Slade asked even though he knew what Nick was thinking:

[How so?]

Looking into the methods that Slade had given him, Nick explained his plan to Slade.

...

After listening to Nick's explanation, Slade responded with an amused tone:

[Well, you are certainly thinking like a Magician. Your plan will work at your level but at higher levels, doing the same effectively would be incredibly difficult.]

Nick responded:

"I know. I'll start my plans tomorrow."

Nick stored the leopard's carcass into his space band and went to bed.

.........

The next morning, Nick walked into the General Beast Store looking for the clerk, Marshall, who was supposed to be his point of contact with the store. In a few moments Nick found him at the counter. Marshall saw Nick as soon as he walked in and with a wide smile, Marshall walked from behind the counter to greet Nick fervently:

"Hello there, Mr. Nick. What brings you here today. Are you going to discuss your contract with us or perhaps buy some animals."

Nick motioned Marshall to the corner of the room where they could put some distance between them and the other customers; Nick spoke:

"I would like to obtain a large amount of animals from you today. Their species does not matter, nor their age, nor their health, I just want a large number of them and keeping in mind the deal that we have already, I would like to purchase them on credit."

Nick said the last part with some nervousness as he knew that it was a big ask but he did not think that it would be impossible for the store to agree to his request. His biggest reason for believing this was that the contract that he had with them had a relatively large value, much more than a few hundred animals and trying to deepen their cooperation with him was in their best interest because if Nick delivered, the store could reap an immense profit.

Marshall's smile became slightly forced as he heard Nick's request.

(What is this young man thinking. He has not even fulfilled his contract yet and he wants to buy animals from us on credit and what's even stranger, he doesn't even care about the type or quality. While we do have many animals to be put down because of their inability to be sold because of disease, temperament , ecetera, that does not mean I should just give them to him.)

As if reading Marshall's thoughts, Nick took out a business card that he had printed this morning and spoke:

"You would not be giving credit to Nick Capitol but to The Magic Scroll Company."

Marshall listened to Nick's words and looked at the business card that had 'Nick Capitol - CEO of The Magic Scroll Company' on it and almost felt like laughing in Nick's face but he resisted the urge.

(Sigh, this young man must be crazy. Considering the contract that we have with him, I shouldn't turn him down outright. I'll inform Carla of the situation first and have her turn him down so as not to sour my relationship with him.)

"Mr. Nick, I'll have to ask boss Carla if you are eligible to receive store credit. Please give me a moment..."

Nick watched as Marshall went back to his counter and made a phone call.

.........

"What? He wants to buy a large quantity of random animals on credit. What for?"

"Boss Carla, I did not ask that since I had no intention of complying in the first place. I just wanted to inform you before I reject his request."

Carla sat in her office chair, smiling with an amused expression as she held her office phone to her ear.

(Marshall is a decent store clerk and I do plan to promote him to supervisor since he works so diligently but, in regards to the ways of Magicians, he is almost clueless even though he interacts with them often. Nick Capitol, my sources tell me that he was ranked 9th in the first year and there are even whispers about him having an affinity with space magic. Making alliances with promising Magicians is always a priority but Marshall doesn't seem to understand that. Considering this kid's ability with creating magic scrolls as well as his ranking in his academic year, there is no harm in deepening our relationship with him; if he becomes a powerful Magician and we helped him, the benefits that I would reap would be great. In that case I would be willing to give him a million useless animals on credit not to mention a few hundred.)

"Give his company the animals on credit, we should have a little over one hundred useless animals in stock right now. What did you say the name of his company was, The Magic Scroll Company? That's so boring."

Marshall was shocked that Carla would so easily give the animals away to a kid with no business experience.

"Boss Carla, is this really okay? How is he going to pay us back for the animals when he is only a student in school?"

Carla replied, annoyed:

"Just do as I say. Besides, if his status as a student was really a concern, you shouldn't have introduced me to him in the first place."

Marshall awkwardly scratched his head because he knew that Carla was right. Carla went on to say:

"I have a good feeling about this kid, call it a Magician's intuition. Give him the animals on credit and give him two months to pay us back or we will triple the price and subtract it from what we will owe him when he fulfills his contract."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Marshall had no choice but to go along with Carla's decision.

"I'll do as you say boss."

Carla ended the call and Marshall went to Nick to relay what Carla had said to him.

"...Do those terms sound fair Mr. Nick?"

Nick was excited, he believed that he could get something out of them but did not think that Carla would agree to give him all the animals that he wanted and with such reasonable terms of credit.

(This woman is not simple. She definitely has some schemes in mind but then again, so do I.)

"I accept those terms. How long until you can gather the animals?"

Marshall thought for a moment and then replied:

"We can have the animals gathered for transport in about thirty minutes but it will take about two hours to have the Apprentice Magicians on our payroll use the magic formation to teleport the animals to a location on campus."

Nick shook his head, saying:

"No need for transport, just gather the animals, I'll make use of them here."

Marshall had a puzzled look on his face, not knowing what Nick was trying to do.

"Well, I'll go give the instructions and then take you to the place where the animals will be brought."

Marshall went back to the counter and made a few calls and when he was done, he came back to Nick, leading him towards one of the store's underground chambers. Nick and Marshall walked down a long stair case to get to a very large room, about the size of a soccer field that had several entrances similar to the one that Nick and Marshall walked through. Nick could see the store's employees bringing the animals that he requested through the entrances.

The animals were of many varieties, some clearly dangerous, some not but most commonly, the animals brought all had visible flaws such as being sickly, old, missing a limb, blind, etcetera. Nick didn't care about the condition of their body, he just wanted their souls. Nick was going to devour all of these animals' souls this very day. While the animals were still being gathered Nick put some distance between him and Marshall and took out a few pieces of chalk. In a few moments, Nick started to draw a magic formation on the stone floor.

Marshall was puzzled at Nick's actions; never mind that he started drawing on the floor but the part that puzzled him the most were the symbols that Nick was drawing, he had never seen them before.

...........

Carla sat in her office watching Nick's actions on her computer. Marshall had called again telling her that Nick wanted to make use of the animals while still in the store so she gained access to the area's security cameras to observe out of sheer curiosity.

"You really never know what's going to happen when the circumstances involve Magicians."

"Nick is clearly drawing a magic formation and one that is definitely not at the apprentice level. That area is self-contained and magically reinforced so that formation shouldn't do any damage to the rest of the store if it is harmful and this Nick shouldn't be crazy enough to try to harm my place, not with me here."

Carla watched intently as Nick drew out his magic formation.

............

(It's almost done. This soul calming formation is at the regular level but since it makes use of the natural magic energy in the atmosphere, that is not a real concern for me. I just need to chant the words of a mystical language to use it.)

Nick had learnt this formation from Slade's inheritance and it stood out because despite it being a regular level magic formation, it could be used by even non-Magicians so long as they knew of the mystical language that manipulates it; the mystical language was one of a few that was recorded in Slade's inheritance, Nick did not understand it but that wasn't necessary to activate the formation. This is a formation that uses laws related to soul magic to calm an agitated soul, the stronger the soul the weaker the effect that the formation would have but since Nick just started cultivating his soul, this formation was perfect for what he wanted to do.

As for why he was doing this in the store, It was simply because there was no other place that he could discreetly use to contain all of these animals, not to mention that using a formation to transport them would attract a substantial cost that Nick could not afford. It was one thing to ask for the animals on credit but the Apprentice Magicians that operated the store's formation had to be paid and Nick did not think that Carla would help him in that regard so he decided to devour the animals' souls here.

Nick did not care about people finding out about his method because Slade assured him that the only way someone else could use this formation is if the knew its mystical language which according to him was impossible. Also, the academy protected their students and their students' creations fiercely in order to nurture them so Nick had not need to be concerned about anyone targeting him. With all this in mind, he decided to take a risk and reveal this method.

Marshall came close to the magic formation and asked:

"Mr. Nick, what exactly do you plan to do?"

Nick smiled and replied:

"Just watch."

Most of the animals were already in place and there was a little over one hundred of them and so Nick sat in the center of the formation and cast his spell.

(Eat Soul.)

An old black bear in one of the cages started to move shakily as an almost translucent miasma rose from its body and flew ten meters to enter Nick's mouth and be swallowed by him; the black bear then fell to the cage's floor, lifeless. Nick could feel the agitation of his soul from consuming that animal's soul.

Nick began to chant some words of the formation's mystical language and the formation began to glow with a bright crimson light. In a few moments, his agitated soul was calm and the formation stopped glowing once Nick stopped chanting.

Marshall stood at the side with his mouth agape.

(What the hell did I just witness?)

As Marshall looked at the young man sitting down in the middle of the magic formation, he felt a chill run down his spine.

Nick looked on with cold eyes.

(One down.)

............

By the time Nick had finished consuming souls, it was already 10 pm. He had taken over twelve hours to finish because he frequently needed to stop to let his magic energy reserves recover to an acceptable level as Eat Soul consumed about one quarter of his magic sea every time it was used and he also needed time to recover mentally after consuming a certain amount of souls despite the effects of the soul calming formation.

Nick got up from the ground and dusted himself off. He currently had a feeling similar to when he ate too much, a kind of discomfort. Slade read his thoughts and spoke:

[Your soul has been strengthened to a point that If you continue to strengthen it without refining it, you will die. That is why you are feeling discomfort.]

Nick nodded.

(That sounds about right. Refining the soul involves removing impurities and excessive magic from it, basically shredding parts of it which is not a very pleasant process, even more so if you do not have methods to quickly heal your soul; it's a good thing that Slade's inheritance has those methods. However, I should avoid doing that for now, until I become a rank 2 Magician so that I can reap greater benefits.)

Marshall was still standing near the formation looking at the carcasses one 123 dead animals in the distance, all affected by whatever magic that Nick had cast. He turned to Nick and asked:

"Mr. Nick, are you done?"

Nick scratched the back of his head and replied:

"Sure am. You didn't have to wait here the whole time, you now. I could have found my way back to the main hall."

Marshall shook his head, saying:

"I would not leave until I finished attending to the customer."

Nick shrugged his shoulders and said:

"How very professional of you. Well, about the carcasses..."

Marshall quickly interrupted:

"We'll get rid of them for you, no problem."

Nick smiled because he did not want to stuff all of the into his space band one by one.

"Alright, since my business here is complete. I will be going now."

Marshall nodded and led Nick to the main hall where unexpectedly, Carla Jenner was there waiting on them. Nick looked at her with confusion.

(Why would she be here this late? It couldn't be because of...)

Before Nick could finish his thought, Carla spoke with a tone that did not permit a refusal to her request:

"Mr. Nick Capitol. Why don't you come to my office. We seem to have more to discuss than I had initially thought."

Nick smiled bitterly.

"Sigh, lead the way Miss Carla."