Meaning most of my usual tricks will be seen through so I will have to be careful. Luckily, the spell is limited and can only show the caster the past couple of hours. Meaning, if I do anything I will need to do it quietly enough that it isn't discovered for hours.

Either that or I am going to have to come up with some way to disrupt the spell. That isn't going to be easy considering I have no idea how the spell even works. Until I know more, it is probably better for me to just behave myself for once.

After dinner Grimgar goes to his room to meditate and continue working on his core. I also meditate, open up a soulscape, and invite the kids to play for a few hours. Then, after ending the soulscape, I leave the manor and start roaming the streets.

This time I actually pay attention to all the merchant stalls, keeping my eyes open for anything interesting. Anything really special is probably going to be in the auction, but there is always a chance. Especially since things that are useful to me are not things normal mages would want.

Aside from looking for interesting things I am also working on memorizing the city streets. If I end up having to run away for some reason I don't want to end up lost. I only wander around for an hour this time, I still have two more days before the auction.

Once I am back in my suite in the manor I sit down and carefully reach out with my mana. First I confirm that there is no mana detection spell on the manor itself. Then I start scanning the enchantments on the city to see what I need to worry about.

As I was expecting, there is a mana detection spell on the city, but it is not too bad. It is set to detect spells above a certain power level, the way I use mana shouldn't trigger it. However, there are enchantments in place to stop spells from leaving the city.

That means that I won't be able to create a gate out of the city unless I break through the enchantment. The enchantment wouldn't be hard to break through, but there is a hidden trick. The hidden trick will record any spell that breaks the enchantment, like a gate.

Even though I don't use spells like common mages, there is still a chance it would record my gate. There is no way I am going to risk teaching the human mages how to create a gate spell. However, that means I can't use a gate in the city, so I need escape routes.

That will be my main mission tomorrow, to find the auction house and learn the streets around it. Using a gate to escape will have to be the absolute last option, just to be safe. Hopefully, things won't get to that point, but I would prefer to be prepared just in case.

As I continue scanning the city's enchantments I find another one that will be a problem. It is an imprisonment spell that triggers when someone launches a fatal attack. Which for me would be as simple as throwing a punch, or any other hostile action.

The spell itself doesn't look like it would be strong enough to hold me for long. The problem is that it would make me stand out and be really easy to spot. However, it only triggers on the attacker, so I just need to make sure I am not the one who moves first.

Those are the only city enchantments I can find that I will need to worry about. Other than that I will need to check the auction house to see what enchantments it has. Once I know what enchantments it has I will be able to make my plans.

Other than that, the rest of the time till the auction I can just enjoy myself. The only downside is that the massive amount of enchantments everywhere limits my scanning. With most of the buildings, I won't be able to scan the inside unless I break the enchantments.

That means finding any elves that are slaves here is going to be really difficult. Still, I will try my best and if need be I will do things the noisy way, but after the auction. For now I get some sleep, and then in the morning, after breakfast, I go back out.

Grimgar stays behind to practice, unless I need him that is all he wants to do. Then again, ranking up feels really awesome so I can't really blame him. First things first, I head to the auction house to take a look at the enchantments on it.

Just one look is enough for me to know that I can't cause any trouble at all inside the place. It is the most heavily enchanted building I have ever seen, it has more enchantments than the ship! It makes me really curious as to how they managed to cram so much mana into a building.

If I can find out how they did it, maybe I can make some more improvements to the ship. However, I don't dare to scan the auction house, there are too many defenses in place. I am lucky that I didn't set any of them off just by looking at the enchantments.

Now that I have checked the building I start roaming the area around it to learn the streets. I pay special attention to any small alleyways and anything that can be used to slow down pursuers. I am not satisfied until I have ten escape routes from the auction house planned out.

Then I expand the area I am roaming and start working on ways out of the city. The city itself is an odd shape, instead of being a circle like I expected, it is a long oval. A circle would allow the city itself to become a large spell and that is what I was expecting.

However, it looks like the mages didn't plan out the city with that in mind. In fact I can tell that the city walls have actually been moved a few times to make more room. There is also no inner city wall, which tells me the mages aren't so good at planning.

Then again, this also means there are more ways out of the city, which helps me. All the city gates are guarded, but there are smaller gates that have less guards. These will be my ways out if I get into a situation where I need to force my way out.

In my wanderings I found out that aside from the street stalls there are still normal markets in the city. Including a slave market, so once my escape plans are complete I head over there. This market is different from those I have seen before, there are no slave traders.

The market is run by a single merchant, he buys all the slaves from the traders and then resells them. It makes things a lot more organized but also lets the merchant set the prices. However, I don't care about gold, so I look for one of the clerks to ask about elves.

Clerk says "How can I help you, honorable sir?"

"I am looking to buy elves. Do you have any?"