The interior of Mara's tavern smelled of spilled beer and burning wood, with the crackling of the fire in the fireplace muffled by the hubbub of adventurers.

  “Fifty coppers for a rock?” Mara thought, a little frustrated, holding the red stone up to the candlelight. “Varen, you better not be cheating me...”

  After buying the stone for 50 copper coins, Mara quickly returned to the tavern to test if it really worked.

  When she was returning, it was as if her senses were coming back and she realized how much money she had spent on something that seemed so useless, so anxiety began to rise and she wanted to test as soon as possible if this stone really worked.

  “Let's see if this works...” she muttered, dipping the stone into a bucket of water.

  Within seconds, steam began to rise and the water bubbled like a pot on the stove.

  This made Mara's eyes widen as the heat warmed her calloused hands.

  “By all the gods, this is pure gold!” she thought as a sly smile crossed her face. “I can offer hot baths and charge two copper coins per customer. With an offer like that, I'll fill this tavern!”

  Few taverns in town offered baths, mainly because no one wanted to bathe in cold water and then go out into the cold to dry off. Usually, only large inns offered hot water services, where they had to burn a lot of wood to heat a barrel of water little by little until the temperature was pleasant.

  Considering the work involved, the price charged for these baths was proportionally high, but with a magic stone like this, Mara realized that she would only need to drop the stone into a barrel of cold water and in a few seconds the water in that barrel would be hot!

  Why bother heating water little by little? She would only need to fill the barrel with clean water and then throw the dirty water away!

  Seeing the business opportunity, Mara quickly hung a hastily made sign on the tavern door: “Hot bath, 2 copper coins! Only at the Broken Spear Tavern!”

  In a few minutes, a group of dirty adventurers returning from a D-rank mission entered, laughing. “Mara, hot bath? You're joking, right?” asked an adventurer with a beard full of dust.

  “Yes, I got a magical artifact for a very high price to provide hot baths for my customers. If you're interested, I can prepare the hot water barrels for you in no time,” she said cunningly.

  The men were a little suspicious, but considering how tempting the offer was, they still paid 2 copper coins each.

  “If I get ten customers a night, in just three nights I'll pay for the stone and I'll have four days of pure profit!” Mara thought excitedly as she put away the coins and ran to prepare the barrels of water for these adventurers.

  When the barrels were ready and the cries of relaxation came from the other side of the wooden walls, more customers became curious and decided to pay to try this hot bath too.

  Unconsciously, Mara looked at the stone in her hand and noticed the carved star symbol.

  “I hope you keep your word...” she thought excitedly.

  On the other side of town, in a blacksmith's workshop, the clanging of hammers that normally rang out was now silent.

  Not only that workshop, but all the others around it were also very quiet. After all, it was difficult to see at this time of night, and any mistake could ruin the equipment they were making. Not even candlelight was enough to make the forge as bright as they needed it to be, so to ensure that nothing went wrong, all the forges usually closed as soon as the sun began to set.

  But in one of the forges there was a skeptical blacksmith, holding a white stone with a glow that cut through the darkness of the workshop.

  “Fifty coins for light?” thought the bearded man, frowning. “If this lasts seven days, I think I can produce at least seven more swords in a week...”

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  Then he hung the stone on a hook above the anvil, the white light illuminating the blade he was forging as if it were midday.

  “This is working well...” He grunted as he began to hammer the steel.

  Unlike candles, the light from this stone did not flicker or give off smoke like torches.

  “With this, I can work until midnight and deliver swords to the baron before the other blacksmiths... next time, the baron will probably order more swords from me than from them!” He smiled, sweat glistening on his face.

  Across the street, two neighboring blacksmiths, locking their forges, were confused to see a strong light under Jaxual's forge door.

  “What the hell is that light?” one of them muttered, holding a dim candle.

  “Jaxual is working this late?!” The other, his eyes narrowed, spat on the ground.

  Unfortunately, all the doors and windows of his forge were closed, so all they could see was the strong white light shining through the cracks in the door.

  Around 11 o'clock at night, Jaxual finished a sword and held the gleaming blade up to the light of the stone.

  “Five hours of overtime every night... more swords, more copper, hehe.” He looked at the shooting star symbol on the stone and a smile appeared on his face.

  — Adam POV —

  We sold all 12 stones I had ready!

  That brought our wallet to a total of just over 21 silver coins.

  Even though it took me a while to think about what to start selling, it's clearly worth it.

  And since all the Devils I create also have [Creativity Magic], I won't have to keep doing this kind of thing forever.

  If I get tired of it, I can just pass this task on to other Devils and enjoy life!

  Come to think of it, I think this is the first time I've really thought about enjoying myself and relaxing since I arrived in this world.

  It's been two months since I transmigrated, and all that was on my mind was how to get stronger, how to make my servants stronger, without really understanding and enjoying what I had around me.

  “I think I'll only be able to truly relax when one of my servants becomes a Middle-Class Devil...” I thought.

  Considering that the strength of a C Rank adventurer was somewhat rare, in Ironvale alone I had already seen at least five people with golden bracelets, which showed that my servants were strong, but not invincible.

  But above that, I hadn't seen any yet.

  With how rare B-Rank adventurers are, only when Varen and Gwen reach that strength will I be able to rest easy.

  “Saying that makes me feel like a mother... damn, now I understand the gods who stayed home while their children had to invade a tower full of monsters in that anime I watched...” I laughed.

  “Are you okay, master?” Gwen asked curiously, looking at me as if I were a rare animal.

  Varen was performing on the tavern stage, singing songs about some battles we had fought, starting to spread the name Morningstar around town now that we had decided to spread our name.

  Sure, he greatly reduced our strength and hid any trace of demonic power used in battle, but it was still interesting enough to attract the attention of several people and adventurers, earning us some extra copper coins.

  “Yes, Gwen, I think achieving one of our goals has made me feel a little lighter,” I commented with a smile.

  As we were sitting at a corner table in the darkest part of the tavern, I had removed the hood that covered my face.

  My long black hair framed my face, my red eyes, which had previously seemed very intense, now looked more relaxed, and the smile on the corner of my mouth made the scene even more striking.

  And how did I know that?

  By the way Gwen was acting.

  She usually has a very cheerful and playful personality, but since I had become more relaxed, with my face exposed and a smile on my lips, she had become much more reserved.

  Every now and then I noticed her looking at me out of the corner of her eye, only to look away when she realized I had caught her gaze.

  Although the alcohol people were consuming had almost no effect on me, at times I found myself thinking about the scene of Gwen shirtless in my room every night.

  But I never let those thoughts go any further.

  Our current relationship was still a big unknown.

  She was the first female servant I had ever had, and we were both still learning how to deal with it. Maybe in the future it would become clearer how we should act, but for now it was best to keep things as they were.

  But even though it was just the two of us at a dark table, some men saw how beautiful Gwen was and tried to ask her to dance, but she coldly refused them.

  Gwen was already beautiful before she became a devil, but after her transformation, she became stunning. This kind of thing would be common in the future, so I controlled myself so as not to feel like killing these men who had the audacity to court my servant in front of me.

  Similarly, some bold women paid close attention to me and saw my face, so Gwen had to use the same coldness to scare these women away from me.

  Honestly, with Gwen as a comparison, it's hard for me to be interested in a human, so I didn't even feel bad about an opportunity that the “me” from the other world would be so sad to miss.

  “I'm also happy that we're going to have our own home, Master.” Gwen smiled happily after a few seconds of my response. “I didn't know how much I was missing it until you said we were going to buy one... I already have in mind the decorations I want to do for my room...”

  Then she started talking, slowly returning to her cheerful personality, telling me how she wants blade decorations all over her room, with the idea that her room has to represent her identity and things like that.

  Seeing her smile, I got excited for the house we would buy tomorrow.