Vol. 5 - Journey - Chapter 38 (Patreon)

Thomas stood at the counter in the bank while the goblin serving as the teller left to collect the hundred thousand gold that Thomas had requested. Thomas still had no idea how it was even remotely possible for Rock to have deposited so much money into his account. Thomas wracked his brain for the memory of the last time he'd checked his bank balance. It took a bit but he recalled that he'd previously been wrong. His account had contained around sixty thousand gold just before one of Rock's deposits. Given how much he'd previously gotten his account, at that time, shouldn't have had more than eighty thousand gold. Even so, the amount he had now made very little sense to him.

When the goblin returned with several sacks containing twenty-five thousand gold each, Thomas simply collected them and stored them safely inside one of his storage rings. With his bank card and plenty of gold in hand, he left the bank and continued to try to guess at possibilities for how Rock could have made such a killing. The only major benefit of the pseudo-magical weapons and armor was the price of the required materials. Just plain iron. To make that much money rock would have needed to hire a ton of blacksmiths and greatly increase the size of his workspace. With just the few forges he had previously it would be physically impossible to produce so many pieces to sell.

The only thing he could really come up with is that Rock, somehow, landed a huge contract that allowed him to afford a bigger workspace and more employee's. Either that or he'd suddenly increased the price of the items and was gouging the customers. But no one would put up with that and he'd lose any customer goodwill in the process. A large contract seemed like the only reasonable conclusion that Thomas could draw with so little information at hand. When he got back to Ulvstad in the future he would wring the answers out of Rock. Until then, he dismissed the thoughts and simply enjoyed the fact that he had so much money available to him.

With one hundred thousand gold and some change, there would be very little that he couldn't purchase in the city. Mostly land or a large ship would be lout of his price range. There were a few hours left until sunset and he felt the desire to go on a shopping spree. However, there was one small issue. Storage space. With everything he'd bought for his journey, all his crafting materials, and the large pile of books, he had very little space left between his inventory and storage rings. He could, of course, just buy another storage ring but he honestly felt like they were a liability. If he was killed and he just so happened to drop one of his storage rings the losses to him would be massive.

He wouldn't care if he lost his gold, weapons, or armor. Those could easily be replaced. No, what would really hurt would be losing his crafting materials and especially his precious books! Just losing a single book would be devastating. He hadn't read them all yet and who knew what kind of precious knowledge they contained? He kept them all inside of his inventory for this very reason. Still, there were also things he couldn't risk getting out into the public. Things like his purified mana crystals, heart iron, and origin steel. Any one of those things floating around in the public could cause him some serious trouble.

His inventory only had so much space and certain things had to be stored inside of it. Food, his books, his special materials, and anything else he couldn't risk losing like his ammo. All of those things took up a lot of space and left him with very little to spare. In short... He found a guard and asked for directions on someplace he could pay to learn spells. It was time to see if he could upgrade the size of his inventory!

The directions he got were simple and efficient. Head toward the center of the city and look for the tallest building, that would be the mage tower for the city. It was that simple. It took no time at all to make his way through the bustling crowd of pedestrians and enter the tall tower. Well, tall was sort of a stretch when you were used to seeing skyscrapers but in a medieval setting eight stories was pretty high.

When the door to the mage's tower closed it cut off the noise from outside and plunged him into a world of silence where the loudest sounds were shuffling feet and the occasional turning of a book page. The main foyer was mostly empty with just a few people walking around in long robes and a few others sitting at benches or tables reading thick tomes on various magical subjects. Directly ahead of him was a small receptionists counter with a middle-aged woman sitting behind it reading her own book.

Thomas and Snowlily approached the counter. When Thomas arrived at the counter the receptionist set her book down and gave Thomas a casual 'retail' smile. The moment she spotted Snowlily standing at his side though, her eyes widened and started to glitter. She completely ignored Thomas and sprinted around to the front of the counter to kneel down in front of Snowlily while giving a genuine smile, "My my my! Aren't you adorable!"

Thomas couldn't help giving a wry smile. He considered himself to be rather attractive in this avatar of his but he had nothing on the beauty and adorableness that was his companion. Snowlily looked at the woman with her ice-blue eyes for a bit before offering her paw to shake hands. The woman let out a girlish squeal and happily exchanged pleasantries with Snowlily. When Snowlily took her paw back the woman stood up and ran her hands down the skirt of her robes to straighten them out. With a delighted smile on her practically glowing face, she addressed Thomas, "Welcome to the Utstad mages guild. What can I help you with today?"

Thomas forced a smile onto his face as he addressed the woman, "I was hoping to find someone to help me upgrade my inventory ability."

The receptionist nodded as she walked around the counter to sit back in her seat and assume a some-what professional attitude, "That shouldn't be a problem. What rank is your Inventory at now?"

Although the inventory ability was classified as magic, it didn't work like other forms of magic. Using it did not increase its rank and it had no experience gauge. Thomas was only aware of two ways to increase the size of his inventory space. The first was to gain a better understanding of space magic. He could, potentially, do this but space magic was a higher tier of magic than even gravity magic. He'd played around with Gravity magic but it was far too mana intensive for him to train it very well. With Space magic being even higher tier it would probably cause him to pass out if he even attempted to try and use it. Space magic was also an extremely complex form of magic that required a fair bit of knowledge of the laws of the world that he was severely lacking in. No game that he had ever played made space magic easy. The second method was what he was doing, simply paying for the upgrade. This was the route that a majority of players would likely end up taking until they got significantly stronger.

 "My inventory is currently rank five." 

The receptionist nodded as she made a small note on a piece of paper, "Take this to the third floor, room three-o-seven. Magister Isaaks will be able to help you with your request."

As she passed the paper to Thomas with her right hand she pointed in the direction of the stairs with her left. Thomas gave her a nod in thanks and made his way to the stairs. He made his way to the third floor and quickly found the right room. To be polite, he knocked on the door and waited for the occupant to respond. It was only a few seconds before a man's voice called out, "Come on in!"

Thomas opened the door and stepped inside. He stopped when he saw the man in the room sitting behind a large desk covered in piles of books and sheets of paper. The old man was a perfect representation of a fictional wizard. From the pointy blue had covered in white stars to the long white beard and even a blue robe covered in yet more stars. Any child seeing this man would instantly associate him with the word "wizard". Thomas maintained his polite attitude and refrained from laughing at the sight of the old man. It wouldn't be a good idea to piss the wizard off and miss the opportunity to gain a bigger inventory space! Or worse, get thrashed by the old man.

Thomas held out the note written by the receptionist, "I was hoping to get an upgrade for my inventory ability."

The wizard, Magister Isaaks, took the note and glanced at it. He nodded and smiled, causing his whole beard to tremble, "Sure, I can help with that. I can grant you you to rank ten on your inventory. Rank six will cost you a thousand gold, rank seven is three thousand gold, rank eight is nine thousand gold, and rank ten is twenty-seven thousand gold."

Thomas's eyes widened. After rank six each additional rank had its price tripled! To get all five ranks would cost him forty thousand gold! Thomas stopped to think about it for a moment before letting out a sigh. Getting his inventory up to rank ten should give him ten cubic meters of space to store his items inside of. Essentially he would have double his current amount of storage space. He thought about it and pulled out two of the sacks he'd gotten from the goblin at the back. After removing five thousand gold coins for each bag he smiled at Magister Isaaks, "I'll go for rank ten then."

Isaaks double-checked the amount in the two sacks and smiled at Thomas when he was done, "Not a problem." He gestured to the seat across from him, "Sit down and we'll get this done in a jiffy!"

Thomas accepted the seat while Isaaks made a gesture, "Gimme your hand."

The last time he did this it was done differently, but as long as it got done, Thomas didn't have any complaints on how it was done. After stretching out his hand, Isaaks gripped it tightly into both of his hands. Thomas felt Isaaks mana enter his body through his hand and head towards his heart. Thomas had a moment of panic. If Isaaks felt the unholy energy inside of his body then things would turn ugly really fast! With his heart hammering in his chest as he prepared to flee in panic, he continued to keep an extremely close eye on the mana from Isaaks.

If it was before, Thomas wouldn't have even been able to feel Isaaks' mana but with his growth in mana control, he was far more sensitive to mana now. His whole body tensed as the mana plunged deeper inside of his body. Isaaks laughed jovially, "Calm down. Calm down. It's not going to hurt you."

From Isaaks' point of view Thomas was merely uncomfortable at having someone else's mana invade his body. This was not an uncommon thing by any stretch of the imagination so he was used to these sorts of panicky reactions. Isaaks' mana found a spot near to Thomas's heart and vanished. This spot was the 'core' of where the inventory spell lay, near to the owner's heart. As Isaaks fed his mana into Thomas's inventory, Thomas himself could feel his inventory growing in size. He opened his character sheet and watched as the rank of his Inventory magic increased rank by rank.

Within just a few minutes Isaaks was finished with his work and withdrew his mana. It hadn't come any closer to the core where Thomas's holy and unholy power were intertwined. Still, it was a terrifying experience to know that someone had come within literal inches of finding out his secret. Both Thomas and Isaaks had sweat on their brows, though for vastly different reasons. Isaaks smiled at Thomas, "Alright, it's done now. You can relax."

Thomas took a deep breath to calm his frayed nerves. It was indeed done. His Inventory was now rank ten and he had ten cubic meters of space that he could store items inside of now. Double his previous five cubic meters. Thomas shook hands with Isaaks and thanked him for his help before directly leaving the mages guild. His nerves were completely fried and his heart was still hammering away. He was no longer in the mood to do any shopping. He needed to find an inn to stay at and a room to hide inside of until he finally calmed down. Being so close to having his secret discovered was not kind to his heart!