Chapter 36 – Getting a workshop.

Roland gave out a yawn and moved his head to the side. His dome was sticking out from under a blanket and he could feel a cold breeze coming in through the window. He rose up and stretched while yawning, his eyes still a bit sluggish. He had gained some form of freedom through the years but he still was somehow used to getting up early in the morning.

This day was going to be slightly different than the rest. The new workshop that he was promised was going to be opened today. He was going to work there now instead of going to Exeor’s Magic Emporium. As he was now a runic blacksmith he needed more space to practice his smithing related skills.

The manager had delivered on his promise and he would move to the new workshop today. He was going to live there as well, He wouldn’t need this inn’s room anymore. The place he was going to work in had a smaller space for a bedroom where he could spend the night in. He wouldn’t get it for free though, he would pay rent and still need to produce the minimum number of ten spell scrolls a week.

He wasn’t happy about the workload increase as he wanted to get his smithing skills into higher levels. His scribing skills couldn’t be leveled up further, the higher tier skill was only unlocked after getting a tier 2 advanced runic mana scribe class. Still, making runic scrolls was his only way of making a living at least for now. If he managed to create some runic weapons, he figured that the gnome manager would exchange them for the scrolls as they brought in more money.

This was also why they were a lot harder to make. He realized this when he was changing classes and inscribing his first rune. The sheer amount of mana used for even a lesser rune was astronomical. The mana he spent on that one fire resistant ladle was enough for him to create five common fire arrow spells. He couldn’t even finish it in one go and needed to wait for his mana to regenerate. If he tried it in one go he would have probably passed out from the splitting headache.

He got up from bed and got dressed, he wore his usual robe with some casual clothes underneath. He didn’t wear the gambeson armor this time as it was too thick. It was fine to wear outdoors as it was cold there. Inside on the other hand it just made him sweat a lot. He had also exchanged his spatial bag for a larger model, he could fit three times as much into this one. Carrying all of his baggage and resources was now finally possible.

After clearing out the room he returned the key to the innkeeper. The man didn’t react much as having old tenants leave was a common occurrence. He was over 12 years of age now and he would be getting a place of his own already. His plans of starting his own business were looking bright but he wasn’t sure if the council that ruled this place would allow him to open up his own store just yet. Even now he would only work at the building he was given but it would be closed and function only as a place for crafting.

He pushed the inn door open and walked out without looking behind. He decided to take a stroll through the city instead of paying for a carriage. It wasn’t that cold outside as it was summer season now. There were many other people walking back and forth, even though it wasn’t that cold he still saw smoke coming out of many chimneys. The familiar clinging of metal on metal was heard by him as he continued towards his destination.

His plan was to find a regular job at a smithy when he came to this city. A person to guide his progress would probably speed up everything. Luckily in a world where you gained skills, repetition could replace a good master. There were enough smithing manuals to refer too, the hard part was the inscribing of runic symbols. After the trial, he had thought about something that would lessen the strain.

He continued walking through the city, the further he went the less glamorous looking the city became. He already realized that the gnome wouldn’t be handing out anything for free and the new ‘workshop’ was located in the lower parts of the city. This was where most of the poor people lived. He knew that the place he would be getting wouldn’t be anything special.

‘Yeah, expected this much…’

He thought to himself while looking at the address, just as in his past world the houses did have numbers and street names. What he was looking at was an old stone building with a wooden gable roof. There seemed to be an attic with a single round window there. It didn’t have any glass in it and was nailed shut by some wooden planks.

There was someone standing in front of the building and he quickly walked over to Roland. It was a large individual that looked like some kind of worker.

“You Roland?”

Roland nodded and also showed a scrap of paper that the gnome manager gave him to the man.

“Everything seems to be in order, the place is yours.”

The man was fast to leave after seeing the introduction letter, he was just here to give the youth the keys and make sure that no one ransacked it before the new owner moved in.

Roland looked at the person disappearing into the distance before turning around. He looked at the shabby building and went in. It was a lot larger than he expected and when he walked in he knew the reason why.

This wasn’t a regular house, no this was probably a small warehouse. It had a two stories tall storage area and a small office, this office was also what was going to be his living quarters.

There was a loading platform in front of the warehouse to help load and unload the goods from carts and wagons. For heavier goods, there should be a simple hoist above the warehouse door but there was none. There might have been a crane that you operated on the catwalk but it wasn’t there anymore either.

Most of the space of this building was kept for storage. This gave ample room for the various smithing utensils. Right in the middle was the large anvil, it looked quite old and heavy to lift. By the wall, there was the heart of the smithy, the forge with a bellows connected to it that would allow him to infuse more air into it. This one used coal as fuel and looked quite banged up. There were some iron tools thrown into the corner, after going through them he noticed that some were even rusty.

He firstly sorted them out, bringing all the hammers in one spot while the various tongs were placed by the forge in an orderly fashion. A vice and a workbench was there, even a grindstone for sharpening, the gnome was true to his word and had procured all the basics for him to start.

He moved his gaze to the rest of his ‘new’ workshop. The whole place was dusty and cobwebs were hanging from the ceiling. No one had lived in here for quite some time, the reason why this warehouse building wasn’t being used was unknown to him. He could only theorize that it was either too old or in a bad location.

“I need to clean this place up…”

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In these kinds of situations, he wished he was a real elemental mage. He could produce water via magic, if he wanted to do that now he would need to use a costly magic scroll. He needed water and some rags, there were wells spread through the city for these reasons. He started thinking that maybe he should hire someone to fetch things like this for him at a later occasion. The manager had said something about an assistant but after getting the smithy, he didn’t want to ask for more, at least not yet.