Year 1, Spring, Second Month, Second Week.
The Wind Capital was located on top of a hill almost one thousand meters above sea level, to get there, one had to go up the hill for hours. Fortunately, the group got a ride and wouldn’t have to suffer in the long hiking.
Even though the cart moved faster, the Merchant had stopped in several villages along the way so the trip ended up taking three weeks, but Lana wasn’t unhappy about it, she enjoyed the trip and learned a lot from the Merchant.
After seeing Crystal Palace, Lana thought that nothing could be more fantastical, but how could she know that a month later she would see something that redefined her understanding of magic?
Besides being constructed on top of a hill, the Wind Capital didn’t seem to have anything special, except for the Sky Palace. The Palace was something that Lana could only define as a floating Island behind the city in the hill.
Once they got close to the city, she could see the strong wind currents spiraling below the Castle. Lana wondered, how normal people would go to the Palace, but soon she saw a bridge connecting the Castle and the city. The city itself was simple, only the high towers built all over it could mark that it was the Wind Capital.
“Arthur, the everlasting spell is what is keeping the Castle floating?”
“Yes, it’s the Wind Pillars… It’s perfect! Look how stable the Sky Palace is, it doesn’t even move…”
.........
Even after passing the hill, the group had to wait for hours at the gates before entering the city. When Lana walked inside, she could only change her mind about it being simple. The shortest building she could see was at least three stories high while the highest looked like 30 stories.
However, all the floors were very small and had one or two rooms with giant windows that could cover the entire wall. How the towers could stand was a mystery to her, the strong winds that swept through the city only made it more incredible.
Thankfully, Lana didn’t have to extract the Inn information out of someone, their Merchant ride gave her some good referrals. Soon, the group entered the chosen Inn and she was asking about prices to the burly men behind the counter.
“Welcome dear, two silvers for a single room or three for a double room, one extra silver for each guest if you want the meals included…”
“Oh… That’s practically double the Water Capital’s prices…”
“I’m sorry, the prices have been spiking lately, the further you go South in the Eastern Wind Region the higher the prices will be… The incident over the Eastern First Section is affecting the whole Kingdom…”
“Oh… Do you know the details?”
“The City Lord of Hurricane City, which is the city responsible for managing the First Section, let a medium tier (MT) fire beast run rampant and destroy 11 villages. Although the Kingdom has over 400 villages, most of the destroyed were production villages… The war with the Sandines makes the situation even worse…”
“Thank you for the information… Two double rooms for three nights, meals included.”
When Lana passed the 30 silver coins, her heart tightened but she could only steel it and move forward. Even though the prices were higher in the Wind Capital, she chose to stay more days to try to sell the water crystals. With the prices increase, she could even earn some extra money.
.........
“Where do we go? I’m not used to this type of market… I can’t even understand what goods are circulating…”
“Hehe… I’ve been hearing this excuse a lot lately… Maybe you should reconsider being a Merchant…”
Lana and Arthur continue to throw insults at each other until someone asked them to pick a store or get out of the way. Unfortunately, this kind of scene had happened several times in the few hours the group was walking around the city. Apparently, the Wind Capital residents didn’t like to walk aimlessly or slowly.
Lana wasn’t the one to do it, either, but how could she understand the flow of the High Tower Market and decide where to sell her goods? Fast Water Market had been a challenge for her, but this was too much.
The dozens of tall towers didn’t have any signs or drawings indicating what they were selling, one could only go by their appearance. However, the worse thing wasn’t their lack of clarity, most of the market towers had more the ten stories and were further connected by bridges, forming hundreds of passages between towers, like a floating net.
Lana was about to go crazy when a small well-dressed young man pitied her and decided to explain the High Tower Market.
“Except for the fancy and tallest central towers, the other ones sell a good variety of things, the towers don’t focus on only one type of product… In fact, every tower has probably four to five different stores…”
“First, you need to decide which floor you want to go to. The highest floors, above ten to be exact, only have goods and services for Mages. The middle floors, five to ten, deal with weapons and whatnot. Finally, the first floors are reserved for commoners and servants, they sell mostly food, garments and utensils…”
“Now, as for choosing a tower, you could go with anyone, people usually choose by their appearances or try some before deciding on a favorite, everybody has their preferences… Oh, and in the same section of floors, the higher floors have the more expensive and better quality goods...”
“Which is yours?”
The man looked at Lana with a surprised expression.
“You noticed that I’m Merchant?”
“Your posture and attitude… Though you avoided promoting your own store and tower, which means you think that we can’t afford your products… A high level store?”
Rupert wanted to clap for the cleaver girl but restrained himself from losing face in public. He wasn’t the one to judge but it was clear that neither of them was a Mage so he never considered promoting his store to them, as for the tower he was currently renting, he wouldn’t give them free advertisement.
“You’re a very clever girl… I’m Rupert, how can I call you, Miss? My store is focused on crafting jewels for Mages, but maybe I can point you to a good store. What are you looking for?”
Lana felt as if she had used her month’s luck in one go, to find a nice Merchant that deals with crystals and end up curing his favor was more than she could ask for. With an enormous effort, she calmed her heart and made her move.
“I can’t believe it… You must be Origin sent Rupert! I always dreamt about being a Merchant, I’ve been working and saving money since I could… But, I might have overstepped… I was traveling through the Kingdom, looking for an opportunity and I ended up investing all my money in some water crystals… Could you help me with that? I don’t want to go bankrupt even before I start…I’m Lana, by the way…”
“You’re a little shameless, aren’t you? How much of it is true? Either way, I already decided to help you… But, you’re too clever for your own good…”
Lana could only smile awkwardly. Maybe she had overdone it…
However, she could only thicken her face and accept his help. After difficulty convincing Arthur to trust Rupert, she got him to pass the bag of crystals. Rupert started to analyze carefully each piece, sometimes he would give off an exclamation of surprise and satisfaction, but Lana couldn’t say if it was genuine or to cheese her.
“I don’t know if you’re lucky or have a good eye for crystals but they are all of good quality… Normally they wouldn’t be worth that much, but since a lot of Merchants are going towards the First Section to earn some extra coins, we’re having a shortage of all kinds of things… I could have taken advantage of you and maybe I should give you a lesson to not trusted strangers so easily, but I truly like you, Lana… I can give you 30 gold coins for everything…”
“…”
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