Merrick points, and I create a portal as far away as I can in that direction. Rinse and repeat for about four hours. The forest starts to get thinner and thinner after a little bit, the canopy letting in more light than I’m used to. It takes a pretty decent chunk of my mana to keep up the pace, but thankfully we get to wherever Merrick is leading us before I start to get low. It’s a small clearing with a few large boulders in the center.
Merrick tosses me a small compass-looking device. “That’s a tracker. It will lead you to the caravan. They are ready and waiting for you, so I don’t really have any instructions. Good luck.”
I know the plan by now, and if everything goes right, I’ll be back with Corvax and Daniel by the end of the day. I say my goodbyes to them and turn to follow the tracker.
The device looks like a compass without any markings for the cardinal directions, just a floating needle. A pulse of mana reveals that it’s pretty similar to the tracking enchantments on the amulets we have, but much more robust, probably allowing it to be used over longer distances. The needle points in a direction opposite of where the other three are now heading. With nothing else to do, I make sure all of my equipment is ready and follow the needle.
After about an hour and a half of leisurely strolling and teleporting in the direction the compass points to, in order to recover some mana, I leave the forest entirely. In front of me now are rolling hills filled with knee-high grasses and plants. Most of it looks like fields of golden wheat, with a few trees here and there, but it’s certainly no forest.
Just past the treeline of the forest, huge stone pillars rise from the ground, reaching about fifty feet in the air, spaced about five hundred feet apart or so, and seemingly following the edge of the forest. A barrier of mana stretches out between them and up over the entire forest. Walking up to it, I start to test it out in every way I can think of and come to one conclusion. The purpose of the barrier is only to keep the death mana from leaking out. Someone basically sealed the forest. The compass points past the barrier, so I step through unhindered.
I notice creatures in the grasses and burrowed underground. Most of them look like regular animals, so I just continue forward for a few more teleports until finally, I notice a caravan of wagons forming a circle. The compass points directly at them, so I teleport to the top of a nearby hill and walk the last few hundred feet to meet them.
There are six wagons, all pulled by horses, it looks like, around a campfire with about fifteen people around it. Several of them notice me as I approach and point me out to a woman who quickly gets up and walks toward me.
She’s a human, I think. She looks human enough—no scales, pointy ears, or fur, from what I can see. She’s got blonde hair tied into a ponytail and is just slightly shorter than me. A quick [Inspect] reveals her class and level.
[Level 38 Traveling Merchant]
“You the smuggler Merrick sent?” She asks me as soon as we are a few feet apart.
“Uhh, I guess. I’m not really a smuggler, more of a general space mage.”
“Whatever you say, General Space Mage, I was told you'd be able to do it.” She gives me a mock salute as she says this.
“Probably. Now show me the goods.” I respond as I give a mock salute back.
She takes me over to one of the wagons and calls a few guys over, who start unloading it on the ground. Most of what they unload are wooden crates and burlap sacks. “I’ll put everything I need smuggled in here. How much room do you have?”
“Enough.” I respond as I start scanning through the items put in front of me.
Most of it is bones, clearly of powerful monsters and people alike. All of them give off mana, each of their own distinct variety. There are a few magical plants and other unidentifiable, but clearly magical, substances in jars that get added to the pile. It’s the last few items that cause me to stop.
“Why are you bringing in what looks like human brains and hearts, preserved in jars?” I ask in a completely serious tone.
“I’m bringing them in to sell, obviously. But you’re smuggling them to avoid taxes. Necromancy is taxed to high hell around here. It means there’s a lot of profit if you can get it into the city without the guards noticing. And the Necromancers Guild has a lot of money to throw around.” She says while inspecting each box, marking it in a notebook she’s carrying.
“None of this is illegal? You’re just avoiding taxes?” I ask.
“Of course! Doesn’t your world have taxes?”
“Yeah.”
“Then need I say more?”
“Guess not. Taxes are universally hated then, I assume.”
“Depends if you’re collecting them or paying them.” She says with a grin.
“I suppose it does. Okay, I agree to smuggle these items into Barad for you, for a price.”
“Naturally. How do you want to get paid? Coin, barter, services?” She asks.
“How much coin are we talking about?” I still have absolutely no reference for the value of anything, so I’m kind of at a pretty big disadvantage here. Damn you, Merrick, you knew this would happen. That’s why you left the negotiation to me.
“This is where my favorite part of the job starts, the negotiation. I’m willing to offer a quarter of what I would have had to pay in taxes, in dungeon-minted coins. Half now, half when the job’s done.” She offers.
“Half of the taxes you’re avoiding, and you can pay me in full after the job’s done.” I counteroffer.
“One third, and I’ll give you the friend discount if you buy anything from me while I’m in Barad.”
“That works. Where is the drop-off in the city?”
“Necromancers Guild. There will be a guy in a bright purple robe waiting for you in the main lobby. He’s the trade liaison for this branch.”
“I’m Ray, by the way.”
“Selle, good doing business with you.”
I nod my head and start storing the pile of goods in front of me into my brand-new storage core. Selle watches carefully and continues to mark things down in her notebook while I work. After everything is stored, which takes a decent chunk of mana to do, mostly from the bones, it kind of feels like they resist my teleportation efforts a little bit, so I end up opening a portal to the inside of my storage space and using that instead.
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After everything is safely stored away, the storage core still isn’t full, so I store some of the items that I want to get past the guards at the front. Corvax, Daniel, and I spoke about this before we left and decided that I would also smuggle some items from the research lab that we thought might be restricted. I take out the research crystals, the three skill cores harvested from people's hearts, and some of the medical tools used for making better undead. Maybe I can sell some of this to the Necromancers Guild. I bet they'll pay good money for it. After I study them, of course.
Once the pile disappears, Selle gets everyone in gear, and just a few minutes later the caravan is back on the road and ready to leave. She waves me over to her, where I’ll be riding next to her in the lead wagon. The other five wagons each have a driver and passenger, and it looks like five people are guards, walking next to the wagons. It seems like a well-balanced group: two obvious melee fighters, a girl with a bow, a girl who looks like a spellcaster based on her staff, and a scout of some kind who is doing a bad job of hiding from me. Shifting my field to break through invisibility or hiding skills is like second nature to me now. I'm doing it almost subconsciously.
“How long until we reach Barad?” I ask.
“About six hours, less if we don’t get attacked by anything on the way.”
“Are there monsters nearby? I figured with the city being so close, they’d be cleared out regularly.”
“Eh, there’s less for sure, but there’s always monsters.”
The first few hours of the journey are pretty boring, and I spend the time by finishing off the last two enchanting crystals Rayke sent over. By the time I’m done with those, my mana has just about reached the point where it’s starting to put pressure on me, meaning it’s time to get rid of some. Instead of just venting mana like I normally do, I want to try something new. It’s not like I have anything better to do right now anyways.
I start pushing a small stream of mana out of my left stump and gathering it in a sphere around where my forearm and hand used to be. I start forming it into a cylinder as more and more mana accumulates, creating a vortex inside to trap the mana while I solidify the outside. After the mana becomes too much to handle and starts to unravel, I put a new technique I’ve been thinking about into action.
I create a second spatial field around the mana construct and apply [Mana Stabilization Field] to it. I could just apply it to the main spatial perception field, but it would be very obvious that someone is using it by the way the ambient mana reacts, so by creating a smaller secondary sub-field, I’m able to better hide my capabilities.
As soon as the field snaps on around my mana construct, I can feel it tighten and become sturdier. Once the mana reaches its current density limit, I start using [Concentration] on it, causing the color to shift to a dark green.
The cart hits a bump in the road, causing the cart to rock and my focus to slip for just a second, and some of the mana dissipates away, but I manage to get a hold of most of it. After I get comfortable with the amount of focus needed to maintain my mana forearm, I start trying to form a fist. About an hour later, I complete it and now have a dark green appendage made of mana replacing my lost limb.
It’s not nearly as good as a real arm, mostly because I have to constantly focus on keeping it stable while also using several skills to make it functional. It’s not really a limb, as it doesn't have any bones or ligaments or muscle. It’s just a roughly arm-shaped mass of mana. It’s also quite robotic, as I have to use [Mana Shaping] to try and mimic real movements, and it’s harder than it looks. The good news is that every skill I have except [Mana Sense] levels up once, and now I have a bit of extra mana around if I need it.
[You have leveled up multiple active skills]
[Space Control] lvl 21
[Mana Shaping] lvl 19
[Concentration] lvl 12
[You have leveled up a passive skill]
[Mana Stabilization Field] lvl 10
Selle mostly ignores me while I work, but after I finish and she sees the amount of mana in my new appendage, she gives me a curious glance and then exclaims, “One hundred and twenty-four? How is that even possible?”
One hundred and twenty-four what? What is she talking about? I look at her with a confused expression.
She collects herself and calms down, answering me in a slightly hushed tone. “Your mana regeneration. How the fuck is it so high? I knew you initiates were special, but that should be damn near impossible at such a low level.”
“You can see my stats?” I ask.
“I can see your highest stat. My [Inspect] is boosted thanks to a trait from my class, Merchant specialty.”
“What’s a normal amount to have in mana regeneration at my level?”
“Maybe mid- to high fifties for someone specializing in that stat. Do you just have to constantly dump mana? What’s your mana capacity stat?” Selle asks.
“I’m not telling you my stats, but yes, I do have to dump mana pretty frequently.” I’ve decided to keep my [Beast mana-heart] and [Mana-Body Synchronization] traits secret for now. Who knows, maybe someone would cut me open just to take them. After that research lab, I know it’s possible.
“Smart, keep those secrets close to your chest. I can’t help but notice your mana control is pretty good as well. Who taught you?”
“Nobody, really. I’ve spent my entire time here in that forest practicing my skills and abilities. I got dropped in there about a month ago and left for the first time today. Most of it was spent in the city of the undead in the middle.”
“Why would you stay in that forest? That place is a deathtrap, the city especially!”
“Merrick said it would be good for training, and it was. And it’s not that bad in there. I only almost died a couple times, and only one of those was actually close to killing me. It’s mostly just goblins, and a few less bears now.”
“Huh, maybe that barrier House Baradia put up is working after all. Was the city looted?” She asks.
“Most of it is, but if you know where to look, there's still plenty of good stuff. We also never managed to get to the city center, so I imagine the big spire at the center is unlooted.”
“Would you be willing to go back in and guide a team to loot the city? I can set up an expedition.”
Wow, she’s straight to business, no dancing around. “Sure, but in a few months probably. I want some time in civilization before I go back. And you would have to hire me and my two teammates. We’re a package deal.”
“If they also survived in that city, deal! Are any of you part of a guild?”
“Nope, I don’t really even know what the Guilds are.” I respond.
“Well then, I guess I’ll explain it to you. Each guild is based around either affinities or classes, which tend to go hand in hand either way. For example, I’m in the Mercantile Guild, and they focus on classes that revolve around trading. The biggest guilds are the ones having to do with the most common elemental affinities: fire, water, earth, and so on. There are plenty of other guilds, however, for the more conceptual affinities. My brother is the guildmaster of the Guardian Guildhall in Morpal, mainly because of his strong affinity for protection.”
“Is there a guild for space affinity?” I ask. “I’d love to get some more ideas for using spatial skills in combat. And just have some knowledgeable people to bounce ideas off of.”
“Hah! As if those pansies would ever step foot on a battlefield. They call themselves the Spacers Guild, and they happen to be one of the most powerful guilds despite space being a fairly rare affinity. They’ve pretty much got a stranglehold on long-range travel between cities, and they can even take you between continents for the right price.”
“So they’re just… taxis?” I say, deflated from my previous excitement of possibly meeting like-minded people.
“Yup. Their unofficial name is the Transport Guild, because that’s just about all they do. They are the only way to actually safely travel between cities, because they just portal you there. Very expensive though, which is why I run a caravan. The worst part is that because of their wealth and power, they can just scoop up every single space mage with their generous contracts and promise of safe work.”
“There are no freelance space mages?” I ask. Could be a good opportunity to make some money then, undercutting the Spacers Guild.
“None that I know that are worth a damn. A few powerful Houses might have one in secret for internal use, but the Spacers Guild pushes hard for people with a primary space affinity and always gets them. I would bet that the Guildmaster in Barad reaches out to you within a day of you entering the city, probably sooner.”
The rest of the journey passes smoothly, with no attacks on the caravan at all, and a few hours later the walls of Barad appear in the distance.