The Start of the Grand Plan

I am now in downtown Bornes, and for some reason only just now that I realized this is the city where we eat that huge dinner, I really want to eat like that again, but I'll bankrupt myself doing that.

Initially, I don't have any particular plan that I want to do in this city, but thanks to Anne, I have some plans.

I've read the book that I got from Anne, and I think I can make it with a little help from the locals. I will turn copper into gold coins and be rich, well not turning the entire copper into gold, just the surface into gold if the book is anything to go by.

Our coins are made of mostly gold, with some metals mixed in so that it doesn't get squished when some rich guy hoards gold in a vault somewhere. With this book, I can make fake coins that look basically indistinguishable from gold, if you didn't weigh it.

I don't really need the coins because I have more than enough, but curiosity got me, I can use it to bribe someone if I ever need to bribe again.

So the ingredients according to the book, the ingredients are copper and pure gold, which I think I can get from blacksmiths, but the other ingredients are a bit tough to get. So the first one is the stomach liquid of a Khloroseal, they live on little islands on the ocean so that's a bit annoying. But the other one is much worse, the tears of Nythern, a kind of wyvern far away in the new world.

I look around this relatively pretty city, at least compared to the cities that I visited recently, but the worst thing about this place is how hot it is, I'm sweating just from walking and this isn't even summer yet. There is barely any shade for me to cool myself, and wearing a robe doesn't help either, how can anyone just go on with their normal life if the weather is like this? I guess you just get used to it?

It's not like this city is in a desert, this looks like your average city with a lot of green outside and packed with buildings inside.

Finally, I found a blacksmith, and seems like he's not doing anything right now. "Morning."

"Good morning, how can I help you?" He answers. He sounds a bit funny, like a koala.

"I'm looking for purest gold you have and coppers."

"We have golds, but we don't have copper ores left, what do you use it for?"

"Just, chemistry stuff."

"The copper merchant got robbed on a trip to here, the next delivery would be 3 months from now."

"That's unlucky, what else do you have here?"

"We have these iron swords that are used by the royal soldiers," He says, showing a shiny curved iron sword with a green fabric handle. "We also have this huge mace that can crush any armor." And he's not lying, that's a huge mace, it's taller than me even. "And lastly, an identical twin of the bronze sword that the legendary hero Percival used to defeat the Sainz the Quick." As a witch, it doesn't impress me that much, knights and soldiers are just a bag of flesh that can be easily cooked by witches without their armor.

But, I'm too lazy to look for another blacksmith, so I think I'll take the bronze sword if the price isn't ridiculous, "How much is the bronze sword?"

"250 coins."

"So that, and 5 medium gold nuggets."

"That'll be 400 coins."

I put the gold in my little bag, and put the sword on my waist, now on to the other ingredients. Khloroseal should be easy to search since they are just littered around islands in the middle of the ocean so I can hunt them on the way, and the Nythern, I need to get a map of the new world, or maybe the sailors have them?

Oh and the sword, because it's made of bronze which has a lot of copper in it, I can still turn it into gold, and then I can sell it for real money and maybe, it is a lot safer this way because I only need to sell it to one person and then get real money. This way, I only need to take care of one person.

Anyway, I want to go to the bookstore first to hopefully get books about the new world and its monsters, or even a map of the new world.

I go to the bookstore that I walked past on the way here, I don't feel like searching the books myself, so I ask the shopkeeper, "Do you have books about the new world?"

"Let me look for a second," He says, then he searches the store for books but it doesn't take long for him to come back with a few books in his hand, "I found these, 'Creatures of New World', 'Herbs, Spices, and Poisons: New World', and 'The People of New World'."

That's really convenient, "I take them all."

"That will be 300 coins."

I pick up the books and get back to my room.