Lord of The Mysterious Realms-Chapter 26: A Means to Make a Living
He dressed with a sense of delight, carefully wiping away any traces on the floor and hiding all the bottles and jars.
The Church must have calculated the required materials with precision; nothing was left over except for a stub of chalk.
As for performing the ritual naked, it wasn't some peculiar fetish of Jenkins's. It was necessary to better attune himself to the world—a requirement dictated by the very nature of spirit.
The good news was that only ability acquisitions and certain special rituals demanded this. Otherwise, Jenkins would have seriously had to reconsider his future as an Enchanter.
After stashing the ritual chalk and silver dagger, he turned on the light and drew the curtains, restoring his bedroom to its normal state. He pressed his ear to the door for a moment, hearing only the faint gurgle of water within the walls and the odd noises of an unstable steam pressure.
“All clear.”
Jenkins sat back on his bed, satisfied. The [Flexible Legs] ability was also an activated one. When in use, his legs would react faster, his muscles and neural pathways would strengthen, and he would possess the potential for speed beyond human limits.
His small room was hardly the place to test it out. He decided he would try it in Papa Oliver’s backyard tomorrow.
“Maybe I really should move out.”
It wasn’t just about the twice-daily commute across Nolan City, he mused, but also because his nights were confined here. If he lived alone, he could slip out right now to a deserted alley and test his new ability.
The thought of alleys naturally reminded Jenkins of the “legal gathering.”
“How am I supposed to get out that night?”
He fretted.
If he wanted to move out, he could look for a place in the newspapers or go to a housing agent, but the money in his pocket was far from enough.
“Captain Bincy's three-week advance was 12 pounds, my own savings are 7 pounds and 13 shillings, and Papa Oliver pays me weekly. After these past few days of expenses, I have less than 20 pounds to my name.”
Jenkins stacked the banknotes and coins on his desk by denomination. The face of the former queen on the currency seemed to smile in the gaslight, but Jenkins couldn't bring himself to smile back.
“I don’t need to rent an entire house; a single flat like Sherlock Holmes’s would be more than enough. It needs to be respectable, clean, and I’ll need at least a six-month deposit...”
“Still poor. Poor before I transmigrated, and still poor after!”
He resigned himself to this reality and began to search for legal ways to earn some money.
“I’m a transmigrator!”
He tried to console himself with this thought, only to realize that in an era where the power of steam was ever-advancing, a poor graduate student like him couldn't really invent much of anything.
Besides, he had no time, no energy, no reason, and no place to experiment with the hazy memories of his former world’s creations.
“I’m a believer of the Legacy Sage, and the Church encourages its faithful to publish books beneficial to society. So... plagiarism?”
He sat back down at his desk. He certainly couldn't manage serious literature; his grasp of the language was too poor. He could probably write some less demanding knightly tales or heroic adventures. It was no secret the original Jenkins had enjoyed such stories, so suddenly producing a book, while odd, wouldn't be entirely inexplicable.
But after some thought, he abandoned the idea. Adventure novels of this era were still in a rather primitive stage. Beyond the classic tropes of adventure, princesses, treasure, and dragons, they were also filled with long, flowery, but ultimately useless short poems.
Jenkins couldn't write that sort of thing. But if he wrote according to the formulas he knew from his past life, he worried the style would be too unique, risking the exposure of his transmigration.
“Short stories... less demanding on the writing style.”
Jenkins nodded, jotting down these two requirements on a piece of paper before adding a third: “Must be publishable through normal channels.”
This last point was crucial. The market was also flooded with racy novels popular among restless youths and lonely dockworkers. To cater to the low literacy rates, these books favored simple text and large illustrations. Jenkins even had a few hidden under his own bed.
“No, no. That might be very profitable, but if I were found out, I’d be finished.”
Jenkins viciously circled the last line he had written and fell into thought once more.
He recalled his experiences since transmigrating, and the image of the young flower seller surfaced in his mind.
He still hadn't figured out why he had been so unlucky, why his [Eye of Reality] had suddenly activated, or how he had known it was a Mysterious Object. But for now, that wasn't important.
“A poor little flower seller... *The Little Match Girl*... fairy tales?”
He wrote down the word, pondering for a moment with a frown.
“Fairy tales are mostly short. The original Jenkins wasn’t exactly a whimsical soul, but it wouldn't be too strange for him to write some. I'll have to work on the prose, but if I'm careful, it should be manageable. The Church’s own publishing house seems to handle that kind of work.”
The more he considered it, the more he felt this was an excellent path, perfectly suited for his current situation. Although making money from books was a slow process, it offered a steady stream of income and could even build his social standing, which would be very helpful in the long run.
“Alright, then. I’ll carefully craft one fairy tale a day. Once I have twenty, I'll show them to the Bishop. But I’ll need to drop some hints to people I know beforehand, so it doesn't seem too sudden.”
Once his mind was made up, he acted. He picked up his pen, twisted the knob on the wall-mounted gas lamp to brighten the light, and leaned over his desk to begin outlining a new version of *The Little Match Girl*, one that would fit the character of the Fidektri Kingdom.
The next morning, Jenkins was up early again. His energy levels had been high ever since he transmigrated, though he wasn't sure if it was because he now possessed supernatural abilities.
The cook was preparing breakfast. After a quick wash, Jenkins joined his family for a cheerful meal, then grabbed one of his father’s newspapers and left for the day in a carriage.
The elder Mr. Williams was pleased that his second son had taken an interest in reading the newspaper. Jenkins, on the other hand, was painfully aware of the cost of the carriage ride—it was his single greatest expense of the day.
Newspapers of this era were still ink-printed, and while the smell wasn't overpowering, it was noticeable.
The paper he’d taken, the *Nolan Daily*, was Nolan's official publication. For the gentlemen of the middle class, subscribing to a morning copy was a status symbol.
Inside the carriage, Jenkins scanned the rental listings. Any place advertised in a paper with this circulation was certainly no slum tenement. But even the cheapest flat tucked away in the classifieds was far beyond what Jenkins could currently afford.
“I should find a different paper,” he grumbled. “Any paper that can’t even spare the space for a short joke has no future.”
Disappointed, he gave up on the advertisements for now. Seeing he still had a long way to go, he began flipping through the front pages.
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Chapter 26: A Means to Make a Living
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