Given that they had left shortly before daybreak, it was currently only slightly past noon. Thoughts of lunch filled Marcus’s mind, but they were momentarily abated when he glanced across the room. He saw Shiro panting heavily adjacent to a fairly beaten-up training dummy.

“Training hard?” He asked as he approached.

The expression of drowsiness and disappointment quickly faded from Shiro’s face as she turned around. “Marcus! Welcome home!”

Marcus was slightly taken aback by her choice of words but smiled as he patted her head. “It’s good to be back.”

Shiro’s ears slightly twitched, and she mumbled something under her breath, but this time did not object to his intimacy.

Not wanting to interrupt the two of them, mother resolutely made her way to the kitchen. Father collapsed on a nearby chair. Marcus also wished to collapse into a chair as his young body was also exhausted. The combination of the days riding and the extremely high mental taxation due to the numerous encounters, though mostly danger-free, had left him quite tired. However, he quickly made his way over to his inventory and proceeded to sort out his loot along with Shiro. By the time they had finished, lunch was ready.

“So, what are your plans now, Marcus?” Mother asked as they sat down at the table and began to eat.

“Are you sure you’re okay with following my whims?”

“You were so fervent about going on your journey that we knew we couldn’t prevent you from going, so he went along to make sure nothing was wrong. So far, you have given us no reason to doubt you, and we trust you. Besides, it’s not like we have any other plans for the immediate future other than being your parents.” Mother replied.

Marcus couldn’t help but be slightly embarrassed and thankful that his parents were so open to the whims of a 10-year-old child. “Well, for the moment, I’m planning to spend two weeks off. I want to learn the spells I’ve acquired along the way, read the conjuration skill book, and make some armor for Shiro.”

“Shiro gets armor too?”

“Yes, if you want to come with us, you need to stay safe.”

A big smile appeared on Shiro’s face as she continued to stuff herself with food. Even though she was such a young girl, she proved to be quite the foodie.

“And after that?” Father asked.

I plan to go to Whiterun for information, primarily about the current status of the Embershard Mine. Then, if all goes well, I hope to find myself a decent instructor for smithing.”

“Smithing.” Mother said with a frown. “I know you’re a fast learner, but aren’t you concerned with spreading your attention over so many different fields? Besides, it’s a little strange for a wood elf to be a smith.”

“Don’t worry, I will act with discretion,” Marcus said with a nod. Marcus noted something unique about him from previous conversations, especially about spells. Even the most talented spell casters would use no more than five spells. This wasn’t because they were all that they knew but because the finer intricacy of spells required memorization to cast. The more spells one learned, the more difficult it would be to cast them on demand. However, perhaps due to full access to the menu, Marcus did not have this limitation. As soon as he learned a spell, the system burned that spell into his memory. In a sense, it was almost like he had a perfect muscle memory.

“How much further have you planned?” Mother asked.

“Fairly far ahead. I’m looking for someone to teach me and smithing in the long term to ensure that I have good equipment and can do the maintenance myself. In the short term, I can make money from smithing and alchemy. I plan to gain enough reputation in Whiterun to meet the court wizard and purchase spells. However, it isn’t like I can just walk in. I would need at least some reputation for entrance and then a significant amount of gold to purchase spells, which I have neither.

Both parents nodded as they listened to Marcus speak. They had stopped second-guessing how or why he knew information or concepts that he should not have had any contact with.

After lunch, Marcus quickly began to delve into the conjuration skill book. Thanks to his current travels, his conjuration skill had gone from 26 to 28/29. His biggest concern at the moment was to increase conjuration’s max level to 30 because there was a perk he wanted. Unfortunately, he was having a difficult time leveling conjuration.

To be put in simple terms, the conjuration skill only leveled up when a spell was active in combat. While this was retroactive, as you gained experience if you entered combat with an active spell, it was still incredibly difficult to level.

Because combat was a vague term, Marcus had tried several experiments. Using his parents, he had gone into an active stage of combat with them, and it worked at first. However, there appeared to be a cool down as he only gained experience once per day from any non-hostile combat. Additionally, there seemed to be a heavy experience penalty as well. This meant that he had to seek out enemies to level efficiently. To compare, the two levels he gained from his recent adventures were nearly six months of work. This was why he had made so many hunting trips. Hopefully, he would be able to level up soon, especially because level 29 was not too far away.

…

“How does Shiro look?” Shiro asked as she twirled around.

“You make my shoddy work look beautiful,” Marcus replied with a smile. He had just finished putting together the final touches to some simple hide armor for her.

“It’s not shoddy, and it’s very nice,” Shiro replied.

“Well, at least it is to your liking. We will be leaving early tomorrow, so make sure you’re ready.”

“Okay!” Shiro jubilantly replied before she dashed off to prepare.

Marcus can help but shake his head with a slight chuckle. Shiro had ended up becoming a welcome interruption to his life. Before now, his life had been routine and repetitive. Not that he had a problem with it, it was just a nice break.

Over the last two weeks, Marcus had continued his grinding on top of learning the new spells. He had improved his alchemy and smithing slightly and had increased his conjuration max level to 30. Now he only needed to reach that level.

Marcus made his way over to his inventory to check its contents. Within it was a large sack that carried many potions and poisons. Thanks to the amount of time he had spent in the wild, automatically looting alchemical materials, he had created an incredible stockpile. Experience gained, and alchemy was unique because it was related to the gold the value of the potion created. To upgrade his alchemy quickly and efficiently, it was in his best interest to figure out the most expensive potions he could make with easily found materials. Luckily, the wiki proved quite useful as it contained a tool. He could take the materials he had a plethora of and sort the potential resulting potions by their monetary value.

There were several potions and poisons that Marcus had focused on. He had created many MP debuff and slowing poisons in the poison category. Marcus intended to keep these poisons on his person, as the primary would be useful for fighting mages. The latter would be useful for preventing enemies from approaching. Unlike the game, poisons would be difficult to sell by their nature.

Marcus had created frost resistance, HP and MP regeneration, and bartering buff in the potion category. The first two were going to be the focus of Marcus’s selling. The frost resistance potions were an especially hot item because they also helped against the bitter cold that Skyr*m was known for. The HP and MP potions would also be desired by Mages who often had little of the first and never enough of the second. The barter potion did not have a large market, and Marcus didn’t focus on them.

Overall, Marcus had chosen these alchemical creations because they would be of some use to him on top of securing the initial funds he would require. After ensuring he had all of his required items for the trip, Marcus decided to take the rest of the day off and call it an early evening. Early in the morning, they would set out for the city of Whiterun.