Grimm quietly looked into his pouch in which he stored his magic stones. There were 81 magic stones, which meant he could buy the book but it would make a big hole in his pocket. But when Grimm thought about winning the competition, he clenched his teeth and finally bought it.

The magic stones were black in colour and lustrous but sized equal to an adult human's thumb only. According to what Grimm knew, these magic stones formed in narrow places where Elements' concentration is very high.

The green-eyed apprentice didn’t say anything about his behaviour as he had seen many like Grimm who had no money, weak and took every step carefully but a single thing about each apprentice setting up stalls was similar, which was, they all were quite proficient in whatever they knew. They were veterans who had seen blood when they are out while doing their mission.

If you think about it and look around, throughout the market on the 3rd floor you won’t find a single Sorcerer guiding anyone what to do. Even if you fight in the middle of the market no one will stop you, they won’t even bat an eye on you even if you kill each other but if ever touch someone else’s possession, you would have to pay the price. Everything was quite chaotic but everything was orderly.

It was a unsaid rule to not fight on 3rd floor as everyone understood that this was the only place where they had a chance to get goods and materials at somewhat cheap price which as a apprentice they could afford. Even if an apprentice had a master to teach them some knowledge passed down through few generations, they would still need magic stones. After all you cannot depend on your master for all you expenses because they would only guide in the subject they are best at, you want anything more? Forget it!

There are so many apprentices who would do anything they can just to get the guidance Sorcerer give to their apprentices, even killing each other was an option. It directly said the value of the guidance Sorcerer gave to their apprentices.

Even if Grimm was left with 21 magic stones, he kept searching around. Before coming to the market Grimm had already decided that he would find something for Alpha so he could research and experiment while he would carry on his own experiments or until Alpha finds something that he finds interesting.

After a quick round around few more shops and buying some material that were needed for him to learn Golem making. All those material needed were clearly written on the first page after the index.

Reaching his apartment, Grimm looked around, opened the door and quickly locked the door after getting inside the room. The room was same as before nothing changed.

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“You are really cautious but you don’t use you brain, there is no need for someone to be suspicious of you and the sorcerers wouldn’t mind a small apprentice like you fooling around because you would be directly eliminated in the coming competition. Instead, start doing your preparations.” Alpha suggested.

“Yeah, yeah…” Said Grimm, fed up with Alpha’s nagging.

Grimm and Alpha separated and started preparations for creating a Golem.

A Golem is an Elemental construct with an Elemental Crystal working as the core. The Elemental Crystal is recovered from creatures who can manipulate Elements naturally.

Humans are made from five Elements which are [Fire], [Water], [Wind], [Earth] and [Space]. These five Elements make the base of a human being's existence. Likewise, other creatures consist of different Elements as a base which they are made of.

Humans can easily manipulate these five Elements relatively compared to other elements. But when talents are talked about they are a different case, which we will talk about some other day.

The runes which apprentices draw in their mental scape, the very process is very slow. As said before, compared to the five elements, the other runes made of different elements are even harder to make.

Now, we are talking about the runes and their use in casting, let’s discuss how apprentices and Sorcerer do it actually.

As I have said before, the first step to becoming an apprentice sorcerer is to make use of 112 techniques and become aware of the mental scape where an apprentice can compress his mental energy into a mental sphere. The mental sphere can be compressed into any shape, any three-dimensional shape, the apprentice is convenient with.

You must have noticed I used the word aware not built or anything else, which means in itself that mental scape is present in every human and is a part of every human, but every human forgets about the existence of the mental scape as they grow old.

These 112 techniques take you to the time when you are a newborn, not literally take you back in time but help you feel the existence of the basic organ of your body which you have forgotten. Some are talented enough to become aware at first attempt and some take years but the hard work never goes unfruitful.

After compressing mental energy until the mental strength becomes 10 units, an apprentice cannot start drawing runes in his or her Mental Scape.

Now, this is the part where meditation comes into use. The use of meditation is to redirect the energies in our body to create a passage so that Elemental Energy roaming in the atmosphere can enter our body. As for which Elemental Energy a user want to redirect into his or body, it has to be decided before they start meditation.

The Elemental Energy gets collected as a lump in the Mental Scape for an apprentice to use to make the rune and the cycle repeat until rune is completed.

Now, how does magic spells work…

When the Mental Energy which is compressed into a particular shape connects to that rune, with the help of Mental Energy the rune communicates with the Elemental Particles in the environment which helps an apprentice to cast the spell.

So, the first step is to become aware of Mental Space then form Mental Sphere until it gives 10 Mental Strength. Then using meditation techniques, absorb Elemental Energies in the surrounding which further helps in drawing rune in the Mental Scape. Last step which is using Mental Energy to cast the spell.