Magic Stone

Biodata

Economic Function

Education and Research

Magic Stones determine whether students can remain at the Tower of Dawn. Newcomers receive three months of free tuition, food, lodging, and necessities, but must subsequently support themselves. Sally warns that students unable to secure sufficient scholarship funding will be expelled 5.

• Scholarships: The Comprehensive Assessment awards Magic Stones according to spiritual talent, spiritual-energy growth, spell construction, disciplinary knowledge, and laboratory contributions 5.
• Material advances: Sally supplies students with Magic Stones for class materials, deducting the expenditure from their scholarships 12.
• Remote instruction: Tower Wizards receive a monthly course allowance worth twenty Magic Stones; additional classes require separate payment 48.
• Knowledge access: Books available through the Knowledge Library can carry recurring fees rather than outright purchase prices 76.
• Research funding: The Tower distributes substantial Magic Stone funding to laboratories. Successful research can generate patent income for contributors 97 109 112.
• Compensation for damage: Pella warns negligent researchers that their accumulated contributions may be converted into Magic Stones to compensate their gathering 123.

Purchasing Power

Potion Trade

• Cultivation expenses: Level 1 potions commonly cost dozens or over a hundred Magic Stones, with expensive examples reaching several hundred. Regular potion use can require at least several hundred stones each month 61.
• Scarcity overrides wealth: Mode cannot readily obtain a perfect-quality Thunder God Fire Potion even with sufficient money. When Leo offers one, she proposes a price of 2,500 Magic Stones 124.
• Earning ability affects advancement: Keli argues that stronger learning ability helps Wizards acquire profitable skills, making income an important factor in progressing from Second-Rank to First-Rank Wizard Apprentice 126.

Connection to Prophecy

Discovery

After learning to materialize Prophecy Spells with the Prismatic Dragon Scale, Leo sees luminous white threads wrapped around his body. He traces them into his Spatial Storage Bag and finds that they originate exclusively from its Magic Stones—not its food, water, or other materials. The threads extend toward the Tower of Dawn’s Central Region 108 109.

Further observation reveals similar threads around every Wizard Leo examines, including Sally and Tesla. Stronger Wizards have denser concentrations of threads, which Leo associates with their greater Magic Stone holdings 109.

Leo’s Interpretation

• Suspected caster: Leo identifies the Tower Lord as the likely source, reasoning that few others could cast a prophecy encompassing even powerful Wizards 109.
• Possible original purpose: He suspects Magic Stones may have served as prophecy mediums from the beginning, with the founders’ distribution of currency expanding the spell’s reach 109.
• Institutional support: He reinterprets free introductory education, transportation, research funding, and assistance for unsuccessful students as possible ways to sustain the currency’s circulation and acceptance 109.
• Reach beyond Wizards: Knight orders, demi-humans, and ordinary people participate in the same economy. Leo concludes that possessing even one stone is enough to become entangled 109.
• Dependence: Despite the danger, Leo initially sees no practical way to abandon Magic Stones while continuing his advancement 109.

Secrecy and Resistance

A later conversation about Magic Stones is deliberately sealed from the apprentices’ memories, with the explanation that they will remember it after becoming Formal Wizards. Leo’s Prismatic Dragon Scale restores his recollection, but he pretends to have forgotten alongside the others 205.

Eventually, Leo seeks a believable way to dispose of both his accumulated wealth and continuing income. Beckum recommends unproductive research laboratories capable of consuming money indefinitely. Leo subsequently confirms that these deliberately loss-making investments are intended to sever Augusta’s Prophecy Studies threads 345 346 348.

Financial Risks and Exploitation

• Dangerous commissions: Knight orders normally offer five to ten Magic Stones for subjugating dangerous creatures. Tesla treats a fifty-stone offer as a warning that the target is unusually dangerous 22.
• Debt and dependence: Knights sign Magic Stone loan contracts to obtain treatment for the Siren’s Song. Afterward, one indebted knight offers Leo his loyalty as an attendant 37 38.
• Shattered Starstone investments: Mode reports losses ranging from thousands of stones to debts of tens of thousands. Moben later charges five hundred stones for his business method, then denies responsibility when his followers lose money 112 115 116.
• Disrupted research: The investment craze distracts Pella’s researchers and eventually contributes to violent disputes over repayment 116 123.
• Experimental subjects: Molly accepts a dangerous verification experiment for a promised ten thousand stones, hoping to secure her tuition and future studies. The experiment leaves her close to mutation 348 349.

Notable Transactions