The Fish That Laid the Golden Egg

"Where is that bloody mercenary at huh? How come he didn't come here today!" Yelled old Henry at his workers who had nothing to do with it, but they could only swallow their complains as they endured the old man's spittle

"Sir, I don't think he even went out yesterday" One of the women to the side said quietly, she had been working near the gate yesterday and saw him come in but not out

"Hah! You think that grubber would stay in the field to finish the job? You might as well tell me pigs can fly"

"They can, ever heard of Wind Tusks" A blunt retort sounded behind him freezing Old Henry's mouth in place, he looked toward the fields to see a young man with two large blood stained bags on his shoulders

"Wh-What are you doing in my field"

"My job, which is almost finished, a day or two should be enough"

"Well, you should hurry then, I don't want you playing in my fields at night again"

"Wasn't it you who said their nocturne creatures? Or did age already catch up with your memory?"

"You!"

The old man was already red from anger and embarrassment, he really couldn't retort when he did indeed point out that their nocturne, he felt suffocated by the anger within him, he pointed one last time at Yu with shaky fingers but couldn't say anything and left after that with a huff

Once the old man was out of sight the workers turned to Yu

"Young man you should watch out, old Henry isn't a good person, while he wouldn't go out of his way to pay someone to kill you for an insult he might harm you in other ways"

"Thanks for the tip but I don't see how he can do so; I can take care of myself you should worry about your work"

Yu walked out after giving those harsh replies, his intention wasn't to insult them but he didn't want people to interact with him too much, the less others knew the better, he's not some bumbling fool who would make friends everywhere he went with every class of society, that just left too many trails for someone on the run like him

With a steady speed Yu made his way through Calico city, he used alleys and unpopulated roads since he didn't want to attract attention with his bloody bags which were a result of his amateurish disassembling

'I need to start learning more about survival and hunting skills, I can't keep on going with my surface knowledge'

Thinking about skills he remembered the warrior techniques

'I should also learn some combat techniques or at least some for emergency situations, though finding one would be hard in these backwater regions'

Even the strongest families in the Southern Paradise had at most ten techniques, half of which were low stage ones, with that being the case how could these small regions ever have techniques available for purchase or teaching

'Plus I need to get one with the fire attribute since that is the former owners attribute'

Humans had attributes too just like beasts, no one knew how to measure those attributes but one usually inherited his families attribute, in the Shenai family's case it was fire

While Yu recalled this and that about techniques he went back and forth between the hole and the hotel three times, giving enough time between each session as he had told the workers he was bring some traps

When he went down for the last haul he came to the lake to call back the fish, but he suddenly noticed the water level had gone down

"??"

The change was notable but not too much so he wondered if he was seeing wrong, he turned to the fish that was swimming near the top to ask about the situation

"Did anything weird…." His words trailed off looking at the scene before him, the fish was taking in water, keeping it in for a short while, then letting out a small bubble of dense water which sank down to the bottom of the lake

'Is it.. purifying the water?' That could be the only explanation, since the water that it let out was sinking it meant it had a higher elemental density

Putting his hand in the water Yu motioned for the fish to come, when it was above his hands he told it to repeat the process after which he fished the new bubble out of the water

"This is indeed elemental water, it's even better than the ones I've seen before, it must be a little better than the one middle class nobles use to strengthen their beasts"

Seeing the high quality water Yu is filled with joy, seems like his money problems diminished, after all now he could sell this water to people who raise beasts and get….

'Ahhh shit I forgot that not many people have beasts to begin with and none of them are Grimoire holders, Contracted Beasts can't grow so this won't be of any use to them'

His joy was short lived but he didn't dwell on the fact for too long, instead he looked toward the fish and asked it if it could use the water, holding some hope that he might still make some use of it

But to his disappointment the fish shook its head, well it made sense, after all the elemental water was used to strengthen the beasts attribute and affinity but the fish was already at the heights level of purification it could be, according to the Grimoire

"Hmm I can't walk about with this much water even if it was all compressed, I need to get it off my hands, if only it was purer than this then people would buy it to sell it off to Grimoire holders, assuming there are any, sadly with this much purity it's still not enough to catch a buyer without spending too much time, after all you can't sell this much to big families who probably own a source of it without cutting down on the price, plus the price they can buy it from me would be pretty high in and of itself, it wouldn't be worth it"

He could also try to contact big families himself and sell it but he didn't want to risk exposing himself so he crossed the idea off his mind

Splash

The sound of water pulled him out of his thoughts as he turned to the fish, it nodded once it caught his attention and started to take in water, a lot of it, and hold it in for a much longer time, which took slightly over a minute before it let out a denser much deeper colored water

Yu widened his eyes at the sight and immediately fished the bubble out of water, he inspected it and saw that it was not just purer than the last one, it in fact surpassed elemental water and became Elixir Water, no longer being only used to train beasts, but also to treat wounds for both beasts and humans

"Haha, your full of surprised aren't you? Then again you are indeed able to purify it to the maximum purity the world can hold and since we have Elixir Water then you can make it, by the way how much can you make of this"

The fish responded by starting the process of purification again, but for some reason it kept staring at the water in his hands

Yu brought a large vase and dropped the Elixir Water into it then he told the fish to continue on but not tire itself out, he wasn't in a hurry and he could take a few more days to finish the work

He proceeded to climb up the hole and hide it, then go back to the hotel with the last batch of materials which he stored for later use

'Took me a while to get everything, I pretty much did nothing but transport all day long, other than that it's been a peaceful day'

Happily humming to himself Yu got into bed and closed his eyes, he had a busy day tomorrow

…..

"Please sir sun, can you not shine into my bedroom? I'm trying to get some shut eye"

Yu growled meaninglessly at the suns light coming through the window while he rolled around on the ground, he had not gotten a wink of sleep through the entire night, he even went down to sleep on the floor but it still didn't help, he couldn't sleep no matter what thus he could only roll from time to time while he thought out his plan for today

"Ugh why did this happen again? Clearly when I first came into this city after hunting the bees I was fine, I even slept in this very bed, how come I can't get a wink of sleep now?"

No matter how much he asked himself he still couldn't find the answer, it wasn't the floor nor was it the environment, was he the problem then? If so then what was it that differed from all the other times

"Whatever! I'll start my new plan instead of wasting time here"

Grumbly standing up Yu headed toward the cave with bags filled with jars, this time he would transport the water into a storage room he would rent on the way then he would contact various merchants and sell it to them in small amounts

Once got to his destination and climbed down the cave he found himself facing a half empty lake, it seemed the fish was hard at work while he "slept"

"Hey buddy, you really didn't take any break did you, seems like your almost done…Hmm? I thought you were making the Elixir Water how come this is the normal elemental water"

After taking a scoop from the lake he found out it wasn't at the grade he wanted it to be, so he turned to the fish for answers but he only saw it nodding toward the vase he had put the Elixir Water in yesterday

Puzzled he went to check on it only to see the water inside no longer as deep colored as it once was, instead it was the same as the one in the lake, maybe even a little less pure

"What? How could it have lost its purity? Is it because of the environment it's in? Or maybe…"

A theory popped in his head and he brought out his drinking pack then poured it into another vase and told the fish to try and purify it, it did so but instead of the purity of elemental water it came off as only a slightly cleaner water

"As I thought, purifying needs the object to have the requirements to be made into the end result, if it doesn't have enough raw materials inside then it can't be refined, now can you try making this water elemental?"

The fish obliged and turned the normal water into water that had a trace of elements in it which took longer, but after he waited by its side for a while it turned back into normal water

"Hmm so it seems forcing it to be refined into a higher purity than it can be makes it unstable and causes it to dissipate, unlike places with naturally high elemental energy which accumulate and refines over time, this forceful process has its limits"

After figuring the flaw the problem became apparent, he couldn't sell this water to anyone as they would soon figure it was a scam

"Hmm well if I can't sell it to 'Anyone' I just need to sell it to 'Someone' "

Someone with enough capital to buy the whole amount, someone who had enough connections throughout the city that he wouldn't hold the fear of getting scammed, and he had just the someone in mind