“Tell me what I’m looking at,” Leona said as she showed the video of the market incident to the lead researcher of her department, Alrius.
Alrius was a man in his late twenties with short brown hair and eyes. He wore round glasses and a lab coat that reached just above his knees.
“Fascinating,” Alrius watched the video with interest. “It’s not the real Percival since the monster lord was killed by a King ranked mage with seven stars,” Alrius muttered. “The only way for a monster to come back to life is through necromancy, but there’s no magic circle used for black magic. Not summoning magic too since monster come out directly from magic circles, not through such a dramatic show,” Alrius commented, pointing out the black tar that came out of the ground. “If I had to guess, it has to be golem magic.”
“The kid’s not a mage,” Leona stated. “We had him tested at the hospital, his mana conductivity doesn’t even reach 30%,” Leona said.
“So?” Alrius raised an eyebrow. “Golem magic is more engineering than mystical shit nowadays. It’s not just a pile of rock anymore. People use golem magic to make mechs and cars,” Alrius mentioned. “Don’t even get me started on those fucking dwarves.”
“Then what? He fucking used golem magic to bring back a monster lord from the dead and killed a Marquis rank mage?” Leona crossed her arms at Alrius.
He shrugged. “How would I know? Ask the kid,” Alrius pointed at Lucas in the video. “All I know is that the magic used is a form of golem magic. Besides, what happened to it after the video?”
Leona sighed. “It just vanished.”
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“Are you sure you’re alright?” Valeri asked.
“Very sure,” Lucas assured her. “And we don’t have to pay for the bill, so you can have all this,” Lucas held up the black card Leona gave him.
“I’m still not touching that money,” Valeri gestured to the black card. “That’s money you got after risking your life.”
Lucas sighed. “Please use the money. With this money, you won’t need to work so hard to pay for Shina’s tuition for her university.”
Valeri still looked hesitant, but finally gave up. “Fine, but I’ll only use half. And I’ll pointedly tell them the money came from you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Lucas said.
“I do,” Valeri said firmly. “They need to know that you’re providing for them.”
Lucas just gave up. He didn’t particularly have a good relationship with his sisters since they considered him a waste of space that forced their mother to work harder to feed another mouth. Though, they weren’t hostile. They would just do their best to ignore him or glare at him when they have the chance. But they were right, and that’s why Lucas didn’t want to antagonize them.
“I have a better idea. I’ll make them ask you for money,” Valeri suggested, making Lucas even more troubled.
“Please...”
“Oh alright. I won’t rub it in their face,” Valeri smiled. “But only for the essentials. If they want something like a new phone, they’ll need to ask your permission to spend your money,” Valeri stated firmly. “You can’t change my mind on that.”
Lucas nodded in understanding, but he wasn’t trilled for anything that could happen next.
After that day, things proceeded more smoothly. Thanks to the money, his mother didn’t need to have multiple jobs anymore and it gave her a lot of free time to visit him at the hospital.
During his stay, Lucas found out how badly injured he actually was. He had forty-seven fractures and a lot of internal bleeding. He also had 3rd degree burns on his entire back, which could have led to infections. But they took care of all the serious injuries with healing magic, and only left the trivial ones to recover naturally, making it look like he wasn’t seriously injured in the first place.
However, that didn’t stop them from giving Lucas the VIP treatment. Amazing food, attentive nurses, and even a better room. He guessed having a high-ranking military officer visiting him had its benefits. They were also probably using the opportunity to flood his bill.
“I need to get out of here before the military blames me for the bill,” Lucas muttered.
“Don’t bother with such needless worry.”
“Well, I can’t just let this blindly continue,” Lucas replied, and it took him a while to fully realize that he wasn’t alone in the room. “AHH!”
Lucas fell off his bed in shock. Sitting on the chair beside his bed was a woman with long blonde hair and green eyes. She was wearing a gray business suit with slacks.
“Nice to meet you Mr. Atican. I’m a representative from Waywood artifact research facility,” the woman handed him a business card. “My name is Althea. I’m here to hear your answer regarding our offer.”
“Um... can I ask why you’re giving me an offer like that?” Lucas asked.
He was genuinely curious why they would give him an offer, and could only think of two reasons. The first and likely answer was because of the video of him summoning Percival out of nowhere, and the other reason is that they somehow found out that he could see mana circuits.
Lucas had kept his ability a secret because his mother ordered him to. Though it didn’t take a lot to convince him since people with mana related abilities often become targets of criminal organizations in order to steal their abilities.
In his case, stealing his eyes and turning them into artifacts.
“Our interest lies on your ability to use an unknown form of golem magic and consider this one of the ways the military wishes to keep watch of you,” Althea answered.
“I’ll accept then.”
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Waywood research institute, one of the leading organizations in artifact production. It was a miracle that Lucas managed to get a job here. Standing in front of their Southeastern branch, Lucas tried to calm himself down for his first day.
Approaching the reception desk, Lucas did his best to appear presentable. “Excuse me, I was told to pick up my ID here?”
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“Just a moment sir,” the receptionist said as she took a good look at him before looking through the drawers. “Here you go sir,” the receptionist gave him an ID with a retractable lace. “For your key cards and uniform, you’d have to go to the supply administration department for it.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you,” Lucas bowed and headed to the elevator.
Thanks to a map beside the elevator doors, Lucas easily found the way to the supply administration department. Once reached the place, he approached a window by the door of the department.
“How can I help you?” the woman at the window asked.
Lucas showed the woman his ID. “The receptionist told me to get my uniform and key cards here.”
The woman nodded and took a look at his ID before heading in the room. After about ten minutes of waiting, the woman came back with a small case and clothes wrapped in a plastic bag..
“Here you go Mr. Atican.”
Lucas bowed. “Thank you.”
Now that he had everything, Lucas made his way to the workshop he was assigned to. And when he arrived, he saw that the workshop had a spacious testing area surrounded by workbenches. Then there were four private offices at the end of the room.
“You must be the other guy assigned with me here,” a man with black hair and eyes spoke as Lucas entered the room. “I’m Jared.”
Jared had short black hair and was slightly taller than Lucas. He had a bulky build and had his fair share of scars on his white skin. He also had round glasses that seemed to be reinforced. Lucas also noticed that Jared had a prosthetic index finger.
“I’m Lucas,” he introduced himself as he shook hands with Jared. “This place is quite clean,” Lucas commented when he looked around the empty workbenches.
“I’m new too,” Jared revealed. “As far as I know, this whole workshop is new.”
“Sure is!” another guy came out of from one of the offices. “I’m Sanie. I transferred from the business department.”
Sanie was a large man around the same height as Jared. He was quite chubby and very hairy. He had sideburns and hairy arms that barely showed any of his white skin.
“Looks like I’m the last one to arrive,” another guy entered the workshop. “Name’s Kier.”
Kier was slightly shorter than Lucas and was quite skinny as well. He had tan skin and a buzz cut. There wasn’t much else to take note of other than he had a lot of burn scars.
“I didn’t expect all of us to be new,” Lucas commented. “Who’s going to teach us?”
“There’s a bunch of free lectures if you want to learn things for your personal project, but most of our work is just going to be repairs,” Sanie explained. “You’ll get paid for the repairs, but you’ll need to submit a project plan if you want to get funding for your projects.”
“Heard enough. Let’s get started on our project plans then,” Jared said before heading to his office.
Following his example, Lucas entered his own office, swiping his key card to get in. Inside was one desk with a computer, a filing cabinet, and one workbench.
“I can work with this,” Lucas muttered, smiling at the start of his first day.
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Jasmine glared at another rejection letter for the repair of her magic orb.
“Rejected again?” Jasmine’s friend, Alliah, asked.
Jasmine sighed. “Yeah, nobody seems to know how to fix it,” she grumbled.
The orb was an artifact gifted to Jasmine by her teacher, so it held a special place in her heart. Additionally, it was a unique grade artifact, so it was very valuable and powerful, so replacing it wasn’t an option either.
During her last mission, the orb’s mana circuits were damaged. Normally, to fix damaged mana circuits, they would simply erase the whole path and trace the whole thing again. But the only person that could possibly redo the mana circuits on the orb was Jasmine’s master, whose whereabouts were currently unknown.
This puts Jasmine in a very troublesome position since her next mission was a very dangerous one. Not having her strongest artifact could be the deciding factor between life and death.
“Have you tried putting it in the notice board?” Alliah suggested.
“Do you really think someone checking the notice board would be able to fix an artifact made by a king ranked mage?” Jasmine raised an eyebrow at Alliah’s suggestion.
Alliah just shrugged. “You never know.”
Jasmine sighed. “Fine,” she took out her phone and went to the mage association’s network.
Since this was a personal request, Jasmine had to submit a reward herself. Considering the difficulty of the task, she needed to provide a substantial reward. She also needed to set a penalty for failure, so that the people who were actually confident in their skills would be the only one to reach out to her.
“How much did you set as the reward?” Alliah asked.
“Hundred thousand and the penalty is fifty,” Jasmine answered. “That should scare off some flies.”
Alliah shrugged. “If you say so.”
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Twenty repairs every week. That was the quota given to them. As long as they complete the quota, they were free to do anything they wanted. Attend lectures, work on personal projects, and even do commissions.
For Lucas, repairing twenty artifacts wouldn’t take more than three days, so he decided to make a plan on how he’s going to use his extra time. But while doing that, he wanted to get started on repairing artifacts.
Coming out of his office, Lucas decided to head the drop of area to grab artifacts sent to be repaired. On his way out, Kier came out of his office too.
“Heading to the drop off?” Kier asked.
“Yeah. Might as well get started early,” Lucas replied.
“Same here.”
Both of them made their way to the drop off area. Kier initiated some small talk, asking about what they did before getting hired. Kier had been working in his father’s workshop before getting a job here in Waywood. A similar situation to Lucas, who was previously working at a small workshop before the whole market was destroyed.
When they arrived at the drop off area, they were told to just grab a crate of artifacts. They were sorted based on what the damage to the artifact was, so it gave them the option to focus on what they were good at. Lucas grabbed a crate from the ones labelled with mana circuit damage, while Kier grabbed a crate from runic component damages.
After logging the crate they took, they made their way back to their workshop. “Mana circuits? That’s a hard one,” Kier commented. “Looking to get a bonus?”
“A bonus?” Lucas raised an eyebrow.
“Mana circuit damages are the hardest to fix, so a lot of them get backed up. To fix that, they give a bonus of merit points if people fix them,” Kier explained.
“Merit points?”
Kier began explaining the merit system created by Waywood and the Mage association. It was basically an incentive system where merit points could be exchange for credits, rare materials, specialized equipment, and even favors.
“Not everyone wants a raise, so they created the merit system to cater to what everyone wants,” Kier stated. “Personally, I want some equipment.”
Lucas rubbed his chin in thought, thinking about what he actually wanted. Turning someone with low mana conductivity into a mage was impossible, so that only left him with the option to dedicate everything to a personal project.
His mind landed on the video of him summoning Percival. But his thoughts were interrupted by Kier asking another question.
“By the way, do you have a mana circle?” Kier asked.
“No,” Lucas answered.
Mana circles were something mages create to enhance the quality of their spells and helps them use stronger spells. Lucas’s knowledge about them were limited since information about mana cultivation methods were strictly monitored by the mage association. Since Lucas didn’t want to do anything illegal get his hands on one, he didn’t know how to create a mana circle.
“Seriously?” Kier seemed surprised. “Then how do you access your mana pocket?”
“Don’t have one. Only mages have those,” Lucas replied.
Mana pockets are basically inventories that all mages have. They could store anything that had their mana signatures and take it out whenever they wanted. The size of their mana pocket depends on how many mana circles they have.
Kier smirked and held up a hand. A small portal opened and a mana circuit tracer appeared in his hand.
Lucas’s eyes widened. “You’re a mage?”
Kier shook his head. “Nope. My mana conductivity is 35,” he revealed. “But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t create a mana circle. The only thing you need to do that was mana after all.”
Kier had a point. “Could I ask for a mana cultivation method using merit points?” Lucas asked.
Kier shrugged. “Maybe.”
Lucas ran back to his office in a hurry, leaving Kier confused in the hallway.