Dragon Tale - Chapter 3.1 (Patreon)

'These are kind of wiggy.' Brody mused to himself.

Currently, he was at the local magic store in Onibus. And sitting atop the bridge of his nose, was a pair of glasses. But they weren't any old regular pair of glasses.

They were a bright crimson red in colour, with wing-like motif design on either side. Gale Force Reading Glasses they were called.

An enchanted pair of glasses and magic item that when worn, allowed the wearer to read at massively enhanced rates. Brody himself could attest to it, he just read a pamphlet listing the kind of stock and their descriptions within the magic shop, and there were quite a few.

In literally two seconds flat.

Taking them off, Brody shook his head, even though he didn't need to. Despite the fact he'd just rapidly taken in a mass of information thanks to them, he wasn't at all disoriented or feeling any effects on his mind.

So weird.

"So?" the shop keep and owner of the magic shop asked, a short, elderly man with a long grey beard and bald head.

"I'll take them." Brody grinned, placing them down on the counter beside the other purchases he'd picked out so far.

And he'd picked out quite a few.

A book on the creation of lacrima, which was pretty cheap. A book on Requip magic, which…wasn't so cheap. A pair of Lacrima Model Magical Earphones which could apparently store up to ten thousand songs, which he had no idea how it worked and would no doubt be spending a lot of time reading the instructions and now the Gale Force Reading glasses.

Hopefully the glasses would help with that.

"Right, they're thirty thousand jewels each," the shop owner informed him happily, making Brody wince, "Between the thousand for the book on Lacrima, the hundred thousand for the book on Requip magic, the thirty six thousand for the magic earphones and now this, you're up to 167,000 Jewels."

…Yeah, this was why he'd put off coming here until now. Even with him hitting up the forest before his shifts every day for the past week and nabbing another six forest vulcan's for his collection, this was going to take near half of his cash.

Which actually physically hurt, literally. His body was aching with how hard he'd worked to earn the amount he had right now. From draining his magic multiple times a day to train it as best he could figure out how, working five days a week in the bar, and hunting forest vulcan's every day…he was absolutely exhausted.

Sure, it was a good exhausted that made him feel satisfied and even proud of the work he was putting in, but he was still exhausted.

Still, he had to take all the advantages he could get for now.

"You got anything else that'll interest me?" Brody asked.

"Not really, like I told you, I only had the one book for learning magic and you're buying it, we don't get a lot of mages around here," the old man shrugged, before pausing and tapping his chin, "Well, actually, I might have something."

"Oh?" Brody raised an eyebrow and leaned forward in interest, resting his arms over the sales desk.

"Yeah, just recently got some new stock in, some silver spirit keys, you're a combat mage right? People have been talking about you in town, that you've been clearing up them nasty forest vulcans," the old man chattered as he bent down, and stood up a moment later, a small rectangular box in hand, "Probably won't be much help to you in that regard, but could be useful in others. This is the silver key of Canis Minor, only twenty thousand jewels."

Huh.

Canis Minor, wasn't that the little drill nosed dog thing Lucy had? Plue? Yeah, there was a bunch of them weren't there?

"I'm not a Celestial Spirit mage, I can't even use it." Brody replied.

"Pshaw, no worries there kid," the old shop keep waved his reply off, taking off the lid of the box to reveal a gleaming, ornate silver key sat atop red velvet and picked it up, "It's not a complicated magic to use unlike most. Just needs your magic power. Funnel that into the key, give it a twist like you're unlocking a door a say the chant and presto, chango. As long as you have enough magic power, you can do the summoning, though you'll need to make a contract with the celestial spirit."

Huh, that was it?

Neat.

Hmm, should he though? The Canis Minor wasn't exactly much help in combat at all. So beyond it being a little companion, it wouldn't exactly bring him much.

…But then as it was, when he wasn't working or hunting vulcans, he didn't exactly have much going on for himself right now. That was exactly why he was buying the magical earphones, so the company wouldn't be too bad.

"Screw it, alright, gimme it as well." Brody decided with a shrug.

If the opportunity presented itself, he could see about getting some other celestial spirit keys, some of the ones Yukino used were pretty strong. Though, he wasn't really interested in getting the gold ones.

He'd rather leave that kettle of fish to Lucy.

"Alright then, your new total will be 187,000 jewels kid." the old shop keep grinned.

As he should, Brody was literally spending just shy of what his monthly wages were. If it weren't for the forest vulcans, he wouldn't even be able to afford this right now.

With a grimace, Brody reached for his back pocket.

_____________

After paying for his purchases and mentally crying tears of dismay at spending so much of his hard earned money, Brody made his way back to the inn where he both worked and lived currently.

He had a few hours before his shift started, so he made his way straight up to his room, locking the door behind him.

He sat his bag of purchases down with a sigh on the small single bed and sat down beside it. The room wasn't all that much to write home about. About twelve feet wide at most, and maybe twenty feet long. The only furniture in the room was the single bed, a single wardrobe with a mirror on it, a small chest at the foot of the bed, and a small desk and chair at the very side of the room.

"Right, may as well do this then." Brody mused, reaching into the bag and retrieving the box holding the celestial spirit key he just purchased.

Opening it, he pulled the key out and stood up, "Right, Open: Gate Of The Canis Minor!" Brody declared, pulling on his magic and funnelling it into the key as he twisted the silver key lightly.

He felt a small chunk of his magic, get outright absorbed by the key, and then the air rippled in front of him.

There was a small flash that erupted from the key in his hand, and a small blue bipedal…thing appeared standing on his bed, drill like nose tilted upwards as it stared at him with small, beady, curious eyes.

"Baloo?" it tilted its head to the side.

That, was not Plue.

But then he had seen that there were multiple versions of this spirit during that one arc. Plus, that chick from Rave Master with the absolutely massive honkers had one as well.

Lucy's predecessor indeed.

"Hey buddy, nice to meet you?" Brody greeted the small…dog spirit? A bit awkward, crouching down to pet it on the head.

It blinked slowly, before smiling at him, "Baloo." it replied.

Right, he was gonna go with he, "So, you got a name little man?" he asked, he knew Lucy had named hers.

"Baloo." the little spirit shook his head.

Well, if he went with how Lucy named hers…

"Well, how about Blue then?" Brody offered.

The little spirit blinked, before smiling and nodding his head, "Baloo!" he pumped a little fist.

"Awesome," the teen laughed, "So anyway Blue, since I summoned you and have your key, how about you make a contract with me?"

"Baloo baloo baloo!" Blue in return vigorously nodded his head in agreement.

Well, that was easy.

________________

While he worked his shift, Brody was only half paying attention. His mind, was focused on the information he'd taken in about Requip magic from the book he bought.

It was interesting.

Apparently, just learning the magic itself created a sub-space linked to the user. And the user could freely store and take things from the sub-space. Though, it wasn't an infinite space and the size of it depended on the users own magic power.

So the more magic power he gained, the more his personal sub-space would expand. It wasn't quite as as simple a magic he thought either.

According to the book, it actually took a decent amount of time to open and close the sub-space, and even further still to store or retrieve items from it. It took a truly skilled user of it, to be able to just switch weapons on the fly.

Never mind clothing.

Which just went to show just how absurdly or rather monstrously skilled Erza Scarlet was when it came to using it.

'Well, that's fine.' Brody mused to himself as he finished polishing off a glass and set it down, before moving on to the next.

Even if it would take a lot of effort before it would be useful in combat, it didn't change the fact that just having a sub space to store his shit was extremely useful.

The bar was quiet tonight and he was working it alone tonight, Garrick was taking the chance to rest up and relax now that he had a good toady in Brody to work for him.

Only a few regulars were in enjoying some quiet relaxing pints.

He looked up from the glass he was polishing as the door to the bar opened and blinked in surprise.

A tall, broad shouldered, tan skinned, white haired man made his way into the establishment, dressed in a navy blue inform and a pair of geta on his feet.

Elfman Strauss.

Or, according to what he was known by in Sorcerer Weekly Beast Arm Elfman. There was an article on him last week.

…Brody had picked up a few issues.

And not just because they did weekly bikini shots and such with popular, attractive mages like Mirajane Strauss for instance, the sister of the man he was looking at right now.

Totally honest.

He was a growing boy in the prime of his teenage years, okay?

Elfman met Brody's eyes for a moment, before making his way over to sit on the stool in front of him.

Brody has to resist the urge to whistle. Even though he hadn't went through his insane bulk training fest yet, the man was absolutely massive, he had to be at least six-five.

As he sat, the massive white haired mans eyes drifted down to land on Brody's bare arms, and the way the muscles of his arms rippled and flexed as he cleaned his glass.

"…Impressively manly." Elfman nodded once, looking up to meet his eyes again with a grin.

Brody eyed his broad shoulders and the way his biceps bulged out the sleeves of his jacket in return, before smirking and nodding back, "You're not so bad yourself."

"Haha!" Elfman gave a bellowing laughter, before holding his massive hand out towards the younger teen, "Put it there."

Snorting in amusement, Brody did just that. He put the glass he was polishing down, and clasped Elfman's hand tightly and gave it a rough shake.

"A manly grip you have there." Elfman nodded, complimenting him as he squeezed back.

"Right back at you," Brody laughed, "So what brings Beast Arm: Elfman to Onibus and in here in particular?"

"I'm looking for information," Elfman replied as they separated a moment later, "I'm on a job you see, to deal with a bandit group lead by a dark mage, I'm told they've holed up at an old castle not far from here, was hoping to see if anybody knew what kind of numbers I'm looking at."