Kai collected a grey cloak; an exact replica of the one he had seen Hans and the other Disciples of the Santok Magic Tower wear, as well as the same one Yu was wearing. Other than that, Kai also collected a ring, which Yu had also received by now. However, their rings were rather different.
Kai's ring was deep blue in colour, and made out of coarsely cut rock, while Yu's ring was a bright yellow with a green serpent coiling around it.
To a normal person, it may seem like Yu's ring was definitely better and higher in value, however, Kai was told that his ring had the function not just of identification, but also held a lot of his details and was bound to him forever, only upon his death would it be removed, or it would be destroyed.
Along with this, Kai was given 50 Mana crystals as a started fund to allow him to begin his journey as a Mage.
…
In contrast, Yu was given nothing other than the ring for identification, as well as the grey cloak. Furthermore, unlike Kai who was given the freedom to explore the sect, Yu was collected together with 4 other 'Item Production Disciples' and taken to the lower floors of the Santok Magic tower.
Here, the Second Batch student introduced him to a Magic array which he was meant to memorise within 2 days, and make a copy of using the paper and ink provided.
They had given Yu 10 pages and 10 bottles of ink, as well as a feather, and told him to come out with at least once moderately successful replica of the original.
"If you are able to do this, you would be given 10 mana crystal, as well as a mediation method, which normally would cost over 50 mana crystals, however we will give it to you for free. Don't look at me like that. There is a reason for everything. With this technique, you will finally begin on your path as a mage. Once you have enough Spiritual Energy, which is what you will gain after using the meditation technique, you will be able to create true Magic Scrolls using Magic beast skin as paper, Magic beast blood as ink, and Magic beast bones as a pen. By imbuing your Spiritual Energy into the bone, it enters the ink on the bone and thus is entered into the drawing of the Magic array."
"You do not need to understand what these mean, just know that for each successfully crafted Magic Scroll of a Rank 0 spell, you will be given 10 Mana crystals. You should know that purchasing 5 sets of beast skin paper and beast blood, you require 10 mana crystals."
"What about the Magic Beast Bone Pen, or whatever you call it?" Yu questioned.
"We will lend one to you for the time being. As long as you keep creating Magic scrolls, we can leave the Bone pen with you. One more thing, for every 15 sets of paper and ink you purchase, you have to sell one to the Tower, or you will not be given any more sets."
With that, the Second Batch youth left, Yu and the 4 other Item Production Disciples were left along in the room dimly lit by two glowing stones. Each disciple had a differing magic circle they had to copy onto regular paper to prove that they were capable of doing something like this.
Yu had a rough prediction of what he was getting into when Hans had described everything to him, however this kind of treatment was definitely something one would do to a slave.
'Well… considering those of high status; who also had Low Elemental Talent… they would definitely not join the Santok Magic Tower and be forced to be part of the Item production Disciples, and instead return to their regular activities as a normal human.' Yu mused as he began going through the drawing.
It was essentially a series of concentric circles, with other circles and shapes, as well as lines and symbols similar to the ones that appeared on Kai's left hand when he used the Five Elephant Palm Eternal Art.
Yu had already ensured that the system had recorded this but had told it not to send the information to his mind, just to see how quickly he was able to complete such a task without its help, you know… in the off-chance that the system is taken away from him, or sealed like in many novels.
Unfortunately for Yu, it took him a whole day to successfully memorise most of it, and he started trying to copy it on paper, where he failed so spectacularly, that the shape did not even remotely resemble circles, and was more akin to a squid spraying ink onto the paper.
Sighing at this development, Yu asked Kai to make the system forcefully enter the diagram into their minds, while also calculating the easiest way to create it, as well as the most accurate way to do it.
Yu knew that he would need to use the 'easiest' method, for now, to get officially admitted into the Item Production Disciples. Once that happened, he could slowly improve his control over the ink and pen enough to use the most accurate method and produce better-quality results.
For now, however, Yu followed the rest of the dejected disciples out of the basement room where they had worked, and been fed at, past the single restroom for the 5 boys, and then to a neighbouring room with 5 beds.
None of them complained as they went straight to bed after having spent the entire day trying their best to learn an incredibly hard magic spell scroll.
Meanwhile, Kai went to the temporary dormitory for new students, found himself a bed, and went to sleep.