Three days.
Forty-three courses, all tested in three days.
That averaged less than two hours per subject.
But Ethan didn't panic.
He pushed open the door to Exam Room 1, sat down at the desk, spread out the exam papers, and began to write.
First up: Runic Basics.
The questions weren't particularly difficult; they were all basic concepts and simple applications.
Ethan could answer with just a glance, requiring almost no deliberation. Fill-in-the-blanks, short answers, essays—he flipped through the pages one after another, his quill rustling against the paper.
In less than an hour, the Runic Basics exam was finished.
He set down his quill and picked up the second set.
Energy Particle Basics.
He kept writing.
Supernatural Material Identification.
He continued.
Wizardry Model Principles.
Onward.
Ethan's quill almost never stopped.
That knowledge was as clear in his mind as if it were carved into stone. Every concept, every rule, every case study was remembered perfectly, ready to be used at a moment's notice.
By the evening of the first day, he had completed twenty-three subjects.
By the following evening, he had finished another fifteen.
On the morning of the third day, he tackled the final five.
As he finished the last stroke of the final exam, Ethan set down his quill and stretched his stiff wrists.
He stood up, carrying the thick stack of exam papers out of the room and back to the Comprehensive Certification window.
The round-faced woman took the papers and flipped through the top few pages. Her eyelids twitched.
"Wait here."
She carried the papers into the room behind her.
About half an hour later, the door opened again.
The round-faced woman stepped out, her expression somewhat complex.
"Forty-three basic courses, all passed."
She handed the identity plaque back to Ethan. "Thirty-one full marks, nine scores of ninety-eight, and two scores of ninety-five. Overall evaluation: Perfect."
Ethan took the identity plaque, his expression calm.
"And the rewards?"
The corner of the woman's mouth twitched as she pulled a cloth bag from beneath the counter and pushed it toward him.
"Fifty magic stones for every perfect score. Forty-three subjects—a total of two thousand one hundred and fifty magic stones."
Ethan's pupils constricted slightly.
Two thousand one hundred and fifty.
He had hit the jackpot.
Including his remaining funds, he now had 2,164 magic stones in his possession.
What could he say?
Awesome!
After stowing his identity plaque, Ethan took a turn toward the trading area instead of leaving the Certification Hall.
Now that he had money, he needed to figure out a way to make more.
Relying solely on missions was unreliable; a stroke of good luck might net him a dozen magic stones, but bad luck—like last time—could lead to being ambushed.
This time it was eight Second-Tier Apprentices. What about next time?
Third-Tier Apprentices?
Official Wizards?
Don't be ridiculous.
The 2,000-plus magic stones he had now seemed like a lot, but they wouldn't last long.
Knowledge cost money, materials cost money, experiments cost money, and cultivation cost money. Everything cost goddamn money.
If he didn't find a stable source of income, he would eventually run out.
A sub-profession.
Which sub-profession brought in money the fastest?
Ethan quickly scanned through the knowledge he had acquired from the basic courses.
Alchemy, wizardry arrays, pharmacy, enchanting, puppet making...
Every single one could make money, but the entry barriers and investment requirements varied wildly.
Alchemy was the most mature field with the highest market demand, but the initial investment was also the largest.
Just a basic set of tools—flasks, crucibles, mortars, distillers, heating stands—would cost three to five magic stones for a simple set.
If he wanted the good stuff?
That would start at twenty magic stones.
Not to mention the knowledge crystals, which easily cost hundreds or thousands.
Wizardry arrays had a slightly lower barrier to entry but were heavily dependent on talent.
Without the necessary spatial imagination, the runic arrays one drew wouldn't even be able to hold energy particles.
Puppet making was out of the question; the materials for even a basic puppet started at 30 magic stones.
Ethan calculated as he walked, his footsteps already leading him into the trading area.
He slowed his pace, his eyes scanning the stalls one by one. He wasn't in a rush to buy; he wanted to get a feel for the market first.
After half a lap, he had a general idea.
Stalls selling finished Wizardry Tools were the most common, with prices ranging from a dozen magic stones to over a hundred.
Material stalls were the next most common, selling magical beast bones, fur, blood, and crystal cores, as well as the roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits of Spirit Plants. The variety was vast, and the pricing was chaotic.
Stalls selling knowledge were the rarest. Occasionally, he saw a few knowledge crystals displayed with ridiculously high price tags.
He walked over to a stall selling old books and crouched down, casually flipping through the yellowed pamphlets.
Most were notebooks or manuscripts with handwriting as messy as ghost scribbles. The content was a jumbled mess: "On the Thirteen Transformations of Fireball," "My Thoughts on Magic Stone Energy Extraction," "A Guide to Avoiding Pitfalls During the Apprentice Phase"... Prices ranged from a few magic stones to several dozen.
"Do you have anything on alchemy?" Ethan looked up at the stall owner.
The owner was a scrawny middle-aged man in a dusty grey robe, wearing the practiced smile of a businessman.
"Yes, yes, I do." He turned and dug several pamphlets out of a box behind him, piling them in front of Ethan. "These are all alchemy-related. Take a look."
Ethan picked up the top one. The title "Alchemy for Beginners" was written in crooked script on the cover. He flipped it open, and the first page read: "Alchemy is the art of turning stone into gold..." His mouth twitched, and he flipped straight to the middle.
The content was ridiculously shallow, consisting entirely of basic concept explanations like "matter conversion," "energy conservation," and "equivalent exchange." There wasn't a single actual alchemy recipe.
"How much for this?"
"Eighty magic stones."
Ethan put the book down and stood up to leave.
"Hey, hey, don't go! We can negotiate the price!" the owner shouted after him.
Ethan didn't even look back.
Eighty magic stones for an introductory book without a single recipe? Did he look like a sucker?
He visited a few more stalls and flipped through several so-called "Alchemy Notes." The content was largely the same—broad, theoretical rambling without a single complete recipe.
The prices, however, seemed to get higher and higher. The most absurd one was priced at one hundred and fifty magic stones; upon opening it, he saw diagrams of a few flasks labeled "this is a flask" and "this is a crucible," without even explaining how to use them.
"These things are only good for scamming idiots," Ethan muttered to himself, turning toward the Logistics Area.
At the exchange window in the Logistics Hall, the same gray-haired old man sat behind the counter.
Ethan walked over and got straight to the point. "I want to buy knowledge crystals related to alchemy. Do you have any?"
The old man glanced at him and slowly pulled a stone tablet from under the counter, slapping it onto the surface.
"See for yourself."
The surface of the tablet lit up, and lines of text appeared.
【Alchemy Basics: Primary】 Includes basic principles of alchemy, tool usage, and basic material identification. Contains two random alchemy recipes. Price: 500 magic stones.
【Alchemy Basics: Intermediate】 Includes primary content plus fifteen basic alchemy recipes (Clarity Potion, Minor Wound Ointment, Hemostatic Powder, Lesser Mana Recovery Potion, etc.). Price: 1,000 magic stones.
【Alchemy Basics: Advanced】 Includes primary and intermediate content, fifty advanced alchemy recipes, material refinement techniques, and basic alchemy array analysis. Price: 9,000 magic stones.
【Complete Alchemy Collection of Blood Bone Tower】 The academy's full alchemy heritage, including all alchemy knowledge for the apprentice stage, one hundred and twenty alchemy recipes, and master manuscript annotations. Price: 180,000 magic stones.
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