Thomas curiously followed behind Snowlily as she led him through the streets of the city. Every now and then she would lift her head and sniff the air before deciding which direction to go next. As they walked, Thomas started to wonder if she was leading him to another jewelry store that would have more Frozenite Ore. He highly doubted that it was a coincidence that the belt she had picked for her collar just happened to have ore embedded in it that would amplify her ice magic. She had deliberately found and picked out something that would make her a little bit stronger. He wondered if she was doing it again.

As he followed her they eventually found their way to a part of the city that wasn't as crowded with people and shops. She came to a stop in front of a small somewhat rundown building and sat down with her tail wagging. Thomas looked at the building and grinned at the sign over the door, 'Remald's Restaurant'. She'd searched the city for a place to eat. He wasn't the least bit surprised that she'd picked food. She seemed to like good food as much as he did so he had no complaints at all at her picking a random place to eat. He had implicit trust in her nose!

They entered the restaurant together and picked a table to sit at. A polite young waitress came over and handed Thomas a menu. He flipped through it and smiled at the listed options. This place served both monster meat, regular animal meat, and a variety of sides. Thomas flipped through the menu before placing an order, "We'll have two of the fishman tempura, two minotaur filets cooked medium rare, two of the mixed vegetable sides, an ale, and a glass of water."

Snowlily huffed when he ordered the vegetables but didn't offer any other complaints during the order. It had been a while since Thomas had anything deep-fried and the fishman tempura sounded rather nice. He'd had minotaur steaks before but not the filet. He was curious about it and hoped it was as delicious as it sounded. He was also slightly tired of pork products so a nice change of flavor was in order.

It didn't take long before their table was piled with food. The chef was extremely generous with the portions. The fishmen tempura was large and the platter held half a dozen pieces for each order. The minotaur filets were the size of porterhouse steaks. The vegetable sides were served in bowls practically the size of salad serving bowls, and the mug of ale was larger than most steins Thomas was familiar with. All in all, it was a huge amount of mouth-watering food.

Thomas started with the fishmen tempura, it was what he ordered for an appetizer after all. The pieces were large and coated in golden fried batter. There was a slight fishy scent but it was appealing instead of offputting, like a light ocean breeze. The crispy coating crunched loudly as he bit into it. Steam poured off of the bitten section which revealed perfectly cooked flaky white fish. As Thomas chewed he groaned in pleasure at the flavor. The fishmen tempura had a consistency like fish but a flavor closer to shrimp. The soft fish-like meat combined with the crunchy shell was like heaven in his mouth.

He looked over at Snowlily and grinned at the sight. There was no sign of the prim and proper princess eating in front of him. She had half a piece of the fishmen tempura hanging from her mouth with her eyes slightly glazed over. Even she wasn't immune to the delicious crunch and flavor of the tempura. When she regained her senses she immediately chowed down on the remainder of the piece of tempura. Thomas could clearly hear the crunchy batter cracking between her jaws. He couldn't help but laugh at the scene.

Snowlily gave him a dirty look for laughing at her, then decided she didn't care and instead went back to chowing down on the both soft and crunchy tempura. Thomas laughed again but quickly joined her in devouring the tempura. It wasn't long until there was none left. Just that alone would have been enough for most people but these two were not most people. With the appetizer finished they both started to dig into the minotaur filets!

The filets were so soft that the knife wasn't even needed to cut them. Thomas felt they were almost as soft as pudding. He pictured just using a spoon to scoop out a piece of the filet and chuckled. He cut off a piece of the filet and brought it into his mouth. The first chew told him everything he needed to promote minotaurs to the number one monster he needed to hunt down at every chance he could. The meat was even more tender than a prime cut of beef filet in the real world. The beefy flavor was off the charts and flooded his mouth. The steak had even been seasoned perfectly with just a little salt and pepper to allow its natural flavor to dominate.

His eyes reflexively closed as he let out the most natural moan of pleasure. His whole body relaxed as all of his energy was focused on just slowly chewing and tasting the delicious piece of minotaur beef in his mouth. Once he swallowed the meat spell seemed to be over and energy returned to the rest of his body. He mustered up the strength to sit back up and look across the table at his lunch companion. Snowlily just had her head laying on the table while her jaw moved to chew on the filet. She was even more relaxed and focused on the meat than he had been!

He watched, fascinated, as Snowlily finished chewing the bite she had taken. Her pink tongue snaked out of her mouth and licked at the filet left on her plate to pull it closer to her mouth. She chomped a chunk off of it and slowly chewed on it. All of this without lifting her head one bit. Thomas was both fascinated and disturbed by the sight before him. He didn't watch for much longer though. His own steak was cooling down and he wanted to devour it all while it was still warm!

Together they both happily devoured the delicious meal before them. It was so good that Snowlily didn't even put forth any complaints when it came time to eat the vegetables. Even the veggies were perfectly seasoned and crispy. Thomas suspected that they had been steamed. When the food was completely gone, only then did he notice that he hadn't even touched the large ale sitting on the table and now covered in condensation. He hadn't even taken so much as a sip from it yet.

He licked his lips and picked up the still very cold mug. He brought it to his nose and inhaled the scent. He could detect the distinct scent of hops mixed with a few other herbs or spices that he had no familiarity with. He exhaled slowly before lifting the mug up and taking a sip of the ale. The ale had a bitter and somewhat sour flavor that coated his whole mouth while the natural carbonation tickled his nose. After savoring the flavor of the ale all he felt was regret. Not because the beer was bad but because the beer would have complimented the rest of the meal so perfectly that it would have been brought up to another level entirely.

Such regret! There was no going back and he was far too full to order more food just to enjoy it with the ale. It sucked but he could only regret it for now and try to remember it if he ever came to this place again in the future. It didn't stop him from enjoying the delicious ale on its own though. Together, Thomas and Snowlily relaxed and enjoyed the afterglow of the delicious meal while he sipped his ale. When it was finally gone he paid for the meal, three hundred gold, and they left the restaurant and returned to the city streets.

They slowly made their way back to the busy streets of the city and walked along the main thoroughfare toward the cities gate. He'd bought enough supplies and spent half the day looking at stuff and eating lunch. It was beyond time to get back on the road and continue their journey. The next town was Jarns and it wasn't all that far away, less than a hundred kilometers. Given their travel speed they would be able to make that in what was left of the day.

After thinking about it, Thomas decided to hire a carriage to drive them to Jarns. It was a bit excessive but he decided to splurge in this case. Since it wasn't too far and wouldn't cost too much. It would give him the chance to look through the books he'd purchased and start reading. He was curious and wanted to start devouring the juicy knowledge contained within them just as he'd devoured the minotaur filet earlier.

It took almost no effort at all for him to find a carriage heading to Jarns. Traffic between Djudavik and Jarns was pretty constant as the bigger trade hub distributed goods towards the capital of Kjersia, Feldera, to the northeast. The road he would be traveling on was a direct route to the capital with only two smaller cities in between. With all of the goods coming from the southern country and heading toward the capital it produced plenty of traffic for him to hitch a ride on for a nominal fee. Just twenty-five gold.

Thomas hitched a ride with a small caravan of three large cargo wagons and one personal carriage all heading for the capital. He hopped onboard one of the cargo wagons and pulled out a book on metallurgy from his inventory. He really wanted to see if he could identify the mystery ingots and learn more about the elemental ores. The book was comprehensive and talked about the various qualities of metals. It didn't take long before he was fully immersed in the book and steadily gaining knowledge from it.

There were dozens of different metals and all of them had a myriad of variations based on elements and local conditions. Fire Iron, Ice Iron, and even Lightning Iron all were examples provided. Then there were metals changed by their environments such as Demonic Iron and Angelic Iron. This applied to all known metals. Each of these variations were closely related to their base material in how they could be worked but required some special treatment processes to bring out their full potential. Fire Iron, for example, required being quenched and then immediately had to be reheated to just before its melting point. Only by doing so could it be properly hardened and bring out its fire properties.

There were many other examples of such special treatments and the more exotic the base material the more exotic the process was. As another example, Firecore Adamantite required that the metal be quenched in an active volcano for it to reach its full potential. Frankly, that was pretty crazy. Not to mention dangerous and really annoying. An even more annoying one was Lightning Mithril, to properly bring out its properties required having it stuck by natural lightning. At least that one didn't require being there in person.

Fortunately, many of the metals only required simple things like certain alchemical baths. It was only the 'higher tier' metals that required extreme means. The best part though, were the sections that detailed how to identify these metals. The basic principle was to feed mana into the ore or ingot and judge the metal based on feedback. Each metal had a certain... feel to it that would be transmitted through the mana injected into the metal. The author did his best to describe what would be felt but naturally something was lost in the words. Still, it gave him a clue on how to proceed.

Thomas set the book aside and pulled a plain iron ingot out of his inventory and looked it over. This was just plain regular iron that hadn't even been purified by him yet. It would serve as a good baseline for him to learn from. He closed his eyes and focused completely on just feeling. He didn't want anything to distract him from what he was doing. He fed a small amount of mana into the ingot and followed the directions as they were described. He guided his mana to form a loop that left his hand, circled through the ingot, and came back to his hand. According to the book, the metal would slightly alter his mana. Feeling these changes are what would tell him what the metal was.

It was hard, at first, but the longer he channeled his mana through the ingot the more he could detect the change in his mana. It was subtle, hard to notice, but definitely there. It was extremely hard to describe the sensation. If he was forced to put it into words, it was like his mana had become... harder. It sort of reminded him of how his mana felt when he converted it into the metal element. He kept the mana loop going for a while until he could feel the change in his mana distinctly.

He stopped and stored the ingot to pull out another made of plain iron. He channeled his mana into it and immediately felt the difference. He could now tell that an ingot was iron just from a single touch. Not super helpful, but it was a start. He put the ingot away and opened his character sheet to see if he'd gained anything new. He was pleasantly surprised by what he found.

Metallurgy // Rank 4 // 0/50 Exp