„By the way, Geil.” – I ask after everyone calmed down, making him perk up. – “Do you maybe know anyone who can buy mana stones?”

“Hm? I… do know a few people who might be interested. Why do you ask?”

“Laura, do you still have these stones I gave you?” – I look at her.

“Yea, I do. I’m not short on money now so I didn’t rush things.”

“Good.” – I smile. – “In that case I’ve got something for you, Geil.”

“What is it?” – He instantly gets interested.

“I have some mana stones I don’t need. I asked Laura to sell them, but I thought you might want to have some fun.” – I smile, looking at him suggestively.

“You mean… to sell these stones? I could, but what…” – His face suddenly brightens and eyes widen in realization. – “Oh, you want me to find people who would buy them for more than Hunter’s Guild does, is that it?” – He looks on his feet and rubs his chin, thinking intensely. – “Certainly~, I could get some more profit this way, because Hunter’s Guild takes a fee from everything, hmm~. I believe I can do it. Could you tell me the details?” – He looks up at me.

“Okay, so, get checked how much does Hunter’s Guild buys and sells these things and as you go to the commoner’s district visit a marketplace and maybe a few other places to see if someone is interested in buying them. It would be for the best if you got someone willing to buy off regularly, because I will be bringing them as such. Figure all the details by yourself, I am not good with these things, but if it goes well you should get a few more coins on your hand. Laura had fourth of profits before, so let’s say you will give her fourth of guild’s price, three times that for me and the rest you earn save for yourself. Are you both fine with that?” – I look between Geil and Laura.

“Well, I don’t mind.” – Laura shrugs with faint smile. – “Geil hadn’t particularly mess up anything up to now, and it should be a good challenge for him if he wants to be a merchant as he said before.”

Geil meanwhile rubs his chin thoughtfully and nods slowly after a while. – “Yeah, I can do that.” – He looks up with resolution in his eyes. – “I am not sure if I will be able to earn much, but I’ll do my best.”

“But of course you will, these are your own earnings after all.” – I grin cheekily, making him avert his eyes in embarrassment.

…

In the end our agreement remained and Laura gave the ten magic stones to Geil, along with one fresh one from the zombie Yana beheaded. And another one from the leader of the three thugs I killed before and remembered to check for mana stones as we were going back from the sewers with Yana. They should be worth around thirty bronze coins, so with, say, twenty percent fee from Hunter’s Guild, he should be able to sell them for around thirty two or three bronze, earning him a few coins of profit.

It certainly isn’t a lot, but for him, who rarely sees large silver coins, three bronze is always some profit. And, as they say, a merchant’s worth isn’t shown by single profit.

And, well, when I start bringing him larger mana stones the profits will soar incomparably higher, maybe even into gold in some time. Laura said that a mana stone with three times the mana is usually worth around four times more, so if I bring a mana stone from D class monster, which should be over ten times larger than that of an ordinary zombie, it will sell for at least eight small silver or so, bringing him a few bronze coins of pocket money for one stone.

Not to mention the monsters much higher in ranks, whose mana cores contain tens and hundreds times more mana. It is a talk for the future, though, but with my speed of growth it shouldn’t be in more than a few years at most and a few months at best.

…

Four days later, after Ned and Helia both took down their respective monsters at E rank.

Ned got a zombie of slightly lower strength than the one Yana defeated, but it was good enough to test his abilities. He used a large wooden sword reinforced on the edges with metal of custom production he got for himself a few months back with the money he earned. He fell the monster splendidly without suffering a single blow, though it took him a bit more time since he had no way to quickly incapacitate it.

He also didn’t relax immediately after killing the zombie, though he reacted with a small delay and was half a second from being hit in his leg at the end.

Helia on the other hand got a mutated rat, around a meter long, black thing with sickly yellow eyes and abnormally long claws and fangs. It was much different from the other two tests, but effectively it was still an E ranked monster so it was no problem. She suffered a few scratches due to a badly timed attack with her slightly rusty, old dagger, but it was nothing serious and she also got an approving mark, though I could see she wasn’t as good as Yana. Ned is slightly another matter, because his physical prowess put him at a large advantage, but both would be defeated by Yana if she fought seriously.

On the other hand, Yana went to the sewers with me every day apart from the first one, and although she had no chance to fight anything stronger, she was exterminating rats with incredible enthusiasm and got to fight a few slimes, easily killing them by slashing the core inside. She also destroyed the mana stone once as she was doing it, but then learned her lesson and made sure not to slash blindly next time.

All in all we got three E ranked monsters, one of them, bordering on Rank E+ and with visibly larger mana stone, killed by me in the night, and six slimes, adding another twenty large bronze or so to our earnings.

And giving me a large power-up, though I already saw how the amount of power I got from the small monsters and rats was sharply decreasing. Natria explained it the way that the larger a soul is, the stronger base it needs, so the amount of power a soul holds is not proportional to the amount of mana flowing through, but rather the bigger the soul, the more energy is needed for a part of same size to keep it stable.

It can be compared to buildings in a way. The soul, growing in height, needs stronger foundation to remain stable as it gets taller, and at some point, if the foundation is not strong enough, the building will begin to strain too much and eventually collapse. And, as a side note, that’s the reason why forcefully stretching your soul to increase the amount of mana flowing through it often has disastrous consequences.

Anyway, comparing my gains in the last four days to before, they were slightly lower despite the fact I got more souls of better quality overall. And the more souls we are talking about are humans.

Yeah, I killed some humans, one or two each night, not to overdo it. They were all either scum that exerted people and committed various bad things or people like the one I killed before who was attacked by the Beholder. That said though I am trying not to be a hypocrite, so I killed only the completely hopeless cases or the people who had made a move on me first.

There was, for example, one person attacked by a Beholder, but in much better state than the other man. His spirit was practically complete, merely around two third of it was black, and his soul was around half-empty, but he at least had a reaction when I sat beside him. He didn’t attack me, fortunately, but asked what a noble is doing here, which was already a large development despite his dazed eyes and slightly strange question.

Anyway, we got quite a few mana stones and Geil came back with profits just this afternoon. He said that he had trouble finding someone more willing to buy stones than to scam him, but eventually found a person, David is his name, who agreed to buy the stones he will bring every few days for ten percent higher price than Hunter’s Guild and slightly more if he brings a stone useful for the man personally. The Hunter’s Guild’s fee is twenty five percent, by the way.

As a side note, David is a fresh alchemist. He is living in a poorer part of commoner’s district and he is making medicines, potions, pills and some other things. And mana, of which cheapest source are mana stones, is the catalyst for most things you need an alchemist for, so he needs them in moderately large quality and has no objections to getting some at lower price. And additionally he is personally making and researching golems, so he is interested in stones containing earth attribute mana and willing to pay more for them as they are quite rare and he lacks them.

He has already bought all the stones I got up to now, rounding up the price to six small silver. It’s certainly not a lot, but for a twelve years old girl to get this amount over ten days is quite impressive considering a normal person girl at this age would easily live for five large bronze a day, leaving a whole small silver to work with.

And considering the fact I got almost four small silver, Laura fifteen large bronze and Geil six, and that I don’t need to spend anything to live, I was left with all thirty nine large bronze to use as I like. As a side note, we have decided it will be much simpler if we split the earning the way that ten percent go to Geil, twenty five to Laura and remaining money to me, effectively decreasing my earnings, but by a negligible amount.

With that said, though, I used the money almost immediately to get myself a medium quality cloth-made backpack and a small pouch for mana stones and possibly materials I will get in the forest. I additionally bought a cheap shirt to prevent the vest from scratching me so much, especially my chest, which wasn’t as bad as normally due to my regeneration but still uncomfortable.

And speaking of the forest, I am now more or less ready to go there. I already feel significantly stronger than before, and the ability I got, or rather Natria got me from the man ravaged by the Beholder is doing its job properly.

To put it simply, it hardens my body by filling it with earth attribute mana and turning cells into stone. It makes my body heavier, much less flexible and rougher generally, and can make some moves really hard to do. Actually, if I use it with enough mana to make my body really hard and not just rough it becomes practically impossible to move. In exchange, though, you get the hardness that, depending exactly how much mana I use, can even stop a knife thrust on my skin, not muscles or bones, so it is definitely worth using, especially if I can time its uses well not to hinder my movements too much. If you add that I use basically only my body to fight, it becomes a surprisingly effective ability, mainly because, despite what one might think, it can very well be used offensively, for example by making my fist rock hard just before hitting an enemy. And in such case the fact I can’t move my hand isn’t particularly important.

And with that I am going to register in Hunter’s Guild as a free hunter, though obviously I am not going to reveal my other ability. I will tell them I have an earth based talent, and unique regeneration if they ask nicely.

I am right now walking through the streets of Bluesky with Laura to do just that.

We walk through the commoner’s district and we attract quite a bit of attention, because Laura is a hunter and I am cloaked with merely my lower face visible, but it’s more on the level on passing interest than suspicion or memorable encounter so it’s fine.

The Hunter’s Guild is in the slightly wealthier than average region in commoner’s district, close to the center of the city, so the buildings around it are neat and clean, mostly two or three stories high with a lot of small shops, workshops, and facilities around. Closer to the noble district are larger buildings of trading companies and prominent crafters, private mansions, public faculties and other things designated for people speaking in gold and even white gold, not silver.

On the other side, closer to the edge of the city and to the slums, there are small workshops and shops, homes of ordinary people and mediocre hunters, small facilities like bakeries or small farms with cabbage, wheat and potatoes.

As a side note, there are also large farms belonging to the country, nobles or Hunter’s Guild in the southwestern part of the city. There were once outside the walls, but they were run down by monsters too often and the idea was abandoned. Instead they have expanded the wall to the south and west and made farms there.

I am talking with Natria and occasionally Laura along the way, but right now I am not interested in anything this city has to offer. I am slightly frustrated and I would like to go to the forest as soon as possible, because in last four days I ran into a few situations I was too weak to make use of, and I have additionally escaped from a hunter who was sent to the sewers on a mission.

Hearing that Laura, who right now has around three and a half times larger soul than me, is at the top of bronze hunters said a lot about how strong are hunters in higher ranks, but it didn’t sink into my head properly back then. It was only when a hunter with a soul over twenty times larger than mine was running through the sewers so quickly he didn’t spot me only thanks to Natria’s timely advice that I truly realized how weak I still am.

As a means of getting stronger, apart from eating more souls, I mainly thought about Mana Core, and right now Natria is giving me a lecture on the subject.

{As I told you some time ago, Mana Core is a kind of container for mana inside your soul. Its size is limited by the size of your soul, so you will have no problem with that since your soul grows very quickly. Just as you get your Mana Core it will grow very quickly to the size of your soul while your soul will stay mostly the same, but when its catches up they will grow alongside each other at the same pace, though much slower than now.

{As a side note, normally people need to use refining formations or other methods to expand their soul and channel mana or use some other methods to get their Mana Core larger, but you have it covered. You might only need the formation in very specific cases and most likely not anywhere close in the future.

{Now, to make sure you understand, what the Mana Core is for. Normally, I mean without Mana Core, you can only guide the mana inside your body and soul that naturally flows through it, but you can’t do anything to the mana outside and you are very limited by the amount of mana you can use. You can channel the mana, which makes it possible to accumulate a lot of it, and I will teach you that later, but even in such case you don’t have instantaneous and explosive power Mana Core gives. That’s because Mana Core is a container exclusive for you and you can draw mana from it at will at very large amounts, and it additionally improves your mana control. It largely depends on person, but, even if you are very good at channeling mana, you should have at least a hundred seconds worth of channeling of mana inside your Mana Core you can use practically in an instant, and mostly it is over one thousand, so you can count it in minutes.

{Coincidentally, in this world, where Mana Cores seem to be unknown, the channeling is quite developed, unlike in some words where channeling is not known. Anyway, that’s it for why you need Mana Core, and why I need yours, then there is how to get it.}

She pauses for a moment and I use it to ask a question. – ‘Um, why you need mine?’

{Well, I’ll have you know that I am channeling all the time. Literally all the time, and it works slightly different for spirits, because they are made out of mana, so I don’t have much mana with my soul being around one hundred times smaller than yours, even with my abnormally large Mana Core.}

‘Oh, okay. So you mean that when I get my Mana Core you will be able to use my mana by yourself?’ – I ask without a hint of malice or suspicion despite what it implies.

I got really used to having her around and not even once did she try to do something detrimental to me, I came to trust her before I knew it.

{Well, that’s a large reason, but you can also use it, you know? Not that I mind the implication that your mana belongs to me, hehehe~.} – She giggles. – {But seriously, another reason is that you will be able to use a huge amount of spells… or no, wait. Actually… No, I think it would be better if I didn’t teach you needless spells for now, just the necessary ones and not for fighting.}

‘Huh?’ – I ask with surprise. – ‘Why?’

{Well…} – She seems somewhat embarrassed. – {I thought as if I was in your place. And, I don’t want it to sound like boasting, but I can use practically infinite amount of spells, because I understand their construction and can make and modify them on the run. Not to mention I can manipulate mana directly with great precision. But if I were to teach you a lot of spells, you would need way too much time to learn to use them properly in battle, so I believe it would be better for you to focus on the abilities you will get from the bloodlines. They will be much less versatile and might be weaker depending on your mastery, but much easier for you to use. I will teach you proper magic at later time when we are more free and not pressed by time, but for now focus on mana strengthening and abilities.}

‘Um, but, say, if I got some of your experiences, wouldn’t I be able to use magic?’

{Technically you are not wrong, you should be able to use it, but it’s not so simple. For example in terms of fighting in melee, say, I went to a whole course of martial arts and you have only one third of what was there. You wouldn’t know the martial arts properly, but you would be able to fight quite well with the moves you know. But magic is better compared to a language. If you know a third of a language, no matter what you try, you won’t understand it, at best understand a few words and sentences out of context. And believe me, you don’t want to get a mana backslash and even less mess up a spell you shouldn’t, for example cascading-type spells that get stronger with time but cause very serious unwanted effects if executed improperly or when their control is released.}

‘Um, okay.’ – I nod my head seriously. – ‘Just to make sure, body strengthening is similar to what my ability is doing, right?’

{Yep, but much more versatile and overall better for various reasons, including the fact you can be much more flexible with infusing your body. Because in this case you are simply releasing earth attribute in part of your body, effectively turning your body to something similar to stone, and with body strengthening with enough experience you can literally assign attributes to your hair one by one.}

‘Okay…’

{Well, with that done, how to get a Mana Core.}