Chapter 94: A Small Profit

Mr. Longfellow was standing before a huge wooden signboard, chalk in hand, busy sketching and lettering advertisements along the lines of “New enchanted furs just arrived” and “Limited quantities, so act now.” When he saw Joanna come in carrying a bulky bundle, he could scarcely believe his eyes. Only after Joanna personally demonstrated the magical effects of all five furs, one by one, did he finally believe just how deftly this young mage worked.

Joanna’s live demonstration of the enchanted furs produced an unexpected advertising coup as well, drawing a crowd of curious passersby. They watched him utter a brief word and saw the fur garments suddenly glow, instantly washing away every stain and becoming clean as new. All of them exclaimed in admiration. At once, two well-to-do ladies, both regular customers of the leather shop, went to ask Longfellow for the price, expressing an interest in buying enchanted furs.

Mr. Longfellow tossed aside the unfinished signboard and, with all his energy, extolled the enchanted furs in extravagant terms. Joanna, listening from the side, was almost embarrassed on his behalf. Yet the facts proved that he was still too inexperienced: to make a business succeed, one needed just such self-promoting eloquence and thick skin as Mr. Longfellow’s. In the end, both furs were sold for three hundred and fifty gold ducats apiece.

An ordinary fur garment of the same kind, without enchantment, sold for only one hundred and fifty gold coins. After deducting the cost of enchantment and the fee paid to Joanna, Mr. Longfellow still netted an extra one hundred gold coins on each enchanted fur from that tongue-lashing alone. Joanna was envious, but he remained calm about it. After all, salesmanship was a skilled trade too; since he did not possess that ability, there was no point forcing it. It was enough to earn a steady processing fee.

Where people gather, there is fashion and trend. Even a rural town like Delin could not escape the urge to chase what was stylish. Once the two wealthy ladies put on their enchanted furs, they looked even more dazzling than before. Strolling out of the leather shop in high spirits, they immediately became the center of attention in the townswomen’s social circle. Thereafter, people came one after another to inquire about buying the same enchanted furs. Mr. Longfellow was so pleased he could hardly close his mouth. While entertaining his honored guests, he found time to pull Joanna into the adjoining workroom, where he pressed a bulging money pouch into his hands. Besides the agreed payment of two hundred and fifty gold ducats, he added another fifty as a bonus.

Since the enchanted furs were selling so well, of course Mr. Longfellow wanted to place another order. Joanna was glad to earn a little extra on the side as well, and agreed to process fifteen more enchanted furs, with the processing fee still set at fifty gold ducats per piece. By that calculation, he would earn another seven hundred and fifty gold ducats.

By now Joanna was, in Mr. Longfellow’s eyes, nothing less than a money tree. Naturally he had to cultivate the relationship carefully. Not only did he generously pay all the processing fees in advance, he also took the initiative to raise the remuneration by ten gold coins per fur. In this way, Joanna took in a total of one thousand two hundred gold ducats that day, the largest sum he had ever earned in his life.

The weight of eleven hundred gold coins exceeded twenty pounds, and when combined with fifteen fur coats, there was no way Joanna could carry everything home by himself. Mr. Longfellow hired a carriage, personally helped him load the coats and money pouch aboard, and even escorted him all the way home before taking his leave in peace.

The poor boy had never seen so much money in his life. Joanna opened the pouch again and again, dazzled by the gleam of so many bright gold coins, his heart equally in turmoil. To keep such a fortune at home, he likely would not sleep soundly at night, forever fearing that thieves might set their sights on it. For safety’s sake, and perhaps with a trace of vanity he was unwilling to admit, he shouldered the money pouch and went to find his grandfather, asking the old man to keep it for him.

Joanna set the heavy pouch down neatly in the center of the dining table and, with feigned nonchalance, said to his grandfather, “This is the money I’ve earned lately. Please help me put it away.”

Old Tyrell glanced at the pouch once and immediately estimated roughly how much it contained, understanding at once the subtle state of his grandson’s mind. He felt both amused and comforted.

“Not bad. You’ve earned such a sum in just a few days.”

“Nothing special, really. I just got lucky,” Joanna said with affected modesty. “Don’t worry, I earned it all legally.”

“All right, all right. I may be poor and down on my luck now, but when I was young, I made plenty of money too. So don’t come showing off in front of me.” The old man waved a hand irritably. “Now that you’ve got money on hand, improve your meals a little. You can’t live on black bread every day. If your health collapses, all the money you earn will be pointless.”

Joanna nodded, secretly moved by the concern hidden in his grandfather’s words.

“So many gold coins aren’t easy to carry around. Keep some for pocket money, and I’ll help you store the rest for now. The tavern in town also handles currency exchange. Before you leave, you can go there and exchange the large gold coins for a bank draft. When you get to Layden Harbor, any bank or major merchant house can change it back into gold coins, or you can simply hand over the draft issued by the bank when you pay your tuition. That’s much more convenient,” the old man instructed his grandson.

“A bank draft…” Joanna thought about it. He had indeed seen travelers from afar exchange a colorful slip of paper for gold coins at the tavern before. Presumably that was the bank “draft” his grandfather meant. “But… will the school accept such a little piece of paper?”

“You really are a country bumpkin!” Old Tyrell admonished him, caught between laughter and tears. “Young people who stay in a tiny backwater like this will never amount to much. Once you get to Layden Harbor, once you’ve seen a proper city and the wider world, you’ll naturally understand many things.”

Joanna nodded, only half understanding. After leaving his grandfather’s cottage, he was still puzzled. A bank was a place for storing money, wasn’t it? Then why would people trust a bank with real gold and silver, exchanging it for a thin little slip of paper? If such slips could really be used as money, wouldn’t they one day replace gold and silver coins altogether?

He could not make sense of it, and could not be bothered to think about it too deeply. Instead, he turned his mind to the question that interested him more.

His collaboration with Mr. Longfellow had gone more successfully than Joanna had expected, but he also clearly realized that the town market was limited. There were not many households willing to spend three or four hundred gold ducats on enchanted furs, and once the fifteen enchanted garments in his hands were finished, this small market would be nearly saturated. Unless Mr. Longfellow intended to expand into outside markets, it would be difficult for orders for enchanted furs to keep growing.

Joanna’s main purpose in processing enchanted furs was not to make money, but to temper his own skill in enchantment. Enchanting furs had already become easy for him; what remained was nothing more than repetitive labor, not worth devoting all his energy to. Since he already had some spare money in hand, he might as well try something more technically demanding, such as making enchanted weapons.

With that in mind, Joanna quickly returned to his little cottage, took out the dagger he usually used and slipped it into his pack. After a moment’s thought, he also tucked in the Human-Faced Shield, then slung the pack over his back and headed straight for the smithy on the bank of the Delin River.

Ever since he had helped Flint Anvil resolve the waterwheel affair last time, Joanna had been taken in as a disciple by that highly skilled dwarf smith, and could come to the smithy at any time to study the art of forging. Not long after that, however, Joanna was invited by the Conway family to travel to Bowman Village, and after returning from the trip he had been busy studying spells. All told, he had hardly been to the smithy more than a few times, and he truly felt a little ashamed toward Mr. Flint.