After a bit of parkour I get back inside the inn, Anne already there waiting for e yet again.

“Come on, mealtime.”

Okay.

Lizz then flies out of the book while Anne is turned away and we all walk towards the dining room.

“Hello!”

“Evening!”

“W… Welcome b-back…”

And when we get there we’re greeted by Anna and Hanna sitting at the table while Joanne wearing oven mitts and carrying a large steaming pot.

We’re back.

“... Food… food...”

And me and Lizz greet them back and sit down at the table.

After a while they all finish eating and I decide to ask something that’s been on my mind for a few days.

By the way, why are you all letting us stay here for free like this?

“Well, why wouldn’t we?”

“Because you run an inn and you need money?” Lizz says, asking the same thing I was about to.

“Eh. Our old man was kind of a big shot so he left us a fairly sizeable inheritance .” Says Anne

But… You’re still running an inn, right? Even if you have a lot of money you probably shouldn’t let people stay for free.

“W-well… W-what Anne meant by “big shot” was that f-father was a magic r-researcher…”

“Dad was kind of a fanatic when it came to all things magic, so since we grew up with him he had a big influence, especially on Hannah. Noticed how she almost always blushes when she sees you? She inherited his…”Enthusiasm”, so to say, for anything she thinks is magic.”

Anne starts, followed by Anna.

“Wait…”

However when Anna finishes Hannah’s eyes open wide and she speaks with a hint of shock in her voice.

“Things I think are magic you say!? So you’re saying he’s not actually magic!?”

Hannah stands up from her chair and stares at me in horror.

Erm… I don’t know? I don’t think so but… I’m not sure? Maybe?

*slam*

Hannah slams down her hands on the table and stands up again.

“That’s still a maybe!”

Wai-

“Hey! Wait for me!”

Hannah then comes and grabs my arm and drags me off to somewhere, running so fast that Lizz almost can’t follow fast enough to not get pushed by the book's boundary.

She goes down a set of stairs and into what looks like a laboratory and finally slows down enough for Lizz to catch up.

“Now then! Time to find out if you really are magic or not!”

Hannah then puts me down on what looks like an operation table and drags forth a large black screen on wheels and puts it in front of me.

‘Is that… an X-ray!?’

“This should be able to see exactly how much magic you may or may not have!”

She puts on a pair of leather goggles and pushes a button on the side of the screen.

The black screen flashes white for a fraction of a second and Hannah takes off what looks like a black stained glass panel with a blueish green blob on it.

“And? What’s that blue thing shaped like Plush mean?”

I look towards Hannah’s shoulder and see Lizz floating there, looking at the glass panel with great interest.

‘You traitor!’

“A kindred soul, eh? Well these blue lines are energy veins, or at least that’s what I decided to call them, I’m kinda the first person to discover the-”

“Okay okay, you’re impressive and whatnot. But what are they?”

“Ahem, energi veins are like blood veins, every creature has them, and they pump energy around our body, parallel to the blood veins, which is what we use to use skills.”

“Okay, but you said “blue lines”? Then why is he just a big blue blob?”

“I...I don’t know… I’ve never seen anything like it… Then again I only discovered these not too long ago so I haven’t been able to find mind examples, so for all I know this could actually be normal.”

Could someone explain what you’re talking about?

And to my question Lizz responds by snapping both her fingers and then pointing index fingers at me while also pointing her thumbs upwards.

“This shit’s magic yo.”

Hannah then puts one of her hands in front of her mouth and desperately tries to stifle her laughter.

Magic how?

*shrug* “I dunno, ask her.” She says and points towards Hannah.

After a few seconds Hannah is finally speak again and tries to explain.

“Well what it means is that you are definitely magic! Or at least the cloth that your body is made of is, but then again that’s like saying a golem isn’t magic while also saying that the rocks the golem is made out of is magic.”

Well… What does me being magic mean?

“Ehm… I dunno?”

...

“Okay okay, I don’t know exactly what it means for your entire body being made out of energy veins means, but I do know that as a side effect it will at least let you channel and train skills quicker.”

So it’s a good thing?

*shrug* “Probly. But there are certain creatures and skills that rather than attack the body of a target they instead deplete the target’s energy, making them unable to use skills. Those things will probably be really dangerous for you.”

Oh.

*Yawn* “Well I’m going to go and sleep now, having fun is exhausting. Also I need to think a bit of what I can do now that I have a test subject… Night.”

She then runs off before I can object to the ‘test subject’ part, and since we don’t know where her room is, and this inn is too large to try and search for it, we decide to just go to our room.

Once we get there we immediately head off to sleep.

Chapter 19's second AN:

Slightly shorter chapter today, feels like I'm catching a cold, but I hope y'all enjoyed.

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Chapter 20's first AN

13. I added some parts to chapter sixteen, making it so that his weapon is now made out of solidified water rather than air, hopefully this fixes the "force equals mass times velocity" issue that was present before, with how waving a stick that weighs less than a feather can't make enough force to make someones head go flying, almost no matter how much velocity it has, as well as some small parts hopefully explaining why he doesn't feel bad about killing goblins.

14. The water that he solidifiied to walk across the lake shouldn't have been able to support his weight.

Remember how I wrote on Solidifications skill summary in the book that Plush could also freeze an objects position? That is how he prevented the solidified water from sinking when he walked on it.

15. Someone told me in the comments that apparently objects can be "inert" to specific kinds of acid, now I don't know enough about all that to know what it means, other than that it is possible for plush to touch certain kinds of acid and not be burned by them, so let's say the slimes are made of just such an acid.

Aside from all that, tell me if you spot a mistake, and I hope y'all enjoy.

The next day we go back to the guild to get my adventurer license.

“Hey! Little guy!”

But on my way into the nearest alley I’m interrupted by someone calling out to me, and when I look back I see a familiar man with an arm covered in white scales waving towards us with the man who commanded the goblins being dragged around by a chain around his wrists.

Hello. Did something happen?

“Well you never came around yesterday to collect your reward.”

He then crouches down and hands me a small ring.

This is?

“This thing has the ability to produce illusions, this guy-”, he points at the man behind him, “-used it to trick the goblins you told us about that he was their leader.”

I look towards the guard... Should that be ex-guard now? I look towards the ex-guard and ask him:

“Then why did you stop the illusion and show me your face? Shouldn’t the goblins have attacked you when they saw you were a human?”

The ex-guard just glares at me, while the lizard man clears his throat with a *cough* and explains.

“This ring is really tiresome for most people to use, so I would guess the reason he didn’t use it was because of that, however I don’t know why the goblins didn’t attack him.”

At this the ex-guard smiles and starts gloating.

“You fucking idiot! Can’t even think of something so simple!? Anyone with half a brain would’ve realized it’s because I tricked them into thinking that I was a goblin using the ring to look human, rather than the other way around! You need a new brain old man!”

*CLANG*

Only to be hit by the lizard man again, just like back when I first came to the gate.

“And you need to shut up! Now come on, we’re going to the dungeons with you! I’ll see you some other time little guy”

They then walk away in a direction I’ve not been in yet.

“...” I stare down at the ring in my hand and put it in my pouch after having decided to test it out when I get back to the inn and continue to the alley.

Since it’s still early the place is mostly empty when I get to the guild, letting me walk in through the front door again, and once I get to the booth a see a different person than Rico sitting there and reading a book.

He looks like a normal brown bear sitting down and reading a book. Kind of an odd thing to see.

I climb up to the desk in front of the booth and knock on the glass.

*knock* *knock*

Hello.

He then looks up from his book with his eyes, while still having his face facing the pages of the book he’s reading rather than me.

“Yes, hello?”

I was told to come here and get an adventurer's license.

“Right, then you must be Plush?”

Yup. And you’re Grizz? I heard Cathy talk about you after she tricked me into helping pull a prank against Rico.

“Yeah, I’m Grizz, Grizz Lee. And that must mean you’re half-responsible for those marks then?”

He asks as he points at the door behind him, the same door that Rico ran into earlier.

Erm… yeah?

*sigh* “Well at least you’re honest, unlike a certain cat who tried to blame Hugh… Speaking of cats.”

He then swivels his chair around and rings the bell.

I didn't know you guys had swivel chairs.

He suddenly looks at me with a bit of surprise.

“Oops.” He lifts his book and hides his face behind it. “Please don’t tell the others, I only have enough materials to make one of them and if they find out they’ll use it as well and break it.”

Okay, won’t say a thing.

“Thanks, here.”

He then passes three gold coins through the opening in the glass window to me, and being the gentleman that I am I accept with neither hesitation nor refutation.

Just as I put the three coins in my pouch Cathy comes down the stairs.

“Morning plush…” She says lazily while rubbing her eyes with one of her paws.

Good morning.

“Here you go…”

She stretches out her hand with a wooden square in it and I jump down from the desk and grab it.

“Good night…”

And immediately turns around and walks back up the stairs.

“...”

“Excuse her, she’s not very good with mornings.”

No, I understand.

“Well since she was too tired to explain I guess I’ll do that part, bring it and I’ll show you what each thing means”

So I climb back up to the desk, this time being extra careful to not let him see me phasing, and lay the license on the desk.

“This part is an artist's rendition of you, this parts your name and this parts your species, though you could probably figure that out on your own, this part is how many quests you've completed of each of the four different types as well as in total and below that is what rank you are for each of them, you’re currently C rank in all of them except for miscellaneous, which is because miscellaneous doesn’t have ranks.”

Wait, that’s it? That’s pretty simple…

“Well there was also something about that picture being linked to you specifically by magic, but I don’t know enough to go into detail.”

No that’s fine.

“You should already know this, but go to those wooden boards over there to choose what quest you want and then bring it to whoever is in the booth.”

After that he starts reading his book again without waiting for a response, so I jump down from the booth and walk towards the quest boards.

“Wait, wait, wait, you might need this.”

I turn around and look at the booth, and a small hatch opens up on the front of it, and out of the hatch comes a small stool.

I pick up the still and put it down next to the board and start browsing.

There's a bunch of receipt sized papers hanging off of each of the boards.

‘Defeat goblins, twenty copper per ear, defeat slimes, one silver per core, defeat kobolds, eighty copper per tail, defeat treants, five silver per heartleaf etcetera etcetera…’

I get down from the stool and move it to the next board.

‘Gather restorative herbs, sixty per leaf, gather luminescent fungus, eighty copper per cap, gather lucky garlic, one silver per bulb....’

And again I go to the next board.

‘Deliver goods to local orphanage, a large quantity of small sized packages, ten silver, deliver goods to blacksmith, a small amount of medium sized packages fifty silver, help the post office deliver letters, five silver per delivered letter, deliver goods to the Ronny nobles house, one very large package, ten gol- gold!? I don’t know a lot about this places currency but that has to be a lot.’

I immediately take the notice off of the board and go back to the booth, this time using the stool to get up rather than climbing.

*knock* *knock*

This one please.

“Okay… Not a lot of people tend to accept delivery requests, especially when the recipient is a noble’s house, most rumors about nobles don’t speak for their kindness, and those that do tend to have started by those very nobles using a bit of gold. Also there's the fact that this is a very large package.”

How large actually?

“A good meter and a half in every directions, think you can do it?”

Maybe, depends on where I have to pick it up.

“See this symbol?” He says as he points to a stamp mark on the paper that looks like a guild card. “This means you pick it up straight from the guild.”

Oh, okay. Well I’ll take it then.

*sigh* “Alright, hang on.”

Grizz then turns around and jots something down on another piece of paper while looking at the quest note.

“... Here you go, just walk in through that door and take a left.” He points towards the door leading towards the secret entrance. “And in there there should be a bunch of packages, look for one that has this number.” He points towards a series of letter and numbers on the quest note. “And deliver it to this address.” He says as he points towards a different part of the quest note.

Alright, see you later.

“Wait, please push the stool back in before you leave.”

And so I hop down from the desk and push the stool back in through the hatch, I then walk into the door and then into the next door immediately to the left, letting me enter the room where me and Cathy pushed a bookshelf in front of the booth's door.

I look in the corner that’s the furthest from the door I entered and see a bunch of large wooden boxes, some medium ones and a table with a bunch of small ones on it.

I go to the large ones and compare the symbols on the note with the ones on the boxes, eventually finding the one I need to deliver.

‘It’s twice my height…’

I look around and make sure that no one’s around, a blue hand then reaches out and grabs the box, a blue light then spreads throughout the box, shrinking its size until the hand can pick it up and put it in the inventory.

I look around once again to make sure no one arrived halfway through and then leave through the secret entrance.