There had been the unfortunate matter of getting scolded, but the trade negotiations between the Dwarves and my parents ended successfully.
Aleph and Father both wore satisfied expressions as they talked for quite some time.
“You truly have a fine son. He’s righteous and exceptionally capable. I imagine he even came all the way to our village for the sake of the knights in his territory.”
Once the negotiations ended, Aleph began recounting tales of my exploits.
My parents laughed heartily as they listened, but I quickly slipped out of the lord’s castle before I could get scolded again.
Outside, the knights were admiring the armor loaded onto the wagons.
Arhan, who had been testing out a sword, met my eyes.
“I heard you were the one who obtained all of this, Lord Lumio?”
At his words, the other knights also looked toward me and bowed their heads.
“You’re really giving all of this to us for free?”
“We’ll put it to good use. Thank you!”
Knights were people hired and paid by the territory.
No lord went so far as to provide them with new armor as well.
If one died, they could simply hire someone new.
But knights were reluctant to come to the North, so every single one of ours was precious.
“There isn’t nearly enough armor here for the entire Knight Order. Once I earn some money, I’ll buy more and give it to the rest of you.”
“As if you have anywhere to earn that kind of money, Lord Lumio...... Still, just hearing you say that is enough to make me feel full.”
No.
From now on, we probably won’t have to worry much about running short on money.
I thought that to myself while looking at the ore packed inside a large chest.
“I’ll be going first.”
I bowed, then placed a hand on the chest.
The knights seemed unable to understand what I was trying to do.
When I bent down to lift it, Arhan hurriedly stopped me.
“Lord Lumio, that weighs more than thirty kilograms. If you try lifting it carelessly, you’ll throw out your back.”
I chuckled and showed him with actions instead of words.
I easily hoisted the chest into the air.
“......Huh?”
“Take care.”
Suppressing my laughter at the knights’ startled expressions, I quickly walked away.
My casual manner seemed to shock them even more.
“Didn’t two men struggle to carry that thing earlier?”
“Wait a second...... How did he lift that with such a skinny body?”
Thanks to my 3rd Circle perk, mana had settled into my body like muscle.
Thirty kilograms was nothing.
To be precise, it was probably closer to 35kg.
There were also three low-grade monster cores inside the chest.
When I asked the Dwarves for them, they had obtained them without much difficulty.
With this, all the preparations for upgrading the Magic Tower were complete.
Carrying the chest, I climbed halfway up the mountain and stood before the Magic Tower.
【Upgrade Magic Tower to Lv2?】
“Yeah.”
The ore and cores inside the chest dissolved into beautiful light like the Milky Way and disappeared.
RUMBLE!
Then the Magic Tower shook.
Walls rose upward, transforming the structure into a two-story tower.
The magic involved was so advanced that even I, who was deeply versed in spell formulas, couldn’t begin to measure it.
【Magic Tower upgraded to Lv2.】
【2nd Floor 'Magic Laboratory' unlocked.】
【Magic Tower Lv3 Upgrade.】
100 low-grade monster cores.
3rd Floor Magic Forge (enchantment and curse removal available) unlocked
***
Once the shaking stopped, I entered the Magic Tower.
I climbed the staircase that had appeared in the opposite corner after the upgrade.
‘It’s been a while.’
The second floor of the Magic Tower was the Magic Laboratory.
True to its name, rows of pristine white desks filled the room, while shelves along the walls held paper, flasks, and an ancient book.
The ancient book was the laboratory manual.
Its contents were already stored in my head.
I immediately walked toward the desk in the center.
There was a recessed groove on top of it, with a small piece of magic ore placed inside for practice.
Next, I spread a sheet of high-quality paper across the desk and cast magic onto it.
When it came to magic scrolls, healing magic naturally sold the best.
3rd Circle spell Recovery(Recovery).
It was the higher-tier version of the 1st Circle spell Refresh.
Deep green magical power, dark as leaves, wrapped around the paper.
At that moment, the magic ore placed on the desk shone brightly, trapping the magical power inside the paper.
Even a highly skilled mage in the royal capital would need three or four hours to make a 3rd Circle magic scroll.
But with the Magic Tower, I could make one in around ten minutes.
“And so the drudgery begins.”
In my previous life, I had simply sold them here and there to people in the South, so I didn’t know their exact market price.
I had also held back from making scrolls that were too advanced because I worried they might attract attention from the royal capital.
This time, I had Loa.
Through her, I should be able to sell them for a considerable price.
One kilogram of magic ore could produce five scrolls.
“I should meet Loa tomorrow. I need to secure more materials anyway.”
As I muttered that, Yulian entered the Magic Tower.
His voice came from downstairs.
“Lord Lumio!”
“Come upstairs.”
“There’s an upstairs?”
Yulian looked around before climbing the staircase.
Father had called him in to report what happened in Kardum.
“Did you get scolded?”
“No. I told him I was only doing what you ordered, Lord Lumio, so he understood. Still, he said we absolutely have to tell him before leaving next time.”
Yulian added,“More importantly, what exactly is this place......?”
“A laboratory.”
I dragged out the word as I tossed him a magic scroll.
“It’s where I make things like that.”
“Isn’t this a scroll?”
Yulian held the neatly rolled scroll tightly in both hands.
“To think I’d actually get to hold something I’d only heard rumors about......”
“Want to try it?”
“Isn’t this valuable?”
“I told you, it’s fine. I wanted to test whether it works properly anyway. I’m not injured anywhere, so you’ll be able to judge the effects better.”
“I did bruise my shoulder during training this morning......”
Yulian swallowed hard and slowly unrolled the scroll.
“How is it?”
“......This is insane.”
Yulian clenched his fist and stared at his own body.
“Not only is the pain gone, I’m overflowing with strength. It feels as though I drank an elixir.”
“Then there doesn’t seem to be any problem with its performance.”
“But from what I’ve heard, even good magic scrolls have a high chance of failing to activate. I suppose I got lucky.”
Just as he said, most scrolls on the market had a fifty-percent chance of failing to activate.
That was because impurities from the atmosphere entered during the process of creating the scroll.
They were expensive and could still fail, so the people who bought scrolls were mostly nobles.
They didn’t purchase them for actual combat.
They simply wanted the rare experience of using magic themselves.
When your life was truly in danger, they were frustratingly impractical items that forced you to gamble on probability.
But if that probability became one hundred percent, scrolls could change the course of a battle.
“The ones I make never fail.”
“......What?”
Every item created here was the same.
Which meant that if I made a potion, it could contain mana of 100% purity.
“Come with me to the Loa Merchant Company. Let Father know.”
“Couldn’t we just sell four scrolls to some merchant?”
“From now on, I’m going to supply hundreds of them...... No. Once the Magic Tower advances far enough for automation, I’ll be supplying more than ten thousand. We need to negotiate properly.”
Yulian had spent his entire life confined to the North, so it was understandable that he didn’t fully grasp the value of these items.
That was why we needed to go to someone who did.
***
The southeastern part of the North, Rostelzier Kingdom.
By the time we reached the Loa Merchant Company’s second base, the sun had set and the moon was peeking into the sky.
The gatekeepers already knew my face, so entering the hideout posed no problem.
The moment I stepped inside, a rough voice rang out.
Apparently, someone had lost a great deal of money gambling.
“Fuck, isn’t this rigged?”
This place was rough every time I visited.
Today, there was even a large gang gathered together.
I glanced at them.
They had snake tattoos on their necks.
“Bring more alcohol!”
“Don’t you have any women?”
‘......I picked a bad day.’
As I thought that, Yulian asked sharply,“Do you know them?”
“......Only that they’re a bunch of lunatics.”
There was no reason to get involved with them.
Loa could deal with riffraff like that herself.
We passed the noisy men and approached the room where Loa was staying.
The company member guarding the entrance recognized me, bowed, and opened the door.
“Company Head, you have a guest.”
Loa had been frowning down at a sword on her desk.
The moment she looked up and saw me entering through the door, her face brightened into a smile.
“......Lord Lumio? What brings you here without warning?”
Then she joked playfully,“I doubt you came because you missed seeing my face, so what do you need?”
I chuckled and answered,“There’s something I’d like to supply you with.”
“I heard the news. You’ve started trading with the Dwarves of Kardum too, haven’t you? Are you trying to sell armor? Unfortunately, we already have plenty of that......”
“It’s something else. By the way, there aren’t many company members here today.”
Unlike last time, the only other person in the room was the mage guarding her.
“Something came up downstairs. The others are away on business.”
......Well, that one mage was more than enough to guard her.
She might look like an ordinary woman, but she was a mage of at least the 5th Circle.
“So, what is it you want to supply?”
“These.”
I placed the four scrolls I had brought onto the table.
“Magic scrolls. Judging by the color...... 3rd Circle?”
“You know your stuff.”
“A mage in the royal capital once asked us to sell one for them. We probably still have it sitting in the warehouse.”
Loa scratched her head.
“But if they’re only 3rd Circle, they’re actually lower-level than the ones we already have. They probably won’t sell very well...... As you know, few people buy scrolls because of their failure rate. But if you sell them cheaply, they aren’t worth the time it takes to make them.”
“The ones I make don’t fail.”
“......What?”
“One hundred percent. I intend to commercialize them. We’ll sell them slightly below the average price, but in much greater quantities......”
The mage beside Loa interrupted me.
“That’s impossible. A magic scroll with no chance of failure cannot exist. Even my master in the royal capital was unable to make one.”
“Erina.”
Loa called her name.
“......My apologies. It was something even my master longed to accomplish, so I became overexcited.”
“It’s fine. But I wasn’t lying.”
“I cannot believe that.”
“Then would you like to bet on all four of these activating successfully?”
“What would we wager?”
I answered without hesitation.
“One hundred low-grade monster cores.”
“Those take forever to gather. There’s no demand for them, so they aren’t worth much money, and even when monsters are killed, their cores usually aren’t left intact.”
‘So that won’t work after all. Then again...... even after killing that many monsters in Kardum, they only managed to get three.’
In that case......
I pointed toward the sword on Loa’s desk.
“How about that sword?”
“The Black Magic Sword? It’s cursed, so no one can use it anyway. We went to all the trouble of obtaining it, but now we can’t even sell it......”
“If I lose, I’ll buy it from you at full price.”
Loa exchanged glances with Erina.
“No backing out. That thing is more expensive than you think.”
“I was about to say the same thing.”
I raised the corners of my mouth confidently.
There was only one problem.
All four magic scrolls contained healing magic.
Without an injured person, it would be difficult to clearly demonstrate their effects.
If we used one on a perfectly healthy person and they insisted nothing had happened, there would be no way to prove otherwise.
At that moment, the door flew open.
CRASH―!
“I heard the Company Head was in here. You fucking bitch. How dare you scam us?”
It was the snake-tattooed group from earlier.
Up until now, I hadn’t particularly disliked them.
People losing money gambling and causing a scene was nothing unusual.
As long as they didn’t cause trouble for me.
TAP.
One of the men reached roughly for my collar, then instead slapped my cheek a couple of times with his hand and sneered.
“What’s with this pretty-boy bastard? Move.”
‘Okay.’
Well, that changed things.
Congratulations.
You’ve just been selected as test subjects.