Chapter 13 The Way Of Fire

This city was quite large, so it took me a decent amount of time to reach my destination. When I was outside Felwan’s place, I was surprised at how busy it seemed to be. Although, perhaps the few times I had come here before, I just happened to arrive during less busy times.

There were quite a lot of people, and I quickly recognized them as crafters trying to buy what looked like a lot of merchandise. Felwan’s place wasn’t where they made end products from loot; instead, they cleaned it up a little for crafters and merchants to be able to use it easily. I did recognize the most prevalent loot here, which looked awfully similar to the loot drops I got from the trents.

The price also seemed to have gone down, which made me worry about my gold mine. The only reason that map had been so profitable was that there hadn’t been much of this type of wood coming in. I decided to head to the other side of the establishment—the place that bought loot instead of selling it.

There was Felwan, going through a wagon full of wood loot that once again looked like it was from trents. He noticed my approach—he seemed to have quite good awareness. I decided to greet him first.

“Hi, Felwan. It’s been a bit. I see you’re quite busy,” I said to him while pointing at the loot he was going through.

To my surprise, I was greeted with a large smile, even though he quickly glanced towards the offload section and didn’t see a wagon that I would have come with if I’d brought him some loot.

“It’s good to see you, Mark. And, well, this busyness—from what I’ve heard, I have you to thank,” he said.

That completely surprised me, and it seemed like he picked up on it.

“Oh, you didn’t know. Perhaps you don’t remember, but does that person look familiar to you at all?” he said while pointing at one corner, where a person was going through what looked like a scrap box of wood pieces.

At first, I was going to deny it, but he did seem a bit familiar, and then I recognized him. He was the one I bought the map from that contained the trents. Well, I guess that might explain something, but I was still a little bit in the dark, and I did show it on my face purposely, making it obvious, which prompted Felwan to speak.

“Yeah, come, I’ll introduce you.” He promptly started to head towards that person, and after a moment, I followed. This person obviously wasn’t as observant as Felwan, as not even us getting basically next to him seemed to have announced our presence.

“This is Tivet. He's a crafter specializing in making maps. Hey, Tivet, do you recognize him?”

When his name was called, Tivet finally looked up, and I did see recognition in his eyes.

“It's nice to meet you properly. You changed my life, and I didn’t even know your name. I’m Tivet, by the way,” he said while putting out his hand for me to shake, which I did do. At the same time, telling me own name to him.

“I always thought that trents were good for farming, but the map formula I had hadn’t been tested, so no one knew how much profit you could get from it. I tried to sell it for such a long time, but no one was willing to take the risk.”

“That’s until you came along and started bringing out so much wood-type loot. We also got a proper evaluation of how much could be made, and well, now I am having trouble keeping up with demand for new maps. You know, it’s not an exact science.”

I had a feeling that he was going to keep talking, but Felwan put his hand on his shoulder. “We came to an agreement with Tivet here. The maps would have been a bit too expensive to sell to some of the adventurers, so I’m offering a sponsorship. I’m more than willing to offer you one as well. I will give you a portion of the money to buy the map, and you would give me a portion of the loot you bring out.”

The offer was not a bad one, but I did want to do the goblin maps for practice.

"I appreciate it, but I have the coin to purchase one. That being said, I’m not against doing it, but why specifically me? There should be hundreds of teams that could complete these maps."

Both of them looked at each other and then at me.

"Killing the trents isn't as easy as you seem to think it is," Tivet said, and right afterward, Felwan spoke.

"Only fire types seem to be doing quite well on that map, but the loot they’re bringing out isn’t the best—a lot of it singed. Honestly, you’ve brought out the best quality loot, and... well, I think Tivet can explain it better."

"You see, Mark, the problem is to make the map, I need to use the wood loot that the trents drop. But if it's even a little bit singed, if it even has a bit of a smoke flavor to it, the maps come out a lot more dangerous. A lot of them simply break as they’re too unstable, and the ones that don’t won’t pass the danger evaluation at the verification office. We need clean wood."

Now I understood what was going on.

"While I would enjoy constantly running and making a lot of money from these maps and getting levels, I have other concerns as well that can’t be met by these maps," I said, taking out a few nails and showing them.

"I need to do some more normal maps to practice and get better at my fighting style against more normal enemies. I also need a way to sell this loot. But for the trent maps, I am willing to do them every so often if you provide me with the map for free, and in exchange, you get half the loot. The rest, I will guarantee to sell to you."

That would mean I wouldn’t have an upfront cost, I would still get half the profit for what was very little and easy work for me, and I think I would be making some business partners, if not friends, here.

"Could you give us a few minutes?" Felwan said. I agreed and walked a bit further away, looking at the wood that was in the wagon. It was indeed quite singed, some parts even completely black. I bet they were burning the trees, and the loot that would drop would be on fire, which they could then extinguish, as some of the wood seemed a bit wet.

It didn’t take too long for them to approach me. They had smiles on their faces, which was good news. I wondered if they were related, but if they were, they didn’t look anything like each other.

"You have a deal, but we would need that clean wood fast."

"No problem. I can sign up immediately after I go back to the adventurer guild and then run the map until it breaks."

"That’s good enough. For those nails, you’re looking for a place called Alfonso's Potions. It’s about a 10-minute walk from here, closer to the proper market district."

After that, things went quite pleasantly as we signed a quick contract, and I was handed the map. They offered to go to a tavern, but I declined. I still needed to sell the nails, and it was getting late. I was quite tired from the fighting as well.

Of course, those were mainly excuses, as I was craving some company. Even the time spent writing up the contract and just speaking to them was so nice. But I couldn’t allow any true attachments—my secrets were too heavy, and one slip would mean everything would be over.

Alfonso's Potions was a really busy place. Everything was so much more organized. I even had to take a ticket with a number on it to wait my turn to sell the loot. From what I was overhearing from others, apparently, this place was the best because they always gave you fair prices. Apparently, they were really focused on purifying the loot so other crafters and alchemists would have an easier time making better products.

Everything was standardized, and I got exactly the amount of money I was expecting to get. With me having hunted so many goblins, I was just shy of the price of the map, but the next delivery should bring me profit when I eventually get to it.

But first, I will need to finish the trent map. It looks like Greg would get a little bit more of a workout, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything as I couldn’t use fire-type skills.