CH7

After passing through the stone gate of the town and saying his goodbyes to the merchant, the first thing Ben did was not find Falk, but instead look into the other thirteenish places that he might apprentice under. Just because Falk came recommended by a god didn’t mean that he wouldn’t decide for himself at the end of the day.

First things being first he spent a few hours walking around the town, trying to get acquainted with the area, while also stopping at an inn to book himself a week so he would have somewhere to sleep while deciding on whether or not to stay in this town.

Making a list of any potential places he might look into as he went, he checked out two smiths, an apothecary, three restaurants, and what looked like an art studio, but found them all lacking. It hadn’t even seemed worth his time to ask the owners if they would take any students or staff at the moment, it all just looked boring.

Even worse though was he only found those seven locations, he had no clue what the rest were that the god mentioned, nor had he found Falks. He figured that he should at least check that one out, he would just have to ask around for directions.

Since he realised he didn’t actually know what Falk’s shop did other than that it could be a place to train both of his skills he barely knew what to ask for help with, but acting under the assumption that someone who could use both of those skills would be either an apothecary or a smith, he started asking the various warriors and adventurers around for directs. It wasn’t long before he was able to find out the way.

“Take your item and don’t you dare come back!” This was the first thing Ben heard as he approached the shop, followed quickly by a man being thrown out of the shop and rolling down the street.

Okay well that’s probably good enough, sorry Myriad but I’m not in the mood to be killed twice this year. That display was already enough to give him serious second thoughts about going in. Still nothing else looked promising at the moment so he gathered his resolve; hopefully as long as he was polite he could get out with only minor injuries.

He took a deep breath, gathered his will, and walked inside.

You’d think the first thing he would notice would be the shop’s wares, but no, the first thing that caught his eye was the shopkeeper himself. At eight feet tall, covered in white fur and rippling muscles, and having a surprisingly impressive topknot on his head, there was only one word that came to mind for him. Yeti.

During his walk around the city he had gotten to see all sorts of different races than at the church, some falling farther outside of his frame of reference then this man did, but that didn’t change how impressive it was to see a creature that would be considered a thing of legend back on Earth. A tiny voice in the back of his mind said that Lehie would also qualify for that distinction, but he just couldn’t make himself think of her as something so impressive.

“You need something brat?” The creature, presumably Falk, asked him.

“Just wanted to take a look around, maybe see for myself what’s available.”

“Suit yourself.” He said and went back to work at a forge in the back of his shop.

Ben for his part took some time to look around. It looked like he was a blacksmith, and a busy one at that. There may not have been any other customers in the store at the moment but the walls were covered with items of various styles and designs, lining the walls and filling crates on the floor. Every single item he saw was immediately catching his attention, maybe it was a function of his crafting skill, but he could tell right away that everything he was seeing stood above the other shops by a mile. When he considered that it actually seemed strange that he wasn’t constantly sold out, but maybe his rough attitude had been keeping some more faint-hearted customers away.

Aside from just being higher quality though there was something else that he couldn’t put his finger on about a few of the items, something that made them stand out compared to the others. He stared so hard it felt like he was trying to see through them, searching for what secrets they kept, but in the end there was only one way to really know.

“Hey you’re Falk right?”

“What’s it to you brat?”

“I was just recommended this store and I was just curious if I’m talking to the owner or one of his apprentices.”

“Alright I am Falk, now what do you want?”

Ben pointed out four items that had caught his eye in particular. “Something about these ones seem different from the rest to me, I was just wondering if it was in my head or if they’re unique in some way?”

While Falk seemed indifferent, if not a little rude, at first, he suddenly switched to openly hostile. “You got an appraisal skill or something brat?” stepping forward and baring his teeth at him.

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Looks like my chances of escaping with only minor injuries have just dropped significantly. Still if he had gotten on his bad side from a misunderstanding of his skills then maybe telling the truth would help.

“No appraisal skill on me, it’s probably because I have crafting and enchantment I would guess.”

He seemed to relax a bit at that, but was still on guard. “In that case what do you want with a back alley store like this?”

This is it, now or never. “I was told if I wanted to become a good craftsman I would need a teacher, and you were recommended to me.”

“If you can tell just by looking at them that there’s something different about those four then you should be a decently high level, why would you need a teacher at this point?”

“I’m only level one in both crafting and enchanting though?”

“Brat do you think you’ll have any luck with such a bad lie? There’s no way you can tell that with just level one, not to mention having crafting instead of something like blacksmithing.”

“It’s true though.” Ben told him, showing him his status card.