“By putting a drop of your blood in a water vessel and with my help connecting your soul to it, a Soul Spirit will be born. It will from that moment be forever bound to you and no even a True Magus can sever such a strong connection.” Lucy played with the Soul Spirit. “The main focus of the Eternal Water Spirit Incantation besides gathering Essence by calling forth Vital Energy from the life being developed in the ball of water, is to control and nurture the Soul Spirit.” She gave the ball of water back to Roland and let him have his own conclusions once again about the Soul Spirit after understanding the nature of Vital Energy.

At the end of the technique’s first tier, Formed Spirit, Roland can finally summon water from thin air to manipulate in ways only limited to his imagination. Currently, he only could manipulate water by touching the Soul Spirit and moreover, just use some drops from it.

This was an immense disadvantage in comparison to all the other techniques that also mutate the Essence to use nature’s power like fire, water, and lightning. Normally, all elemental techniques permit their users to use the element almost immediately after beginning the training.

The Water Incantation really deviates from the normality in this aspect and Lucy said that Roland was still only at early stages of the first tier, more or less 25%.

But Roland won’t complain since he was feeling by himself the power of Essence’s gathering the technique had.

After two more grueling weeks of training and almost dying several times to random beasts, Roland advanced to the fifth layer of Essence Reformation. For Roland, it was an amazing speed of training although his masters were saying he was too slow.

Now they are finally going to Lakepoint, he became too quick to the weak beasts of the jungle help him and the ones that could rivalize his speed had deadly ranging attacks which can instantly kill him.

August at his disciple’s head was sad Roland’s training speed will slow down, but he was already thinking of methods to make Roland’s life worse and cause Qi Energy to appear in the ‘relatively safe’ city. He only had the best intentions to his disciple, after all.

Although he wouldn’t do anything boring or stupid like provoking the rulers of Lakepoint, he wants to train his disciple, not outrightly slaughter him.

But he was really envious of his mother's current position, he as a turtle couldn’t be caressed as easy as her with her being a fox full of fur, or at least he thinks so. He misses the days he had myriads of servants to massage him.

“Rub lower.” Lucy sighed in contentment, feeling Roland caressing her under her jaw. It was a long time since she had an itchy there and wasn’t capable of taking care of it. Even taking a disciple just for it seemed worth it.

Roland acted on the automatic as he was constantly studying in his mind the instructions of his two techniques and didn’t care about his masters were thinking, be it August’s jealousy or Lucy’s smugness.

However, even his automatic actions stopped when he saw Lakepoint, the majestic blueish city near various rivers coming from the jungle and close mountains.

There were visible at least four rivers coming from the four cardinal directions entering the city and surrounding it. The walls were gigantic and an even bigger castle with seven spiky towers was seemingly in the city’s middle.

The rest of the city’s architecture didn’t seem that different from Rongvale though.

“So what are we going to do about you two being talking animals?” Roland said, walking to the nearest black bridge to enter the city.

“If you don’t want to us call attention already more than we do, we can talk telepathically to you. But Roland, didn’t you know that experts in the Great Art Soul Tampering usually have animals near them and they normally talk the human language too? Me and Mother talking won’t be that much of problem.” August said.

“So talking animals are actually normal?” Roland said in surprise, his knowledge about Soul Tampering isn’t vast and Rongvale city focused more into Medicine Alchemy.

“They aren’t normal, but are far from being rare.”

“So I would prefer to you guys talking telepathically with me only when necessary, having talking animals will actually be good to advertising whatever we decide to commercialize to gather money in Lakepoint.”

Roland could have thought already in his free time about it, but he needs to see Lakepoint’s current economy to plan what’s best to commercialize there.

“That’s the mentality my disciple should have.” August enthusiastically said.

Roland wondered why August always seems like another person when money is involved. He acted the same when Roland told him he was planning to sell the food of the Endless Bag.

Roland passed two hours in the queue to enter the city with everyone looking at him for a moment before ignoring him until it was close to noon and the wall’s guard called him.

“The fee to enter is 1 Essence Shard or ten gold coins.” The guard in a full iron armor reinforced to what seems the sixth layer by the number of runes, shining letters, in his armor, said without any emotions whatsoever and in the most professional way possible.

Essence Shards were the currency used in this world together with gold coins, though the latter one was seriously devalued and not used too much.

The Essence Shards were born from mystic objects in mines or completely random places, and it was considered a crime to humanity to destroy one of those places. The Essence Shards can also be used for other things besides money, they can be used for training but cause too many impurities as the Essence on them was too raw and uncontrollable.

“And animals entering the city must be by the laws either tamed or Soul Tampered. Please make them do these actions written here to prove you tamed or Soul Tampered your fox and turtle.” The guard passed to Roland the paper with the actions after he paid the tax to enter the city.

Lucy and August weren’t in the mood to cause problems just yet, so they begrudgingly did everything Roland said aloud to do. Even feign to be dead and walk uprightly.

It was quite funny how August struggled to do any of them.

“Mister, you can enter the city now. But my superior said to me warn anyone that enters the city about the two Societies living here. They are Kirin Renascence and Master Blacksmith, please be careful when meeting people in blue and red robes respectively.”

Societies were places that are beyond the influence of normal people and mayors, they had their own rules and taboos, teaching people the way of training Essence. Roland even heard about one Society that was matriarchal and permitted reverse harem to their female disciples.

Their immunity to the laws can only exist because of their worth as deterrent to others enemy cities, their overwhelming power and some of them are branches of places called Sects from the middle stratum, causing fear in the mayors' hearts.

“Thank you for the warning.” Roland nodded to the guard and entered the city in tow with August at his head and Lucy at his shoulder.

The city was bustling with movement and even had small brown boats in the middle of it to anyone rich enough to rent one.

Walking on the right side of the street after passing a bridge, Roland noted how people dressed in the blue robes didn’t interact well with the ones using red robes. “Now that I think about it, Jimmy and Carmen must be from the Kirin Renascence Society. What were they doing so deep in the jungle?” Roland mused.

He wanted to find a place to sleep before searching about the current economy in Lakepoint, but when he looked to the waters of the river in the middle of the street he perceived his predicament. “Nobody will take me seriously or even attend me if I appear in this way.”

At the water appeared a man poorer than beggars with his body full of mud and leaves, and clothes full of holes and smelling worse than a spoiled egg, that guard was really a good professional by letting him enter the city in this state. “Now I know why everyone is averting me.” Roland looked to the people grimacing when walking near him. “I bet you two knew about this and maintained silent about it.”

“Yeah. It was fun.” The turtle and fox said at the same time with pride in their voices. “We were betting how much time it would take for you to notice it and if someone would fight you in annoyance because of it.”

“I have the best masters in the world.” Roland sighed.

“Of course you have.”

Roland thought. “How can they say the same thing at the same time so many times?”

Lucy said. “How about that store? They have good clothes for you to use.”

Roland turned to the store Lucy pointed while they were walking and felt as if he had received a critical attack on his poor heart when he saw the prices of the clothes in the showcase. “Sixty thousand Essence Shards for a hat? That is more than ten times of all my savings.” He didn’t dare to look at the prices of a formal suit.

Roland before his father was kidnapped, saved money to start a new life with him and then pay back everyone he stole from, but even all his savings couldn’t buy a sock in that store.

August and Lucy proceeded to point at stores that bleed Roland’s heart until after two hours searching they found a reasonable store.

A shame they couldn’t find a thrift store.

“Sorry, but-” before the middle-aged store’s clerk could kick Roland out, he showed her all his money in his hand. It was Essence Shards, they were so small that you could have a thousand of them in your hand without a problem.

“I recommend this outfit for someone so magnificent like you, dear customer.” The clerk’s mood and smile shift were so quick and perfect that the masters and disciple couldn’t stop themselves from praising her despite her horrible personality that only cares about money.

Roland wasn’t picky about his clothes, but Lucy and the clerk annoyed him so much with their suggestions that he bought them albeit it caused him to lose almost all his money. He only has about one hundred Essence Shards now.

He had in his hands now a full-length blue-black robe with side slits beginning below the waist, its sleeves were slightly long and loose.

Oh, he also had combining pants and shirt under it.

The problem now was that he is too smelly to immediately change to his new clothes, he could just enter the rivers but he didn’t know if there was some kind of law against it.

As if reading his mind, the clerk showed him a black scarf with two salients ends. “If you buy this scarf now I will make a promotion for you, it will be only ninety Essence Shards and you will have the scarf together with the ability to use our employers' showers for free today.”

Roland blankly looked at the clerk while Lucy lively shouted ‘buy, buy’ and August was laughing with praise present on his eyes.

In the cold weather of Lakepoint Roland would need to buy a scarf anyways and having one would make people look at him more seriously since he had money to spend on such luxury instead of merely gloves. But why does he feel he was being conned?

“I will add a Rank 2 conditioner and a free new towel to the bath if you buy it now.” The clerk whispered with her eyes narrowing.

“Where is the bathroom?” Roland immediately picked the scarf and paid the insidious clerk.

“Dear customer, please follow me.” She said with a beautiful smile stamped on her face after receiving almost of all Roland's money.

After thirty minutes of taking a well-deserved shower, Roland left the shop as if he was a new man in his new clothes. The clerk almost didn’t believe the smelly and full of mud man could look like a normal person after only a shower and using old second-hand clothes.

Roland gave his farewells to the clerk and began to ask around everything about Lakepoint, he focused more on the market that was close to the middle of the city.

When it was near the sunset he learned important bits of information, principally about the two dominant Societies.

The two Societies dominates the business of all four Great Arts.

The Kirin Renascence dominates the Medicine Alchemy and Soul Tampering business, and thirty percent of their disciples have Soul Tampered animals because of some special place in their home ground which spews high-quality beasts.

The Master Blacksmith dominates the Essence Reinforcement and Equipment Formation business, being the main provider of weapons and armors to the city’s army. They also have a special place where they go to collect rare minerals for their equipment.

The two Societies were more or less equal in power albeit lately, the Kirin Renascence was winning because of a genius with a strange name appeared at their side and also because the Master Blacksmith's leader was ‘withering’.

“Roland, I have been thinking about it since I heard about the lack of primary ingredients like onions, carrots, and eggs. Wouldn’t be more profitable to sell those primary ingredients instead of finished food like you were thinking?” August suddenly interrupted Roland’s thoughts.

“Master… you’re a genius!” Never did that thought pass through Roland’s head, he had until now only used the Endless Bag to eat his fill with restaurant's food, but it didn't mean he couldn’t use it to produce simple ‘food’ like vegetables or fruits.

And moreover, the city was in serious need of those primary ingredients because of some festival or ritual that will happen for the Societies so the money he would be able to gather will be immense.

It was a shame that what they are preparing for the festival isn’t mortal food since the Endless Bag can only give mortal food, if not, he could just give them what they are preparing and profit from it.

“The question now is to who and what I will sell.” It only passed five minutes before an idea formed in Roland’s head and he confidently walked to his destination in tow with Lucy yawning and August’s eyes shining in anticipation.