We got back on a Thursday afternoon and by Friday morning I had seventeen enhancement requests waiting.
I know the number because Kelvin had written them down in order of arrival on a slip of paper he handed me when I walked in the door, before I'd put my pack down, before I'd eaten anything, with the specific efficiency of a man who had learned that I responded better to information presented as a list than as a conversation.
Seventeen, I thought, looking at the list. I was gone for five days. Seventeen requests accumulated in five days. That's three and a half per day. When I arrived in Millhaven I was doing one job per day and grateful for it.
"Word of the C-rank got around," Kelvin said, not apologetically.
"It's been one day."
"The Valorheim registration updates the central guild record immediately. Three adventurers in the building yesterday saw the update and word went from there." He paused. "There's also a merchant from the eastern quarter who wants to discuss a supply arrangement, two B-rank parties asking about pre-run enhancement packages, and a letter from a Court Wizard in Valorheim that I'm treating as priority."
A Court Wizard, I thought. That's going to be Theron. That's the palace court wizard, the one who read my stats in the throne room and called the skill limited. That's the man who said 'limited combat application' in front of the entire court while Hyunwoo laughed.
"Put it on my desk," I said. "I'll look at it after the enhancement queue."
"It's marked urgent."
"Everything marked urgent by someone who isn't actively bleeding can wait until after I've eaten," I said. "Urgent is a self-assessment. Put it on my desk."
Kelvin put it on my desk. I ate breakfast, worked through six enhancement sessions, and then opened the letter.
Court Wizard Theron's handwriting was precise, controlled, the kind of handwriting that came from someone who took accuracy seriously in all forms. The letter was three paragraphs. The first introduced himself, which was unnecessary because I knew exactly who he was. The second noted that the research designation issued through Princess Elara's office had come to his attention and that he wished to discuss the skill documentation process in a professional capacity. The third said he would be in Millhaven in two weeks.
He's coming here, I thought. He's not asking me to come to Valorheim. He's coming to Millhaven. To my territory.
I thought about that for a moment. That's deliberate. He knows I was in Valorheim five days ago and didn't contact him — I went through Elara's office and avoided the court entirely. He's coming to me because if he asked me to come to him I might say no, or route around him again, and this way he controls the meeting location relative to the palace.
Except Millhaven is my ground, not his, I thought. So he's either not as strategic as he thinks, or he wants me comfortable enough to actually talk to him, which means he wants something from this conversation more than he wants the power position.
I put the letter in my desk drawer and went back to the enhancement queue.
The landlord was named Edric and he had been in a cold war with me since week two when I'd asked him to fix the window latch that let in a specific draft at three in the morning that woke me up consistently enough that I'd started planning my sleep around it. He'd fixed the latch badly. I'd said so. He'd said it was fine. I'd documented the draft in writing and slid it under his door. He'd not responded. We had maintained a state of mutual glacial hostility ever since.
On the Monday after we returned from Valorheim, he knocked on my door and told me the enhancement business constituted a commercial operation and the room's lease terms specified residential use only.
I looked at him. He had the expression of a man who had prepared this argument carefully and was pleased with it.
He's right, technically, I thought. The lease does say residential. I've been doing enhancement work in the guild common room for most of the business volume, but I do store materials here and occasionally work late on party prep.
"I'll need the current lease terms reviewed," I said. "With a thirty-day notice period as specified in section four."
He blinked. He hadn't expected me to know section four existed.
"In the meantime," I said, "I'll be moving the enhancement work entirely to the guild facility, which I've already arranged." I hadn't, but I was going to by the end of the day. "The residential use of this room will be exclusively residential, as per the existing terms."
"The—"
"Thirty days, as per section four," I said. "If you'd like to discuss revised lease terms that accommodate commercial use at an appropriate rate, I'm available Thursday afternoon."
I closed the door.
I'm going to have to find a workshop, I thought, sitting down on the bed. I've been putting that off because it felt like an escalating commitment, but the enhancement volume justifies a dedicated space now and the landlord has given me a reason to move. Which is probably what he wanted — he wants the room back to rent to someone at a higher rate. Fine. I'll get somewhere better.
I went to talk to Durnok, who knew everyone in the commercial district and had opinions about property, and who found me a converted storage room two streets from the guild within four days at a rate that was reasonable because Durnok had negotiated it before telling me about it as a courtesy that I was choosing to find charming rather than presumptuous.
The workshop had a workbench, two shelves, a window that actually latched, and enough floor space for scroll work without crowding. I moved in on a Wednesday. Torvin carried the heavy boxes. Yua organized the shelving with the methodical precision she applied to everything that didn't involve navigation. Sera took measurements and made notes about the workspace configuration for her documentation file, which now had a section called "Enhancement Environment Variables" that I pretended not to find endearing.
Rena stood in the doorway, looked at the space, and said: "This is the beginning of something permanent."
"It's a rented workshop."
"You know what I mean."
I did know what she meant, I thought. Millhaven was supposed to be temporary. A stopping point between the exile and whatever came next. I'd told myself that continuously for two months. But I had a workshop now, and a guild relationship, and a dwarf who brought me metal samples on Tuesday mornings, and a branch master who managed my schedule, and a party I was not calling a family but who had keys to the workshop by the end of the first week.
"It's a rented workshop," I said again, and Rena made her specific sound of acknowledgment that meant she'd said what she wanted to say and didn't need me to agree.
The skill hit level six on a Saturday.
I was doing a standard enhancement pass on a batch of blue scrolls — Fireball grade, good quality, the kind that responded well and I'd been building a client relationship around — when the pass completed and I felt something different in the feedback. Not the usual texture of mana settling into optimized pathways. Something opening. Like a room I hadn't known was there.
I stopped.
Tested the pass count rate on the scroll in my hand. It was higher. Measurably, significantly higher. A Fireball scroll that had been hitting twelve uses after level-five enhancement was now sitting at fifteen after a single level-six pass, the inscription responding to the mana with an efficiency I hadn't experienced before.
The jump from level four to five was clear, I thought. That was when stacking became efficient and scrolls started tripling base uses. Level five to six — I'm inside the range the world bible calls "Lv.4–6: stacking becomes efficient, elixirs perform a full grade above their class." I've hit the ceiling of this range.
I put the scroll down.
Opened my status screen.
Name: Park Junho Level: 9 HP: 280 / 280 MP: 230 / 230 STR: 10 (F) AGI: 12 (F) DEF: 9 (F) INT: 25 (E→D boundary) MGC: 8 (F) LUK: 3 (F) SKILL: Minor Enhancement Lv.6 RANK: F
Level nine, skill level six, I thought. INT approaching the D boundary. Still F-rank overall because F-rank is determined by the weighted average and my combat stats are still garbage.
Still F.
Still fine.
I went to find Sera.