Merchant

(A/N. Bonus Chapter! Because! ...I don't know.. pick a reason.)

(Ps. FairyTail tomorrow)

Walking around the city without knowing where they were going would be counter productive.

Asking for directions to a magic shop they learned of many.

Being home to a wizard guild there was plenty of magic items and people that could use magic in the city, even if they did not choose to do wizarding work many of the citizens could use magic in one way or another.

Many of the shops in the area sold magic items but few of them bought them, they had to get closer to the Fairy Tail guild hall before they found a shop that they could sell too.

Walking in, Alex was greeted by a portly man with a bored look on his round face, the only thing that even stood out as 'note worthy' about him was his thin spiral mustache.

'The hell does he put in it, that would keep it like that?' he thought in interest while looking at the odd facial accessory.

"Welcome to my humble magic shop, is there any way that I can be of assistance?" the odd man asked professionally.

Alex, having been pulled out of his thoughts, cleared his throat.

"Good evening. We have come to see if you are willing to purchase a magic item from us?" Alex replied to his greeting.

"We do purchase magic items and cores if they are of a high enough quality but we do have requirements and standards. May I inspect the item first?" The man asked, with his same professional tone.

"Of course, I would not expect you to buy it if it was low quality" Alex replied as he pulled an item out of thin air.

This surprised the man, not because he had never seen anyone use 're-quip' magic, but because he could not tell the man was a mage.

The merchant always put a lot of faith in his items that detected Aura so he could know when he was dealing with a mage, it made negotiations easier and kept him safe.

Angering the wrong wizard was a quick way to die after all.

As Alex handed the man the Item he watched his face. He had gone through a variety of different expressions since they walked in, ranging from Fear and confusion to surprise and interest.

Currently his face was set in confusion with mild interest. As he grabbed the item he was able to tell it was magical but it had no lacrima.

Even being a wizard he could not tell what the item did or what it was used for.

It was a flattish oval object with a metallic finish and two leather straps, that looked like fastening straps to easily tie it to a belt, hung from what looked like the top.

There was no other indication as to what it could do but it was clearly magical in some way.

"I am very sorry sir, but I don't know anything about this object. Do you have any idea what it is used for? If not, I'm afraid I can't buy it from you" the man said as he handed the object back to Alex.

"Yes I know what it is used for but it would be easier to show you. Do you have a free area about 6'x8' wide with 6' clearance above?" Alex asked the now even more confused man.

"Yes.. Right this way to the storage room" he said slightly hesitant.

He didn't want to humor this man, but the fact that he was a wizard with no Aura worried him.

Upon seeing a suitable area Alex began his explanation to the man. "As I'm sure you noticed, this object doesn't have a lacrima".

The man nodded and Alex continued.

"Because of that it requires a Wizard to set it up and keep it active, making the target consumer the mages. I know this will limit whom will buy it, but after you see it in action I am sure you'll agree it's worth the trouble" Alex said, as if a salesman trying to make a deal.

Placing the object flat on the ground he slowly started pouring his Mana into it, after absorbing mana for about 15 seconds the item started to open like a budding flower before expanding rapidly.

Taking up the exact amount of space Alex requested was a completely set up tent with a hard cover door, it even had a stylish little chimney coming out the top.

Needless to say, the man was stunned.

He had never seen anything like it and that was saying a lot.

He had seen many strange things in his years of working in this city, but never a tent that would fit in the palm of his hand and be set up in 20 seconds (15 to charge, 5 to inflate).

His shock only increased as Alex opened the door and beckoned them all inside.

The 4 of them easily fit inside as it was quite a lot bigger inside than it looked.

On the inside it felt like a tiny military tent, it had two army style bunk beds (4 single person beds) and a small shower stall in the corner to clean up with.

It ran off a water rune and had self cleaning functions.

There was only a sleeping area and the shower area in the whole tent.

Alex explained to the man that the chimney was just for show but the tent had 2 runes on the side to regulate heat/cool.

The runes needed to be charged every 8 hours and the tent itself would stay deployed without additional charge.

This was the reason a mage was required to operate it, regular civilians did not have the capacity to charge the runes as it took a D-class mage minimum.

Alex figured this was acceptable when he made it as the vast majority of wizards that worked for the guilds were in the C-class, well over the requirements to use it.

The little fat man with the odd mustache was practically vibrating with excitement, if you looked closely you could probably see the dollar signs in his eyes.

'If I took this to auction it would sell for about a million jewel for the runes alone, maybe more if I got lucky!' The man thought.

"How do you unset it?" the man asked as they all left the tent.

Even Wendy and Carla were paying attention as theirs was the exact same, this had been a tour of what to expect from theirs when they had to use them.

They would find out later that theirs were a bit fancier than this base model though.

"It's pretty easy, you just put your hand on this area of the door and channel mana into in again. It takes 15 seconds as well but that is to give it the power to return" Alex replied.

"So, what did you think?" Alex asked with a small smile as he turned to the man.

"It is amazing!" The man exclaimed.

"I have never even heard of something like it before. The fact that only mages could use it would be bad in any other circumstances but it shouldn't be an issue here. I'm thinking wizards and nobility will be the only ones who can afford such an item" The man said absent mindedly, seemingly lost in thought.

When he realized what he did, he inwardly cursed but wasn't going to try to cheat the young wizard before him in case he had more, even though he knew it was unlikely.

'An object like this is probably one of a kind' the man thought to himself.

"That's what I like to hear!" Alex said happily.

He needed money and had plenty of these things.

They were relatively easy to make after he figured out the first one and how to store them, he had planned to donate them to the guild but really needed some quick cash.

"Now lets talk about price" Alex said trying to move things along, he was still hungry after all.

"I can only go as high as 150,000 Jewel right now, anymore than that and I will have to contact the owner of this establishment. If you're willing to wait for awhile I can try contacting him" the man said quickly, he knew 150k would be low for an item like this and he did not want to offend the man so he told him the truth.

"150k jewel is fine, it is more than I thought your offer would be and also what I had planned to sell them for" Alex replied, also not hiding anything.

The odd man was momentarily stunned by his words, he didn't think he would make a deal only having access to 150k but what stunned him was his wording.

' "Them" he has more of them? And all he was looking to get out of them was 150k? I must get them all' the man thought frantically.

"If you don't mind my asking, how many of them do you have?" the man worked up the courage to ask.

"I don't mind at all, I am currently looking to sell 4, all the same style as the one you saw" Alex replied to the man.

"I'll take them all!" The man practically shouted.

"I do not have access to 600k but I can take 1 now and if you are willing to wait a little while I can go get permission to buy the other 3" The man said with a hopeful edge to his voice.

"We do not have time to wait around this evening but I will sell you the one. We can come back tomorrow morning to sell the other three if you think you can get conformation by then?" Alex asked the merchant.

"That works perfectly! I will get conformation ASAP and make sure we have the Jewel on hand for your arrival" the man said happily.

"Please come back to the front and we will finalize our transaction so you can be on your way" the man said as he led them back to the front with a big smile on his face.

They finished the paperwork in record time and Alex got his money.

The man seen them to the door before telling Alex the time the store opened in the morning.

Shaking hands they went their separate ways.

"Well that was sure profitable" Alex said happily to Wendy and Carla after they had walked a few blocks.

"Indeed, but I'm sure you could have asked for way more than that. Those tents were amazing" Carla said with a little awe in her voice.

"Your skill is sure getting good of you can make something so amazing like that!" Wendy said with her signature smile, she was clearly excited to see Alex was so skilled.

"Thanks for the praise girls, but those ones were nothing special, they were actually my practice models. I have lots like that and they don't even hold a candle to your own" Alex said with a cheeky smile.

Both Wendy and Carla giggled at his words.

"Now I can't wait to see what mine looks like!" Wendy said in a loud voice while hugging Carla.

"I am sure they will be wonderful, child" Carla said to the over excited girl.

As they were looking for an inn, they passed a restaurant that they couldn't pass up.

The smells coming out of it were simply too heavenly.

Rushing inside, they got a table for 3 and ordered 1 of everything on the dinner menu.

After an amazing meal and storing what they couldn't eat, they went and found an inn for the night.

The next morning Alex woke up as usual and did his morning routine, he chuckled to himself when he could hear Carla and Wendy in the next room doing the same.

The little girl that liked sleeping in and was not a morning person had completely changed, now she was a very diligent and hard working wizard.

It had been a long time since Carla had to drag Wendy out of bed.

Finishing up their morning work-out they met for breakfast.

Upon leaving the inn they headed straight for the little magic shop, they didn't want to waste any time as they were all getting excited to finally go to Fairy Tail.

Quickly finishing up his business with the odd-looking man at the magic shop he politely declined the offer to meet the owner of the shop, he apologized and said they were in a hurry.

Leaving the shop 450k jewel richer he covertly gave Wendy and Carla each 100k to cover any basic expenses they might have.

With no more distractions they made quick progress to the big Guild building, I was time to officially join Fairy Tail!

(A/N. I know fics where the MC joins fairy tail usually just follow cannon and get boring real quick, but I've already proven I'm not following cannon and don't really care if people think my book is boring. I am writing it for me anyway.)