Schraeder pulled out a flat piece of copper and started doing something to it and making pretty lights!

“Woah.”

Ooops! He stopped what he was doing to look at me. I didn’t mean anything by that, I promise!

“Chalia, did you see something?”

“Mhmm”

“Why are you hiding behind Selaena? You’re fine! I’m just curious about something.” Schraeder chuckled, then held out his left hand, palm up, and made a blue glowy ball.

“What color is this, Chalia?”

“Blue.”

He raised an eyebrow for a moment, then made the blue glowing ball a shade lighter.

“How about now?”

“Still blue?”

“Ok, but is it the same blue?”

“It a bit lighter.”

His eyes glistened as he made a grin. I looked at Selaena, but she seemed distracted by the wall, or something. I’m a little uncomfortable.

“Guess what Chalia? You have a superpower!”

“Superpower?”

“Yes! You can see magic!”

“Hmm?”

“Let’s see here… Uh, can you see in the dark?”

“No…”

“Hmm. But you’re a dragonkin… Are you sure? Like at night, or in caves, what do you use for light?”

“Nothing, everything is always light!”

Why is Schraeder putting his hand on his face?

“Uuugh. Chalia. Have you ever been to any place that did not have colors?”

“Yes! The cave stole the colors and the la-bora-tory and the cave did too! I don’t like those places!”

Why is Selaena laughing now? Everyone is acting so weird! I just want to get registered and go back to my room!

“Chaaaalia, that’s what the dark looks like to you now. You can see in the dark!” Selaena said after being able to hold back her laughter.

“What are you laughing about?”

*Ooomph* “You are really cute, you know! Don’t worry about it.”

Why would I worry about things when I’m being SUFFOCATED? That’s more dangerous, you know!

Anyways, while that was going on Shraeder finished working on that metal thing, made it into a necklace before giving it to me.

“Now Chalia,” Shraeder said sternly, “Make sure you always wear this, wherever you go. Since you are young, we have put a tracking spell on it, so we can help you if you ever get into trouble. If you take it off, we might not be able to find you, and something bad might happen! So always keep it on!”

“Ok!” I said with all my sincerity.

“Good! I’ll let Selaena explain about your superpower, because I have to go now; but if you ever need help, just ask anyone in this building for Uncle Shraeder, and I’ll help you out!”

“Ok!”

He then messed with my hair and left with a laugh.

“Why did he do that?” I ask, straightening my hair out.

“It’s because he likes you.” Selaena replied with a warm smile.

“Oh.” He likes me? Why is everyone being so nice to me?

“Chalia? Chalia? Are you ok? It’s a good thing! He think you are cute and likes having you here, and wants to help you!”

“Why is everyone so nice to me?!” I asked, with tears rolling down my cheeks. There were a few people that were nice to me—like Twenty-Six, but usually everyone was mean! Especially the people who told me what to do. They would hit me, and yell at me, and say I couldn’t have my evening meal some times… But here, everyone is nice! Everyone! They do things that scare me, and make me uncomfortable, but they never hit me!

She took a deep breath, and hugged me (gently, thankfully), and talked to me.

“Because we are normal people! I’ve told you this before, and I’ll keep telling you until you understand­­­­­­—This is the way people should treat each other! You are important, and valuable, and loved. This is how things were supposed to be all along! If it weren’t for those jerks you wouldn’t have been treated like that! But now things are different. Now you can live the life you were supposed to, and we are here for you! Ok?”

“Mhmm.”

“Alright, now can you give me a smile?” She asked wiping the tears off my face. “Aww, cute! That’s much better! Now let’s go get some ice cream.”

“Ice cream? What’s that?”

*** *** ***

Wow. I am so amazed! Selaena took me through the market streets and bought me all kinds of food. My tummy hurts, but in a good way! It all tasted so yummy! We had these sticks with pieces of meat and vegetables, cookies, bread rolls, Ice cream, and so many other things! I want things to be like this forever!

“Did you like the food?”

“Yes!”

“Do you know what we do when someone does something nice for us?”

“Work harder!”

“No!”

“No?”

“That’s not what we do! When a person does something nice for us, we say ‘Thank you!’”

“But nice things cost a lot, don’t they?”

“Mhmm, but there are things that are far more important than money!”

“Really?”

“Really! Chalia, what is important to you? What do you want or hope for the most?”

“Twenty-Six,” I whispered.

“What did you say?”

“I want to see Twenty-Six again!”

“Oh, and why do you want to see her again?”

“Um. Because I really like her!”

“If you were able to get a whole bunch of money and pay someone to bring her back for you, would you do it?”

“Yes!”

“And if you paid them and they brought her back, what would you expect her to do for you when she got back?”

“Umm. Nothing?”

“Even though it cost a lot to you?”

“Mhmm.”

“But its expensive, why would you bring her back but not expect her to work hard for you or pay you back?”

“Because I like her!”

“Haha, yes! Because you like her. And do you know what?”

“What?”

“I like you, so I don’t expect you to pay me back. Seeing that you are happy is worth way more than the money it took to buy food for you!”

“Oh.”

“So again, what do you say?”

“Thank… You?”

*Ooomph* “You are welcome Chalia!

“And by the way, if you work hard, you won’t need me to get anything for you. You can earn and keep your own money, and buy things for yourself and for other people! And here’s a little secret for you—when you become really strong, it can be really easy to make a lot of money! So don’t worry about me running out of money by doing this. I have plenty to live on.”

Selaena is so nice, and pretty, and I like her smile a lot! And she likes me. That makes me feel so warm inside! I like her too!

“Alright, now we have gotten registered and had a good lunch, so where do you want to go next?”

“I don’t know…”

“Hmm. Oh! You have a lot of things in your bag! Do you want to sell any of it?”

“Oh, yeah! Gus said humans will pay a lot of money for some of these things. A lot for weaker mortals, anyhow.”

Selaena? Is that a smile or a frown? I don’t understand!

“Well, you’ll be finding a lot of other things to sell, so we should get you acquainted with the process. The first stop will be the appraisal building!”

We started walking as she explained the process to me. When you don’t know what something is or how much it is worth, then you go to the appraisers, who will tell you what the items are and how much they are worth, for a fee. The appraisers are separated on floors, with each higher floor locked from people with too low of a guild rank.

After the items are appraised, you can either sell them to the guild directly for 65% of what the item is worth, find someone to sell to yourself, or wait to put it up for auction and gain 98% of what it sells for. There are different levels of price for auctions, but your items have to be rare or worth a lot for even the lowest tier auctions.

“Alright, we are here!”

“A lot of people.”

“Of course! This is the second most important building in the city, only less important than the administration building!

“Normally you would have to see an appraiser on this floor or the next, since you are a C-Rank, but there is someone I want you to meet on the fourth floor,” She said, climbing the stairs. Everyone gave me strange looks, but after looking at her, they just turned away. I wonder why?

“Now before we see him, I need to warn you, he’s going to get really excited. He’s not going to hurt you though, he just really likes dragons, and so he’s going to—”

“HOLY DAUGHTER OF HELTRINA! Are my eyes deceiving me? Am I hallucinating? Is this real?”

A muscular man gripped Selaena’s shoulder as he kept asking if he had gone crazy or something but kept looking at me really strongly. I’m kind of scared. No, actually I’m really scared! I’m pretty sure he has gone crazy.

“Ouch! Rister! I’m a MAGE!”

“Oh, oh, sorry sorry!” he said as he let go of her shoulder, but kept looking at me.

“It’s ok, Chalia, he’s a nice person.” Is he though? Is he really? I see you rubbing your shoulder. I still think he might be dangerous.

“Alright, calm down Rister, we have some business to do with you.”

“Calm down? How can I calm down when there is a living, breathing—”

“Or we can just find someone else…”

“Oh, ok, ok! I’m calm, I’m calm!”

“Alright Chalia, I know he seems a bit scary, and sometimes forgets to control his hand strength,” she glared at him, causing him to look away awkwardly, “But in other respects he is very reliable! And once you make it to Rank-A you should take your stuff to him when he is around. He’ll make sure you are taken care of well!

“So let’s start by taking out your stuff. Take out what you want to sell and put it on the desk right over there, and Rister will do all the rest.”

I did as I was told, while trying to ignore the man mumbling things like “Heltrina. Dragon. Holy...”

“Riiiiister, are you going to make your client wait for long?”

“Oh, oh, sorry!

“Ok, so what do we have here?

“Ah, do you know how to tell mana cores apart?”

“No, Gus just said that those were tier 1 beasts, except for that one, maybe.”

Their faces cramped.

Then Rister frowned. “Is this Gus strong?”

“Mhmm! He’s really strong! He told me that a long, long time ago he—”

“Alright, Chalia, let’s not talk about that here. You should keep that a secret, or something bad might happen!”

“Oh, ok.”

Rister still stood there, frozen, but he had a really intense look and you could see the veins in his forehead!

“Gus, Archaic System, Gus…” His eyes flicked to my sword, and then got really big. You-Y-Y-Y-You, Angustia…” His face paled as he pointed to my sword while walking backwards slowly.

Oooh, glowy! Selaena is making a soft, warm, blue glow! It’s so nice! I feel so relaxed and comfortable!

Selaena sighed. “Of course, you would be the one to recognize it. Calm down, he’s not going to kill us as long as she’s alright.”

Rister nodded his head slowly as his face gradually turned back to its original color.

He took a deep breath and then started to tell me about the items, albeit with a rather shaky voice.

“So if you look carefully at this mana core, you can see there are three lines right here. See them? Right here, here, and here. Yes, you got it! That means this one is a tier three mana core, according to the guild’s guidelines. This one is damaged and depleted, but it can still be ground up and used for alchemy, so it’s worth around fifty copper; but this one, which is not damaged can be modified to store energy again, so it is worth two hundred!”

“Woah!” That’s a lot of money! I’ve never had even one copper, but this stuff is worth hundreds? That’s crazy!

*** *** ***

Whew! That took a long time! But you know what? I got a lot of money! And because I was a VIP, or something, he gave me eighty percent of the sale value. Most of the stuff sold for around 50-100 coppers each, but the spider toes were worth two silvers—that’s 2,000 whole coppers! I’m rich!