"A flower shop? What an unexpected result. There's actually a flower shop on the most important street in the Mage Country? "
Rorschach was rather astonished when he confirmed the location of the key.
After all, this was obviously the city center of the Mage Country's capital, Arlo City. The surrounding buildings were all quite exaggerated, with astrology stations, mage towers, and illusory mansions. Yet, in the middle of this place, there was a flower shop that had obviously failed due to poor management … This feeling was just like suddenly seeing a piece of farmland in a financial center filled with skyscrapers.
"At least I'll have a place to stay for the night …"
But Rorschach hesitated at the door for a moment before deciding not to enter this flower shop. Later on, this proved that not only was this caution necessary, it was also life-saving.
Entering an archmage's old residence without any preparations? Rorschach didn't want to die so foolishly.
He did indeed have a key related to the flower shop. However, this key obviously needed to be recharged, and it was difficult to say how many traps could be avoided with this key alone.
After all, this was only a key to open the door, not a key to controlling everything.
Even if there weren't any life-threatening traps … Rorschach felt that this was impossible. He also needed to investigate the social relations of this shop. It was highly likely that this shop would suddenly fall from the sky for no reason at all. It was also highly likely that this shop had accumulated grudges.
Especially since this shop was placed on this street …
"… It's almost as if they're saying that I'll place this shop right here. Do you dare to touch it? How arrogant. "
Archmages were humans as well. They needed to eat, drink, and poop. This was especially true when it came to research and learning magic. They treated gold coins like brass. Archmages' desire for money was far greater than any other job class.
For such an unguarded illegal building to appear on the most important street in the city center, it was just like leaving an unguarded God Equipment on the street … Did the archmages really think that all archmages were philanthropists? Even if they couldn't take the ownership of the building, they would still make a huge profit by taking the right to modify it.
"In that case, there are only two possibilities for why this shop is still here. The first is that it's filled with traps, and anyone who enters will die …"
Rorschach thought about it and felt that this possibility wasn't high. After all, this was the Mage Country, a place where SemiGods and liches were everywhere.
Even the most dangerous traps could be filled with human lives. No matter how difficult the puzzle was, it could be solved slowly by brainstorming. However, this closed old shop that didn't even have any traces of an intruder was obviously not right.
"… In that case, there's only one possibility left … the owner of this store is far too vicious. Nobody dares to offend him. Even if this store is left here, nobody dares to do anything about it."
At this moment, Roxia was grateful for his own cautiousness. Who knew how many pairs of eyes were watching this place? If he had just walked in like that, even if nothing happened, he would have attracted unnecessary attention.
"Looks like we need to take our time …"
.. Rorschach's original plan was to find a club in a remote part of the city and join it. Then, he would learn a thing or two. After finishing his classes, he would be in the limelight and would be able to consider his next step.
But since there was a real estate waiting for him in the city center, Rorschach decided to change his original plan after much consideration. He decided to focus his development on the city center.
The first thing he needed to do was to find a new place to stay, and then find out more about this shop … In less than two hours, he completed both of these tasks.
Finding a new place to stay was quite simple. Although the house prices weren't cheap, it wasn't a tourist season yet, so finding a hotel was quite easy. As expected of a city center, Rorschach felt a bit of heartache at the price of the house.
The other task was even simpler. He directly went to the Mage Union and asked about the shop owner and name of this closed shop.
"Amelia's Flower Shop. Shop owner: Amelia. What a straightforward shop name. But why does this name sound so familiar …?"
After carefully thinking about it, Rorschach went to the Mage Union to ask about the shop owner, and was rendered speechless.
Amelia was the true name of the Nature Main God, the Mother Goddess of Wood Spirits, the Mother of the Seven Virtues, and … Rorschach's Godmother.
The reason why Roland didn't immediately recall her name was because nobody would call their elders by their full name for no reason. Although he had heard that Amelia had hugged him when he was young, he didn't recall ever meeting her. As the Nature Main God, one couldn't directly call her by her name. At the very least, most mortals wouldn't dare to directly call her by her full name.
Rorschach felt inexplicably moved as he looked at the key in his hand.
"… Finally, there's an elder who isn't a scammer. She even thought that I might not have a place to stay, so she let me use her old house."
Rorschach had been scammed by his irresponsible elders time and time again. Especially recently, he mysteriously had an engagement ceremony (and wedding parade) with a fiancée. This little bit of kindness made Rorschach so moved that he almost cried.
At the same time, he confirmed that the flower shop's original owner was Amelia, and also believed that there was no danger in Amelia's house (?). Rorschach also made up his mind. The first thing he would do was earn enough gold coins to recharge the key and take back the house.
"Yep, there's definitely some defensive equipment inside. Perhaps it's even anchored to my Godmother's mage tower/laboratory. That's a safe place to stay, and there might even be a full set of mage equipment. That's more practical than anything else. "
Rorschach almost started humming when he thought about how happy he was.
In that case, there was only one important thing left.
"… Where should I go to earn some money?"
This really gave Rorschach a headache.
If this was any other country or city, a rank 5 mage like him wouldn't need to worry about not being able to find a job or earn money. However, this was the Mage Country, and its capital city at that. The city center of the capital city lacked everything except high-level mages.
Rorschach had already seen many rank 8 and 9 mages walking around here. Perhaps a random brick thrown from a second-floor window would have a 50% chance of hitting a Legend and 50% chance of hitting a SemiGod.
Originally, Rorschach was pretending to be an alchemist. An alchemist was the most profitable type of alchemist, and he could easily earn a large sum of money in both alchemy and creation. Indeed, Rorschach had a certain level of creation ability, and he was confident that his creation ability far surpassed that of ordinary alchemists … But after walking around the market, Rorschach gave up on this idea.
Not only was there a complete variety of alchemy products on the market, there were all sorts of brands and quality, but the most important thing was …
"… With this price, it's probably not even enough to cover the cost of production. It seems like they don't intend to give foreign alchemists a way to make a living. If I don't find a professional alchemist club to join, they won't even give me a job?"
Rorschach did some calculations. For several common alchemy products such as smelting catalysts and plant growth acceleration potions, if he bought the materials from the market and made them himself, the cost of the finished product would far exceed the market price. This was a business that he couldn't afford to lose money on.
A major alchemist club probably wouldn't make a business that would lose money. Nobody would be able to afford to lose money on such a large-scale sale. They probably had better and cheaper alchemy recipes, higher production efficiency, and lower labor costs. This was why they forcefully suppressed the cost of their products below the price of traditional alchemy recipes.
And this still wasn't the worst part. These major alchemist clubs that monopolized the market all had their own logos, and all the buyers in the market recognized these brands. An alchemy product without a logo was the equivalent of a third-rate product with no guarantee of quality. Not only would it be difficult to sell the alchemy product at such a low price, it was likely that the alchemist would even be blackmailed.
A product that was highly sought after in other markets would become a third-rate product in this alchemist club. Rorschach didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"This should count as the victory of the industrial revolution. Large-scale factories have replaced the market share of private and small artisans. The products are indeed better, but it's still rather unpleasant to be the one being replaced …"
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