The sound of wheels rolling…..
A coach carrying three male youngsters, one female youngster and a wheelchair was 'galloping' towards the Dorbank city.
Eventually, Alex had hired a ride when they had reached one of village near the city. At first, Hank was very happy as they had been walking all the way and this was the first time that they would going to the city, but after hearing a few lines of coachman's idle talks, his mood immediately began to decline.
Peng! Peng!
The coachman was brandishing his whip. However, it was only the sound of the whip lashing out in the air, the coachman, with extreme caution, didn't let it fall upon the body of his precious bulls.
" How is it? Isn't it running fast? But I tell you, horses run faster than this. Oh, you might not know what a horse is. You see it's a majestic animal, runs very fast. Unfortunately, there's not even one here on this island…" The coachman was talking very proudly about his life experiences and how he saw real horses on the other side of the sea when he had gone there before
"Very fast." Alex nodded. He was very interested in the anecdotes of the coachman. Also he didn't forget to ask about the latest happenings in the city and possibly about the ongoing war.
"Sigh… what can I say son. The situation was very terrible this time. Three of our frontier villages had been lost to the enemies; one of the lord's elite army got completely crushed. Some time ago there was even a rumor about our lord getting almost assassinated by someone in his manor. Thank god, nothing really happened and now the war has also stopped, saving us from further destruction."
"The war has…ended?" Alex asked as his brows furrowed together because he saw that there was still tight security around the village which they had fist reached.
"Not completely, talks are still going on between the 3 three Lords. It's still not completely clear as to what had made them to stop the fight but whatever, for the common people it's a blessing. "
Like this Alex and the coachman talked the whole way.
After an hour, they reached the Doran city's main gate.
"Amazing!" Anna gasped in admiration. It was the same situation with Tom and Hank, but Alex was not much impressed. He had seen much bigger Manors, cities and landscapes. This city was not even comparable. But he still finds it refreshing nonetheless. It's been month's since he saw such hustle and bustle between people.
What came in front of them was a wall made from big stones and mud standing about 15 meter tall. There was a lot of traffic created by merchant's carriages and people going in and out.
A lot of guards were also standing there. When there turn came to enter the city, the coachman registered his name and gave a silver coin to the guard.
While Alex and his group also registered their names, they had to give 10 silver coins each because they were not a resident of the city nor did they came under any mercenary or merchant group dealing within the city or else they had to pay much less entry toll.
Getting of the carriage, Alex took Anna and others with him to the main shop of Master Clayton after asking the direction. A Lot of man and women turned their heads when they saw Alex and Anna as they really were very good looking. Alex ignored them but Anna was little uncomfortable. The men in their village knew about her identity so they controlled their gazes. Anna walked a little closer with Alex. Alex also understood her feelings so he took one of her hands into his as they walked. Hank and Tom smiled seeing this.
Soon they came in front of a big shop with a simple name "Mastor Clayton Alchemy Store"; it was normally operated by his disciples. They entered the shop and as he had been told before by Aunt Julie, Alex went to a person sitting alone reading a book by the stairs going up on the second floor.
"Hello brother, my name is Alex and I have come to take the test to become an alchemist under Master Clayton" Alex first gave his greeting and his objective.
"1 gold coin for the test." replied Tim without looking up. This was his everyday job. He was also a novice apprentice alchemist. For a common man, the price of 1 gold coin was too much. It converted to 10000 silver coins but to become an alchemist one must also be rich as at the start it takes a lot of money to practice Alchemy till they can see any profit.
"Ok"
Tim looked up and was surprised to find a very handsome teen in front of him. At first he thought, he was a young master from a noble family but then he saw that the clothes he wore that of common people in the village.
"All four of you?" he asked as his eyes got stuck on Anna seeing her beautiful face. But then quickly turned his eyes away from her since he also thought it was very rude of him.
"No, just me"
"Then please let your friends stay here and you follow me." Tim said as he took Alex to the second floor.
On the second floor, there were 7 people busy in their own work. Some were reading books; some were grinding normal and spirit herbs with the help of tools.
After collecting the fee, Tim brought out a crystal ball the size of football.
"Place your hands on top of this ball and pour all of your spiritual energy into it. This crystal ball will give color to your Spiritual sense after which you have to spread your spiritual sense out through the ball as far as you can like you normally do" Tim explained.
Alex did just that but instead of pouring all of it, he controlled the amount of spiritual energy. So the distance it can cover is only 12 meters. Just 3 meters extra then what Master Clayton was rumored to have achieved in his youth.
Soon a golden light came out of the crystal ball and through the control of Alex, the golden light rushed beyond the walls of the room. This floor was at most eight to nine meter long in width and length and 5 meters in height. Much bigger than normal shops.
…
A carriage was travelling on its way to the shop where Alex was giving his test. In it was none other than Master Clayton, Grade 1 Alchemist and also the owner of one of the two biggest Alchemy store in the city. He usually doesn't come to his own shop much as he stays in his own manor to practice alchemy.
At most he would visit 3 or 4 times in a month to examine the shop and give pointers to his less talented and still beginner disciples.
Today, coincidently turned out to be the day he thought of visiting his shop. Listening to the increasing noise outside the carriage, Master Clayton puled the curtain aside to see what had happened. He turned his head in the direction to which the pedestrian were looking.
"My...God!" Master Clayton saw a big golden sphere covering what seems to be his shop.