Leaving Zaman's office, Sol headed outside the palace, intending to check on Fabio's store and see if he was there.
When he arrived, the store was bustling with adventurers and other clients browsing the products. One of the shopkeepers saw him through the crowd and briskly walked over.
"Sir Sol! I have good news; Mr. Fabio is finally back. Let me tell him you're here."
Sol smiled and shook his head. "It's fine, I'll go. I'll save you the trip."
The shopkeeper nodded and let him through to the back. Given the relationship between the two, there was no issue letting Sol go alone to the storage room that led to Fabio's private workshop.
"Huh, guess he restocked everything."
The storage room was filled to the brim with specialized gadgets, tools, and weapons. Last time Sol was here, he listened to the employees' worries that the store's inventory was running low, so he was relieved to see that Fabio hadn't forgotten to resupply them while he was working on his project.
Sol then knocked on the door to the workshop, and after a short wait, the door opened.
"Sol! What a surprise! I was about to send you a message. Come on in."
Fabio opened the door wider to let him in. When Sol entered the workshop, he saw a few metal puppets sweeping the floor and wiping dusty tables. But he didn't find their presence out of the ordinary; what truly stood out was the short brown haired woman setting up a forging area. It was especially odd because the forge area fit perfectly in the workshop as if it was always meant to have one.
"Feels like I missed something big..."
Fabio followed his gaze and understood his confusion.
"Lisa, leave the anvil there for a moment and come over here. There's someone I want you to meet."
She nodded and gently placed the anvil she was carrying, which still resulted in a deep thud, and made her way over.
Fabio placed his hand on Sol's shoulder and spoke, "Sol, meet Elizabeth, or Lisa for short. She's my new apprentice. Lisa, this is Sol, the knight I talked about before."
Elizabeth gave a short bow and said, "A pleasure to meet you, and thank you for providing me and my masters with the void root."
Sol nodded but realized something odd. "Wait, masters?" He glanced at Fabio questioningly.
The tinkerer shrugged. "It just kinda happened. Who knew my friend's apprentice had the unique talent [Crafting Prodigy]? She can basically learn any craft skill and even obtained [Intermediate Craftsman] at her young age. I couldn't just let her learn only smithing, so I took her under my wing."
Sol was a bit surprised to hear that, as he also had the skill, although it was still in the novice stage. While the skill spoke of a general mastery of all types of crafting, he really only had knowledge of the skills he siphoned like [Cooking], [Basic Smithing], and [Basic Alchemy]. The same must apply to her.
There were still benefits in having it over multiple seperate crafting skills, as it meant there were essentially no limits to learning other trades, and it actually made it easier to translate the skills of one profession to another.
"That's incredible. You also found yourself a good master. If you ever want to learn another crafting profession, let me know, and I'll see if I can find you a good teacher."
Fabio made a light jab at Sol's waist. "Oi, I just got her, and you already plan to find her another teacher?!"
Sol laughed and looked away from Fabio's glare. "Haha, I'm just joking."
Elizabeth shook her head and declined his semi-joke offer. "No, thanks. For now, I plan to learn under Second Master's guidance."
Fabio patted Sol's back and, with a wide grin, said, "Forget about all that; there's something I want to show you. Lisa, I left it in Taliya's workshop; wanna come?"
She declined the offer. "I'll finish setting up my area."
"Alright, suit yourself," Fabio shrugged. "Here, put this on; you don't want to get spotted where we're going."
He produced a weird hat that looked like a fat umbrella.
"You're joking, right?" Sol wasn't sure if Fabio was getting back at him for his previous joke.
Fabio grinned and pushed the hat toward him. "I'm very serious, but I won't lie. I will really enjoy seeing you wear it."
Sol let out a long sigh. "Fine..."
...
Half an hour later, Sol and Fabio removed their hats and appeared inside Taliya's workshop in the black market.
"Gods, the trouble I will be in if I'm seen here..."
While navigating the streets, Sol had fun using the hats' incredible stealth magic, which surpassed even his [Invisibility], as it hid more than just making him invisible. As he followed Fabio, he eventually found out they weren't heading to the slums but instead the black market. This put him on edge, as he knew it would cause a huge debacle for a knight to be caught coming here.
Fabio reassured him. "Don't worry; no one dares to come here without permission. Those that do end up like him."
He pointed at a man tied up in mana suppressing metal chains. The man was bruised and bloodied everywhere to the point that his face was unrecognizable. Despite his injuries, Sol felt that man was still a powerful force to be reckoned with and used [Analysis] out of curiosity.
Ryogan
Race: Human
Talents: [??? Flame], [Space Affinity], [???]
Level: 1??
"He's an A-Ranker?!"
He couldn't believe there was just an A-Ranker tied up and beaten to a pulp in this workshop. It made him wonder and fear who did this.
"Dumbass thought he could come here and do whatever he wanted. Just because we are crafters doesn't mean we're weak. By the way, Fabio... Who's he?"
The one who answered wasn't Fabio but the tall and muscular Taliya, who appeared from behind Sol. He was surprised by how she suddenly snuck up on him, but she didn't do it on purpose; he was simply too focused on the half dead A-Ranker.
Fabio answered. "He's the one who gave me the void root. Let's show him what we did with it."
Taliya made a huge smile and lifted Sol by his shoulders. "Oh! So you're Sol! Nice to meet ya!"
"N-nice to meet you too..." Sol didn't know why she was so happy to see him but didn't resist as she shook his body in the air.
Taliya had long heard of Sol from Fabio but also from her own information sources. She knew he was the reason Fabio's store became popular and it was also because of him that they could reunite once more. Needless to say, she had a great opinion of him even before they officially met.
Fabio and Taliya led Sol to a large rectangular crate and opened it.
Fabio excitedly announced, "Behold! The Tynamo Cannon!"