Training

Wallace received a message from his parents that he could now check his bank account for the money he had earned upon selling the exclusive rights of manufacturing for the magic jammer canceller.

"It seems the government was really generous." He blandly commented as he saw the money he earned.

He was using his laptop at the moment to check his bank account and was surprised to see a huge amount of money that was added to it.

"60 million credits."

I wonder how mom or dad negotiated for that. Wallace thought as he happily browses an online store to purchase materials.

It was already a few days after he consumed the two memory crystals of Elemental Mana Dynamics and Law of Mana Force and Conservation.

Although he was not a professional, he was aware of the general prices of this magic structure in the market and for the prices of mana artifact itself, he could always see it online.

A standard complete 4th gen mana artifact alone ranged from 300-600 thousand credits. If you planned to have a 5th gen mana artifact, you can purchase it with the price that ranges from 800 thousand up to 3 million credits.

Apparently, manufacturing rights of common elemental magic structures like Blazing Gaze that specialized in Fire Magic was only worth about 15 million credits and Aqua World that was obviously water-based magic would be priced at 16.5 million.

Manufacturing rights for a common magic structure that allowed basic control and standard attacks with a certain magic element would range from about 15 to 20 million.

However, there were mana artifacts that had structures that were capable of controlling 2 or more elements. Those mana artifacts ranged from about 2-5 million credits each.

Besides that, Wallace was aware that there were magic structures that weren't being registered at NMTI.

Those were either mana artifacts or magic structure with banned magics or flawed magic structures that could harm magicians.

The notorious Devil's Whisper was a mana artifact used by an underworld organization before, it was a pendulum-like artifact. It had a light-based magic structure that was capable of controlling human minds. It was hypnotism at some point and considered banned magic. It was said that the magic structure of this mana artifact had a requirement to be infused in a circular metal to give its full effects.

Unfortunately, that rising underworld organization owning Devil's Whisper had offended a strong faction and had been forcefully disbanded by its adversaries.

Although no one knew which magic engineer created it for the underworld organizations, they knew that the person never planned to register it at NMTI.

After the disbandment of that organization, selling off its magic structure was at large during that time and all of this happened just about two decades ago. Of course, it was heavily suppressed by the government that lasted for nearly 5 years before traces of it disappeared.

But up until now, there were rumors that you could purchase the unnamed magic structure for Devil's Whisper for about 40 million credits.

Unfortunately, no one knew where to purchase it and the government was on the hunt for these banned magics. So if there was any leak of information on the whereabouts of the sellers, you could guarantee that in the next second, the police would be at your doorstep.

Wallace was currently browsing the internet as he was trying to purchase materials that he needed for training his magic structuring and artifact forging. He was currently in the largest online store named Secret's Shop.

"Hmm... Magic Jammer is out of the market as well because of its circumstances."

He tried searching for it just to satisfy his curiosity only to find "0" search results on it. He then continued purchasing his needed materials.

Star burr, luminous crimson scale, velvet tears, low-grade to high-grade mithril ores, garonite ores, arcane alloy, empty magic structure crystals, and some other materials were purchased. Unfortunately, Wallace needed a certain status to be able to purchase mana stones. He had to use his parents' connections to do this and would ask them later to have them purchase sufficient mana stones for his experiments.

He had a lot of inspiration after consuming the 2 memory crystals a few days ago and he even felt that his body could still take about 3 or 5 more of these. Due to his plans for the next mana artifact he would like to create, he ended up purchasing so many materials that his current apartment would not be enough for all of it to fit in.

"I need to move place." Wallace smiled wryly as he looked at his small apartment littered with random things.

"I should own a workshop for the sake of my future development as well... since there is some available space in the city, it shouldn't be too difficult to find one. Well, I'll just consult a realtor tomorrow."

He obviously required a larger space to store all his materials and also, he had been considering better security. In his mind, he wanted to have his magic structures and mana artifact-to-be in a protected place. Of course, he wouldn't want himself to be sabotaged or have his creations stolen.

He was thinking far ahead now so he shook his head and thought of his first task. He would like to ask his parents again for this but after thinking for a while, he decided not to and would just try to arrange this on his own. He wanted to choose his own place of work first thing in the morning tomorrow since there weren't any classes due to it being a weekend.

Wallace was still browsing the online shop for better materials. He noticed that an A.I. chip was being sold as well that could follow the simplest command and could be used for a simple robotic machine.

He made a full hour of research on it and discovered that Artificial Intelligence was not being heavily developed by any country for an unknown reason. At most, they had simple functions but clearly insufficient for combat and complex functions. He would definitely try looking unto it someday.

Wallace smiled at this as he thought of a certain path for development again. He put it at the back of his mind for now as he thought that he may only be successful on this once he acquired his spaceship.

He couldn't wait to participate in the competition.

***

At a certain forging room in a huge manor located near the edge of the Tanza City.

A young lady with short brown hair and a cream-colored hairpin on the left side of her head was busily working in a pile of metallic materials. She was wearing her casual clothes and it could be seen that she had eyes of the same brown color as she observed the changes on the silvery metal whenever she infused strong fluctuations of mana.

A few seconds later, she smiled widely as it seemed that she reached her goal on the experiment she was doing. She fixed the hair that was sticking on her forehead due to sweat as she breathed a sigh of relief.

She was the top student in the 2nd year class of Artifact Forging course, Tracy Guilford. As she was about to be engrossed again in her study, a knocking sound was heard at the door outside and a voice coming from her servant was heard.

"Mistress, a young man named Mark Halevey wishes to speak with you."