The market was incredible, with many vibrant colors and scents emanating from the many stalls and vendors lined up within a tarped over passageway. Unfortunately, that wasn't our first stop after having entered the inner city. That supreme honor would go to the Summoner Association so that we could turn in our quest completion form and get paid for our simple but easy work guarding the caravan.

If I remembered right, the payment was 4,000 credits, which was confirmed by the nice receptionist who was helping us fill out the quest completion paperwork. Her name was Juanita judging by the name badge on her white top. She was pretty from what I could see, but I didn't spend much time looking at her out of fear that Alexis would sick Violet on me in my sleep.

We hadn't started dating or anything, but logic didn't really matter in situations like these, not to mention that I was far more interested in Alexis than some stranger I had just met. She was very friendly despite us being foreigners and quickly helped settle our payment along with the registration and payment for the bandits we took out. I couldn't wait to look and see what they had stored, but this wasn't the place or time, so I would wait until we got back to the inn before looking.

With a much larger number in our accounts than before, we decided to do some long-awaited shopping and pick up some local specialties if we came across any. We started at the produce section and started buying in bulk. My first choice was to buy heaps of fresh and dried peppers along with bags of different and vibrant spices that smelled like they would go great in a stew or on some meat.

Alexis seemed to prefer vegetables and fruit, so I left that to her as I would eat just about anything. I mostly cared for how something tasted, and I refuse to ever be stuck eating plain roasted meat no matter how far in the wild I was. Everything was relatively cheap as well, and since I wasn't hurting for inventory space I bought quite a load. Even if I couldn't use all the spices and herbs, I'm sure I could sell them back home or give them to Mira either to cook or use in some experiments.

I heard that before the New Era, many American and Asian countries used traditional medicine involving herbs and the like, so I wonder how those would work with modern alchemy. It couldn't hurt to try, but I would leave the thinking and experimenting for her to figure out. Wanting to surprise her, I asked the nice elderly market ladies for any strange herbs or medicinal plants from around here.

They even showed me a plant with coagulating properties, I bought a couple of bushels of those for a small price of a few credits. They could be extremely handy and can even be applied during a fight unlike most potions and salves that I had which would take a while to open and use. Apparently all that was needed was to chew the leaf up and place it on a bleeding wound.

I decided to test it out, not really thinking about where I was or who I was around, and after a quick slice of my knife on my wrist and a chewed up leaf on the small bleeding cut, I could see that they did indeed work. The older ladies were freaking out a bit but calmed down after they saw that I was fine, but only completely subsided after I showed them my already healing cut. Regenerative powers were great but only worked this fast on small superficial cuts.

I guess them seeing that I was a summoner was more than enough to reassure them that I was in fact not insane for cutting myself. As an apology, I tipped a few more credits to the nice ladies and paid for 10 more bundles of the useful herb, which was nearly their entire stock. I had an idea to make this into a fast-acting paste for heavy wounds, that would cut out the chewing process and allow for a more concentrated amount to act on deeper cuts. I didn't really know much about alchemy other than what Mira had told me about during dinner, but I could imagine that she could make something quite useful out of them.

This would be able to make us a decent sum at the auction or sold to the Summoner's Association, I would have to visit Jeremiah again and set up a deal to bring a steady supply of the herb back to Mira. We could probably outsource some help from some of Mira's Alchemy contacts once she had devised a recipe. Since we would be supplying the recipe and supplies, we could probably work out a deal for 70% of the profit with 30% going to the alchemists.

It wasn't a bad deal, especially since all they had to do was put in the manual labor to make them. I couldn't expect Mira to work on this all the time, so I think this is the best compromise and could make us a fair sum. I'd give Mira 65% of the profit we earned for ourselves since she made the recipe and we were using her contacts, the 35% for myself would go towards my and Alexis's guild house in the future. We didn't really need it right now, but it would definitely be useful in the future when we attracted more members.

The amount of funds we were trying to earn wasn't just for location either, we wanted to make it a fully functional training and lab facility with dorms on another floor. This was so we could spar and train our summons in relative safety, and so Mira would have everything she would need when she moved in with us. I didn't want to be away from her, so this was the perfect compromise, not to mention that it would cut down on the amount spent for potions and the like with her on our side.

After purchasing a bunch of herbs and strange roots, I caught up with Alexis and found her buying up a bunch of brownish/blackish beans. The scent coming from them was distinct but toned down compared to their processed counterparts. After asking her I came to find out that she had bought a giant load of fresh coffee and cocoa beans from the stall.

Along with the fresh beans, she had gotten plenty of exotic fruits and vegetables. The one I was looking forward to the most was the ripe mangoes that just smelled amazing. There really wasn't anything like fresh and ripe mangoes. I had only had them once before when I was a kid, and couldn't wait to try them again. Since the entire world was at war with each other, it was very difficult to get any foreign goods even from allied countries. Even now after the war, it wasn't extremely common to get foreign goods since everyone was focused on more survival-oriented matters and didn't want to waste money on expensive food. There were also many others who just couldn't afford them with the minimum allowance they were given.

Seeing that Alexis had finished up with her giant purchase of various aromatic beans, we went on to look at the goods that they were selling further down. We had a blast trying on different clothes like sombrero's and poncho's, which we each bought one of for ourselves as a souvenir, I even got Mira one with some grey snakes on it that kind of looked like Lyra her smokescreen python.

I imagine we'll actually end up using the ponchos while in the desert though, which is why I got a nice tan brown one to blend with the desert more and reflect some of the heat. Alexis' was similar to mine since she cared about functionality more than anything. With these, we could probably go out hunting in the desert tomorrow and see if we could find any summons to bond with. We needed some diversity in our lineup, and there were a few picks I had in mind if we came across any.

There wasn't much else we were interested in buying since we didn't have much use for most of them. I did end up getting a nice looking and hand-carved guitar that I had thought about learning to play for a while. Alexis wasn't really interested in learning to play an instrument, but she did end up getting a nice hand-carved wooden chess set from one of the vendors nearby, and from the same vendor, she got some wooden figurines of some higher tier monsters. They weren't painted but were very detailed and life-like, it seemed like she wanted to finish them judging by the paints she bought to go with them. I suppose we each needed our own peaceful hobby to distract us from all the fighting and dangerous activities we were doing regularly.

......

With our shopping done for the day and a decent amount of the market looked through, we decided to head to dinner to end the day. There was plenty more shopping to be done since we hadn't even touched the stores yet, but the night was drawing close and our stomachs were growling. We asked the wood carving merchant where a good restaurant to eat dinner would be and were quickly on our way. It was a decent walk from the market, but he had assured us it would be worth the walk. To ease the growling from hunger, we split one of the mangoes she had bought and had started carving chunks out with a knife to eat as we walked in the direction that was pointed out to us.

Eventually, we came across a run-down but vibrant shack with a pepper carved on the sign out front. This seemed to be the place, and the smells coming from it certainly weren't disappointing. We entered the small building and got a corner booth near a band of men in fancy black outfits with various instruments in their hands. They started playing as we waited for our food, and even though we couldn't understand whatever they were saying in Spanish, the tune was catchy and the music playing was quite impressive.

Eventually, our food came in large platters with sizzling grilled meat and enchiladas covered in a brown mole sauce that I was told would taste amazing. I was skeptical of the taste judging by the brown-colored sauce, but one bite was more than enough to convince me. We shoveled down chicken enchiladas and rice smothered in the mole sauce and barely had any room left in our stomachs after finishing off the hearty meals.

Despite being nearly full, we still wanted to try a dessert from this city, and so we ended up splitting a flan. The custard dessert was rich and sweet, and the caramel sauce it was covered in completed the dish and made us happily stuffed to the gills.

It was already dark out by the time we left the restaurant we had learned was called The Poblano, and left towards our inn. With an eventful and exhausting day behind us, it was no surprise that all we had left in us was flopping on our beds and falling right asleep despite still being completely clothed. Our day tomorrow would involve going out and looking for monsters to fight in the desert, so plenty of rest was warranted despite the night still being young. I didn't even get a chance to look at what the bandits' had stored, I guess I would leave those for another time.