Inari’s Gift

With some spare time before it would be another teaching day, Cera finally decided to start experimenting with manipulating her body.  After some thought, she decided that the safest place to begin would be attempting to make her toes webbed, then restore them to normal.  It was a relatively minor change, and wouldn’t encumber her much at all if she couldn’t undo it.

As such, she spent most of the day inside her room, coming out only to pay for it and pick up some food.  Due to her efforts with healing so much in the recent past, it wasn’t too difficult to get extra skin to grow, but as she expected, it wasn’t entirely healthy, nor could she properly undo it.

The next three days, she continued her efforts at undoing her change, finding herself unable to manage it, though she felt she was close to her goal.  By that point, however, it was time to go teach at the mages’ guild again, which was a good thing, as she was running low on money.

For the three days she was teaching, Cera went over mana constructs and a number of tricks with them, as well as giving detailed information on how to properly improve them.  She also decided to share her amplifier design, making sure to inform her students that it was relatively useless at the present moment.  She hoped, however, that in time, someone would manage to get it to phase-shift mana, causing it to become significantly more useful.

While she was teaching, she tried to overload her own amplifier, but unfortunately, was still unable to achieve a proper shift.  While it was expected, it was still discouraging, as it meant she was a very long way from being able to resume her old method of magic fully.

Once again, when she wasn’t teaching, she resumed her efforts to undo the small change she’d made to herself, finally succeeding after two more days.  She then stopped by the healers’ guild and made another four copper and six steel the following day.

To take a break from her biological manipulation, Cera then went back to the mages’ guild and spent ten copper on the base materials for potion crafting before returning home.  After a few hours, she had several experimental potions, and began examining them in-depth.

Fortunately, it appeared her only problem was that she overdid it on a few of the potions, making them stronger than intended.  She had originally been aiming for weak potions that could be given to sick children, but a few ended up too potent to be safely used for that purpose.  Having approved of her initial batch, she drew deeply on her saved mana and proceeded to make use of all the rest of the materials, ending up with five of the stronger potions, which ought to be worth three copper each, and forty-five minor healing potions worth two and a half steel each.

She doubted she’d get what they were worth, since she was going to dump them off at the healers’ guild rather than sell them herself, but they’d get put to good use there, and she would certainly make back her expenses.

It took a few trips to get all the potions to the guild, given that they were much heavier full than as vials and powder, but eventually she managed to bring them all over.  In the end, she was offered twenty copper for the full batch, which she accepted, despite the significant loss in value.

After another three days of teaching, Cera found herself with quite a lot of coins again, and headed to the bank once more.  Her habit of cutting through alleys led to a bit of trouble this time around, however.

She was three streets away from the bank when six people stepped out in front of her, and two more behind.  Instantly on guard, she slammed her shields to maximum power and prepared to summon ice spikes if she was right.

Unfortunately, she was, the group all reaching for their weapons as one of the men demanded, “Drop your coin pouch, it looks like we’ve got quite a nice find today!”

While it was certainly not appropriate to the situation, Cera couldn’t help but sigh.  A moment later, ice spike after ice spike formed, hovering in the air above her shield.  As she aimed them forward, she pointed at the man who spoke.

“If you wish to continue this path, I guarantee that at least four of you will die, starting with you.  Should you change your mind, I will not take any action against you,” she declared, locking gazes with the man she pointed at.

There were mutters of “mage” between the men as several of them began to back away and look for cover.  Several tense seconds ticked by without either side taking hostile action, and Cera began to sigh again.

Before she could begin her attack, however, one of the men behind her shouted, “Pull back!  Not worth it!”

Cera spun and gave a slight bow to the man before turning around again and beginning to walk forward once more.  The six people ahead of her scurried out of the way, putting their hands in the air as they did so.  Despite this, however, Cera kept her shields at full strength, and kept hold of her ice spikes until she was out of the alley and back on a heavily trafficked road, though it did get her several odd glances.

Eventually, she made it to the bank, still a little tense from her encounter, and deposited another forty copper.  This gave her a total of four silver and five brass in the bank, while her on-hand funds ended up at ten copper, twenty-eight steel, and twenty-six iron.

The next four days, Cera spent writing more of her book on mana constructs, going as deep in detail as she could, displaying her expertise in the subject.  It was a shame, she thought, that no one would be reading it for quite a while.

She also took a few hours to make another batch of twenty-five potions, spending five more copper on materials.  For this batch, she intentionally made ten of the standard potions with fifteen of the minor ones.  The offer for this batch was twenty-two copper, less than she’d expected, but still acceptable, given the lower material price.

Three more days of teaching passed by, Cera revealing some of what she’d just been writing about, and she made another batch of copper, leading her to need another trip to the bank.

This time, she stuck to the main roads, making it to the bank unmolested, and deposited twenty copper.  She then made another stop at the mages’ guild to pick up another ten copper worth of potion supplies before heading back home.

For this batch of potions, Cera decided to do nothing but standard, which would be worth a silver and a half if she sold them at full price.  It took all four days to channel enough mana, but eventually, she finished them all.  While regenerating, she continued her work on her book.

As expected, the offer from the healers’ guild was quite a bit lower than the full price would have been, but she did make one silver and one brass, thanks to the guild being so thankful to have a large supply of potions for emergencies.  They did, however, inform her that they wouldn’t need any more of the stronger potions until they used up what she’d already sold them, and would only take one more batch of the weaker ones.

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