Chapter 83: The Mission Hall and the Primal World

(Open your eyes!)

After exiting the virtual world, Lando was in a pleasant mood. Considering he still had some free time, he decided to head to the Academy's Mission Hall to see if there were any worthwhile tasks available.

There were three types of missions at Silver Tower Academy. The first came from outside the Academy, typically commissioned by merchant guilds or independent laboratories and research institutes. These missions mainly offered monetary rewards, though occasionally there were material prizes as well.

The second kind consisted of tasks assigned by the Academy itself, most of which involved exploration of different worlds. The main purpose of these missions was to train students. When Lando traveled to the Four Kings World, he’d taken on precisely such a mission, and the rewards were usually academic credits.

The third category was missions issued by the Academy’s faculty, which students generally referred to as benefit missions. To students, Academy professors were all fabulously wealthy. These tasks, in addition to credits, also came with special rewards from the instructors. For instance, the auxiliary materials Lando used to upgrade his sentinel had come from such a mission.

Lando arrived at the Mission Acceptance Hall, one of the few lively spots in the otherwise quiet Academy.

He found a chair and sat down. Upon his arrival, Little Grey was already connected to the Academy’s mission system, and a screen was projected before Lando’s eyes. He began browsing through the offerings.

He started by checking the world exploration missions. After all, these were the most lucrative for him. But after some searching, none seemed particularly ideal—until a group exploration mission in the Black Domain caught his eye.

The Arcane Empire had carved out an enormous swath of the universe through exploration. While vast areas within the Empire’s borders remained uncharted, communication, teleportation, and virtual world access were all available within designated boundaries. Beyond the Empire’s reach, however, lay regions known as the Black Domain.

During the Empire’s era of rapid expansion, countless races and civilizations were swept away. Yet not all were easily vanquished; some had been formidable enough to challenge the Arcane Empire itself. After their defeat, many fled into the Black Domain, their hatred for the Empire as deep as the ocean. Coupled with the Empire’s own intimidating presence, most indigenous civilizations in the Black Domain both feared and resented the Empire. The Empire couldn’t be bothered with these insignificant powers, but for explorers, they posed considerable trouble.

Silver Tower would periodically dispatch exploration fleets into the Black Domain, and that’s when group missions would become available. These didn’t require students to do much, mostly mundane chores aboard the ships, the main purpose being to let students experience the Black Domain firsthand.

From what Lando knew, the fleet’s real objective during the Four Kings World mission had been to explore the Black Domain; picking him up was just a side task.

Lando was quite interested in the Black Domain, largely because his mentor always described it with an air of “that place is full of treasures—you can strike it rich just by digging around!” However, with group missions, coordinated actions meant there’d be no opportunity for personal ‘mining’ time, so he decided to pass.

After browsing a while longer and just as he was about to settle for a simple errand mission, a new task suddenly popped up—a mission he’d specially flagged, one from Professor Flora Aquino, known for offering rewards that were even more special than the so-called special rewards.

This professor was, in fact, quite unremarkable, but Lando remembered him well thanks to his missions and their rewards.

He only ever posted one type of task: mining—real mining. The rewards were equally consistent: beyond credits, an advance on a small mining-capable spaceship.

The Aquino family’s main business was shipbuilding. Their family’s research institute possessed a piece of strategic-level technology: a large-scale mineral vein scanner. This “large-scale” meant it could cover an entire medium-sized world in one sweep.

Leveraging this technology, an obscure little guild had rapidly become one of Silver Tower’s top shipbuilding giants.

The mineral scanners were extremely precise, so in addition to large and medium veins, they also detected many scattered, low-value ores not worth the guild’s effort to mine directly. At that point, Professor Flora Aquino would post a mission, advance a mining ship to the student, and have them do the heavy lifting.

For students, as long as they mined the required quota under the ship’s monitoring, the system would automatically shut off further oversight, meaning any additional ore they extracted was theirs to keep—plus, they’d get a ship for free.

For Professor Flora Aquino, these were discarded mineral scraps anyway. Having them mined at minimal cost was pure profit. And since the scanners were so precise, the mandated quota would always be the lion’s share of the total resources.

It was a win-win!

Lando had long wanted a spaceship, but lately, he was strapped for cash. After hearing about this professor’s missions, he’d been eager to try for one himself. Unfortunately, these tasks were so in-demand they were snapped up instantly every time. Today, by chance, he finally stumbled upon one.

He clicked to accept at lightning speed, but stopped himself at the last second—he’d noticed that this mission involved mining a rare element, and the estimated duration was a whole year. While he hesitated, the mission’s status flipped to “accepted.”

A little disappointed, he realized he wasn’t willing to spend an entire year just to get a ship.

As he was about to resign himself to an errand mission, he suddenly received a transmission from Mentor Aldo, summoning him to the laboratory.

Having made a fruitless trip to the Mission Hall, Lando hurried to the lab.

The moment they met, Aldo said, “There’s an interesting native world—want to go?”

“I’m in!” Lando replied instantly, then asked curiously, “What exactly is a ‘native world’?”

Aldo explained, “A native world is one where the owner or governing powers deem its development uniquely promising. To avoid interference and preserve future potential, outside explorers are forbidden from interfering—and sometimes even from entering at all.”

“Of course, there’s another scenario: the owner is powerful enough to declare their world a native world, and others simply have no choice but to comply.”

“This time, it’s the latter case. The world is the offshoot of an ancient crystalline lifeform, which has just awakened and is ready to renew its wager with the Empire. I went ahead and signed Silver Tower up, and managed to secure three slots. Pity—each faction is limited to three, otherwise I’d have gotten even more for Silver Tower.”

“Mentor, you’re incredible! Are you already starting to wield some of the Empire’s authority?” Lando asked, eyes shining.

“Some of the Empire’s authority?” Aldo answered dryly, producing an ornate seal and tossing it in his hand. “The Imperial Seal—only the presiding Speaker can exercise that authority. I found it on the Speaker’s desk. And I haven’t seen that Speaker in over a month!”

By the time he finished, Aldo was nearly grinding his teeth.

“Heh, I really wonder—if I started issuing random orders with this seal, who would take responsibility if something went wrong?!”

Staring at his resentful mentor, a doubt echoed in Lando’s mind.

Is there really nothing wrong with the Arcane Empire???

P.S. Started writing from ‘Open your eyes’—Achievement unlocked!

You might be curious about the Arcane Empire’s system of governance. To clarify, the last section isn’t just a joke. When Lando eventually becomes a Grand Arcanist and gets closer to the core, I’ll describe the Empire’s power structure in detail. Then you’ll understand.