April 7 Year 30,366
Two more weeks have passed since Cairo got the approval from Kira to use his method of making the Soul Crystal Shards. In these past two weeks, his progress was the fastest he ever had
With Cairo regularly using the crystals, his comprehension of various things steadily grew at a fast pace. His improvement shocks even himself and he became even more thankful that he didn't try to sprint into mage rank before
The more Cairo learned the more he realizes what kind of consequences it will have if he made his Magic Core too shabby. His dissatisfaction with his teachers grew because of that. And now, Cairo mostly studied by himself and will only consult an expert when he stumbled into something that is too hard for the current him to understand
However, with the use of the crystals, there is almost nothing that Cairo cannot understand about magic at his level
Cairo is still in the library and he almost didn't leave it nor his lab for the past two weeks. It doesn't affect Cairo that much though, he would gladly stay inside his lab if it means that he will continuously be stronger
On top of the library's table was a prototype of Cairo's core. It only has the rough framework of what Core he wants to have but making it will help him a lot
After all, a hypothesis is still a hypothesis, in the end, the ending might still be different from the one a mage anticipated
There are currently two types of runes in the core and they have a sandy brown and black color. Those runes represent Cairo's understanding of sand and shadow magic
Sand magic has always been Cairo's forte while his shadow magic reaches the second because of the savage ball magic of Cairo that required his extensive knowledge about shadow magic to activate
Cairo puts some mana in the runes and they interacted with each other and the kid made some adjustments here and there. The more magic one trained on, the harder it would be to make their core
A lot of mages would choose to not just include all of the types of magic they are best suited into their Magic Core to lower the difficulty but Cairo doesn't like that
Only when the foundation and knowledge are perfect, would the mage reach their fullest potential
After making some more adjustments, Cairo signaled Del and the man spread his mana around. The library is not the best place to experiment but it would be a bother if Cairo needs to change place every time he needs to try something
As a result, Cairo had Del help him. To make sure that nothing in the library would be damage, Del would always spread his mana around to protect them
As soon as Del finished the preparations, Cairo puts his right palm on the Core and some of his mana entered it before he controlled it to use a simple magic
A single ball of sand appeared in front of the Magic Core and it flew for several meters in distance before it met an invisible wall that Del had made
Cairo nodded his head at the result, there is nothing wrong that happened between the core and runes after he uses them to activate a magic
Cairo poured some mana into the core again and this time, he uses a different magic
A small black ball was formed and Cairo spread his senses to it before he frowned. The core and runes were supposed to strengthen the magic that was cast through them but Cairo found out that the increase in strength was unstable
Some parts of Cairo's Savage Ball has weaker pulling and shredding power in them than the others. Thus, Cairo needs to make some more adjustments
With this rate, it would surely take Cairo a lot of time before he can finish his Magic Core even with the help of the crystals
Cairo wasn't afraid of losing time though as after the mage rank, most things will depend on the Magic Core. If Cairo made a strong enough Magic Core, he might even reach the peak of the Mage Rank after he made his Magic Core
As for after the Mage Rank, Cairo only needs to regularly 'update' his Core whenever he learned more things about magic. It was that 'simple'
One of the biggest reasons why mages can't advance further has something to do with their Core. Not all people can comprehend and understand complex magic yet their core would also be a huge deterrent factor, how can they advance because of that?
Cairo continued to make more adjustments in his core and whenever he does that, he would try to activate magic through the core to see if it was working properly
After a few hours, Del was forced to interrupt Cairo as today is the day. It was exactly two weeks since the first batch of magic beasts arrived at Cairo's Lab. It is now time to extract the parasitic worms in them
Cairo stops whatever he was doing first and he starts walking towards the location of the beasts along with Del
As much as possible, it would be better if Cairo is the one that will extract the worms so that as few people as possible would know about it. Only when Cairo is at an extremely critical point of his cultivation would other people do it
After a few minutes, the two reach the underground of Cairo's Lab where thousands of magic beasts that are howling in pain are located
The two immediately started the extraction process. Del can do this alone but his main role is still to protect Cairo. Even if the kid is still just inside his lab, Del still can't be far away from him. Most dangers happened when you least anticipated it
For Kira, her brother is still more important than these crystal soul shards
After some time, they fully extracted the worms and they all turned into crystal soul shards. Only dead magic beasts remained now in the cages and they need to be 'recycled'
Magic beasts bodies are not to be thrown away as a waste as they still have a lot of uses
Some seeds appeared from Del's hand and he sprinkled them on all the dead magic beasts. The seeds immediately grew some small sapling while the dead beasts dried up
When the beasts are killed by the extraction of the worm, they really did not receive any physical injuries and their bodies are still intact. No blood was spilled and the seeds had the best time of their lives
"Are they Corpse Flowers?" Cairo asked and Del nodded his head. "When the flowers mature, they have a lot of uses. It would be waste to just throw the dead bodies of these magic beasts" Del replied and the small saplings detached themselves to the dry husk of the beasts they were in to move into another 'healthy' corpse
The seeds would need more than one corpse to fully grow and when they bud, the flower would have some ability to defend themselves
When they are still seeds, they can only wait until a corpse will land on them and they don't have any kind of power. However, when they became matured Corpse Flowers, they would finally have some offensive capabilities
Too bad that when that time comes, there are already a lot of mages ready to process them
Cairo's interest was piqued by these corpse flowers as they have some good abilities. Cairo starts thinking if he can research and use them
Mages can gain special magic through their cores. The magic can either be passive, active, offensive, defensive, etc.
In all the magic that a mage can use, the one in their cores were the most special. They don't necessarily be that powerful, it's just that, the mage can use them to their fullest potential much easier
Cairo took a mental note of these flowers. He still needs some time before he needs to think of the special magic he will put to his core. The most important thing is to finish all the components of his core
After collecting all the crystals and taking care of the corpses that were left, Del immediately ordered for an audience with Kira that was already waiting for them for a long time already
The two exited Cairo's lab and with the kid's special position, they flew inside the city until they reach the Royal Palace of the Larton Kingdom to personally give the crystals to the Queen
Although extremely few people know of the Crystal production method, this is still a way for Kira to show her power. The Queen already showed what she can do before but time ... time can numb a lot of people
As of now, everything is going well. However, in the future, the bad thoughts that the Nobles and the important officials of the Kingdom suppressed would still resurface
With Kira having a monopoly with the crystals, her grip on the Kingdom would be tighter. The few people that know the method are all people that have a great influence on the Kingdom and it would be harder for them to try to antagonize the Queen