Kid, your luck is too much!" the old man chuckled.

"Hm? Wait, don't tell me this blood is as good as the Millennium Tree Seeds!" exclaimed Glin with surprise. More money!

"Don't rob me kid! I wasn't talking about that," laughed the old man.

Glin was disappointed right after his excitement; he caressed the back of his head while laughing at himself.

"It was the other thing after all," he murmured.

"How about five golds and fifty silvers?" smiled the old man as he asked.

"Old man, that thing almost killed me! Can you raise the price to even just seven or eight golds? I know that thing has good uses for Potion Masters. Don't try to fool me, I've read hundreds of books and my father is respected Potion Master!" Glin complained loudly. Hearing him, the old man's eyebrows twitched. The two guards also laughed a bit and glanced at the old man.

"Why didn't you give that your father instead?" asked the old man just for his curiosity.

"He won't need it. There are better ones in the Valarian's warehouse."

"Haha, alright, alright, seven golds." The old man was helpless.

"That's a total of 124 golds," the old man finished calculating in the paper and gave it to Glin. Glin glanced at the numbers, feeling chuffed with himself, while the old man took the money.

"Thank you, Old Sir!" he smiled.

"Come again kid!"

When the transaction was completed, Glin hurriedly left Bartheon Treasures. The place regained silence but the two guards were both astonished and envious when they saw the youth left with a heavy gold-filled purse.

"The kid just earned more than five times my annual income as a professional guard," sighed one of the guards.

"Hey William, why don't we become adventurers? We might earn a lot more?" One of the guards said to the other one. But before the other guard could answer, the old man interrupted, "not everyone is very lucky. More than forty percent of the people who explored the Great Woods never returned or as good as dead."

"That kid may be talented, but without magic, he might not be able to do it again," the old man sighed disappointedly.

…

After leaving Bartheon Treasures, Glin soon arrived at a two-story food house. The food house was a newly renovated building, currently on business and one of the best in the city.

When he entered, the first floor was almost overcrowded and boisterous. People were having conversations everywhere. He wouldn't have peace here so he paid 40 copper coins for a table on the second floor.

Meanwhile, the second floor was a bit quiet: there were only elegantly-dressed people having their morning meals and hot tea.

He chose a table near the corner. It was because the second floor was open and one could stare at the rising sun and the outside view of the city, times the warm morning breeze coming from the East.

"Find my place…" murmured Glin. What was he going to do next? He started asking himself again.

"Young sir, your order is here," a beautiful lady with a snow-white complexion, wearing green and white maid uniform, smiled. There were three different dishes in fancy white marble plates, a white marble ewer with golden flowers patters containing water and two cups, one empty and one filled with tea; all of them were floating smoothly in the air beside her hands. She was using magic, Glin could tell because of the glowing white magic circle below the floating dishes…

Magic, the biggest thing Glin was envious of from mages since he learned the truth. After he was astonished by the beautiful lady's casual performance, he shortly sighed and focused on his meal. But, there was something he know he can't remember completely…