Chapter 76 The Taxi

Evernya followed Meira through the gate toward the golf cart taxi station just inside the festival grounds. After showing their wristbands, they climbed on one of the empty carts marked weapon section. The driver immediately pulled into the taxi only lane, afraid to anger VIPs by waiting for more people.

Along the way, Evernya’s sensitive nose picked up an irresistible scent coming from another section on the right side. Instinctively, Evernya tried to follow the scent, only for her seatbelt to hold her in her seat firmly.

“We can check out the wild material area later. Maybe we can buy dinner there instead of going to a restaurant.” Meira smiled, amused by her kitten’s reaction.

“Why can’t we go there first? It smells amazing, and I’m sure it will taste even better.” Evernya begged with big kitten eyes.

“I don’t want to carry you around the festival for hours waiting for you to wake up from your coma nap,” Meira replied.

“Fine, I’ll wait, but you better keep your word. Otherwise I’ll go there myself, which may involve buying the place out.” Evernya threatened, patting the front pocket of her backpack resting in her lap.

“Two hundred thousand crystals won’t be enough to buy it out or even scratch the surface. Mana beast parts are expensive. The blue serpent I hunted would be worth over fifty thousand, but that includes the other non-editable parts, like its skin and fangs. The mana core you greedily absorbed was around five thousand alone.” Meira shot back, smirking in her victory.

Evernya’s eyes widened as she exclaimed, “my diet is over twenty thousand a week!?”

Her shout caused their driver to sweat buckets, overwhelmed by the amount of money casually thrown around. Mentally, he patted himself on the back for deciding to ferry his VIP passengers early.

Enjoying her kitten’s reaction, Meira added more fuel to the fire. “I would say around thirty thousand. The smoothie ingredients aren’t cheap if I had bought them.”

“How am I going to sustain my diet! I’m going to starve!” Evernya panicked.

Upon seeing her kitten’s genuine panic, Meira reassured her while wrapping one arm around her kitten’s shoulders. “No, you won’t I’ll make sure you have all the skills needed to sustain yourself. This is why Thomas allowed you to hunt on your own. He couldn’t justify spending so much on one student. The cost of anything imported from the wilds is why it is so lucrative to be an adventurer, despite its dangers. If you are good, you only need to spend a month out in the wilds out of the year to make a good living. But that is with the profits split among a standard 4 to 5 person party.”

“If you can make that much, why doesn’t everyone do that?” Evernya inquired.

“To make a good living out there, you need to be fairly talented with combat or support magic. For example, if I were just an enchanter, I would be useless in the wilds, even with my survival skills like little Maylin. Even if you have both, you must be able to handle the stress of many life or death situations. One out of four successful adventurers dies before they make enough to retire. Remember the story I told you about that half-dragon, human, even someone as strong as him can meet their end out there. Though being fair, he was going solo on almost suicidal missions, and I am sure he made more than enough to retire years before he died. It’s safer but much less profitable to make a living in cities or maybe the edges of the wilds.” Meira explained, her previous humor gone.

“The wilds don’t seem too scary as long as you travel during the day,” Evernya commented, shivering as her mind flashed back to the shadowy creature.

Before Evernya could speak further, a sharp chop lands between her ears, eliciting tears in her eyes. “Don’t you dare ever underestimate the wilds! The only reason you made it that far was your unique characteristics, and you still nearly died! With your current strength and experience, I highly doubt you would have made it more than a dozen kilometers into the wilds without it.” Meira chastised, anger brimming just under the surface.

Silence descended on the cart as Evernya tearfully rubs her head while Meira angrily glared ahead.

A few minutes later, Evernya broke the silence with another question. “Couldn’t I do a different job with high pay to buy my food?”

Meira first glanced at the driver before pulling out a cubelike device from her backpack. After activating the device, she spoke freely, trying to reassure her kitten. “I will make sure you are ready. Shifters, in general, have a high survival rate in the wilds because of their senses and stronger bodies. Ironically, despite how good shifters can be in the wilds, humans a lot of time refuse to let one join their parties because they aren’t mages, so they think they are useless. Normally a shifter’s primary role is as a scout, but you are more flexible with your Psionic magic. As for your question, few jobs would afford your diet, forcing you out into the wilds to support yourself. A duelist may work as well, but that means you will be in the spotlight, which doesn’t seem like something you would want. You might be able to earn a living with enchanting, but it takes time to build a customer network which you don’t have. I suppose if you got good, you could use your telepathy to steal from people, but that’s risky and highly illegal, and like enchanting, it takes a lot of time to master from what I’ve heard.”

Evernya glanced at Meira, confused by her openness in front of a stranger, but after receiving a nod from Meira, she said. “I would love to mind fuck all those humans who made the discriminating laws, but I agree that is way too risky. I’m better off training telepathy in secret and using it as a last resort. Also, I want to be self-employed so adventurer would be a good idea. High-profile career choices are out since I want to stay under the radar until I know more about the people who built the lab I woke up in. Maybe I’ll dabble in enchanting as a side income if I really awaken a third magic class. However, at the moment, I have way too much magic to learn to even think about learning enchanting.”

A minute later, the golf cart slowed to a stop at the weapon area taxi station. After putting away the glowing cubelike device in her backpack, Meira unbuckled and hopped out of the taxi, followed by Evernya.

The duo survey their surroundings, finding themselves standing on a road with dozens of wide foot traffic only roads branching off from it. Stalls lined both sides of every road, with a little room remaining along the edges of the roads. Currently, only a few early birds were visible walking through the seemingly endless lines of stalls.

“Looks like we beat almost everyone here. The amount of stalls is much more than I remember, but that was over ten years ago. Your job is to find what type of weapon you like best, don’t worry about quality too much. When you find a weapon type, text me and I’ll look for the best quality of that type.” Meira directed, after taking in their surroundings.

“Why are we even splitting up? I get this place is huge, but wouldn’t it be better to stick together? What will you be doing while I look for the type I like?” Evernya questioned while nervously scanning the rows of stalls.

While reading through the stall layout from the guide, Meira replied. “Wander around and try anything that catches your eye. I don’t want to be an influence on what you choose, so I’m taking myself out of the equation. As for me, I’m going to buy a few weapons to restock my inventory. Since weapon enchanting is a big part of my business, I need a large stock of various high-quality weapons to enchant. I may as well take advantage of the thirty percent off and buy bulk. Once I buy enough stock, I’ll call you and meet up if you haven’t found anything by then I’ll help.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to pick from the high-quality weapons you are stocking?” Evernya questioned, becoming increasingly uncomfortable as more people arrived via the taxi service.

“I thought about that, but they are better suited as a primary weapon than a practice weapon. However, a generic enchanted weapon isn’t good enough for my kittens primary, so they are essentially useless to you. Also, what if you like a more exotic or less popular weapon? I usually only stock types of weapons I know I can sell, for example, long swords. You have two hundred thousand to play with, go have fun. Most teenagers would drool at the opportunity.” Meira replied with a smile, trying to spread her excitement to her nervous kitten.

After a few seconds of deliberation, Evernya said. “I wouldn’t consider myself a teenager, but I guess I am. I’ll at least look around, but I don’t know if I’ll buy anything.”

While Internally cheering, Meira continued to encourage her unenthusiastic kitten. “Have fun. Feel free to look around other areas nearby if you get bored. Today isn’t just about finding you a weapon. I want you to enjoy yourself too.”

“I’ll try. I am just worried because every time we separate, I run into issues,” Evernya mumbled while her eyes jumped around, looking for potential threats.

Meira enveloped her tense kitten in a hug as she continued to reassure her. “You will be fine. There will be a lot of other shifters shopping out here soon. If they see another shifter getting harassed, they will step in to help, especially a pretty young lady like you. Plus, if a shifter causes issues, you won’t have any issues forcing them to submit with your mana aura, since I doubt there will be many if any Alpha shifters out here. Besides, there is security looking out for any trouble.”

While putting on a forced smile, Evernya said. “Ok fine, I’ll be ok. I’m just paranoid from my previous experiences out in public.”

“Relax! If you have a negative mindset, you won’t have any fun. I’m going to get going now. Remember, I’m just one phone call away. My number is the only number saved in the contacts.” Meira said before darting off in a random direction, cutting off further arguing from her kitten.

Evernya stood in the middle of the street as people filed through, paying no notice to her. Stupid elf! How am I supposed to know where to go! She could have at least pointed me in a direction! She even took the damn guide with her! Oh yeah, there should be a map somewhere around here.

After a few seconds of scanning her surroundings, she spotted a map to the right of the now crowded taxi station. Eyes focused on her destination, Evernya weaved through the flow of people to the several meters wide and tall map hung under a covered rest area with several occupied benches.

Upon reaching her destination, another problem presented itself. Dammit, why is everyone so tall! I can’t see anything! Evernya ranted mentally, as she stood on her toes to see.

Unable to see anything from her current position, she spotted a picnic table a few meters away. Ignoring the group of girls poking on their cell phones, Evernya silently hopped on the table portion. From her higher position, Evernya read through the map unnoticed by the girls buried in their cell phones.

Damn, Meira wasn’t kidding. This place is packed to the brim with all sorts of weapons. Swords, blunt weapons, axes, polearms, bows, and even guns. I wonder what guns are like in this world. None of the officers I’ve seen so far carry one, so maybe they aren’t as popular, though when you can shoot lighting bolts for your fingertips a gun becomes kinda useless. I guess I’ll pick at random. At least now I have a mental picture of this place. I know I don’t want a heavy blunt hammer or ax and I can’t use a bow and probably a gun so I’ll skip those sections, but that still leaves over three-quarters of this place.

With her goal accomplished, Evernya hopped off the picnic table. She weaved her way back to the road, turning left as Meira went right.