At this moment, Apolo was heading to the empire's main property store, which was a bit far away. There weren't any significant stores in the capital, and the particular store he was going to was on one of the main streets of the Ring City. To make matters worse, one had to access that street through the gate farthest from the location of the Ministry of Magic. As a result, Apolo had to cross the entire capital to reach the store, which easily translated to a four-day carriage journey.
However, the young man wasn't in a hurry. The other new wizards had much less budget than him, and most likely, they wouldn't be able to buy the house Apolo owned. His house was the most expensive one available since he "bought" it with a decree from the emperor.
As the journey unfolded, Apolo seized the chance to read the red book he had been given. As mentioned before, it was essentially a simple calendar filled with stores that a wizard might need: essentially, it was advertising. Yet, it was useful advertising for someone like Apolo, who had no clue where to find the stores or what things a wizard should buy. After finishing the book full of advertisements, Apolo had many doubts about how to allocate his budget. Luckily, he recalled that one of his ancestors had mentioned something about the topic in his legacy. Therefore, Apolo took out the secret document and carefully reviewed the last three pieces of advice:
> "… (Start of the letter)
>
> Regarding my third piece of advice: once you become a wizard and accept your destiny, the next big step in your life is to discover that from now on, you are completely free: free to squander your wealth or free to make it count. This is why the first major advice I'm giving you to prevent you from destroying your wealth is to use your first crystals in the smartest investment you can make: getting competent servants!
>
> The best servant for a wizard is their own disciples: your acolytes. However, you won't be able to have acolytes under your command until you achieve at least one magical feat and thus gain enough reputation for someone to be willing to become your acolyte. Since the best option isn't available, you must go for the second best: 'Gururis'. Although the name of this creature might sound strange to you since our family traditionally never used them as servants, the truth is that they are somewhat docile and strange creatures that many noble families use as servants.
>
> This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
>
> To buy them, you need to go to a beast breeding place and ask if they have them. You must buy one old and two newborns. Remember to never buy more than that balanced amount, or they'll kill each other. The old gururi must have served another wizard before. These creatures live almost three hundred years, so they're likely to be sold second-hand.
>
> I warn you that these creatures are expensive: quite expensive, still, buy them!
>
> The rest of the crystals, which could be few or many depending on the goodwill of the current emperor. You should use it for two things: furnish your house completely with plenty of sparkle and nonsense, so the gururis will live content and won't kill you while you sleep. And last but not least, you should go buy the clothing that a true wizard would wear: always wear it and don't let the old gururi see you without it, or it will get depressed and won't talk to your two young gururis. That's crucial for them to learn from the old one.
>
> With whatever money you have left, don't buy a single magical artifact or research equipment. Instead, spend it to have the best and most ostentatious garden in the entire imperial capital. This way, you'll have the favor of your neighbors, which is quite important: you don't live in a castle in the middle of the forest anymore!
>
> My fourth piece of advice is probably the most interesting to you at this moment, just after reading this document. You still haven't learned to appreciate my other pieces of advice. The fourth piece of advice is the true utility of the magical mask of Tias, the great memory mage of our family. The mask is, in fact, the legacy of one of the great mages of the empire. Even though you probably don't yet understand the meaning of that honorary title, the truth is that Tais gave you a rather complex mask, and I'm not sure if it has more secrets.
>
> As Tais pointed out in his legacy, the primary function of the mask is to allow you to escape from problems. Therefore, if you wear the mask and kill a guard in front of a hundred other guards, none of those guards who witnessed the murder will remember who killed the guard, even if they saw you do it a second ago. However, they'll see you with a knife covered in blood and may deduce the murder. So you throw away the knife, and they won't remember that you had it, but the guards will see you near a corpse and may deduce the murder. Then you start running, and they won't remember you were near the corpse, but seeing you running, they may deduce the murder. Therefore, you decide to enter a store and blend into the crowd: Congratulations, you've escaped! The mask is useful but requires quite a bit of practice to learn how to use it.
>
> Lastly, there's my fifth great piece of advice... (and the letter continued)"