The Greatest Archmage To Have Ever Lived [OP MC, LitRPG]

The transition from air to ground was smooth enough that a passing merchant didn't even glance up from adjusting his cart's wheel. Sael released [Float] and let gravity remember he existed. His boots touched cobblestone without a sound.

He stood there for a moment, orienting himself. The outer district where he'd landed was all warehouses and carter's yards, all functional and pragmatic. Further in, the buildings would get taller, more cramped and more expensive. And somewhere in the middle of all that urban chaos was the marketplace.

It had been less than a day since he'd left, but it was a travel nonetheless, and there was a tradition he was extremely happy to be able to do. A tradition that required him searching for something. Specifically: candied peanuts.

Sael pulled his hood up and started walking.

The streets were busy but not crowded. Morning traffic, merchants heading to their stalls, laborers going to whatever job sites required laboring, people who had places to be and no particular interest in dawdling. Sael fell into the flow easily enough, just another traveler in a city that saw thousands of them daily.

Big cities like Orlys didn't care who you were. That was one of the things he appreciated about it.

The walk from the outskirts to the marketplace district took about fifteen minutes at a casual pace. Long enough that the warehouses gave way to residential buildings, then shops, then the dense commercial chaos that marked the approach to the market proper.

The noise reached him before the stalls came into view.

That layered sound of commerce: voices haggling and greeting and complaining about prices in that universal rhythm that transcended cultures and centuries. Somewhere someone was shouting about fresh fish despite being, as far as Sael could tell, nowhere near water.

He turned a corner and the marketplace opened up before him.

Stalls lined both sides of the street, some with proper wooden frames and canvas roofs, others just blankets on the ground with goods spread out in hopeful arrangements. Vegetables. Cloth. Tools. Jewelry that probably wasn't magical but was being sold like it might be.

Sael navigated through it all with ease. He didn't look at the wares since he wasn't here to browse.

His eyes scanned the stalls as he walked, searching for—

Ah, there.