B4 - Chapter 19 - Down to Business

"We need potions," Arthur said bluntly at lunch.

"We need ingredients," Lotte fired back.

"I figured as much," Thomas replied, adding himself to the conversation. "Do you have a list of ingredients? I'm assuming it's a mix of second and third floor ingredients?"

"Mostly the third floor, with one notable exception," Lotte answered and pulled out a page with a written list of ingredients.

"Wait, why do I feel like I've been baited into being your errand boy?" Arthur asked, staring at the already prepared page.

Lotte grinned. "Well, I just assumed you or someone else would eventually ask, so I came prepared. Anyway, they aren't too bad to find, and even without potions, you should be able to gather most of them without issue."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to offer an advance?" Thomas asked.

Lotte looked at Lily, clearly wanting a second opinion on that suggestion. Lily shrugged. "I don't see why not? But we should make some kind of agreement."

Thomas scratched his head. "What did you have in mind?"

"Right of first refusal," Lily replied.

Suddenly the table got awkwardly quiet as the group looked at Lily with questioning eyes.

"What the heck is that?" Arthur blurted out first.

"Oh. Basically it means we get first dibs on buying ingredients from you, before you're allowed to sell them to someone else," Lily explained.

"That makes more sense," Thomas sighed with relief. "But where did you even learn of such a thing? I don't think I've ever read it in any of my books."

"Miss Camilla. She was my original alchemy teacher, and she told me it was extremely important to learn some business standards on the side to avoid being fleeced."

"A very shrewd businesswoman by the sounds of it," Hana giggled, earning nods of agreement from the rest of the table.

"Well, I don't see any problem with that," Thomas agreed before turning to Arthur. "What about you?"

"I mean, where else are we going to go? I suppose the older students, but I bet they would scam us."

"There's Richard, Kenny, Samantha," Lotte said.

"I don't know who those are," Arthur admitted.

"They're students in our class," Thomas replied.

Arthur seemed puzzled. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!" Lotte hissed. "They are even assistants with Professor Sylwel."

"But are they better than you and Lily?" Arthur retorted.

"I think Kenny came in third," Lotte offered.

"Yeah… No thanks," Arthur denied. "But man, it seems unfair that Maranix has both of the best alchemists."

"We could say the same with Zephyrix having the two best wind mages," Thomas pointed out.

"I mean, it's in the name; it would be weird if we didn't," Arthur chuckled.

"Anyway. We will trade potions for ingredients," Lotte said, fully agreeing with Lily's suggestion. "We have a bit of excess at the moment in terms of ingredients, so it should be fine to trade them for anything. But in the future we would prefer it if the ingredients are for the potions you are asking for."

"We can offer a big discount if the ingredients are fully supplied by you," Lily chimed in.

"Wait, if we are bringing all the ingredients, shouldn't we get it for free?" Arthur asked.

Lily smiled. "Labor charges."

While Arthur was grimacing, Hana gave a nervous chuckle. "I wonder if I need to warn my mom that the enchanter she's eyeing has been taught by a ruthless businesswoman."

"It's kinda funny considering my dad is supposed to be the merchant," Lotte added. "I wonder if I should send him to Ceedale to get some pointers from this Camilla."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea…" Lily murmured. "He might pick up some bad habits from her, like her hatred of licenses and enchanters."

The group laughed at Lily's response as if it were a joke, not knowing she had been serious. She felt like she should correct them, but before she could, the topic had already moved on.

"What do you think Clarissa is going to do?" Arthur asked, looking at Hana. "Do you think she will lower herself to ask Lily for help?"

"I'm not sure… She might for the sake of competition. But as Lotte pointed out, there are other alchemy students."

"I heard she's going to buy them from the second-year students," Thomas answered. "Now that we've reached the third floor and kinda forced them to move to the fourth, they probably want to get rid of their extra potions and whatnot."

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"Damn, that's a good idea," Hana admitted. "I hadn't even thought of using the older students since I've got these two."

"The school also sells them, but there's a limit per student so that nobody can hoard them. The adventurer shop in Kaeling also stocks them and probably more items for dealing with water."

"I'm hoping to buy a boat or something," Arthur said. "I heard from my dad once that you can get one that folds up into a cube so you can carry it around."

Lotte slapped the table in excitement. "That sounds so cool! I want one!"

"You can't even use wind magic…"

Lotte immediately pointed to Hana, who could only shrug in response.

"Maybe we could try meeting up and working together?" Thomas suggested.

"That would be nice, but I have no idea where we are exactly," Hana sighed.

Arthur nodded. "It's a mess out there. I tried doing some scouting, but all I saw was more islands."

"Speaking of groups… What happened to Wallace and Garet?" Lotte asked.

Thomas sighed, looking quite troubled. "They both decided to go back to the second floor for now."

"Wait, really!?" Lotte gasped. "They managed to make it to the next floor and have decided to go back?"

"The third floor really sucks for them," Arthur answered.

"Earth and fire…" Lily muttered. "That's not ideal in a water environment."

"Yeah, I'm not exactly having a good time myself," Thomas admitted. "I've had to go back to using some more basic spells; I can't use lightning."

"Well, he can as long as we stay on the island," Arthur said with a grin.

"I'm also having problems," Lotte also sighed, joining in on the pity party. "It's too bad none of us are water mages. That would have made this floor a breeze. I think we might lose our crown once one of them beats the second floor and soars ahead in the sea."

"No, I refuse!" Hana declared. "Lily will come up with some crazy glyph, and we will keep our lead."

The others looked at Lily with awkward smiles.

"I don't mind. In fact, I'm hoping to do exactly that. The only issue is I haven't used water magic for much besides cleaning, so I need to do some more research."

That set off a series of discussions amongst the group asking about how the new floor affected each of them. Lily was lucky that her Astral magic was largely unaffected, as was Hana with her light spells. However, the rest of their friend group was quite miserable in having their strongest spells rendered useless or outright detrimental.

Thomas even briefly lamented that he hadn't picked ice as his focus instead of lightning, despite having been enamored by it up until now. In theory, nothing was stopping him from switching over, but it would be like starting over from scratch, and he could run into similar issues with ice if the next floor were something like a desert.

When they eventually split up and Lily returned to her room, she had so many questions bottled up for Arakil. She had refrained from secretly talking to him during their lunch as she thought it would be quite rude to do so in front of her friends, even if they didn't know about it, so it was something she was trying her best to work on.

"I really need to learn more water glyphs. Also, this floor seems really unfair for so many. Is there anything that can be done? Do you think the teachers can help, or you, or will the dungeon give us a solution?"

[Calm down, Lily. One question at a time…]

"But—"

[I'm glad to see you so enthusiastic, but remember to finish what's already on your plate before you go looking for more.]

Lily nodded.

[Anyway… I've already been preparing some more applications for both water and air glyphs for you, as I feel they will be very important for the upcoming floor. From what we've seen so far, I don't think the waters will get much deeper, but I still can imagine there will be all sorts of unclaimed loot in more precarious areas.]

"Water I can understand, but air too?"

[Water on its own can't help you breathe underwater, and together they make quite an effective pairing. The simplest solution would be two glyphs set off in tandem, but I feel like this would be an excellent opportunity to finally touch on an inscription with differing crests.]

Lily gasped, barely able to hide her excitement. She thought that they were going to stick to inscriptions with a unified crest for much longer, with maybe the occasional auxiliary glyph or two since Arakil said those didn't count. Of course her enthusiasm also came with some worry, as now suddenly she would need to be concerned with things such as balancing the inscription to prevent one crest from destabilizing the other.

[I'm glad to see you ready and willing. It would be very good practice on your part, since, as I said, these two elements work quite well together. If we were starting with opposing ones, such as fire and water, then I'd advise we practice our fundamentals for longer.]

"I can only imagine it's a balancing nightmare."

[It certainly can be, although there are techniques that can be utilized to play into their various strengths. For example, many mages often say that fire has a very dominant personality, and you can actually accomplish a form of balance by allowing it to suppress another. But that is getting a bit into the weeds, and we should stick to the basic balancing since we will only be working with two harmonious elemental crests.]

Lily bobbed her head, both agreeing and very excited.

[As for your friends and peers… I already touched on manifestation, which I assume the school will begin to cover. Remember that they have their own assigned mentors for Personal Development, and I bet manifestation will be something they are all told about there.]

"Except Lotte…"

[Yes, unfortunately her basilisk bloodline most likely prevents her from receiving the best of advice. I imagine that Regarth has told her to speak to a poison mage, who would tell her to focus on controlling the spread of her poison as a solution.]

"That doesn't seem like bad advice to me?"

[It's not, but it is painfully obvious advice. It would be like telling a bird it needs to flap its wings to fly. Every mage should work on their control, not just Lotte.]

Lily found herself nodding in agreement, and this was pretty much the same philosophy that Professor Melina talked about.

As expected of the professor who stole his heart, Lily secretly giggled to herself.

[As for other solutions, I can imagine there might be a few hidden trinkets to help explore the floor. One of the first inscriptions I want you to learn is a favorite for keeping one safe and dry underwater, and it was often replicated in enchanted accessories.

Another thing this floor could be forcing the students to learn is proper shielding. So many times a foolish mage only thinks about what their foes are doing, not realizing that the greatest enemy is themselves. Thomas, for example, should learn to shield himself from lightning and, in doing so, could protect his allies as well. Normally I would've thrown Lotte under the same umbrella as him, but considering even the basilisks of legend weren't immune to their own toxins, I'll have to give her a pass.]

"Does that mean two more scrolls?"

[It does, and I'm personally quite excited to see how Lotte's bloodline reacts to what I'm offering.]

Lily was very curious herself, but Arakil was being unusually secretive. It seemed that on occasion even he could have a fun side and wanted her to share in the surprise. As for Thomas, his solution was far more ordinary, according to Arakil, but because there was no professor with a lightning focus, he had to fill the gap.

Arakil should start charging Headmaster Fabrelis a consulting fee.