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Path to Prosperity - B2 Chapter 38
🕑 Added 2024-09-10 10:00:05 +0000 UTCPercy didn’t know much about Beastmen and the war between the Kainesh Kingdom and the Beastlands, but he’d heard that the king escorted the war slaves back to their homes if they wanted to return. That was also why one would rarely met pure-blooded Beastmen in the Kainesh Kingdom. Most Beastman accepted the offer to return to the Beastlands when the king ushered it.
Sabrina and Louis, on the other hand, were too afraid of the Beastlands to move there. The siblings knew nobody would welcome them in the Beastlands because they didn’t belong there either. After all, they were Demis rather than pure-blooded Beastmen.
Beastman was the proper terminology for the residents of the Beastlands. They could transform into powerful beasts. However, Louis and Sabrina couldn’t do that since their father wasn’t a Beastman. Their father was human.
Louis and Sabrina were half Beastmen, half human, and thus proper Demi-Humans.
That was the worst for the siblings since both sides loathed them. The Beastmen’s hatred toward humans was already bad, and it wasn’t much better the other way around. However, an union between Beastman and Humans was considered even worse. It was the worst of the worst…and Louis and Sabrina were the result.
The Beastman would probably kill Louis and Sabrina the moment they entered the Beastlands. Thus, the siblings never considered leaving even if their living conditions couldn’t be considered excellent in the capital either. At least, the king – knowing the children weren’t at fault for their actions – helped the Demis.
“Are you done with the door?” Percy asked Louis while finishing the list of furniture they had to purchase.
The first thing Percy did on their way back was to purchase a heavy eveewood door, which was rumored to contain special properties, properties that allowed the door to be heavier when it was touched with ill intentions. Percy was not in need of the increased weight – it was a nice characteristic but not what he was interested in – but the ability to perceive someone’s intentions had attracted his curiosity.
“Yes, Sir!” Louis responded, tapping the door to the Dragon Lair shop with a satisfied smile.
Installing the door hadn’t been a problem, and Percy could have done it as well, but he had been more focused on the wooden door’s runic enchantments to split his attention.
[Alarm], [Ward Danger], [Mark of the Thief] were the runic enchantments Percy could engrave on the eveewood door. The enchantments weren’t all self-explanatory, but Percy was good at guessing.
[Alarm] was obvious. The enchantment would trigger if someone with ill intentions entered. Maybe he could adjust [Alarm] and set it to specific times as well or increase and decrease the intensity depending on the time of the day. After all, his shop wouldn’t be open at night. Therefore, [Alarm] could be at full sensitivity at night.
But that was too vague. Percy didn’t know enough about runic enchantments – he should have started studying runic enchantments a long time ago – to experiment with them.
[Ward Danger] would probably trigger when someone with ill intentions tried entering the shop. The door would be too heavy for them to lift. At least, that was what Percy guessed. It wasn’t suitable either.
As for [Mark of the Thief], Percy was unsure. He could only guess that it would somehow mark everyone with ill intentions. He had no idea if he could sense the mark or, if he could sense it, how far the mark’s range was.
Percy had three interesting enchantments to pick from, and it took him a while to make a final decision.
But at the end of the day, he went down the simplest path. He chose [Alarm] not only because it was the cheapest to engrave but also due to its simplicity. [Alarm] would warn everyone that someone with ill intentions was about to enter. It didn’t restrain their entrance, but Louis would be there to care for them in case Percy was elsewhere.
[Evee Wood’s sensors have been enhanced. 1500 Prosperity has been consumed.]
[Sensors reached their limit. [Alarm] is overflowing with Prosperity.
[Alarm] will be interwoven into the essence of the Evee Wood.]
Percy move on to Ego-enhance the glass windows, the hinges of the eveewood door and some other less important objects. However, he did not put any enchantments on them. Instead, he upgraded their Durability, Endurance, and some other characteristics that could be enhanced by focusing on the myriad of silverish-golden threads attached to them.
He didn’t have to invest more than 3,000 Prosperity points to enhance everything satisfactorily. Anyone wanting to break in would have to hire Gifted Ones. And not ordinary Gifted Ones, but professional Elite Gifted with expertise in silently breaking into a well-protected establishment.
Nobody would expect the Dragon Lair shop to be such an establishment. After all, it was a small shop in a secondary position where cheap Iron Artifacts and only one or two Elite Artifacts could be purchased.
Now that the security of his shop had been taken care of, they left to purchase some furniture and clothes for Louis and Sabrina. The siblings weren’t comfortable with Percy buying so many things for them, but Percy was in a generous mood and told them not to worry about the expenses.
It didn’t take long to purchase the furniture needed to decorate the rooms on the second floor. Percy also purchased a small bed for the storage room where he’d moved. He stored the bed in the spatial ring whenever he trained with the sword and retrieved it again when it was about time to sleep or train with mana.
Several days passed in the blink of an eye. The rooms on the second floor looked passable now, and Sabrina warmed up to Percy. She wasn’t a chatterbox but answered some simple questions when nodding or shaking her head wasn’t enough. In the meantime, Louis was going crazy. He watched Percy when he worked out in the storage room, urging Louis to do the same.
However, instead of training for a reasonable amount of time, Louis went above his limit, nearly tearing his tendons once.
Percy knew Louis was a bit dense, but he started wondering if Sabrina was given the brain cells her brother lacked. She was the smart one, while Louis was the brawny guy.
But maybe that was also why there hadn’t been an incident in the Dragon Lair shop. Percy was a little worried about his customers – especially the elderly Adventurers, who had fought Beastmen in the last war – but there hadn’t been any issues. That was a welcome surprise.
It was already late afternoon, and Percy was about to close the shop for the night when he heard something from outside.
“He is so big!” Someone commented, attracting Percy’s attention.
The door to his shop opened, and a familiar hulking giant walked in. It was Bert!
“Oh hey, Bert. How have you been?” Percy greeted the blacksmith, who smiled from one ear to the other as he stepped inside with a heavy bag hurled over his back. The bag was wider than Bert and covered his entire back.
“I’m doing perfectly fine. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever been better,” Bert responded, “I didn’t know when you would come again, so I decided to come over. I hope that’s not a problem.”
“Of course, not. You’re always welcome,” Percy smiled, his eyes trailing to the bag as Bert put it down.
Louis stared at Bert with wide eyes and mumbled, “Is he a bear?”
“You don’t know Louis and Sabrina yet, right? They’re my new hires. Louis over there is the shop’s guard, and Sabrina is…whatever she wants to be.”
Bert chuckled and introduced himself, “I’m Bert, a blacksmith in training.”
“In training?” Percy squinted his eyes, “Your work is too good to be an apprentice. You should be more confident in your work!”
He approached the bag of goods and retrieved some items.
Bert forged more shields and other items that required more iron. Was he that close to bankruptcy?
Most of Bert’s products had been smaller daggers, armaments, and accessories, but that changed suddenly. The only reason Percy could think of was that Bert couldn’t afford anymore iron ore before he received funds from Percy. That was depressive but also a great fortune.
It was a great fortune because Bert had now enough funds to experiment and practice as he pleased.
“Amazing work,” Louis mumbled as he retrieved one of the iron longswords. He glanced at the handful of Iron Artifacts that were still left and compared them with the unenchanted iron armaments, “This…”
Percy noticed Louis’ confusion and answered calmly, “Yes, I engrave the runic enchantments. Bert produces the high-quality work while I do the enchantments.”
Louis nodded absentmindedly while Sabrina studied the hulking giant of a blacksmith. Interestingly enough, she didn’t seem scared and smiled faintly at Bert.
“Are you satisfied with the work?” Bert asked hesitantly.
Since Percy entered his life, Bert was more motivated to improve his work. Percy valued his work and was willing to take him under his wing with heavy investments. That kind of motivation worked better than anything he’d encountered.
His work was more precise and several times more efficient, allowing him to create high-quality products in a much shorter timeframe.
“Satisfied? That sounds like an understatement. This is perfect!” Percy responded with a vibrant smile.
This was much better than he had been hoping for!
