Cecia returned home full of anticipation.
She had cradled the box in her arms with extreme care the entire way, as if it contained some priceless treasure.
In a sense, it really did.
The item inside could genuinely alter a magic apprentice's destiny.
Forty gold coins.
A Skill Crystal for 【Aegis of Light】.
Cecia closed the door.
Click.
Still uneasy, she turned the lock a second time.
“Great.”
“Now, even if it's the end of the world, nobody better knock on my door.”
She attached great importance to using a Skill Crystal for the first time.
Rather than rushing to open the box, Cecia sat on her bed to meditate first.
Only when her mental power recovered to its peak state did she carefully hold up the crystal worth forty gold coins.
The crystal was roughly the length of two finger joints.
Transparent.
Countless pale-gold threads hovered inside it.
At a glance, they almost looked like strands of hair.
Upon closer inspection, however, those lines constantly intersected, closed, and overlapped deep within the crystal, forming an extraordinarily complex three-dimensional structure.
Cecia held it up under the light.
“This is a spell?”
A Skill Crystal was not some magical item that directly stuffed a spell into one's brain.
At least, it wasn't that miraculous.
The real reason it was so expensive was that the mage who crafted the Skill Crystal would deconstruct a stable spell model into its most fundamental Mental Structure, fixing it inside special crystal through alchemy.
Simply put:
Inside was not a "skill."
It was a three-dimensional blueprint.
A blueprint that an ordinary person might not even understand after studying it for months.
Cecia pressed the crystal against her forehead.
Slowly, she channeled her mental power inside.
Hum—
The golden threads inside the crystal instantly lit up.
The next moment, a vast array of complex structures unfolded within her consciousness.
It was no illusion.
Nor were there any stranger's memories.
There were only lines.
Countless lines.
Cecia felt as if she had suddenly been thrown into a mechanical clock composed of tens of thousands of gears.
Fine lines made of mental power crossed one another.
Mana inlet.
Stability node.
Ether cycle.
Mental power reflux.
Light element aggregation zone.
And the outermost protective structure responsible for maintaining its shape.
“...”
Cecia fell silent.
What is this?
Is this really a beginner spell?
Did I get scammed?
When other people use Fireball, it's just condense, shape, compress, launch. Why does Aegis of Light suddenly feel like taking a calculus exam?
The crystal gave no answer.
It merely laid out the complete spell structure faithfully.
Cecia had no choice but to bite the bullet and press on.
First was the initial layer: guiding light elements.
This part was quite simple.
Cecia naturally possessed extremely high light element affinity. She didn't even need the Skill Crystal to teach her; with just a slight focus of her attention, the scattered light elements nearby eagerly drew close.
Like a flock of pigeons spotting birdseed.
“Good.”
“Don't rush.”
“One by one.”
The real trouble lay in what came after.
Aegis of Light was not about creating a shield.
Its core was briefly overlapping light elements with the caster's own mana circulation.
Making the caster themselves part of the spell structure.
Light attached to the skin.
Mental power handled the shaping.
Mana maintained the cycle.
Then, the continuously flowing light elements reinforced muscles and body.
That was why it could simultaneously offer defense, purification, and physical enhancement.
“So that's how it is...”
Cecia's eyes slowly widened.
“This thing isn't a shield.”
“It's coating myself in a layer of flowing magical skin.”
Understanding it was one thing.
Constructing it was another matter entirely.
Cecia tried to begin building it according to the structure provided by the Skill Crystal.
The first line.
The second line.
The third line.
Her mental power stretched out bit by bit.
It was like using an invisible needle to stitch pattern after pattern into her consciousness.
And then—
Snap.
The entire structure collapsed.
“...”
Again.
First line.
Second line.
Seventeenth line.
Twenty-ninth line.
Snap.
Collapsed again.
Veins gradually throbbed on Cecia's forehead.
“I paid forty gold coins for this!”
“You think I'm gonna let a spell bully me today?”
Keep going!
A third time.
A fourth time.
A fifth time...
After failing an unknown number of times...
Cecia suddenly realized something.
Although the spell structure provided by the crystal was complex, it didn't require her to replicate it identically.
The only things truly unchangeable were a few key nodes.
As for how the mental power connected between nodes, it could actually be adjusted according to the caster's own habits.
Just like building a house.
The load-bearing pillars couldn't be randomly moved.
However, the doors and windows didn't need to match the blueprint exactly.
Cecia stopped trying to memorize it by rote.
She began to comprehend it.
Deconstruct it.
Reassemble it.
Mental power pulled fine threads through her consciousness.
Structures that were originally unfamiliar gradually became clear.
【Enhanced Learning Ability Activated】
【Analyzing Unknown Spell Structure】
【Mental Structure Comprehension Speed Increased】
The corners of Cecia's lips curled up slightly.
That was more like it.
Spend money to buy study materials.
Let the system handle the fast-forwarding.
This was the kind of life a transmigrator should enjoy.
Who knew how much time passed.
The final node closed.
Hum—
The complex structure that originally existed only inside the Skill Crystal appeared complete for the first time within Cecia's own mental world.
It wasn't a carbon copy of the crystal's model.
Instead, it had changed slightly.
More concise.
Closer to Cecia's habits when controlling fire.
Like handwriting originally belonging to someone else, once she re-copied it by hand, it finally became her own.
At the same time, the Skill Crystal in her hand released an extremely faint, crisp crack.
All the pale-gold lines inside extinguished.
It turned into an ordinary, transparent crystal stone.
The spell structure stored inside had been fully read by her.
System prompts followed immediately.
【Successfully Constructed Basic Spell Model】
【Acquired Skill: Aegis of Light】
【Aegis of Light Lv. 1 (100/200)】
Cecia snapped her eyes open.
“It worked?”
She immediately raised her hand.
Mental power flowed.
The spell structure she had just built began to operate.
Hum—
A very faint glow lit up from the surface of her skin.
It was not a shield in the traditional sense.
It was much more like a transparent film clinging tightly to her body.
Cecia balled her fist.
She threw a punch.
Whoosh!
Her fist actually produced a distinct whooshing sound through the air.
Cecia's eyes sparkled.
“Super effective!”
She tried extending the light film covering her arm outward.
The light, originally only a few millimeters thick, slowly stretched.
Ten centimeters.
Twenty centimeters.
Then it began to wobble violently.
Sweat beaded on Cecia's forehead.
Keep going!
The light film slammed down toward the floor.
Thud.
The wooden floor issued a dull thud.
Cecia looked down.
A shallow indentation had appeared on it.
“...”
Cecia fell silent.
She then slowly squatted down.
She reached out and felt the floor.
T_T.
I'm screwed.
This house was already run-down to begin with.
Fixing the floor costs money again.
Now I finally know why mages in web novels are all so dirt-poor.
Spell crystals are expensive.
Meditation materials are expensive.
Magic items are expensive.
And practicing magic wrecks your own home.
Mages should all be strung up on streetlights!
Cecia sorrowfully put away the spent Skill Crystal.
The only consolation was that this crystal hadn't forcefully shoved "Aegis of Light" directly into her head.
She had truly reconstructed the entire spell structure with her own hands.
She could already understand the vast majority of its framework.
Which meant:
If she wanted to modify Aegis of Light in the future, she would know where to start.
“No wonder instructors always say Skill Crystals are just the basics.”
“A mage's real strength comes from themselves.”
Cecia sank into thought.
If one only used magic according to fixed models, they would only ever know what others taught them for the rest of their life.
A true mage should be capable of altering spell models.
Or even creating new ones.
Just like how she had deconstructed Fireball previously and reassembled it into a fire wall.
Thinking up to this point, Cecia suddenly felt that forty gold coins wasn't that expensive after all.
Then, she calculated how much money she had left.
“...”
No, still expensive.
Extremely expensive.
Lately, her appetite had been growing bigger and bigger too.
She had originally wanted to pop over to the tavern for some late-night food tonight.
Forget it.
Time to sleep.
You can have everything in your dreams.
Constructing a spell in its entirety for the first time consumed far more mental power than Cecia had imagined.
Once the excitement gradually faded, an intense wave of drowsiness immediately swept over her.
Cecia didn't even bother changing her clothes.
She collapsed straight onto her bed.
Before long, she drifted off into a deep sleep.
...
Far away.
The Roland family mansion was exceptionally lively.
High-society noble nightlife was always lavish.
Song and dance.
Gourmet food.
Mellow, rich wine.
And a ballroom brightly illuminated by magic lamps.
As the host of this banquet, Andre Roland was in no mood to enjoy the festivities.
He stood at the entrance of the second-floor study.
Looking at the crowd dancing in pairs below to the music, his fingers tapped rhythmically against the railing.
The hair at his temples was already graying.
Yet his exposed arms remained rock-solid.
Those were the marks left behind from this Rank Two warrior's youth.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Footsteps sounded from behind him.
Burton, the butler, pushed the door open.
“Master.”
Andre turned around.
“Did you find out?”
“I did.”
Burton placed a sheet of parchment on the desk.
“Master Raven has personally gone to investigate.”
“There's movement from both the Lord's Manor and the Adventurers Guild as well.”
“Furthermore...”
The old butler paused.
“An Abyss Rift has indeed appeared in the mines.”
Andre's fingers stopped tapping.
“Severity?”
“The Abyss energy is abnormally active.”
“The Adventurers Guild has already issued a public bounty. For now, they've temporarily rated this rift as Rank A-, a Sub-Dragon dungeon.”
“The Lord's Manor dispatched a team, but they haven't taken any further action since.”
Upon hearing this, Andre's eyes darkened slightly.
“The Lord is currently busy entertaining the kingdom's diplomatic delegation.”
“City affairs recently have effectively fallen upon the shoulders of our few families.”
Burton nodded.
“There are also a few extra details.”
“Several altars of unknown origin were discovered deep in the mines.”
“Nearby residents also claimed to have seen figures dressed in black entering and leaving the abandoned mine shafts at night.”
“Some suspect they are holding some kind of bloody rituals in there.”
Andre picked up the parchment.
He scanned it line by line.
The Lord's ambiguous stance.
The Roland family's most crucial mineral resources.
The Abyss Rift.
The Abyss Cult.
Several completely unpleasant matters had piled together all at once.
Like a heavy stone pressing down on his chest.
“Which shaft is the rift in?”
“Shaft No. 7.”
“Reassign all the miners.”
“Except for adventurers qualified to accept the commission, no ordinary residents or mine workers are permitted near that area for now.”
“Understood.”
“In addition, hire a few rogues to go in and scout.”
Andre put down the parchment.
“Do not engage in direct conflict with those Abyss Cultists.”
“First find out what on earth they're up to.”
“Yes, Master.”
Issuing one order after another, Andre finally leaned back into his chair.
He reached out and rubbed his temples.
Just then, brisk footsteps sounded from outside the door.
Burton tactfully prepared to leave.
“Good evening, Grandpa Burton!”
A young girl's voice came from the doorway.
The old butler smiled.
“Good evening, Miss Scarlett.”
“You look as lovely as ever tonight.”
“Thank you, Grandpa Burton!”
Clang.
The door closed.
Scarlett had already changed out of her academy uniform.
She wore an elegant, luxurious gown suited for a banquet.
She had clearly been down in the ballroom moments ago.
“My sweet daughter.”
Andre remained resting in his chair, merely lifting his head slightly.
“Why aren't you down there attending the dance? What brought you up here to see your father?”
“Father.”
Scarlett lifted the hem of her gown as she stepped inside.
“I felt like you were in a bad mood.”
“You haven't come downstairs the whole evening.”
Andre paused for a moment.
Then he smiled and patted his daughter's head.
“It's nothing major.”
“It's just that the city has been a bit unsettled lately.”
“Try not to run off to the Lower District so often during this time.”
Scarlett looked puzzled.
“I don't usually go to the Lower District anyway.”
“That's for the best.”
Andre thought for a bit, then added:
“Also...”
“Try to minimize your contact with that poor girl as well.”
The concern on Scarlett's face immediately flipped into annoyance.
“Father—”
“Hear me out.”
Andre gave a helpless sigh.
“Though her home is on the edge of the Upper District, it's not far from the Lower District to begin with.”
“And recent events are tied to the Abyss.”
“I am simply taking responsibility for your safety.”
“But Cecia isn't an Abyss Cultist!”
“I didn't say she was.”
“Then what do you mean, Father?”
Andre had a slight headache.
The girl was clearly already standing up for her friend.
He remained silent for a moment before speaking:
“After her father died, the mine paid ten gold coins in compensation according to the contract.”
“The same went for the other miners who died on the job.”
“The contract was signed clearly.”
Scarlett's expression gradually darkened.
Andre continued:
“If not for the Roland family's mines, her father might not have secured such a job in the first place.”
“Without that income, how could an ordinary family possibly afford to send their child to an institution like Asgard Magic Academy?”
“Father believes we have fulfilled our duty to the utmost.”
The air fell quiet.
Scarlett tightly gripped the hem of her gown.
“So...”
“Father thinks ten gold coins is enough?”
Andre frowned.
“Scarlett.”
“Ten gold coins is more money than many ordinary families earn in a whole year.”
“It is a contract.”
“And it is the rule.”
Scarlett didn't argue further.
She merely gave her father a look.
Then she turned around.
Bang!
The door slammed shut heavily.
Andre sat in place.
Silent for a long time.
In the end, he sighed helplessly.
“That child...”
He reached out, picked up the red wine beside the desk, and drank it all down in one gulp.
Rate on N.U.
