*Yawn*

  Eden rises from his deep slumber, waking up far later than usual; 11:00 am. His now lively eyes shoot over to his small clock in the corner of the small room, and upon seeing the time he initially panics a little, but quickly calms down. Normally Eden would have had to be out in the fields at this time, but now with his newly gained “freedom”, he was no longer bound to the strict scheduling that he once had.

  It is quite nice to finally get a good amount of sleep- actually, now that I think of it, I should not have gotten that much sleep. I was rather late, no, technically early in the morning when I went to sleep. Ah, no point in wondering about this, I hope. Eden concludes, not wanting to waste time on such a trivial matter. This is especially true when Eden has far greater issues to worry about; the potential war. Eden needs to get some more information about if there is really a war on the horizon, along with some more facts about the war.

  If I want to get information, I am going to have to go to a place with more wood spirits for internal affairs, and perhaps the trader Plantus mentions external affairs. Regardless, I am willing to bet there is a shopping place of some kind, and where money is is where information can be found. Eden concludes. He then jumps out of his stone cold bed, and within about a couple of minutes he is all ready to go. There was not much to prepare for on Eden’s part to be honest. However, this was not due to Eden having everything all laid out, but rather that Eden had so little clothing that there was no need to prepare earlier.

  I wish we had some sort of shower, or at least a real washing machine to clean these clothes. Boy am I glad to be used to foul smells, but if I had to guess the wood spirits will not like the smell. Wait, can wood spirits even smell? They lack a nose, but it is not like they have a mouth to speak- no, you are getting off track Eden. Eden thinks to himself as he smacks himself in the face. The blow did no damage, but did get Eden to stop thinking about little things for a little while, so he could focus on the bigger picture.

  Eden promptly exits his humble abode and walks out onto the field. When Eden looks around, he is surprised to be able to see Old Man working on his field, currently planting some cotton to replenish the field.

  I can see Old Man now? But the enchantment should prevent that I thought? Eden wonders, but soon realises why he is now able to see Old Man; his rise in status. It was safe to say only slaves were blocked from seeing with the enchantment, after all, there is only one spirit overseeing the whole area, so he would need a decent view of everything to make sure everyone was working.

  On the horizon Eden could see Cowboy a few kilometers to his left, Soldier a few kilometers in front of him, and Soldier was the farthest away on his right, barely in his sight. On the far right end of Old Man’s field would be Plantus, who was still in charge of these fields even after our rise in ranks, but it would seem Plantus does not care to watch all that closely. Plantus is simply floating around, reading a very thick book, about the width of a bodybuilder’s arm. Eden quickly jogs over to Plantus, reaching him in roughly a minute or so.

  “Plantus! I need you for something!” Eden yells out to Plantus once he reaches him. Plantus puts down his book and stores it inside of his body, and now faces Eden.

  “Oh good, you are finally awake. But what do you need Eden?” Plantus asks Eden, but this leaves Eden with another question first.

  “Well I needed you to point me to where a shopping area is, but what do you mean by ‘finally awake’?” Eden asks back to Plantus, whose eyes widen from realization of something.

  “Oh right, you do not have a calendar do you? You have been asleep for over a day now. You must have been really tired or something, but I personally think you have been overworking yourself a little, so it is fine.” Plantus explains to a now shocked Eden.

  I have been asleep for over a day!? Well seeing how everyone is acting, I can guess there are no real issues currently going on. But I do not want to waste days like this. I should focus on the task at hand though, I am sure if I talked about it, Old Man would just say no use crying over spilled milk. He would not be wrong though, I should get to the shopping area; a place many are likely to be at, such as that trader Plantus mentioned. Eden concludes, waiting for Plantus to continue on. Plantus takes a moment to pick up on this, but once he does he starts to talk again.

  “So you were asking to go to the shops, right? I can get a vine orb to take you to the shopping district. Travel should only take about half an hour there. Now I am kind of doubtful you have much money on you though, so you sure you want to go shopping now? I spent the rest of the money we had to treat you.” Plantus informs Edens, who looks slightly perplexed at this predicament. Suddenly however, Old Man shows up right next to the two. Not a bit of sound could be heard from his movements.

  “I can supply you some of my gold. It is not like there is much I want to buy anyway.” Old Man interjects to the two. Both Eden and Plantus jump up from the sudden voice of Old Man, as neither ever noticed he walked up to them. They both quickly regain their composure though.

  “Oh, I did not see you there, Old Man. But I thank you for the offer, and given I am kind of broke right now, I will sure as hell take it!” Eden answers to Old Man, who narrows his eyes.

  “Were you never taught to decline offers first, then accept them on the second or third offer? How did you not know I was not just trying to be polite?” Old Man rhetorically asks. This is met by a mocking glare from Eden, along with him covering his mouth with his left hand, clearly holding back laughter. Plantus however was laughing his ass off, and was currently on the ground slamming the ground, sending dirt and grass flying up.

  “Oh come on! I am not that disrespectful!" Old Man yells out.

  “Oh sure you are, given the bar we are setting it as is the level of a raccoon. Actually we might need to lower the bar a little more.” Eden mocks with a chuckle. The humor of Old Man’s claim is still hitting Eden, even more so for Plantus, who has just gotten off the ground and is taking a deep breath. On the contrary Old Man does not look amused. He pulls out a bag filled with gold and hands it to Eden.

  “Fine you elder hatter! Return the change when you are done!” Old Man barks out when he hands Eden the gold. The total amount is 1875 gold, which is Old Man’s entire life saving. As it would seem, Old Man is now both unrespected and broke, along with just generally unlikeable.

  “Thank you for the spending money, Old Man. See you around once I am done with my stuff.” Eden informs Old Man as he goes next to Plantus, who is in the process of summoning a vine orb. It only takes but a moment for the vine orb to appear, though this vine orb is a decent bit smaller than the former one they were in. Of course, Eden has no idea this was the case, so he makes no comment on the smaller size of the orb. This also explains the surprise of the interior to him when a doorway is made that Eden walks into. He quickly rushes over to the helm of the orb, examining it to find out what it was. He also notices the floating map, which is glowing green. Plantus, who followed behind the running man, begins to explain what the helm is.

  “This is the helm of the vine orb, and if you have not already noticed, there is a magic-made map right on it. You point to a spot on the map, and the orb flies you over to that location. Now this vine orb is limited to a few specific spots, as here is a fun fact: this vine orb is yours now!” Plantus informs Eden, who is rather surprised at the gift of a vehicle.

  “So you are saying I get to keep this thing?” Eden says in disbelief, to which Plantus does his poor nod in response.

  “Yes, but I will reiterate that you can only go to a few places, which are named on the map here.” Plantus informs Eden once more as he floats over to him. Plantus then begins to point to all the places Eden can go to.

  The names are as follows: Shopping district, Hospital, Elder tree, Wanderer’s district, residential district, and their current location. The map also holds measurements about distances from each place, where it is about 50 kilometers between each area. The map is not all that detailed, and anything passed the circle that contains the areas this vine orb can go are blacked out.

  “If you want to go to the shopping district, then point to that spot. I would also recommend you go to the wanderer’s district if you want wares not commonly found in the wood spirit kingdom. Anyway, I am going to go now, good luck!” Plantus tells Eden as he floats outside of the vine orb. Once Plantus does that, the doorway closes back up again with thick vines. Almost no light pokes through the orb, with the only reason Eden can see much of anything being his own solid eyesight, along with the bright light the map makes.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Eden points on the spot labelled ‘shopping district", and suddenly he feels himself rise up. But this feeling only lasts for a few seconds, as the feeling of movement is lost on Eden. It is like he is on solid ground, but by looking through the cracks of the vines anyone can tell they are anything but. The ground below zips along like a blur, but it is not the ground that is moving fast, but the vine orb. Eden then notices a dark green dot on the map that is slowly moving towards the shopping district from the location Eden was just at, labelled ‘Cotton Field’. Eden, having nothing else to do, pulls out his book, Crafting fundamentals, a Dwarf’s Guide, and gets back to reading the book. Where he left off was on the topic of cold forging and how it compares to normal forging methods. The term normal is used with a lot of liberty, as magic crafting on volcanic forging are apparently common methods, or at least to the dwarf who wrote this. Regardless, Eden is still hooked on new crafting methods as a craftsman himself. He does not even notice the time fly by until he feels a hard thud. The vine orb has just landed at the shopping district. The place where Eden walked through before opens up once more to make a doorway, and after storing the book into Eden’s inventory, along with the bag of gold, he walks out of the vine orb.

  He landed in what seemed to be a parking lot of sorts, though it could also be called a helipad. There were dozens of other landing spots for the vine orbs, and about half of them were filled up by a vine orb. In front of each spot is a metal stick that looks like a parking meter. Much further away Eden could see the main area, which has an assortment of trees with wooden buildings in them, presumably shops. Each shop had some kind of thickly painted wooden sign on it, some of which had logos, names, both, or just an open/close. There was no real theme between the treehouses, and they all were of their own shape, size, and colour. But one thing they all had in common is that they were based at the top of the trunk of the tree, nested along the thick branches leading to the leaf-covered top. The last real commonality of the houses is that they were all made from wood, though they differed in a few ways, but bloodwood and rubberwood were the most common. There were also a few woods Eden did not recognize at all.

  Damn Hypocrites they are. Not wrong, but they sure as hell are honest to god hypocrites. Eden mocks in his mind, angered by the blatant hypocrisy the wood spirits have once again shown. But he does not linger on the thought for too long, and instead walks over to the parking meter. He pulls out a few gold coins, expecting to have to pay some kind of parking charge. However, it would seem as though the pole only resembles a parking meter, but rather than charges you money, it instead just registers the slot as where you parked. There is a hand scanner on the pole, along with some kind of digital display; currently empty. Having no other ideas, Eden places his bare palm on the hand scanner, and the pole starts to glow green. After a few seconds, the digital display updates stating “Parking spot of 3rd class citizen: Eden”.

  “Neat.” Eden says to himself as he takes his hand off. “If I had to guess, that must mean I can leave my vine orb thing here, and hopefully it will not be stolen.” Eden says to himself once more, now walking away from the pole. He has no real plan besides walking around and trying to learn things, but Eden does definitely have his preferences in where he goes. Without a second thought, Eden walks into the centre of town, and instinctively goes to a crafting shop called “Mystic Cloth”. As the name entails it is a store full of cloth made crafts, mainly clothes but certainly not the selling point.

  The path to enter the shop is rather inconvenient for Eden, given how high up it is and the lack of any stairs. There is a rope however, so Eden climbs that up. Many wood spirits stare at him, some with looks of disdain while others seeming confused with the appearance of a human. But the wood spirits make no verbal comment, and continue on with their days and choose to ignore Eden.

  Is it so hard to invest in stairs or something? Oh wait, these guys fly. Eden realises, has he janks his way up the rope, slowly but surely getting to the shop. It takes Eden a while to finally get up to the shop, as his climbing form was atrocious to say the least. But he does manage to reach the top, which leads to a small porch and the entrance of “Mystic Cloth”.

  Upon closer inspection one can notice the cloth detailing all over the shop, but it is most prominent near the wooden door, with all kinds of embroidered cloth on it. There is also a doormat which contains a spider on it. When Eden opens the door, a calm sound ring is made from a small silver bell connected to the door.

  “Hello and welcome to “Mystic Cloth”!” A voice rings out, far louder than the bell. The creature who spoke was an old looking wood spirit. There were wrinkles all over the spirit’s astral body, and it wore a small pair of glasses stereotypical for a grandma to have. The wood spirit is currently knitting a fine handkerchief in a magic loom, the very same kind Eden has. The spirit takes no notice of Eden being a human and instead focuses on knitting.

  Eden walks up to the wood spirit and asks “Hey, I am new around here and I was wondering if you could answer a few questions for me? Of course I will still buy something if it catches my eye!” Eden quickly clarifies, not wanting to be kicked out for not being a paying customer.

  “Oh sweety what can I do for you? I do not have much company anymore with all my darling kids and grandchildren leaving the kingdom. I would love a nice old chat.” The wood spirit softly responds to Eden, the sweetness in her voice blatant.

  “Thank you- or sorry, I did not catch your name. What should I call you?” Eden asks the wood spirit.

  “Oh I am Linda. What may your name be?” The wood spirit asks back.

  “I am Eden.” Eden answers. He makes a quick pause in what he was saying to better gauge Linda's reaction, but all she does is give a small smile as warm as a cozy fireplace in the middle of winter; Eden cannot recall ever receiving such a response.

  “I was wondering if you could give me some information on what is around here, and what even her is in the first place?” Eden asks Linda.

  “Oh well as I am sure you know, this is my shop here, “Mystic Cloth”, where in my opinion the best cloth made stuff is located, though I might be biased. Anyway, there are a good amount of shops around here, especially in the central section of the shopping district like here. There are bakeries, smiths, armouries, pet shops, and I think a fishing shop opened up somewhere around here recently. Though I would recommend not visiting there, the owner, Frank, is a bit of an airhead, though I think he means well. I have only talked to him a few times- oh, sorry about my rambling. You must want me to get to the point.” Linda monologues, losing a chuck of her former energy at the tail end of her speech. Eden puts up his hands fully open in front of him and then responds:

  “Nono. You are quite alright Linda. I can wait a little.” Eden informs Linda, who looks up. Anyone can tell she seems both surprised and overjoyed at this development.

  “Oh why thank you young man! You know what, here.” Linda says as she takes out and hands Eden some kind of handkerchief.

  It looks a bit different from the one she was knitting earlier, though they share the same qualities. This handkerchief is a soft sky blue with a silver thread in a zigzag pattern about an inch inwards. The middle of the handkerchief has a black spider with red eyes, but it looks cartoonly rather than the horror style most would make a spider in.

  “This handkerchief has been magically enhanced by little old me, so it will always clean any odors and grime without staining the handkerchief.” Linda explains to Eden as she hands it to him.

  Silk Handkerchief- (F-) 0.2 lb (0.09 kg)

  Item Type- Magic item

  Requirements- N/A

  Minimum Materials Requirement- 95% spider silk, 5% silver

  (A handkerchief with a cartoony looking spider on it that is made mostly out of spider silk, but with a bit of silver threading on the outline. This item removes any odors, along with cleaning off anything it touches, removing any G+ grade or lower curses and debuffs. Furthermore, once per day, it can do a low quality heal on someone you are touching or yourself, healing 12 health and any poisons from F grade or lower sources.)

  Wow this is soft! I do not think I have ever felt such a nice piece of cloth in my life. Though I do wonder what the spider obsession is. Maybe it has something to do with the old alliance? Eden wonders, deciding to just up and ask her.

  “This is really nice! Though a question just popped into my head; why do your works have a spider on them? I noticed one at the front door, and this handkerchief has one too, so might it be related to something?” Eden asks as he dances around the main point he prays to be brought up; history around the war, or more specifically the value of the spiders in it.

  “Oh I forget humans do not live as long as us wood spirits! You must not know much about our history with the spiders then. Spiders and wood spirits were allies back in my day. Oh how I remember hanging out with them after school, where I floated them up and then shot down silk on the neighbor. Oh I still remember how angry he was at us, chasing us down with a wooden club to beat us with. It is a shame there are not many spiders around anymore.” Linda explains to Eden.

  “Oh why is that?” Eden asks with a smile, silently cheering a little in his mind.

  “Oh it was a tragedy. The spider kingdom had fallen after the war 300 years ago. Luckily none of my family participated, we are not exactly fighters, even though our skill with silk and cloth is excellent. None of my family has the “botanist” class, nor any of its branches, and that was required for anyone like me with the “knitter” class to be of help in the war.” Linda goes on about to Eden, who is intently listening to every word spoken.

  So it would seem skill with silk and cloth is important, but it requires a certain class, botanist, for that skill set to shine. Eden concludes. However, his curiously has not been fulfilled just yet.

  “So why was skills with silk and cloth useful? Pardon my ignorance but I am not well informed on the tactics and skill sets most found in the wood spirit military.” Eden asks and quickly clarifies to avoid suspicion just in case.

  “Well wood spirits are great with natural items and materials, in particular with any plant or organically made materials such as silk. From what I heard from others who went to war, silk was used as a pit trap or to make any armour in the battles. Cotton was used sometimes as well, but cotton was much more prevalent in the use of magic. Though this naturally led to a large focus on cotton production for sheer versatility. Regardless, I still miss the spiders greatly, along with their silk that far outclassed even the highest quality cottons grown personally by wood spirits. But this cave; the former land of the spider kingdom, still holds some silk and small spiders even after all these years. Some of my personal spider silk is what I used to make that handkerchief out of, so I hope you treasure it.” Linda lectures with a much larger smile than before towards Eden.

  I got really lucky it seems. Who would have thought I would get such information on my first try. Maybe I am better at this than I thought, or this is just common knowledge to some extent. Eden thinks with a smile that matches Linda’s.

  “Thank you, Linda. Now hold on, let me give you some gold for your troubles.” Eden says as he starts to scan through his inventory. However he is stopped by Linda.

  “It is fine, Eden. Call staying to have a conversation with me payment enough. If you really want to help me, then come back later to buy something.” Linda tells Eden.

  “I thank you for your kindness.” Eden says, doing a light bow to Linda. He walks outside of the shop as she tells him to come again.

  She was a nice person. I hope I get to see her again. But I should get back to the task at hand, and try to get more information. I got some backstory to help confirm that cotton is useful in war, but I would like to know what the kingdom is facing. Eden thinks, as he goes to climb down the rope, ending his visit at the “Mystic Cloth”.

  Eden Status report-

  Items-

  Silk Handkerchief- (F-) 0.2 lb (0.09 kg)

  Item Type- Magic item

  Requirements- N/A

  Minimum Materials Requirement- 95% spider silk, 5% silver

  (A handkerchief with a cartoony looking spider on it that is made mostly out of spider silk, but with a bit of silver threading on the outline. This item removes any odors, along with cleaning off anything it touches, removing any G+ grade or lower curses and debuffs. Furthermore, once per day, it can do a low quality heal on someone you are touching or yourself, healing 12 health and any poisons from F grade or lower sources.)