It Would Be Perfect If the First Customer Were a Beautiful Woman

Edward walked into the weed-choked yard. He pulled out a glove from his Spatial Ring and put it on. The pristine white silk glove was so thin it was nearly transparent, and a golden Transmutation Circle pattern was embroidered on its palm.

The pattern was the basic form of a Transmutation Circle. Its outer ring was circular, supported in the middle by an equilateral triangle, while the empty spaces along its lines were densely embroidered with magic runes. The equilateral triangle represented the three elements of alchemy: comprehension, decomposition, and reconstruction.

From these came the three fundamental applications of Transmutation Circles in this world: decomposition, fusion, and shaping.

Edward had created this alchemical tool based on an idea from an anime in his Previous Life. Its only purpose was to save Alchemists the time needed to draw Transmutation Circles. He also knew that if he contributed this inconspicuous little invention to the Royal Alchemist Group, it would undoubtedly bring him immeasurable rewards, because it could fundamentally solve the problem of Alchemists being unable to cast spells quickly.

But so what? In his Previous Life, he had merely been an ordinary person who had grown used to seeing Big Shots dominate the news. He sincerely felt that kind of life was exhausting. He did not think himself particularly ambitious. As long as he could live this life comfortably, that was enough. He had no intention of stirring up storms or pushing the wheels of history forward. So he concealed his little "ideas," only throwing out the tiniest bit when absolutely necessary, like the cement from before...

He turned the palm of his Alchemist Gloves downward, pressed it against the center of the yard, and murmured, "Alchemy, begin..."

After a faint flash, the surface layer of soil in the yard was neatly sliced away. The severed earth, together with waist-high weeds, rolled into a ball of mud in the corner of the yard. This was the simplest application of alchemy: the Shaping Technique.

Edward nodded as he looked at the cleaned-up yard. Then he tossed out a huge object from his Spatial Ring, and it landed with a dull thud.

It was a teardrop-shaped tin can, roughly one and a half meters wide and two meters long. It had an enormous glass front window, with a propeller and stabilizing fins at the rear. This was the backup plan he had prepared for crossing the Storm Ocean—a submarine.

In this era, when people still crossed oceans by wooden sailing ships or primitive steamships, the odds of a maritime disaster truly were as high as his Mentor had said. What had happened to his Parents in this life had also taught him a profound lesson. Before introducing cement, he had spent three months creating this means of saving his own life.

This submarine incorporated the essence of everything he knew from both lives. A Power-Generating Magic Array modified from a Lightning Strike Magic Array served as its energy core. Electricity powered an Electric Motor, which drove the propeller forward. There was also an air compressor to control the submarine's ascent and descent, among other things. He was confident that even without taking a ship, he could cross the Storm Ocean with nothing but his Spatial Ring and this submarine. But staying in such a cramped, enclosed space could never compare to the comfort of a first-class cabin on a passenger ship. So it remained merely a backup plan.

Then he threw out several air cylinders filled with compressed air, along with several cubic yards of neatly stacked tin boxes. Every box contained food and drinking water he had stored away, packaged in the form of standardized military rations from his Previous Life.

The reason he took these things out of the Spatial Ring first was to prepare for the renovations to come.

First, he needed to make a safe. More than half the space in his Spatial Ring was still filled with the Family Fortune he had accumulated over the years: manuscripts, books, materials, and strange inventions that the people of this world would find bizarre. So before leaving, he had packed everything he could from the Secret Base in the Old Continent into his Spatial Ring and destroyed everything else. That extremely heavy Suitcase of his was merely for show.

He entered the living room in the Backyard, the largest room with its back against the cliff. At the spot where the floor had once been, he found a Secret Door. He lifted the dust-covered Secret Door and descended into the family cellar.

Edward's father had dug this cellar. It was Pitch Black and covered in dust, so he first took out a lighting device from his Spatial Ring, shaped like the Flashlight he had often seen in his Previous Life. Then he cast a Cleaning Spell into it. The air inside immediately became fresh and clean. A Cleaning Spell could not only gather dust, but also stir up a gentle breeze and ventilate the room.

The Light Signal illuminated the cellar. Sure enough, no one had touched it. It seemed that the thieves of the New Continent did not have as many professionals as those in the Old Continent, capable of using Similar Spell skills such as detecting Secret Doors. Or perhaps the professional thieves here simply could not be bothered with an empty commoner's house.

The cellar was not large. Because it backed against a cliff, there was not much space available to excavate. Digging two or three meters into the soil led directly to bedrock. The fruits and vegetables once stored in the cellar were gone, likely disposed of before his Parents left. Only some unprocessed hematite ore and several rust-covered iron blanks remained.

Edward came to the cliffside wall of the cellar. He pressed his palm tightly against the cliff and activated the Transmutation Circle again. This was an unconventional use of the Shaping Technique, which he could call: "Edward's Cutting Technique."

When a Transmutation Circle in this world did not alter a substance's original composition and used only its shaping function, it first "comprehended" the substance's components. Then, during "decomposition," it activated them, as though breaking their chemical bonds, allowing solid matter to flow like liquid at room temperature. During "reconstruction," Mental Power was used to shape the liquefied material into the desired form. Finally, once the Mental Power and Magic Power were withdrawn, the shaping was complete. Taking stone shaping as an example, powerful Alchemists could use the Shaping Technique to create effects similar to Earth Magic's Ground Spikes.

As for how much material could be shaped, Edward had summarized a formula using scientific methods from his Previous Life: the mass of the shaped material = Mental Power input into the Transmutation Circle + Magic Power input into the Transmutation Circle.

It was a very classic Pythagorean theorem calculation. Even Edward had been shocked when he derived this formula. He wondered whether the magic of this world somehow followed laws that aligned with the heavenly way.

When Edward had first awakened the memories of his Previous Life, he had only been an Alchemist Apprentice with pitifully little Magic Power. If he wanted to shape stone, he could only shape a ten-kilogram chunk at a time. But transmigrators had their own advantages. While other Apprentices could only sense an area about one meter around them, he could "draw Mental Power into threads" and sense a space within a ten-meter radius. This technique of "drawing Mental Power into threads" had already become an overused trope in cultivation novels from his Previous Life, so Edward did not consider it worth mentioning.

That gave him an idea: he could reduce the material to be shaped into one or several extremely thin planes. When using the Transmutation Circle, it was equivalent to removing only a fist-sized piece of stone from a hard Stone Wall, yet the wall itself could be cut into dozens of one-cubic-meter blocks.

At this moment, he lowered his right hand, which had been using "Edward's Cutting Technique." He raised his left hand, which wore the Spatial Ring, and stored the rocks cut from the cliff face into the ring one by one. That gave him a storeroom with a two-meter-by-one-meter doorway and an interior volume of roughly ten cubic meters. This outrageous maneuver reminded Edward of a game from his Previous Life called Minecraft, and he could not help smiling.

He first stored away some of the rocks, then took out some of the items in his Spatial Ring. Repeating this process over and over, he finally cleared away all the cut stone.

Edward ran back into the yard, set down the stones, and moved the submarine and compressed-air cylinders into the storeroom.

Finally, he took out the two stones he had deliberately left behind and placed them back where the doorway had been. After using the Shaping Technique once more to fill the cracks between them, the rock face in the cellar returned to its original appearance. Only faint seams remained around its edges.

Now Edward could go out into the streets without worry. Even if a thief discovered the storeroom, breaking through the rock wall would require a great deal of noise and time.

When Edward left the house, he did not forget to use the excavated stone to build a thin Stone Wall in front of his gate. The only thing missing was a large sign saying, "Shop under renovation, please look forward to it."

Nearly a month passed, and the old residents of City Gate Street were all curious. A month earlier, a thin Stone Wall had suddenly risen around the site of the former Blacksmith Shop when no one was paying attention. Later, they learned from Coachman Delton that little Edward had returned. After that, they saw the Young Man, whom everyone had not seen in a long time, greeting neighbors door to door and purchasing all sorts of materials. He claimed he was reopening the shop, and that the wall around the original Shopfront was for renovations.

The old residents found this practice of covering up an entire house rather strange, though one person considered it perfectly natural.

The city's thieves, who had long since visited the place, also noticed it. On moonless, windy nights, three groups of habitual thieves had climbed over the Stone Wall, hoping to find something worth taking. Yet before long, they fled the house in utter terror. Not one of them ever mentioned what they had seen inside.

After learning that Edward, who had returned from Middle Earth, was an Alchemist, several gangs in the City Gate district issued an order: under no circumstances were they to provoke him. As an underworld saying from the Old Continent went, it was better to break into a knight's manor than enter an Alchemist's door. The quasi-professionals who kept order for those gangs all knew that Alchemists were famous for being tyrants on their own turf. If they were prepared, even a legendary dragon would not leave their home alive.

Time passed bit by bit. Then one morning, the thin Stone Wall disappeared. Behind it stood a Milky White Wooden two-story building. The Second Floor was built in the sloped-roof attic style popular in the New Continent, with orange-red Tiles and beautiful Bay Windows. Above the front entrance between the first and Second Floor hung a natural-wood plaque, bearing the words "Smith's Alchemy Shop and Blacksmith Shop" in elegant script.

Most astonishing of all, the entire street-facing wall of the first floor, aside from the entrance, consisted of enormous Floor-to-ceiling Windows. Each window was a single sheet of glass. Even the door was made entirely of glass, allowing people to see everything inside the Shopfront at a glance.

Through the glass, the interior appeared exceptionally bright, as though it were not a shop on the shaded side of the street but one bathed in sunlight. The flooring and wall panels were all made of Redwood. The wood had a smooth, lustrous finish, clearly having been carefully polished and coated with Wood Wax Oil, which brought out its beautiful grain.

An entire wall on the East Side was hung with all sorts of gleaming swords and knives. To the west stood rows of Redwood shelves, filled with a dazzling assortment of goods. At the entrance stood a large Redwood counter, behind which was a handsome Young Man with brown hair styled with hair wax and combed back until it shone with oil.

He wore a crisp white shirt on top and straight black trousers below, with a small bow tie at his collar. He stood there with a broad smile, eagerly awaiting the arrival of customers.

This was Edward. At that moment, he was reminiscing about how his first job after graduation in his Previous Life had been as a salesman. He had been the same age then, dressed in the same outfit. It gave him a strong sense that life had come full circle. Except now, he had gone from employee to boss. No, he should be called an entrepreneur!

It would be perfect if the first customer were a beautiful woman!