Year 2, Fall, First Month, First Week.

Reiner walked around the pavilion mumbling incoherent words while being followed by her nervous assistant. She was already used to having too many tasks to manage, but the upcoming first Alchemy test brought a new level of stress. Initially, she thought it would be better to skip this year's test because of their imminent escape, but Karl reassured her of the need for the annual test. They had to keep the students and disciples motivated, and the chance to improve their status would be a fast solution for it.

However, she wasn’t the only one nervous about the test, practically all the students and disciples were losing sleep over it. Even though some standards had been lowered, like the exclusion of Rune theory and practical drawings from the tests, everyone wanted to get a better position. Also, while the students' position was secured, the disciples' wasn’t, if they didn’t pass the test forget about advancing, they wouldn’t be able to keep their current position. Therefore, everyone was rushing over to study more. Fortunately, one of the conditions for staying as a disciple and advancing further was tutoring others, so there wasn’t a shortage of villagers willing to help others.

Karl had already passed to her all the questions and activities of the test, but organizing the tests was proving challenging. Evaluating 140 villagers individually in only one day would be too difficult, even though Karl promised to take care of the 27 disciples, the remaining 113 students would still be handled by her. The knowledge tests would be applied orally with one student at a time, which left her with nine to ten students per hour. So, she had to squeeze five questions in six minutes and even account for accidents. Fortunately, the Council approved her request for help from other departments, so she would have more people to keep the students in line and prevent the ones that finished from spilling the contents of the test to others.

She planned to use one minute for each question while the extra minute would be used to give the result and call the next in line. Problems would sure happen but she also expected some villagers to take less time to answer the questions. Since they didn’t have a way to record the positions, the Council decided to craft wooden symbols for the disciples. If a student wanted to try advancing to disciple, they would have to first pass the resources' test, then be direct to another place to draw their Array, which would be evaluated by Karl. If they passed, they would earn the wooden symbol.

Before Reiner could go crazy with the preparations, something else demanded her attention, Keller had arrived.

***

Because Keller needed to go back in the next morning, the Council met with him as soon as he ate a meal and refreshed himself. Keller and another man that he presented as Arnold, sat on the crude wooden chairs facing the 17 Council members. As usual, Omero opened the meeting.

“Welcome to Caiset! Although we didn’t expect to see you so soon, we’re happy that you came…”

“How could I not come? Your last request was a little… Too rich… How is Lew doing by the way?”

“It’s good that you mentioned him… I thought we agreed that you would keep our… Craft, a secret from others, especially from an ex-Captain…”

Keller's smile visibly turned bitter, did he had to tell them that? Even Arnold couldn’t help but look at Keller with incredulity.

“I’m sorry for that… I’m sure you know of his situation, I know his father and I worked with him before so I can vouch for his trustfulness. I thought he would be of great help for you, he’s an enemy of the Kingdom…”

“Next time, be sure to consult us before making this kind of decision… I hope the man beside you isn’t in the same situation…”

“Oh, no he…”

Arnold decided to speak up for himself.

“I’m Arnold, Keller told me you needed a blacksmith. I don’t want any involvement in a rebellion but he showed me an amazing magic enhancement, he claimed that you made it.”

Again, Keller was assaulted by many daggered stares. Omero turned to the blacksmith.

“Of course…”

Omero called for a villager and asked her to guide Arnold around the village to see the magic tools while they talked with Keller.

“About our list of requests, can you get it?”

“Hmm… It won’t be easy, the Kingdom is a little erratic right now but I’ll find a way… The costs won’t be low, thought…”

“I’m sure being able to buy our newest tool is compensation enough…”

“So, you aren’t giving it to me? I’m using a lot of resources to fulfill your requests…”

“You wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t worth it… Should we discuss the prices now?”

Keller didn’t bother to hide his discontentment.

“The hybrid crystals and the pulling beasts will take some time, it’s not gonna be cheap… I already brought the MQ blood, the other crystals and the common resources. I could exchange one of my carts and a pulling beast with you…”

“That would help. I think we could exchange the hybrid crystals and beasts for two re-drawing tools and the rest we could negotiate in enhancements…”

“That won’t do. Even if you disregard my trouble to get the resources before winter, those crystals and beasts would cost me almost 500 golds…”

Omero turned to Karl and asked:

“How much do you think the tool is worth it?”

“Because of its function… As much as a HQ elemental crystal.”

“…”

Keller almost choked after hearing his answer. Before coming, he already considered how much he would be willing to pay for the tool, and 500 golds were already over it. However, he couldn’t pass this opportunity, so he would try to increase his benefits.

“I wouldn’t be able to afford it… Unless you gave me something to profit from it…”

Only the three elders understood the hidden meaning behind Keller’s words. He was trying to get permission to start selling the enhanced tools. All things considered, it was actually fair to give him a way out of getting bankrupted by the village deals. Even so, this kind of decision would have to be made by the entire Council. So Omero asked a villager to guide Keller to Lew while they discussed options.

“Before, we agreed that we wouldn’t exchange the re-drawer for anything less valuable… But I think we hit a bottom line, it doesn’t look like he has enough money to fulfill our requests… What if we could make it easier for him to earn the money back?”

“How could we?”

“Our first request was for him to keep the enhancements a secret until we could protect ourselves, but by doing so, we cut his ability to profit from it. Of course, we can’t have the tools circulating inside the Kingdom… But we could make an exception now that we’re almost leaving… We could allow him to sell to other countries, eventually, the Kingdom would find out, but no sooner than a year…”

Marlen also stepped forward.

“Omero’s right, we can’t expect for him to keep throwing money on us while he can’t profit. Keller is a resourceful Merchant, he would find a way to sell to the countries far from the Kingdom, it could even become a future source of income for us… Once we establish our place, we would need more resources…”

The Council discussed the idea for almost an hour, some objections were brought up, mostly by elder Said, Lonni and Kanin, but in the end, they decided to give Keller the permission to sell the enhanced weapons.

***

Keller observed the huts as he was guided towards the village center, he felt something was different but couldn’t grasp what. Soon, he arrived at the village central square and located Lew training a group. Keller frowned as he spotted differences in the Fighter, he looked… Happy, genuinely happy. Lew wasn’t smiling, on the contrary, he was very focused on explaining some moves to the villagers, but his disposition and posture showed that he was happy. For a second, Keller felt a little regretful for pointing him towards the village, but the feeling quickly passed when he remembered the man’s situation, he wouldn’t be able to employ him anyway.

“I see you made yourself useful… Fortunately, useful enough to make them forgive me for telling their secrets to someone with your history…”

Lew gulped and smiled awkwardly, he knew Keller would be in a difficult situation after he told the villagers about his past. He excused himself from the eager villagers before inviting Keller to walk around with him.

“I’m sorry for making things difficult for you… I didn’t plan on telling them everything…”

Continued to walk in silence, Keller was curious of what changed Lew's mind, but he didn’t ask.

“I didn’t learn much about their craft, but I have something more important to tell you… You should invest more in them… I know you already did, but I meant that you should take risks and fully support them…”

Keller’s eyes grew wider, he wasn’t expecting to hear this.

“They have potential, much more than you think… I decided to help them survive long enough to become a threat to the Kingdom… I owe you a lot for helping me, but I’ll side with them if it comes to it… But please, take what I told you seriously, they’ll go stronger, I can’t even imagine how much…”