The next morning.
When he opened his eyes, Reilo still felt as though everything that had happened yesterday had been a dream.
Warm sunlight streamed through the glass window and fell across the white sheets. After confirming that he really was in the Moon Bay Inn at the Grand Natural Academy, and that yesterday's events hadn't been a dream, Reilo sat up in bed.
Suddenly remembering something, Reilo sprang up and picked up the Space Box Shatuo had given him yesterday.
"This is incredible!"
Reilo played with the Space Box, delighting in it and unable to put it down.
After a while, he took out the Folding Fan given to him by Senior Brother Wushuang, the Scare Bottle given to him by Bailing, and the Ice Fire Bird Notebook given to him by Lianyi, examining each one closely.
Reilo hadn't yet mastered a scholar's Energy Magnetic Field—that is, the magic power known to mages—so he couldn't use the functions of these two pieces of Magic Props. But that didn't stop him from admiring them.
First was the Magic Folding Fan.
Though it was cracked in several places, he could still make out a three-headed monster bird with its wings spread across the fan. It looked imposing and seemed to be some kind of Magical Beast with a natural affinity for wind.
"Wait!"
Reilo noticed that the fan ribs seemed to be made of some kind of special wood. The real mystery was the fan leaf: it clearly wasn't paper pressed from plant fibers. It seemed to have been woven from some extremely fine, delicate material!
After thinking it over, Reilo took out a magnifying glass, one of the items Shatuo had given him along with the Space Box.
He examined the fan leaf closely through the magnifying glass for a while before finally discovering its intricacy. He couldn't help but gape in astonishment.
The fan leaf had unmistakably been woven strand by strand from some kind of feather fibers. Then, using an unknown method, tens of thousands of tiny runes had been etched onto it!
Seeing such delicate feather down perfectly twisted into strands, then woven crosswise into a fan leaf and etched with tens of thousands of pinhead-sized energy runes, Reilo was overwhelmed. Was this Alchemy?
"Such astonishing craftsmanship—yet Mentor Gubo called it a minor field of study?"
Next, Reilo looked at the Scare Bottle.
The dark green Scare Bottle was very small, with no decorative patterns on its surface. An ordinary wooden stopper plugged its mouth. Reilo tried to pull it out, but perhaps because he lacked an Energy Magnetic Field, the stopper was wedged tightly in place and wouldn't budge.
Shaking his head, Reilo knew these Magic Props were strange and gave up trying.
As for his mentor's wife's Ice Fire Bird Notebook, he examined it for a long time. Apart from being made of a special material that would preserve it for a long time, it didn't seem to have any other unusual functions.
Last was Mentor Gubo's money pouch.
"Five gold coins and sixty-three silver coins. That's far more than my father earned in a whole year of hard hunting, yet my mentor gave it to me so casually. Sigh..."
His mind wandered, but then he remembered that last night's stay at the inn had cost him three silver coins. Reilo felt a pang of pain, as if his heart were bleeding!
Three silver coins—that was three hundred copper coins.
In Lake Onyx Town, that could buy fifteen kilograms of Black Bread, nearly a month's worth of food!
This showed just how high the prices were within the Grand Natural Sciences Academy. They were nothing like those in Lake Onyx Town.
"Right!"
Reilo suddenly remembered the Star Core Necklace he wore against his chest.
"Father said the Star Core Necklace can tell whether prey has Magical Beast blood in its body. I wonder if it'll react to these Magic Props!"
The pendant looked like an unremarkable Agate Stone. Reilo found a slight bump on it and pressed it while pointing the pendant at the Folding Fan.
"Beep beep beep! Detected: Three-Headed Wind Kite feathers, 60 grams; Storm Wood, 254 grams."
It really could analyze the material composition!
If he studied Alchemy under Mentor Gubo, could he use the Star Core Necklace's ability to analyze materials to try to replicate some advanced, complex Magic Props?
Curious, Reilo pressed the Star Core Necklace's button again, this time pointing it at the Scare Bottle.
"Beep beep beep! Detected: damaged, weak soul. Energy too weak; unable to analyze."
It seemed the soul was the Scare Bottle's main value, and it didn't appear to be very high-grade. No wonder the Scare Bottle had sold for only a few silver coins compared with those astonishingly valuable Magic Props. If he could master the techniques involved, it probably wouldn't be difficult to make one.
Next, Reilo turned to the Ice Fire Bird Notebook.
"Beep beep beep! Detected: Ice Fire Bird hide, 400 grams; Memory Marrow, 15 grams; Mountain Essence, 1 gram; Mithril, 0.25 grams."
"Hm?"
Unexpectedly, this Ice Fire Bird notebook was made with several other materials, and its crafting process seemed unusually complicated. No wonder Mentor Gubo had looked so pained at the time.
Realizing his mentor's wife had given him a treasure, Reilo happily put it away.
Finally, Reilo pressed the Star Core Necklace's button while pointing it at the Space Box.
"Beep beep beep! No valuable substances detected."
He wasn't sure whether the Star Core Necklace couldn't analyze the Space Box's materials, or whether the materials used to make it simply didn't count as valuable to the necklace. Either way, he got no results.
"How could that be?"
After thinking it over for a while without coming up with an answer, Reilo put away his gifts and stopped dwelling on it.
He got out of bed and got dressed.
"Now that I've left Lake Onyx Town to escape The Church and come to the Grand Natural Academy, I need to work hard to build a life for myself. The most important thing right now is to find somewhere to stay!
"This inn costs three silver coins a day. That'll be ninety silver coins a month, almost a gold coin. The price really hurts."
There weren't many people on Scholar Street in the early morning. Most were opening up the busy shops.
Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud!
Suddenly, the bluestone road beneath his feet trembled. Passersby noticed and scattered.
A troop of mercenaries in assorted clothing came running quickly down the middle of the street. The armor or Animal Skin Coats they wore were stained with grime and blood, as if they had just been through a fierce battle. There were more than ten of them. On the back of a galloping Long-Haired Giant Elephant, which thundered along with a "thud, thud," lay an injured man whose face had turned blue. He appeared to have been poisoned.
"Move! Move! Everyone, get out of the way!"
Black smoke billowed from the nostrils of the enormous Long-Haired Giant Elephant, filling the air with the smell of sulfur.
Reilo stepped aside and stared in shock, silently comparing its size to his own. Hundreds of people his size probably wouldn't be enough for that terrifying elephant to trample for fun. It was no ordinary person could stand up to it head-on!
"That's the Mammoth War Hammer Mercenary Group!"
"Gasp, looks like the duchy is at war again!"
Reilo heard the passersby whisper and swallowed nervously.
For Lake Onyx Town, in the heart of the Grand Duchy, the word "war" was unfamiliar. But that didn't mean the townspeople weren't afraid of it. The terror of war—and its death toll, far higher than hunting in the Demon Eagle Forest—still haunted them.