Kai allowed Fred to leave, and then turned back on the arrays within the training room. The cost of this was almost negligible, since it took in Mana from the surroundings to activate, and every year, he would only need to spend 20 Mana crystals for maintenance and repairs.
After activating it, Kai downed the [Merman Scale Potion], and closing his eyes. Within 10 minutes he fell unconscious, sliding into the sweet embrace of sleep. However, this would be the most productive 12 hours of sleep Kai would have, in terms of growing his power, since the past 2 and a half years.
…
Meanwhile, Yu had finally succeeded in producing a Magic Scroll.
"Ha!" Yu exclaimed as he lifted up the completed item. Unlike the failed attempt before, this one had a slight metallic shine to it, which symbolised that it had been successfully produced.
"Yu! Quickly now! Before the protection spell dully sets in, engrave your signature." The disciple, who could be considered their teacher and not a fellow student, exclaimed. Yu turned in his direction but tilted his head in confusion.
"Dammit! I didn't explain it to you before. Anyways, pick up your Spiritual Tool and place it on a corner of the item, then inject your Spiritual Energy, but do not control it completely. Instead, let it flow naturally, but just constrict its size to fit the size of a thumb. Quickly now!"
Yu nodded and wordlessly followed the instructions, and what occurred stunned him. His Spiritual Energy rapidly took over the region had limited it to, but as he kept injecting more and more, it began to form patterns and collect together.
Soon enough, the patterns form an image that became clear to Yu and the disciple who had been teaching him all this time. Even Denice, Ben, and Sarah stopped their work to come over and look at Yu's first completed work, as well as why the disciple was making such a fuss.
"Well, this is unexpected. Your Spiritual Symbol seems to be not fully complete… But that does not matter. What matters now is for me to explain what a Spiritual Symbol is. Well, as you four have already seen, it is formed when a Mage injected a portion of their Spiritual Energy without controlling it fully. The resulting pattern that is formed is linked directly to your Spiritual Energy, so you will feel it if someone breaks it. More importantly, no one at your Rank, or a Rank above you will be able to copy your Spiritual Symbol to earn money by using your name, or to target you by selling fraudulent goods."
"Well, if someone at or above 2 Ranks more than your current Rank is targeting you… well you will not have enough time to be making Alchemy Products like this Magic Scroll now would you?"
"So effectively, it is like your personal signature for when you wish to establish a name for your goods in the market?"
"Yes. Exactly."
"Thank you." Yu bowed to the disciple.
"Alright then. Give this completed one to me, and here, is your promised reward. 10 Mana crystals. You can do whatever you like with them, but I would suggest you purchase more Alchemical Paper and Ink and make yourself more adept at this process. Plus, you will only be able to get 5 more ink and paper this time since the Tower will no longer supply them to you like the first time. Therefore, you will need to be a lot more consistent considering you spent 9 tries to get a successful creation."
"And you three. You have spent almost 5 failed attempts, and that is fine, however, you have taken almost double Yu's time to achieve this… you couldn't even fail at the same speed as Yu. Pick up the pace, or else you will be removed from the Tower!"
With that, the disciple walked out of the practice room as his hours were over. Yu and his 3 subordinates slumped over, the former in satisfaction, while the latter in dejection. However, not 10 minutes later did Yu get back up, and began using his last set of paper and ink to try another time.
He was convinced he had gotten the hang of it, and that he could make another successful one. The others silently followed Yu's actions and stood back up, continuing their work as well.
Unfortunately for Yu, his creation of a successful one just appeared to have been a fluke. His following attempt was a failure, and Yu was left rather dejected. Just then, seeing Yu's dejected posture, Sarah seemed to have lost her concentration for a moment, resulting in hers being a failure as well.
"No!" Sarah cried out as another one of her scrolls failed.
Hearing this, Denice and Ben turned to look over, their Spiritual Tools veering off course and resulting in their own scrolls turning out to be failures as well. The successive failures of all 4 individuals within the room caused a deep silence to cover the room for a moment before all four of them burst into laughter.
Yu's mood was also considerably uplifted by this event as he decided to use the Mana crystals he got to purchase more materials for creating scrolls.