"Are you starting to get the hang of it by now?" Eik asked with a smirk as he weaved around the cluttered worktables that were placed around the scathingly hot room in an orderly fashion.

"Yeah, it's going pretty well, actually, if I have to say so myself. And it seems that I always do. I think it's going to click any day now," Heath said with a sage-like nod.

"'S that true?" Eik asked with a conspicuous side eye at Heath's disciple brother.

Trying but failing to hold back a fox-like grin, the man, who was built with an even larger frame than the tank, shook his head. His name was Kikah and his skin was the same deep red color as human blood which marked him as the same alien species as the girl the two of them together with the healer Michael and Heath's deceased sister had saved from being eaten by the cannibalistic, inter-dimensional death cult that called themselves Moon Shall Swallow.

Heath couldn't help but chuckle himself as he delivered a solid punch to his companion's shoulder. "Dude, you should see this guy trying then. He's been doing this two years longer than me, and he can still barely tell his own farts from his aura."

"I believe you," Eik laughed.

It had been just over three months since Eik and Olivia had managed to find and bring back to Forest Eik's father, Rasmus. He had been living with the pretty large group of other survivors deep within the expanded forests of Sweden. More so than life in the settlement of Forest, every day had been a fight for survival for them.

Barely any of the Awakened there had developed abilities based on the use of weapons since they had had no easy access to them and there had been no way of producing them themselves. The ratio of Awakened focused on pure magic was significantly higher than in Forest.

Once Eik had come back from combing through the Swedish forests, Heath had been waiting cravenly for him to come back so he could offer a timorous apology for his remarks after Sonja's death.

It had already been water under the bridge by then. They had all lost people so none of them were strangers to the impact grief could have on a person.

Two weeks later he had been given a discipleship with a smith in a workshop in one of the many artisans' quarters of the gigantic city of Gimleh. It wasn't that he had given up on the path of a warrior entirely per se, but rather that he had decided to readjust his path to focus more on his creative pursuits.

"Is this the newest masterpiece the?" Eik asked and picked up a blade laid across the worktable Heath was assigned to. It was smooth and polished but hadn't been fitted with a guard or handle yet. "Well, it looks like a sword. It's actually beautiful."

"Thanks, man. But this is no masterpiece," Heath muttered as he ran a finger along the cheek of the metal. "I'm not even able to imbue any magic into the thing for god's sake. It's just a hunk of metal shaped in a pretty way and I feel like I'm never going to be able to make it anything more than that. Am I wasting my time with this?"

"Of course not, dude."

"Yeah, you haven't been at this for that long yet," Kikah chimed in, his surprisingly soft voice carrying poorly in the workshop. "You've already felt the Ak'ki inside you recently. It's normal to take a while to get the hang of it so don't worry too much."

"Oh yeah?" Heath huffed and pointed a finger at Eik with a raised eyebrow. "Do you know how long it took this guy to feel it? Like three days! And it only took him two more days to control it!"

Kikah gaped, eyes going big as he stared incredulously at Eik. "Thr-Three… Three days? And two… How? That's not possible?"

Eik waved him off. "Nah, I was just lucky. Things lined up perfectly and I just happened to be able to figure it out quickly."

"That's bull and he knows it," Heath chuckled, clapping his former teammate in the back. "He has single-handedly been propping up Forest's entire economy with his alchemical business which, by the way, has been expanding like crazy recently."

Since getting back from Sweden, Eik had been putting his all into growing Eik's Excellent Elixirs. Every single day he had been brewing as much potion as he could. After a couple of weeks, he had gone to the market in Gimleh and invested in a cauldron with the capacity to brew batches several times larger than the small one Atla had gifted him.

With the control he now had, the simpler recipes could be produced in enormous number. This included creations such as the lower classes of Potion of Mighty Strength, Potion of the Metal Body, pain killers, and the lower classes of red healing potions, the recipe to which he had finally gotten his hands on. It had gotten to a point where he had hired two more people to assist with bottling and molding as well as distribution.

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Although the size of the supply he was delivering to the merchants around Gimleh with whom he had deals continued to grow every day, Eik still made sure to give as much as he could to Mission Central and the clinics around Forest.

As often as he could, he would also create a small number of Eik's Legendary Mystery Medicine. The existence of the pills were kept a strict secret that only he, his friends, and Mikla were aware of. At least for now.

All of his time had been spent either brewing potions or killing monsters. With Forest's own Awakened constantly advancing on top of the troops finally stationed permanently in the city, it had become significantly safer than before.

With the power he now possessed, he had taken a more active role in the protection of Forest. He would venture out, usually on his own but sometimes as part of teams of varying sizes, and neutralize any threat found close to Forest.

After the substantial success of Eik and Olivia's search for Eik's family and in extension more people to settle down in their city, several more such ventures had been launched. A few had already returned with varying degree of success but most of them were still underway, the deployed groups of Awakened able to check in with Forest regularly thanks to Eik putting in the money to pay for beacon stones.

Unfortunately, some they had also lost contact with. Whether they had been killed by powerful monsters or encounter with other humans had turned violent they couldn't know. Small scale investigations had been carried out around the point where they had last made contact but a rescue mission in unknown terrain was no easy task when they could be days away in any direction.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Heath asked as he began measuring for the guard for the sword. "Are you here to sell your potions? Don't you usually get Robert to make the deliveries these days?"

"Something like that, yeah. I just wanted to stop by and see how things were going but I've got an appointment with a friend, actually. I should get going."

Heath tilted his head a bit as he looked at his friend. "Are you all right, man? You seem kind of nervous. Is there something you want to talk about?"

Eik waved him off with a grimace. "No, no, nothing like that. I'm just not… quite sure what to expect from this meeting to be completely honest. But it'll be fine. Don't worry about it."

"Stop by before you go home, okay?"

"Will do," Eik said as he made for the door, waving to Heath and Kikah.

It was a pleasant walk through Gimleh. The city had recovered remarkably quickly from the invasion which had been much more than a simple distraction to get at the newer worlds. While he hadn't been there to witness it, Eik had been told that cultists had also carried out strategic assaults on various points of importance.

Since he was nowhere near important enough to be allowed in on any of the truly sensitive information, he did know that the cult had managed to find and exploit some kind of weakness or fault in the Alliance defense.

The Alliance had certainly been swift to act against it and had quickly beaten them back with a vengeance, but some infrastructure had been damaged rather effectively. Many suspected that this had only been the first move of a larger plan.

Whether genuine or not, life certainly seemed to have gone back to normal more or less. Street vendors hawked their wares along the side of the street, customers browsed the displays of the countless stores, and people were going to and from whatever they were doing like always. It felt great to be in the middle of.

Forest still had a gloom about it that felt impossible to shake. Eik didn't really think the people of Gimleh were heartier folk than those of Forest. It was simply a fact that, relatively speaking, Forest had lost much more.

It became clear just how little of Gimleh Eik had truly explored as it only took him a little over five minutes to walk further away from the elevator leading up to the headquarters above than he had ever been.

As he moved deeper into the market, shops he had never seen began to appear and they carried products that he knew nothing about. He stopped and peeked in through a window here and there but didn't go into any of them. There was a place he needed to be soon but made mental notes of all the ones that sold fun or interesting items.

It took a little less than half an hour of steady walking before he found himself standing in front of possibly the largest building he had seen in Gimleh thus far. Built right at a five-way crossroads, it dominated the view completely. It stretched far down the sides of each of its streets.

"Is this the place?" he muttered out loud as he turned a large city map this way and that in his hands. Wasn't there an easier way to navigate in a magical society than a freaking map? "It's gotta be. Then there should be…" he mumbled as he looked up from the map, scanning the facades.

"Ah!" Spotting the place he was looking for, he marched across the street and in through a pair of double doors. Above the entry hung a crooked sign reading 'A Day's Rest – Bar and Restaurant'.

Large windows allowed plenty of natural light to spill into the front room where a good number of the tables were occupied by people eating a late breakfast or an early lunch. Eik craned his neck and found the table he was looking for.

He plopped down in the seat facing the window, thin curtains preventing the sun from blinding him. "What are you having?" he asked.

Andihar Dayarunar swallowed and pushed a bowl across the table for Eik to peer into. "It's their signature dish."

Eik raised an eyebrow. "Their signature dish is a dessert?" It looked like a crème brulee but purple. It was also appeared to be significantly more airy, resembling a mousse in texture. It was topped with some manner of shredded fruit or vegetable.

"Don't knock it until you try it, my boy."

"Oh, I'll try it alright. I'm always up for new food."

Andihar must have already ordered a portion for Eik because it arrived ten seconds later.

"Oh, wow," Eik exclaimed after his first bite. "This is almost chocolaty. We have a bean at home that has a similar flavor to this."

"Really?" Andihar said. "Invite me over next time."

"I will," Eik laughed and dove back into the bowl.

"Did you bring them?" Andihar asked quietly.

"Yeah, I've got them."

"Good. Take this," Andihar said and slid a nondescript mask across the table. "Wear this before we go in."

"Won't this stand out a lot more?"

"No, a good number of people, both sellers and buyers, have taken to hiding their identities. Eat up and then we'll head over to the auction house and get your pills sold."

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