Clothing, Food, Shelter, and Transportation.

Mira wrote a few words on her memo pad. After silently thinking for a moment, she crossed out several of them.

She wasn’t short on clothes, nor did she need to travel. Before the magic dragon returned to this tower, the only thing she needed to focus on was food.

Lance seemed to be a picky eater. Food had become the most pressing issue for her now.

Mira propped her chin up with one hand, thinking deeply, then added the word “medium” to the memo. In addition to food, mediums were also important.

To have the capital to negotiate with the magic dragon before it returned to the tower, she needed to prepare a powerful magic circle in advance.

What she was lacking now were the materials needed to draw the magic circle and the mediums required to cast spells. These were the things she needed most.

Mira stroked her chin, but couldn’t think of how to acquire these necessities.

She wasn’t lacking in money—the king had given her plenty of gold. But the current problem wasn’t funding; it was the items needed for casting magic and drawing magic circles. These were vital to the magic energy hubs, and each magical item in circulation had a unique identification number. Purchasing these items required a certification recognized by the magic energy hubs.

Mira knew that the black market sold magical items at high prices, but she didn’t have the connections.

It was so frustrating.

Mira leaned on her hand, unable to come up with a good idea. Annoyed, she ruffled her hair and lay down on the soft mat.

She felt a bit lost. The only ideas she could come up with still had something to do with this tower. There were so many rooms in the tower; she was sure she could find some inspiration from them.

Or perhaps, she could ask Lance.

He was also a spellcaster, so he must also need to acquire magical scrolls and other items through the magic energy hubs or organizations cooperating with them.

Thinking of Lance, Mira’s gaze paused on the curtain.

She propped herself up, extended her hand, and lifted a corner of the curtain.

Just a quick glance, and Mira lowered the curtain again.

Lance was carefully wiping his body.

His legs couldn’t move, and there were large blood clots on his lower abdomen and the corner of his stomach, making his movements appear awkward.

Mira’s gaze lingered on his flowing muscle lines for a moment, and her face flushed. She hurriedly dropped the curtain.

She’d ask him tomorrow morning. Mira flopped back down, lying on the mat again, her eyes wide open, staring into the endless darkness.

The days ahead were long. She would find a solution.

Mira remained optimistic about her future life.

“Black market?” Lance’s eyes flashed with a moment of confusion when he heard the word.

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“What do you need that for?” he asked as he propped himself up, trying to get up.

Mira quickly placed a cushion behind him.

“I need some items related to magic. Scrolls and medium crystals, that kind of thing,” Mira answered truthfully.

“I don’t know where the black market is,” Lance replied honestly.

Mira’s eyes flickered with a hint of disappointment.

“If you need scrolls or mediums, why don’t you go to the tower’s library or the treasure room?” Lance noticed the disappointment in Mira’s eyes and became more puzzled.

Why did Mira need to find the black market? This was the tower—the place that every spellcaster dreamed of.

As a product of the tower’s mages, this place contained countless treasures. For dragons, scrolls and mediums didn’t matter much.

But human spellcasters needed mediums to cast spells, didn’t they?

There were enough items in this tower to serve as spellcasting mediums for Mira to use a different one every day for ten years.

As for scrolls used to store spells, the previous tower mages had a hoarding habit. They had filled an entire room with blank scrolls.

For Lance, those things were useless—they were just waste paper.

If Mira wanted them, she could take as many as she liked.

Mira was stunned at first, then slowly frowned, her speech becoming hesitant.

“I’d rather not use the magic dragon’s things…” Until now, she had remembered that there was a room in the tower filled with eyes, and the thought made her feel deeply uncomfortable.

“Aren’t you the magic dragon’s bride?” Lance didn’t pick up on Mira’s subtle thoughts.

“What about being the magic dragon’s bride?” Mira glared at him.

“Nothing,” Lance fell silent for a moment, then added, “Actually, you can use them. The scrolls and mediums aren’t the magic dragon’s. They belong to the last master of the tower.”

“Hm?” Mira showed an expression of surprise.

Lance looked at her, hesitated for a moment, then revealed some information about the tower’s former owner.

“The last master of the tower was my mother’s partner. Many of the things in this tower actually belong to my mother, strictly speaking.”

His words paused at this point.

Mira could sense many emotions from his expression.

Lance tilted his head slightly. “The scrolls are in the storage room at the bottom of the tower, but the mediums are on the upper levels. To access them, you need to unlock an identification magic circle. It’s a bit difficult for now.”

“As for the black market, I don’t know about it. But if you want to find a magic trading post…” Lance paused for a moment, “I know that the dwarves and goblins hold meetings every month... When I recover, I can use a teleportation spell to take you there.”

“Goblins?” Mira was surprised.

The magical mediums created by the magic energy hubs were originally designed based on goblin technology, which many referred to as “goblin tech.”

Before the magic energy hubs expanded to their current scale, goblins were the most adept at casting spells among surface-dwelling races.

Their magic was different from the magic humans cast now. Goblins were skilled at combining regular machines with magic, creating unique magical machines.

If it weren’t for these greedy goblins being unable to resist the temptation of money and selling the core blueprints for the medium crystals to humans, the magic energy hubs might not have the power they do now.

Lance was surprised that Mira even knew about goblins.

He continued, “Human magic energy hubs once sent mages to bombard the goblins’ main base. Now, the surviving goblins have mostly moved to the mountains, living with their old friends, the dwarves.”

“Human magic energy hubs sent mages to bombard the goblins’ base?” Mira’s face showed astonishment. She couldn’t believe that the magic energy hubs would do something like that.

“Didn’t you know about this?”

“How old are you?” Lance asked Mira.

“I just turned eighteen last month,” Mira replied truthfully.

Lance showed a faint look of recollection. He silently calculated the years in his mind. “Human mages launched dozens of attacks on the goblin race over the past hundred years. The last one was about a year before you were born. It happened less than twenty years ago. Since then, goblins have disappeared from the world.”

Mira’s face was filled with shock. According to Lance, the magic energy hubs had nearly wiped out an entire race, and yet, as a child raised in the magic energy hubs, she had never heard anyone talk about it.

“How do you know this?” Mira asked Lance.

Lance didn’t seem much older than her, so if the magic energy hubs wanted to conceal this information, how did he come to know about it?

Lance tilted his head. “I thought every spellcaster knew. It was Grandmaster Karl himself who led ten high-level spellcasters to do it.”

“Who did you say?” The familiar name caused Mira’s hand to tremble involuntarily.

Lance, oblivious to Mira’s reaction, didn’t notice her unease and instead assumed she hadn’t heard him clearly.

“Grandmaster Karl,” he repeated very seriously.