I entered the big tower, following Egon, the entrance was very luxurious, no guards, no reception, something rather normal since the requests were made directly by requedt through a letter or by invitation that was quite rare.
Egon : "Atleast they are working and not talking in the entry area"
Lucian : "apart from all the people waiting for you"
Egon : "I go away for some days and they are already lost"
Being quite isolated from the others, one might think that the tastes of the magicians could leave something to be desired but far from it, they had quite a big collection of luxury objects and ornaments each more fancy and costly than the others.
Egon : "I am telling you, don't even think about taking anything from here"
Lucian : "Each object is too big to take with me secretly"
Egon : "And don't touch them either, they cost much more than your entire life"
This entrance hall leads to two large staircases that took us to the upper floors, on each floor there was a reception room and the rest was devoted to research in different fields, the manufacture of magical weapons, the improvement of spells, invocations and a lot of specified field.
Egon : "Nice Nice, everyone is busy as it is supposed to be"
On the lowest floors the most expensive searches with the largest floors, which are quite logically the ones that are requested more often and on the highest floor smaller spaces for officies or small research rooms.
The one where we are going is directly on the first floor, the making of magic weapons with the fabrications rooms almost as large as all the rooms in the entrance which are nevertheless the common living rooms so it's really really big.
Egon: "Team 1, we have a big order for you, intermediate level chestplates, reinforced weapons and defense crystals, I give you not more than today"
Some magicians : "A day ?? He is insane"
Egon : "You better not fail"
He put down his paper which had all the information about the precise orders and the number requested, the budget was also indicated on it.
But before he could leave the area a man appeared and stopped him from leaving this place directly, a person like the other magicians that was clearly not happy about the new order.
??? : "One more order, we are crumbling under the requests and in addition in less than a day, you really don't care about me"
Egon : "When I see all the mess you did last month with a lot of our budget I really wonder why you are complaining"
??? : "I know that, but we dont have the material for that"
Egon : "You will use all the scraps from your little experiment, now I have other things to do"
??? : "Why me...."
A sentence from Egon was enough to silence him, not an administrator for nothing, this magician was really powerful, they listened to him and then took the armors that we had brought with us and immediately set to work.
Egon : "Now you follow me"
Lucian : "More climbing stairs huh"
Egon : "Yes"
Then he climbed a few more floors through several different research laboratories before arriving at his office almost at the top of the tower.
Egon: "You're going to have to wait until it's over, before you leave, you can read the books you want but above all don't touch anything, their is mostly dangerous objects"
In his office it was a carnage, a lot of diffenret object with weird shape, form or colors, for what I could see they had onsane quantity of mana in them atleast more than my own.
Lucian : "Dangerous, how much ?"
Egon : "You are gonna die painfully if you touch the bad one"
His offer to read books was rather tempting, at least he didn't waste my time by bringing me here, the magicians have a lot of documents on mana, which is to say a big thing for me.
Lucian : "I can take whatever book ?"
Egon : "Yes, not sure you will inderstand any of them"
So what was I going to take, I had to be very careful, if I took something too complicated or theoretical, I would look suspicious, if I only take basic stuff it has also has no use for me.
Egon: "So you finally choose something, you're interested in magic weapons"
Lucian: "It takes at least that much for me to defend myself correctly from futur danger"
Egon : "Whatever you want"
Indeed, I had chosen a book on the different techniques to build a magic weapon, he must have judged that I was wasting my time since other than the noble, normal people did not have the means or the necessary connections to make one that was really useful.
But that's a mistake about my real goal in doing this, I didn't have the slightest intention of making a magician I don't know build my weapon or armor, no I was going to do it myself.
Lucian : "That needs a lot of material to make something good"
Egon : "You could spmething alright with just a little piece of metal, depends on what you want"
He showed me what looked like a metal plate with some weird writings on it and a little red jewel that seems to have a fire effect.
Lucian : "I don't have the talent to do that"
Egon : "That's for sure"
For doing this, I could almost believe myself to be quite lucky, indeed the territory of the demon being infested from top to bottom apart from the borders which are constantly monitored, the rest of the territory is unexplored, which means that apart from the small resources in peripheries which can be collected even at the cost of several human lives the rest is untouched.
I wonder what kind of crystals and metals the army of evil found while digging the mountains or underground and what type their is, maybe I could do some weird things.
Lucian : "Is their a difference from what could be found in the demonic territory"
Egon : "They are full of demonic mana so not usefull for humans"
Egon seems to wonder if the Baron had that idea, he seems interested, maybe he could learn some stuff about the Baron by the same time.
Lucian : "Why do some nobles try to get them?"
Egon : "They are a good decoration, or to be sold to the black market"
Especially since unlike human territories where there is a lot of territory for little mana, here there is a lot of mana for the territory and concentrated near the demon king's castle, which also makes the infection stronger and stronger near the castle. Which means that all the jewels and metals are very loaded with demonic mana, which is a big step forward to my potential armor or weapons.
Egon : "If you're that interested, you can go watch them forge some while they're working"
Lucian : "I will not refuse the offer"
Egon : "Don't annoy them"
He must have given up the idea of monitoring me after seeing me spend several hours reading rather basic books on a little bit of everything and pretending not to understand anything by switching from one book to another very quickly.
He let me go downstairs while he still continued his work as an administrator, whether on budgets or orders, he had a phenomenal mountain of work and didn't want to lose more time.
Egon : "Finally calm, damn it he didn't tell me much"
Egon : "I already asked the command anyways so it would have been to late"
I went down immediately but I hadn't planned to do exactly what he had planned, I had clearly seen the authority he had over the other magicians which means that I can access almost all the rooms just by mentioning his name, by the time he realizes it I will have already left far from here, three-quarters even being afraid of him there was probably a possibility that he would never even know.
??? (Same guy as earlier): "What are you doing here, we haven't even done ¼ of the order, you can leave again"
Lucian: "The magician in blue let me access here to look at you"
??? : "He still gives us extra chores, if he weren't my superior ah..."
Lucian : "But he is"
He let me in when frankly I had absolutely no proof of what I had said earlier, He asked me not to get in the ways of people who work, which anyway I was not going to do since I was in a corner.
From what I could see there are 3 ways to create a magic weapon, either by directly infusing a quantity of mana into the weapon or the armor, it seems to be the cheapest option even if it is less effective and temporary.
??? : "Hey do your chores correctly or else we are gonna get in troubles"
Magicians : "Yes sir"
Or merge mana with a weapon during the fabrication of it, which is the case for the weapons that the baron had requested, it is more complicated and may not work perfectly but it is more effective and lasts longer.
The third way which is by far the best for me, insert a magic crystal into the weapon, the magic crystal is charged with mana and can be set according to what the user wants, in addition it is much more powerful and the mana recharges quietly thanks to the mana in the air.
??? : "Well can you go tell Egon that we'll be done a little after the requested deadline"
Lucian : "Sure"
??? : "Pfff, I don't have to do it myself"
I see he didn't want to do it himself, then since Egon hadn't had time to accompany me here, he must have probably thought that he wouldn't take the time to come down just for a delay of a few hours.
But it's a bit stupid since the administrators themselves have to check the validity of the orders before leaving them to the owners so he would surely have to come down.
??? : "Guys we better speed-up, if we take to much time we will have an unfortunate visit"
Magicians : "We will try our best"
It gives me a pretty good opportunity to go do something other than watch them do nothing, so I got on my way to the magician's library to kill the time (a real bookworm the mc), it's not every day that you are allowed a few hours in the magician's library without supervision.
Because it's just below the offices, I had to do it discreetly, if I got caught by another administrator or by a manager I could be in a bad spot, but well I will try to not get caught.
Lucian : "Okay their is no one here"
In the personal library, fortunately I could search for what I wanted, I immediately started searching for information, whether it's about crystals, different types of metals, different combinations and even advanced books on mana.
But I had to stop after a good ten books when a child with white hair and white eyes appeared in front of me, a kid that I did not even see coming or heard, I coukd get away with that.
Child : "What are you doing here, I had never seen you here"
Lucian : "What are you doing here ?"
Child : "I have the authorisation"
He was magnificent but dangerous, that would probably be the best way to describe him and also someone brilliant on top of that, he had an advanced mana book with him and yet didn't seem to just have fun with it.
Lucian: "I am the guest of an administrator"
Child : "I see, which one ?"
Lucian : "Egon"
I didn't have to elaborate in speech, at best he was one of the sons of a magician or at worst he was one of the children who was going to potentially become a magician in the future.
In today's society, normally before the age of 15 years old, children only have the right to basic education, but well, everyone knows very well that noble sons use their privilege and money to train in the same professions as their parents, it is also quite common among peasants, since it was the only hope to potentially earn more money (even if it is still illegal).
Child: "Do you understand this book?"
Lucian : "Yes I do"
Child : "It seems hard"
Lucian : "Not harder than yours"
Not taking it for a threat, hiding my book didn't seem necessary to me but it seems that he was surprised by the level of the book, I had nothing to lose by talking to him as he was also pretty suspicious himself.
Child : "You seems to have an hard time with this part"
Lucian: "Yes I see that the magic rate per crystal seems too low to me"
Child: "Yes, the crystals are usually not used in big quantity attack as you have to manage also the natural recharge time, which makes magician do most of the time small crystals"
He's pretty smart the kid, he immediately understood the problem without actually telling me the solution, not bad.
Let's see what he's reading, something about summoning circles, that is, about ways to stabilize mana and summon mana creatures, something very different from my research point.
Child : "You want to know about circles ?"
Lucian : "If you can show me"
Child : "Of course I can"
He used his hand to manipulate mana in the air and make me able to see it, a circle with some red marks, a spell for fire magic.
Child : "Now that you have that, you can put any quantity of mana and it will automatically do a fire spell without having to contentrate and even without a specified fire mage"
Lucian : "Seems usefull for low ranking people"
Child : "It is"
After he showed me something, totally flexing what should only be able by magician and not by just a random kid who isn't even 15yo, I saw that a lot of time had passed, close to the end of the day Egon had given to the magicians, it unfortunately seems that I have to go back.
Lucian: "I'll have to go, good luck to you"
Child : "You seems to need more luck than I do"
The time really passed very quickly, I couldn't read much of the hundreds and hundreds of magician's books but well the order had to be finished, now I have to go again, the mana collection will finally be able to start.