The World Dragon's Heir
Chapter 89: Like Being Back In School

Chapter 89: Like Being Back In School

Every night, Dominic made one improved rifle as he listened to the palace maids gossip about the news of the war.

The room he was working in was right next to the courtyard where they took their breaks on days with favourable weather, and the main kitchen was on the other side of the courtyard. If he wasn’t making too much noise, he could pick up most of the day’s gossip, but most of it was hardly considered good news.

While the portion of land where his home had been was recovered, and now under the control of the Cygnia Army, large portions of the border had been lost, with the defenders driven back to the next manor house.

There were rumours that the Dagos Army had some new super weapon that the Cygnia forces were having trouble dealing with, but palace gossip could only be trusted so far, and the army was not sending any letters back.

It was a sensible restriction, during these early phases where the enemy didn’t know all their positions, and the Royals hadn’t had time to weed out all the likely spies from among their ranks, but it did lead to some truly wild rumours.

For example, the one that said Prince Claudius had eliminated an entire Company of soldiers by himself.

There was no way that the Crown Prince was travelling anywhere alone, and Dominic had seen him only a week and a bit ago, so he was most likely not even on the battlefield right now.

The next day would be a day off again, his lone day off every week. But Dominic didn’t really have any plans, other than relaxing and letting his mind wander after another full week of having it crammed full of knowledge.

He didn’t know that there were so many rules, regulations, courtesies, and unspoken norms that the Cygnia Nobles had to follow. But now he knew that they not only existed, but that they were different between every single rank of Noblemen.

No wonder they all seemed so uptight, they were just trying to remember the rules and not offend anyone.

Out of habit, he was still awake and out of bed at first light to have breakfast with Pops, who was also off for the day, while one of the other Smiths supervised the forge.

The workers cycled their days off so that there weren’t too many of them out on any given day. But because they were contractually Master and Apprentice, Pops and Dominic got their days off at the same time.

"You should head out into the city, get some time away from the Palace. You’ve got fancy clothes now, or you can wear your Palace Apprentice uniform and nobody would turn you away from their shops this time.

You might even find a few interesting pieces to purchase and add to your collection." Pops suggested.

That wasn’t a bad choice. He had a few spells in his spellbook now, so it wasn’t quite as urgent to go looking for magic. But there were so many wonderful magitech items available, and he definitely wanted to see what the Capital city had been keeping to themselves.

Dominic decided to go with Sorcerer’s robes, the ones that the Palace had given him, with the Royal Sorcerer’s emblem on them. He had a proper rank now, and he was done with trying to hide who he was, just so they wouldn’t kick him out of shops.

Now that he was looking presentable, Dominic made his way out of the Palace and into the Noble district outside the gates. The shops were busy first thing in the morning, with servants running errands for the morning’s tasks, and a few of the earlier rising Nobles out doing their shopping.

Talk of the war was even more prevalent in the Noble district than it was within the Palace, and the changes to the deployment orders, which put Noblemen among the common soldiers as support, instead of holding them all in reserve, were a major point of contention among the people in the streets during the early morning hours.

Dominic stepped into a shop that advertised itself as selling mage tools and magitech accessories, and the conversation followed him inside, along with one of the shop workers who was late arriving.

"What do you think, Royal Sorcerer? About the Nobles being embedded among the common rabble?" The shop owner asked.

Dominic shrugged. "Might do them some good. Having them all together should improve military discipline and coordination. I’m not the foremost expert on the topic, though. I make the weapons, I don’t generally use them."

The shop owner chuckled, but Dominic didn’t miss the disgusted look that the two workers were giving him.

"Are you not going to volunteer for the Natural Sons’ Regiment, then?" One of them asked.

Dominic shook his head. "Even if they would let me out of the forge, I am the last son of my name, and a titled Royal Sorcerer. I would just end up as the Regimental Smith to one of the units of Royal Rifles."

The worker balanced that information against the fact that Dominic was obviously nonhuman. He had a point. With a title, his standing was far too high to end up with a relief cavalry unit.

"Was there anything that we could help you find?" The shop owner asked carefully.

"I was looking for new spells to add to my repertoire. A little treat to celebrate my first few paydays as a Royal Smith." Dominic explained.

The shop owner smiled and sent his workers to the back to begin the morning shelf stocking process.

"Well now, I have a few things that might be useful to a smith. Some expensive, some not so bad." He explained, then swapped display trays around in one of the cases.

The new display was all magitech focused spell gems, things that mages would find useful when they took up a craft after graduation.

[Magical Quill]

[Self Drafting Blueprint]

[Never-Ending Ink]

[Clay to Steel]

[Magnified Sight]

Dominic looked at the gems, and then gestured to the [Clay to Steel] gem.

"That spell, what quality of steel does it make?" He asked.

"That depends on the level of the spell. If it’s level five or higher, it will make steel as good as any kitchen knife. If you want the fancy alloys that they use to make Magitech Orbs, you’ll need it at level fifteen or higher.

What do you specialize in at the forge?" He asked.

"Gunsmithing." Dominic replied.

That earned him an approving look from the shopkeeper. Even as an Apprentice, a Gunsmith was on par with the other Magitech industry workers. But during wartime, they were considerably more valuable to the nation than most others.