Vega squinted his eyes, trying to find traces of dust on his potions but finding none. Finally letting out his breath, he pocketed all the potions carefully. One potion sold for five magic crystals, which was not a lot of money but still profitable considering the ingredients only made him lose one magic crystal. His improvements made it easier for Vega to succeed more when creating potions and helped him gain more profit.
After making sure the table was free of the residue of any leftover ingredients, Vega looked around the room for his book. After changing the decorations with all the furnishings he brought from the West, he found his room getting smaller.
The book laid on the ornate dress evoked his memory while staying in the sect. Fumbling around his medal, Vega felt it was too soon to contact Dion after only two days of separation. But after looking at the desk, Dion's smiling face appeared in his memory.
With a little mana, he activated the medal and traced the weird symbol he had specifically memorized to initiate the contact.
"Hello Vega!"
"Hi Dion! It's nice to see you again. I have this idea to make my own school."
He projected the memories of when he was training the students and how happy he felt for having something to do. He knew that training was his first step toward building his own sect, but his whole goal was trying to stop the kids from hating the other factions that much.
"That's great! "I wish I could also teach people here how to fight, but fighting is common here in the sect."
"Yes, I realized. That's what makes it easier for you guys to fight because of the experiences you've had. That's why I want to do similar things here. As you know, the academy didn't think much about anything besides learning and improving minds and souls."
Laughter sounded in his head.
"Yes, I remembered that. Why don't you ask your master about it? You know that your master was even nicer than mine, right? Here, inner disciples can't do much."
He nodded. "That's actually a great idea. But my master is always cold here. She wasn't like someone you know while she was in the sect. But I hope she didn't let me undergo another training because I almost destroyed the library."
"What?! What happened?"
When Vega returned to the academy, he smiled and showed Dion what had happened, and Dion felt sympathetic toward him. Sighing, Dion looked at Vega.
"You do really need to get the sound magic under control. Even the sect heard the legend of Krimitak. Sound magic was not something that you could dismiss easily. At least, your mentor knew firsthand how to stop yourself from losing control again."
Vega smiled, and his heart felt warm after hearing his friend's concern about him. He promised to learn more about sound magic and not have another incident that got him banned from anywhere else.
After ending the call, he stretched his palm out. The book floated toward his hand and was flipped to an empty page. Considering his questions, Vega read the passages about some strengths and weaknesses. Expecting to learn more, Vega shook his head while reading the same information he remembered from his lessons.
His mentor was correct. All the apprentices used the ambient elements around them to drive their spells. Even Vega needed to use the air around him. And Charlice also used the ground under him when it almost pierced his perfectly clean robe.
The only thing Vega didn't understand was when he was stuck in the cave; he remembered slightly that his friend, Wyatt, used something incredible to melt the stone without using any sparks or fire initially.
He decided to finally contact Wyatt after a long time. Wyatt's knowledge would be useful for his next session. He had learned a lot, and it was fair to keep the friendship going.
Vega shut the book tightly and drew a circle on the stone floor with the chalk he had prepared before. Mumbling Wyatt's name three times, Vega snapped his fingers and closed his eyes.
Wyatt's instructions for contacting him were a little different from how he normally contacts his friends. Instead of using his medal, Wyatt taught him the ritual to connect his soul with Vega so they could talk to each other. The ritual made it safer because no one else could spy on their conversation, but the drawback was he could only hear sounds in his head instead of the normal connection from medals where someone could even show him where he was.
"Hi there! I thought you were never going to contact me." He heard the deep tone from the other side.
"It takes me a while. But we experienced life-and-death crises together. How can I not consider you my friend?"
"That's true. How's the academy?" Wyatt was still like his usual self, minus the depressing aura around him when he found out his school life was basically over.
"Nothing new. I'd like to say thank you for teaching me a lot of stuff about potions. It helped me save some people."
"No worries. Thank you for your knowledge. Now, from your talk about the city, I'm trying to develop a whole concept about trams that's probably beneficial for commoners."
That's so Wyatt. Vega and Wyatt only spent several days trapped together, but probably because of that, he felt Wyatt was a nice person for sharing many things with him. He shuddered at his first experience going out and recalled the strange soul trying to devour him.
Vega took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. "That's great! I know you can do it. Your knowledge of sigils was pretty advanced. But Wyatt, I'm here to ask you something. How can you activate the explosion spell without using any sparks or even fire in the first place?'
"Ah! That! I didn't think I exploded anything. "But melt the stone, right?"
"Oh, right. "I didn't remember much of what happened."
"That's okay. So the process is called "transference. You're going to learn it more when you study sigils. It's to help you use the same liquid but use your mana to raise the intensity. For example, you can change a whole rock into sand without using spells. Just transfer the properties of the things you hold to the target." This is a little complicated, but it is really good for crafters to create things without needing to have the spells to do it."
"Okay, so basically you still need something with you?"
"Yes, yes." "What are you going to do anyway?"
"Nothing, just something that I realized with the elements in general." Thanks Wyatt. I hope we can meet each other again in the future. "There are a lot of things we can talk about!"
"Will do! Don't hesitate to contact me again in the future, okay?"
"Same to you." Vega opened his eyes, stood up, and cleaned the circle.
He originally wanted to ask Wyatt to show him, but the nature of their conversation was different from using medals. Even though Wyatt can teach him using words, Vega needed a demonstration to learn something.
After he tidied his room, Vega felt his stomach growl. Feeling a little embarrassed, he rubbed his belly and put everything aside to fulfill what his stomach needed first. Looking at his last magic crystals, Vega shook his head and chose to go to the port, where the food was cheaper than the academy restaurant.
As usual, the port had too many people working there, causing a noisy atmosphere. Two figures walked slowly with crystals on their heads. Vega shuddered and walked quickly to his mentor's house.
When Vega touched his medal to the formations, nothing happened. His mentor was not inside, so instead Vega pocketed his medals and walked back with his head looking down. But something in the stall caught his attention. The smell made his stomach growl.
The stall sold meat with a familiar taste. Vega found someone and asked, "Excuse me, ma'am. What meat is this?"
"A boar kid." something they can easily find outside. "You're an apprentice, right?"
"Yes."
"Would you like to help us get more boars? We are running low, and the boar was pretty easy to hunt. You didn't have to finish it today, but we need them by the end of this week."
Hunting sounded nice. It had been too long since Vega hunted something. And the forest outside the academy had many plant ingredients he could use for making his potions without spending crystals. Vega agreed, and the owner of the stall took out a piece of paper detailing the terms of the contract.
Vega signed the paper with his mana, and then the woman took another contract and did the same thing with it. After Vega licked his fingers clean from the grease of the boar meat, he put the contract safely inside his ring by pretending to open his pouch. After that, the woman waved, insisting that the meat was free because he agreed to help her. She even showed a single line on the contract stating exactly what he had missed. Thanking the woman, he left the stall, looking at the port.
The port was basically the main area in the academy that could be considered the center point. When Vega looked around the port, he saw many apprentices, especially the higher-level ones, trying their chances to venture outside by themselves. It was easy to spot the high-level apprentice; most of the time, they walked with a certain air around them because they knew, with their power, they could be considered a powerhouse.
He couldn't wait to reach the high level and leave the academy without the need for his mentor's or anyone else's assistance. He heard about many interesting places in the Islands from their descriptions alone.
Most people are stuck as intermediate- or high-level apprentices without having their chance to advance. Even the woman who offered him the quest had an aura of intermediate level around her. Probably because she had already given up on her advancement, she chose to live the rest of her life earning profits from selling all sorts of creatures in the port.
He passed several strong auras sweeping over him and walked faster, returning to his place. He tried not to draw attention to himself and whistled the cloaking sound. The air vibrated around him, preventing people from noticing him. Feeling the magic spread, Vega ran and closed the door behind him.
He flipped the book open and tried to memorize many details about the boar and the surrounding forest. Fortunately for him, the island where the academy was located didn't have many dangerous creatures. Surrounding islands had their own ecosystems and different creatures, and most academies wouldn't build theirs because they were surrounded by threats. Considering adepts weren't as advanced as the practitioners to defend themselves.