Chapter 84: The Mysterious Stone

Since arriving in the royal capital, Andy had been spending money like water, and the small fortune he’d made from Viscount Colin was gradually exhausted. Now, he was faced with the embarrassing predicament of having no magic stones left to acquire new knowledge.

And it wasn’t just Andy—Catherine also needed to study new witchcraft, and no matter how talented she might be, without the accumulation of knowledge, her magical practice would be as rootless as water without a source or a tree without roots.

Catherine, in fact, faced an even more serious problem than Andy: her meditation technique was incompatible with her own magic. All of Stein’s apprentices had learned the same meditation method from him, namely the “Castellon Meditation Technique.” Bill, for instance, had already switched to a technique more suited to himself after guidance from Diga. Andy, by chance, found perfect harmony between himself and the “Castellon” meditation, wielding fire magic with great ease. For Catherine, however, the more her powers grew, the more she felt the “Castellon Meditation” was unsuited to her.

Catherine possessed the body of a Nether Cat, which gave her the highest affinity with dark-attribute meditation techniques. Moreover, the spells she specialized in were mostly curses or weakening types. Thus, a dark-attribute meditation method was the best fit for her. Yet, the fire-attribute meditation she currently practiced failed to allow her to fully display the capabilities of a Bronze-level witch.

Meditation techniques, as the core of magical knowledge, were strictly regulated—even students of the Upper Academy could not access them at will. As far as Andy knew, information on meditation was stored above the third floor of the library, and each technique required thousands of magic stones just to borrow, even for the most basic and common ones, such as the Gale Meditation or the Blazing Flame Meditation.

A meditation technique of the same level as Andy’s current Castellon would require not only more than five thousand magic stones but also the expenditure of Academy contribution points to access. Andy discovered that the best dark-attribute meditation available at the Academy, the “Klein Black Hole Meditation,” was even more rare and precious than those of wind, water, fire, or earth, and thus its borrowing fee exceeded ten thousand magic stones, together with a significant amount of contribution points.

Since coming to the Outer Academy, Andy had been so focused on his studies that he’d never even visited the Academy’s task hall to learn about missions. Naturally, his contribution point balance was zero. Even if it weren’t, his lack of magic stones prevented him from accessing even the lowest-tier dark-attribute meditation method.

Faced with this situation, Andy’s first thought wasn’t to earn magic stones and accumulate contribution points the honest way, but rather to consider if there was some alternative route.

He first thought to inquire whether anyone in the Academy was practicing the “Klein Black Hole Meditation,” hoping to buy a second-hand version from them for fewer magic stones. After some investigation, however, he learned this was impossible.

The Academy imposed strict control over meditation techniques, as they were fundamental to magical practice. Every student who borrowed a meditation method had to sign a magical contract with the library, which, bound by magical limitations, made it impossible to teach the technique to others. This was why, generation after generation, so many students passed through Grim Academy, yet their magical families only inherited the most basic, widely available meditation methods. Otherwise, advanced techniques would have flooded the continent long ago.

As for the “Castellon Meditation” that Stein taught to Andy and the others, he hadn’t learned it from the Academy, but rather acquired it in the Castellon Secret Realm, which allowed him to pass it on to his apprentices without restriction.

Realizing this approach was futile, Andy loitered around the library for quite some time, only to find the security measures so intense that his scalp tingled. There were numerous magical array fluctuations of unknown purpose in the vicinity, and Andy could clearly sense the unmasked aura of a Silver-level wizard inside the library. As for other concealed defenses, Andy had no knowledge, nor did he have any interest in investigating further.

His behavior soon attracted the attention of two members of the Academy’s Disciplinary Office on patrol. They stopped him for a thorough questioning, and when they checked his student card and found he had a record, their interrogation became even more detailed. They even went inside the library to check the situation, and only after confirming that nothing had happened did they allow Andy to leave. As he departed, the two from the Disciplinary Office gave him a meaningful look, as if to say, “Behave yourself— we’re keeping an eye on you!”

What Andy didn’t know was that his student record now contained two entries accessible only to Disciplinary members and the Academy’s upper echelon: one for willfully disrupting class order, fined one hundred magic stones; and a new one—suspicious activity in the vicinity of the library!

Realizing there was little chance for shortcuts, Andy was forced to think seriously about ways to earn magic stones. Not because he wanted to save up for borrowing materials from the library—he had already found a much more economical method.

That was his Hysterius Magic Mirror.

Back in Dallas City, Andy had used the magic mirror to learn the Allen family’s secret technique, “Dominion Body.” Now, faced with difficulties in borrowing resources from the library, he naturally decided to test the mirror’s utility.

As expected, as long as the material had ever existed in the library, it could be searched for with the mirror, and the magic stone fee was less than a fifth of the library’s charge. This result left Andy speechless; he’d always considered the mirror a rip-off, but the Academy administration was evidently even worse. Not to mention, some materials also required contribution points.

Thus, Andy only needed to find the titles of the necessary resources in the library, then return to consult the mirror for the specific content, whether for his own magical specialties or for Catherine’s “Klein Black Hole Meditation.” Both he and Catherine could study through the mirror, saving a fortune in magic stones.

Andy copied down a long list of titles from the library, then went home and asked the mirror how many magic stones each would require, compiling a table for future reference.

He found that materials priced highly by the Academy also demanded more magic stones from the mirror, indicating that the mirror’s valuation was consistent with the Academy’s.

This gave Andy a way to roughly assess the value of any item without spending magic stones—he only needed to inquire about an item through the mirror, and the more stones required, the higher its value.

Curious, Andy used this method to appraise everything he carried.

To his astonishment, the most valuable thing he owned was neither the magical “Joseph Mask” nor the nearly omniscient magic mirror, but the unknown stone he had seized from the bizarre “Edward” atop Stein’s wizard tower.

It would take… one million magic stones just to inquire about it!