"Alright, let me whip something up with this meat and try it. I'll take the fruit. How much for the nuts?" He asked, grabbing a frying pan and placing it over the burner of what looked like a mana stove.
He grabbed a handful of onions, poured a little oil on the hot pan, and sauteed them for a few seconds before turning around and giving the chunk of Boar meat a quick butterfly and sprinkled salt, pepper and some other spices Sam was sure they didn't have back on earth.
"3 silver for a dozen," Sam said, mouth salivating. The hiss of the meat hitting the pan was music to her ears. The smell the boar meat gave off was a subtle smokiness. When done, the chef plated it and brought it over to the table. It was nothing to fancy, just a cooked piece of pork, but it smelled divine.
Taking a bite, he nodded and pointed to the plate.
"How much of this you got?"
"25lbs, 10c a pound" she said staring at the plate.
He nodded his head. "And the venison? Same price?"
"15c a pound, they fought back," she said with a smirk. "The boar was fighting a wolf when I found it. Almost killed me earlier in the day, nice to finally put it down." She pulled out the last Boar knife. "Made this from one of its tusks, 1s 25c, has a bit of heat resistance to it."
"I'll take the knife, the boar meat, the fruit, and 20lbs of each type of venison…If you got that much."
"Ha! There were like ten of them, I got lots"
'Jarvis what's that come too?' she said in her head
{"tisk, just a glorified calculator huh? 2s 50c for the boar, 9s for the venison, 25s for the fruit, 3s for the nuts and 1s 25c for the knife. A grand total of 40s 75c"}
"That'll be 40 silver 75 copper. Throw in a meal, and I'll make it an even 40," Sam smiled.
"Deal, James! Grab the lady a menu and show her to a table. Whatever she gets is on the house. Name's Dale by the way, pleasure doing business with you."
Sam moved the meat from her inventory to the table and then accepted the coins. "Pleasures all mine." She then turned to James and moved to follow him out the door. "Oh, my carts out back. Would I be able to get this to go? We had a long day at the market and I doubt my tames want to wait even longer to eat."
"What do you have back there? I'm sure I can whip something up for them." Dale said, gathering the meat and other items. Sam placed a couple pounds of rabbit on the table and a crate of hay and a bag of oats. "Two cats and a horse." she said pointing to the table. "That should be good. If you can chop the meat up for the cats, ones an Emberkit kitten, the other…well she's a kitten too, but also a Stormkit, so a kitten the size of a house cat."
He just stared at her for a second and then grabbed the meat and had another employee grab Sunblaze's food. Sam turned and followed James to her table. Looking over the menu for a few minutes, she selected what she wanted and then sat back to look around at the place.
It looked like your typical run-of-the-mill restaurant, only a little more rustic. The building was made of a light gray stone. It had exposed wooden beams and two large windows at the front.
The place had about twenty tables. Ten on each side of a walkway down the middle. The tables were far apart enough so as to have a bit of a buffer between them.
It was nearing the end of their working hours, as most of the tables were empty. Customers were finishing off desserts and what looked like the closest thing to coffee Sam had seen here.
Ten minutes after she ordered, her food arrived. A delicious-smelling and hardy-looking stew. She also ordered a side of fried dumplings of some kind. They looked like fatter, rounder pierogies. The bottoms, nice and crispy, the tops soft and fluffy. They came with a slightly spicy dipping sauce that went perfectly with them. She also ordered an ale…because why not. It had been a long day.
When she was done, she heard a notification ding.
{You now have the following food buffs:
Cold resistance: +5%
Satiation Buff: You will feel satiated for the next 12 hours.}
'Wow' she thought, 'Not bad for a bowl of stew and some dumplings. ' She finished off her ale and went back into the kitchen.
"That was amazing, thank you," she said to Dale.
"You're welcome. That horse of yours is quite the beauty." Dale said while leaning against one of the prep stations.
"Thanks, I've attracted a fair bit of attention with her." Sam said picking up and storing the leftover food for her animals.
"It was a pleasure meeting you Dale, if I'm ever in town again I'll be sure to stop by for another meal" She shook his hand and left out the back door.
She climbed back on the cart, made sure everything and everyone was in place and then made her way back to the Inn.
Back at the Inn's stables she had Sunblaze manoeuvre the cart into a safe spot where it could be easily watched by the stable hands. She asked if Sunny wanted to go back in her beast space, but she said she was fine where she was. Sam was certain it had nothing to do with a certain boy's talent for finding the best places to scratch and the treats he gave her.
She picked the crate, and Iggy, up and made her way inside. Tempy was on cart duty again. She seemed ok with that, being pampered by the boys with treats as well.
Making her way to her room, she unlocked the door and set the crate near the bed. The room came with a self-filling and heating bath that she took advantage of before falling into the bed and was fast asleep in seconds.
The next day, she had a filling breakfast that wasn't quite as good as Dale's food, but she did still have a few hours of the satiated buff left. Saying goodbye to the innkeeper, she picked Iggy and the crate up and went back to the stable to start the second half of her trip.
The sun had barely passed the horizon when they finally made it out of town. The next leg would take four days so she figured she'd get her daily quests over with early and enjoy the leisurely ride. She had already done the push-ups, sit-ups and squats in her room, so she just ran alongside the cart, well… jogged at a quick pace. Her agility made it a little difficult to not out pace the cart.
While jogging she stopped to pick herbs, and food stuffs she saw. Having to venture into the woods a little ways sometimes. She laughed at the thought of Sunblaze passing other travelers with no one steering the cart.
Luckily she ran into a small group of Ash-Boars. Well lucky for her, not for them. They were only between level 5 and 7 so just under the threshold for the level discrepancy penalty.
She used a combination of her bow and dagger to finish them off. Scoring some more meat, hide, bones and tusks for crafting, along with the cores she needed for the incubator and a snack for Iggy.
"How'd I do Jarvis?" Sam asked, making her way back to the cart after finishing the water quest at a nearby stream.
{Combat Report:
Beasts:
1- Uncommon Orange LVL 5
2 - Common Orange LVL 6
1 - Rare Blue lvl 7
XP Gains: 90+180+130 = 400xp + 400xp(DD) =800XP
360xp Sent to Beast Bank (Bank Balance: Max - 400xp)
Loot:
Coins: 1s 25c + 10c + 11s = 12s 35c
Meat: 200lbs
Hides: 2 Common, 1 Uncommon, 1 Rare
Bones: 40lbs
Tusks: 8
Cores: 4 Fire affinity
Accessory: 1 ring of Strength (+2 to strength)}
{"As you say, not a bad haul. For less than ten minutes of work."}
"Fantastic," Sam said. "Can you further streamline my notifications? I was thinking maybe a Quest report, or something."
{"That can be arranged, would you like it to include pending quests too?}
"Yes please, but only for those I'm actively working on." She replied
{"Coming right up!}
{Quest Report:
Daily Quest One: Exercise (Incomplete)
Push-ups (Done)
Sit-ups (Done)
Squats (Done)
Running 4.3km/5km
Daily Quest Two: Training (Incomplete)
Remaining weapons to train:
Axe
Spear
Short Sword
Knife
Daily Quest Three: Healing Salve (Incomplete)
Required plants and herbs (Done)
Making of Salve (Incomplete)
Daily Quest Four: Food (Complete)
Gathered food 5/5 (Done)
+100xp
Daily Quest Five: Water (Complete)
Gather 1 litre of water (Done)
+100xp
Special Quest One: Home Is Where The Heart Is (Incomplete)}
"Perfect thanks, Jarvis" Sam said, continuing to run back to the cart. When she finally came back to the cart she heard a ding.
"Was that me finishing my exercise quest Jarvis?"
{"Yes Sam, an additional 100xp has been added to your experience.}
"Thanks" she said as she told Sunblaze to stop so she could get back on the cart. She told Sunblaze to continue and sat back pulling the mortar and pestle out to grind the healing plants. Another ding was heard but she just assumed it was the quest and places everything back in her inventory.
She planned on doing the training one when they stopped for the night. So she just sat back and enjoyed the ride. As time went on the traffic thinned and the sun started to make its way across the sky. When it was approaching dusk she checked her map for any dangerous creatures nearby, then led Sunblaze to a small clearing.
Having sold most of her crafted items she filled her inventory with the resources that were still in the cart, making some room for herself. The hides came in handy as a makeshift bed, so she arranged them in the open space she had made.
She then got out and removed the harness off Sunblaze.
"Wanna go to your beast space? Or sleep out here?" She asked the horse.
'I will sleep here and keep an ear out for any beasts' Sunblaze said.
With everything settled she squeezed her way to the back where her crafting workbench was and brought out the items she needed to make the incubator. It took her a while but she finished the separate parts and set them on the bench.
"Create"
The items glowed and within a few seconds the pieces came together.
{EMBERCRADLE INCUBATOR Crafted!
Tier: Great
Use: Accelerates beast egg development using controlled mana heat.
Status: Inert. Insert beast egg to begin countdown.
Optional Bond Detected: Apply user's mana signature to synchronize imprinting.
Hatching Speed Bonus: +300%
Survival Rate Increase: +40%
Mana Affinity Alignment: Enabled
"Let there be warmth… and wings."}
{+500xp}
{Ding! Your skill in 'Item Creation' has increased the quality of your items from good to great. Your knowledge has increased. 'Item Creation' can be now upgraded}
"Wow, that must have been a big boost," Sam said, shocked at the sudden upgrade.
{"When creating things not in the mana-pad, you show that you have received adequate knowledge of your skill. So the skill levels faster"}
"Nice, ok let's level that skill up. Also I can use more than one skill at a time right?" Sam asked as she carefully placed the eggs into the incubator.
{"Yes why?"}
"Well I figure if I need to level up both mana hands and human-forge then using them together might be best. Here's what I'm thinking, if I take one of the ingots of ores that I got at the market, and use human-forge to mold it into wire. Then I can use mana hands to pull and wind it around a wooden spool." Sam said, getting excited.
"Then I can use the wire to make jewelry chains. I've also had this idea for a multiple pendant necklace. So when I first start as an enchantress, I can still do multiple enchantments before being able to actually do them…or would that not work?"
{"Actually, it would. Each pendant would have one enchantment, but each necklace could have multiple. Also, in this case, size doesn't matter. It's the material. Five coin-size pendants made of a high-grade ore or wood of the same affinity would work just as well. Excellent idea"}
Sitting down on her makeshift bed, Sam opened her inventory. Inside were the new ores she bought. Some raw, some already processed into ingots. Typically, she'd want to use silver for jewelry, but that would result in an absurdly priced necklace. So she decided to use something she thought might be a little controversial for her world, but here it was an expected ore for beginners.
Ironstone.
The ore didn't hold much magic, maybe one enchantment. However, she figured once she could enchant, she'd use a simple durability or unbreaking enchantment on it. The pendants themselves could be made of something nicer when she got around to it. Besides, once polished up the ore wasn't so bad.