The two youths only looked each other in the eyes when they heard Samuel’s words. The next moment, they fled the store, and, once outside, they didn’t dally.

Since they didn’t know any of the people they were supposed to call inside, they simply approached the one member of the Malcos Eagles standing nearest to them; A senior-looking guy who was caught up in a lively discussion with one of Andreas’ men.

Disregarding the fact that the order came from one of the bigshots inside, having already seen some of the wonders that were sold inside the store, not much persuasion was needed.

With the rest of his mates distracted by similar conversations with the regular customers of the ‘Emporium’, they were too busy to see him hastily running inside.

After passing on their responsibilities, Miriam and Timothy finally breathed a sigh of relief and decided not to get too close to that old woman from now on.

No ten minutes later, the door opened again. The same man stepped out of the store with a complicated look on his face and called out, “Milly! Get over here. Your turn,” while pointing over his shoulder. Only now, with his attention-grabbing shouting and signaling, did most people even realize that the man had been gone in the meantime.

One after another, the Malcos Eagles’ entire squad was called inside to assist Mylana with her futile attempts to figure out the inner workings of the Alchemical Item Combinator, leaving them all with the same odd expression. The old woman was a revered existence in the Kingdom of Malcos, and even beyond. Now, this kind of unsightly behavior didn’t match with the image in their imagination. Of course, no one dared to voice those thoughts; Nor did they think about rejecting her request for assistance. In fact, it was something they already looked forward to anyways, as it also put them in a spot that allowed them to purchase Severin’s goods for themselves.

This in return meant more work for the [Shopkeeper] and his [Employee]. The two weren’t oblivious to their surroundings. Once they heard the order to get people inside, they busied themselves.

In anticipation of the oncoming flood of customers, they set up their alchemy stations. They didn’t rush. The System only ever provided enough ingredients to fully stock the store's shelves. As such, they had to wait for a certain number of products to already be sold before being able to craft a whole new batch. If they started crafting before that, it just wouldn’t be very efficient. During that time, Severin thought about whether or not the System would allow him to set up something like a separate storage room. Either way, Severin felt it was about time to once again expand the store.

Two hours later, Emily and Severin were absorbed in their work. So much so that they didn’t even notice that for the last couple of minutes, no one had called out to them to make a purchase. It wasn't that Mylana had given up, but rather that, much to the delight of both Markus and Samuel, no one had any more activations left to operate the machine.

Much of the old woman’s dignity and reason suddenly seemed to have returned. With the cane suddenly back in her hand, she moved over to Severin and wanted to actually talk to the man whose shop she had occupied for so long.

Like Samuel before her, despite not being an [Alchemist] or having any other crafting profession, the sight of Severin working at his crafting station instantly intrigued Mylana. And unlike the former, she actually recognized one of the used ingredients.

A herb easy enough to find if one knew where to look.

A herb widely deemed to possess no alchemical properties whatsoever.

All thoughts of starting a conversation were gone as she chose to observe the whole crafting process.

If Severin were to look up at this moment and see her, together with her earlier behavior, at this point he would’ve thought her to be some kind of corporate spy.

But in reality, the woman wasn’t really interested in the recipes themselves. Nor did she put too much weight on the used ingredients or even the processing techniques, though she certainly knew some people who would.

The one thing that really caught her attention was something else. It was the fact that the little girl who, according to Samuel, had lived as an ordinary street urchin until not too long ago, could easily execute each and every step of the crafting process, no worse than Severin himself.

After exchanging a meaningful look with her mentee, she simply headed to the door without saying a word. After a moment of hesitation, Samuel and Markus quickly followed behind. They decided against disturbing the two people, but the latter still nodded in Severin’s direction.

As it turned out, the group’s display of consideration was very much unnecessary.

The moment the door was opened, a loud bang greeted them. The scene of a bunch of adventurers seemingly being dead set on destroying a poor target dummy repeated itself.

From the moment on they learned of the dummy's incredible sturdiness, able to withstand even the combined power of the Lion’s Head’s second string, these new arrivals could barely wait to test them themselves. Not a few even secretly hoped they’d be able to destroy one of the dummies to show off their superior strength.

With the last of the Eagles released from Mylana’s clutches and with a whole assortment of new self-buffs and weapon-enchants at their disposal, the time had finally come.

The three people standing at the door were caught off-guard. With all the sudden noise and flickering lights and flying magic, they didn’t know what to think. When they first arrived, none of them had paid any special attention to the training dummies. They had simply shrugged them off as some kind of gimmick, so now they needed a moment to realize what was going on.

Suddenly Samuel understood that Tim and Miriam wanting to drag him off towards the training ground wasn’t solely because they wanted to spar. He should’ve known better. Nothing coming out of Severin’s shop had been ordinary so far, so why did he think those things would be any different?

To Severin and Em, the sudden disturbance was just as startling. Focused on their work, neither of them had paid any attention to the map which could’ve warned them, nor did they hear the remaining people in the store moving about. But luckily, apart from a few spilled drops of resource potion, no harm was done. Strangely enough, the incident didn’t even affect Severin’s mood. The reason for that, however, lay with the light blue message floating in front of him.

Level up.