Wolf drank fancy oolong tea in the side room of the Alchemists’ Guild store not appreciating it one bit. Instead he was very glad he’d chosen to use a transmutation spell to establish his alter ego. If he had chosen an illusion, the illusory man would now be pouring tea into his chest, making for a disturbing sight. Either that or Wolf would have to cast another illusion to appear like he was drinking normally.

He had finished his tea and thought back to how wise his father was, insisting that he should strive for simplicity in magic, when a sharply dressed man walked into the room.

The man appeared to be in his forties and wore a formal attire. In his hands he carried a silver tray, atop of which was a potion bottle made from clear glass. The light blue liquid inside the fancy packaging was naturally the potion Wolf had purchased. The man carefully placed the tray in front of Wolf before bowing respectfully.

“Good day to you sir. My name is Leoric. I’m the humble manager of this branch of the Alchemists’ Guild. If you don’t mind, I’ve come to make your acquaintance,” The man said while laughing heartily, as if he had met a long lost relative, stunning Wolf.

Wolf’s mind went blank for a moment.

Name, name, name… “Good day sir Leoric, my name is Sean. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” the boy said with an old man’s voice.

Wolf found himself in a very unfamiliar situation. Unsurprisingly, he started to panic inside. What am I supposed to do now? Should I drink another cup of tea with this man? What was his name again?

Seeing that Wolf was silent, Leoric cleared his throat and tried to break the awkward silence. He picked up the potion and handed it to Wolf. “Here’s the potion you required sir Sean. Take this as well, it should be useful to you.”

After he’d handed over the potion a smooth object roughly thrice the size of a coin appeared in Leoric’s hand. It was a silver plate with some fine carvings. On one side were Leoric’s full name and title, while the other said VIP.

“Should you ever require a potion from our shop, just show that to any attendant and they will lead you straight to my office.”

Seeing Wolf hesitate, Leoric urged him a bit more insistently. “With that token you are guaranteed a ten percent discount, please feel free to take it.”

As soon as Wolf heard the magical word ‘discount’ the potion and the silver coin disappeared into Wolf’s Ring of Holding. He then paid with the lowest quality Ring of Holding he had looted from the Northshield troops.

Manager Leoric subtly checked whether the ring was real, then offered Wolf some more tea. Afraid his disguise would be busted, the boy politely declined. With a hurt expression Leoric escorted Wolf to the exit and bade him goodbye.

Leoric then went back to his office smiling. On the surface it appeared that he would lose money from Wolf’s future purchases. However, from now on he wouldn’t have to share his cut with the clerks and the ten percent discount should hopefully be less than that.

Just in case, the man increased the price of the few exclusive items in the shop by ten percent. That way if Wolf bought them he wouldn’t suffer a loss. As for everyone else, they had the brains to know that they should haggle. Worst case scenario they would curse him for over-inflating the prices when they started haggling.

***

Wolf’s idea of stores came from experience, starting with the Honest Man’s Place. There, Archibald didn’t want to haggle, because the seller might start breaking legs if you do. Then they bought energy recovery potions for Archibald from Red at a nominal market price. Again, there was no need to haggle. Wolf only knew the concept existed thanks to the books he had read and he knew it was something you did in suspicious looking places, like that information broker's pawn shop. He was unaware that every store was a suspicious looking place.

And now, Wolf was hurriedly moving towards the next suspicious place on his list. The shop of the Spell Formation Scribes’ Guild was considerably more important to Wolf than the Alchemists’. At least for now. And yet, even the less important shop had managed to burn a thousand gold pieces deep hole in his pocket.

Wolf considered himself rich. Without even checking his father’s savings, nor the items from his Ring of Holding, Wolf had a lot of wealth.

He had around sixteen thousand gold pieces’ worth of Rings of Holding he had gotten in Lonely Eagle’s place of legacy. Then there were the rings and the cashed in goods he took from Northshield troops. Those were worth some twenty-odd thousand gold pieces.

Along with the unknown amount of wealth from Archibald’s Ring of Holding, Wolf guessed he had roughly fifty thousand gold on him. Yesterday this guess seemed like a large amount of money. Now, Wolf had a sinking feeling he would become a true beggar in no time if he kept going like this.

Especially considering that the drunkard South had said that this place had everything for Mages and Spell Formation Scribes. From regular stationery to grimoires, enchanted inks and Monster Cores.

After walking for a couple of hours Wolf had reached his promised land. The land of stationery and trinkets so expensive that regular folk would throttle him for wasting money.

The store was called Mage’s Hand, a clever allusion to a very convenient First Order spell. It bordered on being a pun, and Wolf liked the name a lot. His father loved that spell. He often praised it as the ancestor of many advanced spells that used telekinesis.

Written in finer print, under the large store name stood the words: Associate of Spell Formation Scribes’ guild.

Wolf nodded in approval, then snuck into a side alley and assumed his alter ego.

Unlike the bustling Alchemists’ Guild shop, this store only had two clerks watching over the first floor. They didn’t approach the customers, but rather allowed them to browse their wares leisurely.

Each item on display had a brief description of its use, origin, as well as the price. A sign hung above the counter, where the two attendants were chatting in a hushed voice. The notice said that all prices were final and only customers buying large quantities of goods were eligible for discounts.

Wolf instantly liked this shop. It was large, clean and had plenty of sunlight.

When Wolf checked the items in the display cases he noticed that each display case had a small Light-Stone inside. For the items that were in the back, or those not getting enough light, these Light-Stone provided enough illumination to read the descriptions and get a good look of what you were buying.

Wolf looked around the display cases for a while. Items sold here were decent, some were even useful to him, but aside from two types of high quality enchanted ink there wasn’t anything he wished to buy right now. The problem was that he couldn’t find any Monster Cores.

Not knowing what else he could do, Wolf went over to the two clerks. “Excuse me, I would like to buy some ink. As well as some scrolls made from hides of First or Second Order Monster Beasts. Do you have Monster Cores of Third and Fourth Order? If you do, how much do they cost?”

As soon as a customer approached the pair stopped talking and straightened their backs.

“We have scrolls manufactured from the hide of First and Second Order Monster Beasts. Do you have any special requirements? Do you need the Monster Beast to have a special attribute or belong to a certain species? As for Monster Cores, those can be found on the second floor. Third Order Monster Cores cost between one and three gold coins, while Cores of Fourth Order cost between five and fifteen gold coins, again depending on your requirements.” A pretty young woman in her early twenties answered with a melodious voice.

“Could you please get me two cheapest Third Order Monster Cores, twenty cheapest scrolls made from First Order Monster Beasts, five bottles of ink made from the mucus from a Green Tentacle Toad, two bottles of ink made from Spectral Spider blood and one bottle of ink distilled from Mind Shredders.”

“Sir, the last two items you mentioned are expensive. Spectral Spider blood costs seventy, while the Mind Shredder ink costs two hundred gold coins per bottle.” The woman was surprised that Wolf asked for such expensive items after first asking for disposables.

“I know, but you don’t have these in stock often, right?” Wolf knew these things were exotic based on their descriptions.

Both were excellent inks when scribing scrolls and Spell Formations. For instance Mind Shredder ink could enhance the effect of Repulsion Field, adding an extra creepy sensation to anyone thinking about drawing near.

“You are correct sir. We did get those by chance,” the woman nodded. “If that is all, your bill is three hundred forty-three gold coins and fifty-nine silver. Do you require a quill by any chance? We have some nice quills fashioned from the bones of beasts of mental type. They greatly aid in scribing.” Seeing that Wolf had money the pretty clerk tried to sell him a few more premium items, but the boy didn’t take the bait.

“No, thank you. I already have a set of excellent quills.” Wolf replied politely before placing the coins onto the counter.

A couple of minutes later the clerk brought everything he’d ordered. Items were neatly packed, wrapped and clearly labeled. It was obvious that the clerk was just as meticulous as the person that arranged this store.

“Thank you for your patronage, please come again,” the woman said as she politely bowed after handing over the items Wolf bought.

Wolf nodded his head and was about to leave, when he turned back around. “Do you have any books?”

Two hours later Wolf walked out of the store. He was almost a hundred pieces lighter than he’d originally planned. He bought several books on Alchemy, history and Artificing for two to ten gold coins a piece. Despite what he knew about his aptitude for Alchemy and Artificing, Wolf decided to give it another try. Maybe he was a late bloomer? Quite an odd thought for a nine-year-old…

Before Wolf even noticed it, the sun had already set. He heeded South’s advice and climbed onto the rooftops. He found a cozy place and set up an Alarm spell.

South had told him that it was best to hide on rooftops or somewhere where people wouldn’t find him when he went to sleep. The drunk probably didn’t know that Wolf rarely slept and that he could instantly wake up from his Mind Hall unless he was refining the columns of his Mind Palace.

Still, better safe than sorry. Wolf even took out the camouflage cloak he got from the Northshield troops and used it as a blanket.

With everything set up, Wolf drank the potion he’d bought and entered his Mind Hall to observe its effect. Wolf noticed that it was now significantly easier to carve the sixth column. He was making four or five times the progress with the same amount of effort. Wolf was also under the impression that his Soul Force was richer than usual. But he couldn’t really quantify that.

In the morning Wolf opened his eyes. The potion had quite a positive effect, but it wasn’t worth the investment. If the potion could be produced or purchased for fifty to maybe a hundred gold pieces, Wolf would use them regularly.

But the way things stood, Wolf would rather work for a couple of days and earn a thousand gold pieces than save a bit of time at the expense of such a huge amount of wealth. Not to mention that the potion had a diminishing effect with each consumption…

Wolf spent the next couple of days wandering and advanced his Mage Order to the Eighth Order with surprising ease! He made sure to buy the ingredients in the grocery store South mentioned and get to South’s alley in time to prepare the thank you meal.

South was already waiting for his little brother. The duo prepared food in tandem. South did the pealing, chopping and dicing, while Wolf did the cooking.

“You know, you’re quite good at this. Do you want to make dinner sometime?” Wolf asked out of the blue.

He was impressed with how skilled South was with a knife. Everything that went through his hands ended up cut exactly the same size.

“What are you talking about? Just look at this.” South pointed at the small pile of paste, which was all that was left of an onion.

“I’m a cutter, not a maker. It’s good that you’re a maker, you should focus on that more and leave the cutting to others,” The bum said drunken gibberish, but his hands never stopped cutting and that knife didn’t waver one bit.

Soon enough the food was ready. As they ate, South blathered on and on, all the while trying to get Wolf to drink his wine. But Wolf was adamant on not drinking, all he needed was alcohol to further stunt his growth…

Towards the end of the meal South looked at Wolf with a serious expression reserved for drunkards that are about to say something idiotic.

“Little brother…” He started and then made a dramatic pause. “Did you ever consider branching out and learning how to bake and make sweets? I miss good meat pies. Haven’t had a good one in ages… There's no meat good enough around here. The only decent meat I had around is what I brought with myself back when I first got here.”

Sharing his wisdom about meat and baking South took another swing from his wineskin before falling asleep while still sitting.

This Big brother of mine is very strange. Wolf took out a blanket from his Ring of Holding and covered up South to the best of his abilities. The one he used last time was nowhere to be found.

The boy didn’t even notice that the bum that he found just a random drunk up until yesterday suddenly had the title of Big brother in his mind.

Days passed by quickly and Wolf was very busy. By the time he came over for the next dinner date with South, Wolf had already found a nearby bridge he liked and started securing it with Spell Formations.

The new lair was only an hour or so from South’s alley. Its main security feature was the improved version of Repulsion Field inscribed with special ink and powered by a Monster Core. Wolf slowly got into a routine of spending his days walking about, reading in his own unorthodox way and figuring out how to cast other Eighth Order spells.