Early in the morning, Vicente awoke with a smile, waking up after a comfortable night's sleep for the first time in days.
Since his party's passage through the village where Rory had made his breakthrough, Vicente had not had a single day to sleep peacefully in a comfortable bed with a roof over his head.
But after taking care of his business at the Rexnetls Academy the previous afternoon and then doing some local business, he had finally rested better and slept like he hadn't for days.
The previous evening, he had managed to do some local business, spending more than 500 gold coins on useful resources for his men.
In just one night, he had spent more than his party had spent in their entire time in Millfall!
But even after spending the equivalent of 500,000 bronze coins, Vicente had only managed to purchase 20 useful items for his Acolytes.
Pills, potions, and magical artifacts in general that were useful to Acolytes, i.e., 2nd-grade items, were much more expensive than those for Apprentices.
Since he had been concentrating on getting things for his less talented but higher-ranking men in his group, Vicente had only bought 2nd-grade items the night before, which was why he had spent so much for so little.
However, since he arrived in Ironcrest with over 7,000 gold coins, the previous night's spending was far from bankrupting him!
When he woke up this morning, fully recovered from his hunting days, he was ready to spend another 2,000 coins today!
Now that he had made a deal with Newton, Vicente's plan in this city was simple. It was to get as many items as he could to take back to his people in Millfall without attracting unnecessary attention.
Could he do that by spending so many coins in such a short time?
In Millfall, that would be impossible, given the small number of shops capable of selling what he had in mind. But Ironcrest was different!
As the second-largest city in the province, one of the largest producers of metal items in the kingdom, and home to more than 50 Mages, Ironcrest had plenty of options.
Knowing it, Vicente didn't even bother to eat breakfast when he got dressed, and soon, he was walking with his men to a local engineering shop.
...
"Boss, aren't we going to attract attention with the amount of shopping we're doing?" One of the masked men walking alongside Vice along the central sidewalks of Ironcrest asked his leader in a low voice.
Vicente replied. "No. I mean, there are no guarantees, but the chances of anyone noticing our movements are not great. The local powers won't know anything unless someone is chasing us."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. The deals we've made and are about to make are secret. As much as we can't hide them from someone chasing us, we can keep any news of these businesses from reaching the ears of important people locally," Vicente said. "If we buy small quantities in different stores, even the vendors won't pay attention to us."
He wasn't wrong. There were hundreds of Acolytes in Ironcrest, and purchases of hundreds of gold coins went through the city's stores every day.
Unless he did all his shopping in one store, Vice wouldn't really attract the attention of the local powers with his purchases.
Since there were several options for each of the most popular professions in the city, he was confident that he wouldn't attract any trouble because of his purchases today.
"Besides, we will leave the next morning. So even if someone notices something, we'll be long gone before any trouble catches up with us."
"But what if someone is following us? Maybe the academy staff is watching us, boss." Another man pointed out the possibility.
"Then we can't do anything." Vicente sighed. "Anyone watching us knows we're not exactly ordinary people. A few purchases shouldn't be enough to shock high-level powers that even have Mages on their side."
For Vicente, if someone were going after his group locally, they would have to be connected to the most relevant forces in Ironcrest.
But powers at that level wouldn't find it strange for someone like him to spend that many coins. Mages could spend thousands of gold coins in the blink of an eye!
"But everything we do has implicit risks. Let's not stop ourselves from growing just because we're not 100% sure of something." He said, not noticing anyone nearby watching his people.
If someone was chasing them right now, these people were so much stronger than him that he didn't think it was worth worrying about.
Continuing with his plans was what he could do!
With that in mind, they entered the first engineering shop they passed in Ironcrest.
Entering such a shop, which had several display cases and items with gears decorating the sides of the shop, Vice and his men soon encountered one of the shop's employees.
"Welcome to The Cheating Ring. How can I help you this morning, dear customers?" A well-dressed young man, with various metallic objects on his clothes and a strange kind of skate on his feet, stopped in front of Vicente's group.
Vicente continued to look at the many magical devices there and said. "I'm looking for..." He quickly summed up everything he wanted in this shop.
Engineers were professionals who could create complex items. These items could be anything from a safe to a clock or even a flying boat. Between the simplest and the most complex, there were a multitude of possibilities, things that could be useful for everyday life, training, meditation, security, or even battles.
Vicente planned to buy some artifacts from this store for his two properties in Millfall to increase the level of their security and also to improve the quality of his men's training.
After stopping by the shop, he planned to go to the estate of a local enchanter, where he intended to hire the services of a 2nd stage enchanter to add extra features to these engineered devices.
With the combination of these two professions, he could get training dummies, mana attractors, and vaults capable of storing and protecting medicines, pills, potions, etc.
Besides forging and alchemy, these were the two most important areas for magicians.
The items produced by the combination of these two professions were the ones that could most help people like Vicente to protect themselves, increase their quality of life, their quality of training, and their influence in this society!
Therefore, between The Cheating Ring and the enchanter's estate he would go to right after leaving the engineer's shop, he would spend his entire morning on this, and almost half of what he had planned to spend today!
