Times Have Changed

Inside the Contribution Point Exchange Hall of Cuilan's academy.

Fran was leaning back in a chair, holding a copy of "Fire and Creatures" in her hand. On the table next to her were seven or eight newly redeemed printed copies.

"No wonder even the Elemental School don't include this stuff, it's so weak!"

Fran couldn't help but complain after flipping through it once.

Although she knew that the books available here for apprentices to freely exchange for with Contribution Points were definitely not as good as the knowledge taught by the School itself, she never expected that this book would be so bad.

The book is quite thick, with over two hundred pages, but Fran considers no more than 20 pages to be meaningful.

Its content is completely mismatched with its title. It is said to be about Fire and Creatures, but most of the content is just an animal guide that is only somewhat related to fire.

Even the content introducing these animals mostly consists of short anecdotes about the creatures themselves, with very little narrative depth—simply describing how the creature traveled from one place to another, what it ate, etc.

The most meaningful content is in the final chapter, which is also the only chapter related to magic.

It describes a kind of fire release that can induce fear or friendliness in living beings, but when Fran wants to see what this spell actually works...

She discovered that the book only presented a principle: the actual structure of magic has nothing; it's like having only a concept, without any content.

"Hopefully the next book will include more magical knowledge."

That was all she could do. She couldn't do anything about books that didn't match the description; the Contribution Points had already been redeemed and couldn't be refunded.

Furthermore, since you can only look at the title when choosing books, and can't even look at the first few pages, it's quite normal to find such bad books.

Fran came to the Contribution Point Exchange Hall to redeem these books because she wanted to obtain enough books to meet the promotion requirements.

After several days of selling Spell Ring, her spells covered most School magic. She only lacked the relevant knowledge to meet the promotion requirements, and a few more names were added after "Profession mage" to her Panel.

For example, she is currently working hard to find knowledge related to the Elemental School. She has many Elemental School spells on her Panel, and even half of them have reached the mastery level. Among them, the Wind Blade Art, which she learned at the beginning, is about to reach the Extraordinary Level.

So she wondered if she could first find knowledge of the Elemental School and acquire expertise in elemental magic.

The Elemental School, as a long-established School, produced an unparalleled number of books.

She only realized while flipping through the catalog that half of the books in the exchange catalog were from the Elemental School Elemental School, which shows the quality of these books.

Fran has already redeemed nearly ten books, but she still feels no sense of condensing the Elemental School Profession.

Take your time.

Although she hadn't succeeded despite using so many books, she felt that she was getting closer and closer to her goal.

If I had ten more books, I might be able to successfully acquire the elemental magic feat.

She was determined to acquire the spells specializing in the Elemental School, because her current specialty, Wind Blade Art, was an Elemental School spell. She didn't know why it was allowed to be sold, which is why she obtained it a long time ago.

"Why haven't we arrived yet?"

Fran frowned. She had made an appointment to exchange money for Contribution Points here.

The school year isn't over yet, and although she's taken a lot of courses, she's confident she can earn Contribution Points based on her own abilities.

But since the course hadn't ended yet, she couldn't earn Contribution Points no matter what she did, so she had no choice but to resort to her old profession—buying and selling Contribution Points.

She's different now. Before, she had to sell Contribution Points to get the starting capital, but now she can buy hundreds of Contribution Points with her Gold Coin without batting an eye.

A series of hurried footsteps came from the entrance of the Contribution Point Exchange Hall. Fran looked in the direction of the sound and found that it was someone she knew.

Milank came running in, panting. At first, when he reached the agreed-upon place, he didn't recognize Fran.

"Hello, you're here to purchase Contribution Points..."

Suddenly he choked, because he realized that the person in front of him was very familiar; it was Fran, the one he had bought Contribution Points with last time.

However, this time the buyer-seller relationship has changed; this time, he's the one selling the Contribution Points.

"Advanced Apprentice Fran," Fran greeted first.

"Advanced Apprentice... Milank."

Milank's face was full of surprise, but he quickly composed himself and awkwardly expressed his surprise.

"I only have four Contribution Points, which I carried over from last school year."

When Fran saw Milank again, her strongest feeling wasn't surprise, but curiosity.

She was very curious as to why Milank was selling Contribution Points. From what she knew, apprentices who bought Contribution Points were generally striving to become Formal Mage and were currently in their rapid ascent period, so they needed additional knowledge.

Why did Milank decide to sell his Contribution Points after more than half a year? Did he no longer intend to become Formal Mage?

Why are you selling official Contribution Points?

"I... plan to go back to my father's place and take a clerical job under the lord."

Milank gave up. Before taking the exam last academic year, he was full of confidence, thinking that he could definitely become the next Formal Mage. But after the exam, he gave up the idea.

Although he tried his best to avoid conflicts with others during the assessment, which allowed him to emerge unscathed, he did almost nothing in terms of the assessment results.

When he first stood in this unfamiliar environment, he found that his previously smooth spellcasting became sluggish, even difficult to execute...

After the assessment, he knew he could not become Formal Mage because he could not adapt to the assessment environment, and failing to achieve good results in the assessment meant he could not become Formal Mage.

He made this decision a long time ago, but a few days ago he remembered that he still had a few Contribution Points that he hadn't used. Thinking that these Contribution Points were also money, he made an appointment to sell them to human traffickers.

"Just give me the first four books on the second page of the table of contents."

Milank was somewhat surprised by the request, but after confirming it, he stopped talking and brought up another matter.

"So, one Contribution Points is currently worth 24 silver coins."

He scratched his head, feeling a bit strange; he was now buying back four Contribution Points for almost twice the price he'd paid before.

This price is reasonable because the supply and demand are currently very unbalanced. A large number of Contribution Points were used to select courses in the last Weapon Forging class, and now that the academic year has just begun, everyone's courses have just started, so naturally no Contribution Points have been credited.

"This price is a bit high," Milank thought. The fifty silver coins he spent last time were also a considerable sum for him, and he had calculated it carefully before deciding to buy Contribution Points.

Fran didn't even blink, casually pulling out her money pouch and taking out a Gold Coin with a clinking sound.

"Keep the change, loose silver coins are too much trouble."