Nick acted immediately to design an earth path and space path magic formation while considering the rank 2 earth path materials within his space band in order to extract the dark-brown liquid magic material within the well. Nick continued the designing process within his mindscape, after returning to Silent Ark and reactivating its camouflage ability.
Nick spent about six hours finishing the design for the extraction magic formation, which had functions that allowed it to extract liquids from the ground using earth path laws and store them within a space bubble using space path laws. Since Nick had ample magic materials, he would not have to man the magic formation himself as long as the extraction process did not take more than a few hours.
(My master attainment in earth path is proving useful, now.)
Nick then deactivated Silent Ark's camouflage and exited it. Following that, he cast Big Copy in order to imprint the design for the magic formation onto the ground, around the well's hole entrance. The magic formation was circular in shape and covered a radius of five meters. Big Copy manifested the magic formation's laws using a kind of red pigment. After laying down the magic formation's base, Nick added earth path and space path magic materials to it, which took another hour to arrange properly.
The extraction formation consisted of over 300,000 Valteesian symbols that were related to both earth path and space path. Once he was done arranging the magic materials, they were immediately subsumed into the extraction formation's base, at which point, the formation glistened with a dull-brown glow.
Nick quickly spoke the extraction magic formation's trigger phrase and it activated, following which, its dull-brown glow became slightly brighter. Nick returned to the inside of Silent Ark while the magic formation did its job and waited for results; Nick had reactivated Silent Ark's camouflage ability at the start of his waiting. Ten minutes into the extraction magic formation's operation, a space bubble finally appeared over the well's opening and grew as dark-brown liquid filled its interior at a steady pace; the extraction formation made a low buzzing sound while it performed the extraction of the magic material but Nick thought that it was bearable.
(I don't know what rank this magic material is but it should be higher than rank 2. High ranked magic materials can be harvested using lower ranked methods so long as their magic resistance is not too vigorous. There are magic materials that are impossible to harvest using lower ranked methods but there were also just as many that could be harvested using lower ranked materials. This dark-brown liquid seemed to be a part of the latter kind of magic materials.)
Four hours later, the well was completely extracted of the dark-brown liquid and the space bubble remained over its opening, having grown to a large size. The space bubble now had an internal radius of about thirty meters and dark-brown magic material filled it entirely.
(This has to be at least 50,000 liters' worth of the dark-brown magic material.)
That was an enormous amount but the space bubble that contained the magic material made transport easy since all Nick had to do was store it within his space band. Nick's space band did not have an unlimited interior space but space still remained that he could use to house objects, including the space bubble in front of him. Nick stored the large space bubble within his space band within moments and returned to Silent Ark after that and following the reactivation of its camouflage method, Nick sped off in a random direction.
The terrain of the realm remained the same for hours after - rocky and flat. Nick was eventually forced to slow down because he sensed signs of life a few hundred kilometers in front of him. The images that appeared within Nick's mind revealed a house-sized magic beast that that looked similar to a rhino that had bone spikes rising from its spinal column; it had dark brown fur, scarlet colored, blood-shot eyes, black skin, a black, crystal like horn at the end of its snout and it had four thick tree trunk like legs. Nick did what he assumed was the smart thing and detoured around the magic beast, hoping that it would not somehow sense him.
Nick successfully detoured around the magic beast and then continued forward until another magic beast appeared a few hundred meters in front of Silent Ark; this time, the magic beast seemed to somehow sense Silent Ark and run directly towards it. Nick was alarmed but composed himself after realizing that it was a natural occurrence since Silent Ark was only a rank 2 magic formation and was basically the equivalent of many advanced grade, rank 2 spells.
The magic beast approaching Nick seemed similar to a fox that had large, bulbous, green eyes, pale-green fur, a long bushy tail and protruding, thorn like teeth; its size was about the same as a mature camel. Although Nick sensed that this magic beast was stronger than rank 2, he decided to deal with it.
(A magic formation like Silent Ark has its advantages...)
Nick slowed Silent Ark's forward movement significantly, following which he used Silent Ark's rule path capabilities to manifest the full weight of the magic formation, which was a little over eight tonnes. Usually, Silent Ark's magic power was used to minimize its weight so as to decrease the magic energy required to move it across distances.
Once the fox like magic beast was within nine meters of Silent Ark, Nick finally increased the speed of the magic formation to over two hundred kilometers per hour. This drastically increased the fuel expenditure of the magic formation but to Nick, that was acceptable. Silent Ark accelerated to that speed within an instant and shot forward towards the magic beast like a runaway train. The fox like magic beast halted its movements within a split second but was too slow to be able to move itself out of the path of the incoming Silent Ark.
Within moments, Silent Ark hit the magic beast head on, following which, the sound of a loud impact and then the sound of fracturing and flesh being crushed could be heard. Nick let Silent Ark move past one hundred meters before minimizing its weight and slowing its speed once again. After that, Nick turned Silent Ark around and moved it forward fifty meters in order to better view the damage done on his display screens.
Nick discovered the mangled, partly crushed carcass of the fox like magic beast a few meters away from where he had hit it. The ruined carcass bled profusely, its red and green blood spreading away from its body in all directions to form a pool beneath it. After seeing enough, Nick turned Silent Ark around and continued moving forward, away from the carcass. Nick reasoned:
(Silent Ark has a thick metal armor and a mass of eight tonnes; moving it at over two hundred kilometers per hour turns it momentarily into a crippling weapon. Even if most higher ranked magic beasts have thick and strong flesh, they are still living beings that have a threshold for the force that their bare bodies can handle. The fox like magic beast did not appear to excel in defense and Silent Ark's sudden acceleration caught it off guard; that is why I was able to kill it. Even a hippo would be killed if it was hit by a train engine car at full speed. Considering that I don't know anything about that magic beast, especially its rank, I'll leave its body alone. It's ruined anyway and I want to avoid much of the foreseeable risks while I am in this unknown realm.)
Silent Ark sped up by over a few dozen kilometers per hour and cruised along, detouring around three possibly dangerous magic beasts within five hours. The first looked like a tank-sized, white-scaled lizard that breathed pale-white fire as it grunted, the second looked like a grey and red striped zebra that was the size of an elephant and had jagged teeth protruding from its mouth and the third looked like a large bear that had short legs, grey fur, four eyes and a long pink tongue that it kept on the outside of its mouth.
All three magic beasts were clearly stronger than Nick himself and seemed to have no interest in Silent Ark or they could not sense the moving magic formation in its camouflaged state. After ten more hours of travel, Nick passed over a dozen higher ranked magic beasts but there was no significant change in the environment and no notable land marks were seen.
At the end of those ten hours, however, Nick came across the site of a scattered set up of many boulders of varying colors. The site of the scattered boulders spanned about five hundred meters in radius and did not appear to have any signs of life within it. Nick soon came closer and realized that the boulders were made of made of materials that had colors of the rainbow, which streaked along the boulders' surfaces; each boulder emitted the distinct signature of light path magic.
After scouting the environment for thirty more minutes, Nick deactivated Silent Ark's camouflaging ability and left its cabin in order to examine the boulders closely. Nick felt some of the boulders with his hands, he then summoned Failed Tool from his space band and unsheathed it so that he could use it to chop at a boulder but doing so had no effect, so he stored Failed Tool into his space band once again.
(These boulders are very hard and are composed of materials that glisten with rainbow light. Hmmm...I don't know their rank but I might as well take these since there is seemingly nothing to stop me.)
Nick then walked by each boulder and stored it into his space band, which was easy since they were not permanently embedded into the ground. Nick kept track of time with his inter-realm smartphone and he spent the equivalent of two days to store over three hundred of the 'rainbow boulders', each of them weighing at least nine hundred kilograms and at least having the size of a pick-up truck. When Nick was finished taking away the boulders, the site that was once filled with them now appeared empty, being nothing but rocky ground.
Since Nick had walked away from Silent Ark by hundreds of meters, he cast Space Rift in order to create a space gate that led to Silent Ark's side entrance. He entered the space gate and then closed it behind him, following which, Nick entered Silent Ark's cabin. Upon sitting in the leather chair, Nick saw the ground directly beneath and around Silent Ark quake for hundreds of meters.
Nick immediately activated Silent Ark's camouflage and scouting abilities in response. Nick then attempted to find the source of the quaking by scouting the terrain within a kilometer of himself and seeing where the quaking was most apparent. Doing this, Nick spent the equivalent of the next one and a half days moving along the quaking terrain, which resulted in him traveling about two hundred kilometers in the same direction at a steady pace.
Nick first discovered the source of the quaking by way of his mental radar granted by Silent Ark's scouting ability as a powerful source of life was detected. Moving several hundred meters closer towards the source of life, Nick discovered the creature that was causing the quaking as it was digging up the rocky soil several dozen meters below the ground's surface.
With Silent Ark's scouting ability, Nick saw the magic beast's form clearly, even though it was currently below the ground. The magic beast was the size of a cruise ship, looked like an oversized black bear that had six eyes, three being on each side of its head, a horse like tail, four legs that were short relative to the rest of its body and dark-grey skin below its fur as revealed by its snout and gaps in its lustrous, black fur.
The magic beast was definitely stronger than most that he had already come across and it was currently beating at the subterranean, grey rock with its powerful paws that each wielded five short but seemingly sharp claws. With each hit of its paw, the ground shook for kilometers all around and the subterranean rock broke apart but only by a shallow layer.
Following that, the magic beast growled at the broken rock pieces and a faint, grey mist emerged from thin air immediately in front of the magic beast's face and carried the rock pieces away to the surface, after which, the grey mist vanished and the rock pieces fell onto the surface.
(The ground beneath the surface seems surprisingly hard. That magic beast has probably been breaking the rocks below for a long time but has only made about one hundred meters of progress. Should I leave?)
Soon after Nick asked himself that question, Silent Ark's scouting ability picked up something that Nick found interesting. Within much of the rock pieces that the magic beast displaced and sent up to the surface, there were copper colored materials that could be seen at places where each of the rocks were broken. These materials radiated a strong metal path magic signature that was more concentrated that any of the other materials that he had picked up.
Nick gulped and steeling his resolve, he moved Silent Ark very close to the surface rubble, consisting of the rock pieces that circled the pit that currently housed the magic beast. The rock pieces were basically gathered in large mounds that were at least five meters high so Nick had a lot of samples to observe. After finding a few rock pieces that had the copper colored material embedded into it. Nick deactivated silent Ark's camouflage ability and activated one more of Silent Ark's space path abilities, following which, several thin rays of grey space magic power were shot out from Silent Ark's all black exterior.
(No risk, no reward.)
Once the rays of magic power came into contact with the targeted rock pieces, they instantly appeared within Silent Ark's cabin, lying on the floor. Nick then immediately placed his focus on the large magic beast using Silent Ark's scouting ability to see if it even reacted to his method but the giant bear just kept hammering away at the bed rock, not paying Silent Ark the least bit of attention.
Seeing this, Nick shifted his attention to the rock pieces on the ground and observed them carefully. Nick felt the copper like material on the rock pieces with his fingers and each time, a small amount of it came off onto his fingers as copper colored dust.
(This is definitely a high ranked metal path material. The magic energy radiating from it is just too strong. This copper colored material has better quality magic energy than anything that I have ever interacted with and it is all being mined by that bear like magic beast. Seeing how much effort the magic beast is putting into breaking the bed rock, there is likely zero chance that I would have been able to extract these rock pieces myself.)
Realizing that, Nick acted quickly to find and transport rock pieces that had the copper colored magic material embedded into them using the same grey rays of space magic power as before. Sometimes Silent Ark shot out several grey rays at a time, sometimes a dozen and sometimes a little over twenty grey rays were used to pick up the valuable rock pieces at one time.
As soon as the valuable rock pieces entered the cabin, Nick stored them into his space band. After spending the equivalent of one day doing this, Nick had collected about three tones of the valuable rock pieces and the bear like magic beast was still excavating. Since the magic beast continued to show no interest in Nick, even after all this time, and no other magic beast seemed to want to come near this location, Nick waited at the pit's surface mounds for the equivalent of five days.
During that time, he picked up many more of the valuable rock pieces, leaving the ones without the copper colored magic material embedded into them alone. At the end of the five days, Nick had gathered about fifteen tonnes of the valuable rock pieces. Following that, for the first time since he bought it, his space band subtly signaled to him using a kind of message emitted from it surface that it was near at full capacity due to the magical quality of the items that it now contained. Nick picked up the message using his own magic sense, and stopped picking up rock pieces.
Nick then reactivated Silent Ark's camouflage ability and left the area as quickly as possible. Based on Nick's last visit to this realm, he estimated that one day here was equivalent to about ten days on Grand Earth so by this point, Nick had been gone from Grand Earth for about three months.
(It's time that I returned to Grand Earth.)
Nick did not forget that all the magic beasts here were stronger than him and that much of the magic materials seemed to be a higher rank than him, meaning that the environment was probably extremely dangerous to him but whether by luck or fate, he had been allowed to explore without much trouble coming his way.
(The fact that I was able to last this long here is already commendable. The magic beasts here probably didn't pay much attention to Silent Ark because it is made of magic materials that are far lower in rank than what they are used to. Evidently, even some of the soil here is better quality than Silent Ark's components. Yeah...I would not pay attention to something inferior to dirt either. I shouldn't push my luck anymore.)
Before Nick made the final decision, however, his Spatial Awareness talent was triggered, feeding him an image of a glowing red speck that was currently falling from the sky.
(Spatial Awareness had been basically dormant since coming to this realm, so that falling object could possibly be something significant to me.)
Nick had realized after a few years that Spatial Awareness didn't feed him irrelevant images and scenes and predominantly showed him things that was in his best interest to be aware of.
(I don't know why my talent behaves like that but I don't have to know why in order to make use of it...)
Using one of Silent Ark's displays, Nick also caught sight of the red glowing object as it fell.
(It is the same kind of object that I saw falling the last time that I came to this realm. Last time, I left because the environment here was too dangerous for my bare body but now that I have a little survivability by using Silent Ark, I should be able to pursue it.)
Nick did just that, after taking note of the direction that the red glow was falling towards, Nick raced in that direction at over two hundred kilometers per hour. Like this, he chased the falling abject for kilometers, soon passing magic beasts that mostly ignored him and the ones that did see through Silent Ark's camouflage and glanced at the fast moving magic formation, then turned their attention away from it.
Finally, there was one magic beast the size of a train car that looked like a goat with three horns, dark-grey fur and six legs that seemed intent on chasing after Silent Ark but Nick did the same thing to this magic beast that he did to the fox like magic beast that chased after him previously. He slowed down, manifested Silent Ark's full weight of over eight tonnes and let the goat like magic beast approach him. When the magic beast was less that ten meters away, Nick suddenly turned around and accelerated instantly, ramming into the magic beast at over two hundred kilometers per hour within moments.
The front portion of Silent Ark's base was heavily dented as a result of the collision but the goat-like magic beast was sent flying by a few meters. When it landed onto the ground, it was apparent that its right front leg had been broken and there was a gaping hole within the upper half of its abdomen as it laid on its left side; one of its horns had also been broken off. The magic beast growled maniacally and eyed the camouflaged Silent Ark with hatred.
Nick took the opportunity to turn around, minimized Silent Ark's weight, and sped off in order to get back to following the glowing red object. After chasing the object for fifty more kilometers while avoiding evidently dangerous magic beasts, the glowing red object finally fell onto the grey, rocky ground in an area that was free of the presence of magic beasts.
There was basically very little impact resulting from the fall of the glowing red object onto the ground and only a few small pieces of loose rocks and dirt were displaced and so the crash of the object was almost silent. Nick approached the glowing red object using Silent Ark and used the latter's scouting ability to properly assess the object.
The object was actually not solid and was basically a cluster of some kind of energy that radiated red magic power; it radiated the distinct magic energy signature of soul path. Nick tried to use Silent Ark's ability in order to get the glowing object into the cabin but the space path method's activation did not bring about an effect.
(Hmmm...whatever magic material that it is, must be high ranked.)
Nick deactivated Silent Ark's camouflage ability and left its cabin to pick up the magic material himself. The magic material was about the size of a grapefruit so Nick figured that it would not be difficult to pick it up. When Nick got within one meter of the glowing object, he was able to sense a very vague familiarity with the object as if he had interacted with similar objects many times.
(This is my intuition signaling something. This object feels like a...soul. Is that right?)
Nick moved closer and realized that the object really did seem similar to a soul except that unlike souls that he was used to, it self-emitted its internal magic power.
(What kind of soul is this?)
Nick went in close and attempted to cast Read Soul on it but the spell failed to resolve. Nick sighed and then said:
"I'll have to take it back with me and examine it later."
Nick then stored the strange soul within his space band, following which, his space band alerted him that it was almost at full capacity again by emitting a magic signal, which Nick read using his magic sense. Nick then stored Silent Ark within the space band.
(I am going to return home now. I'm tired from all this exploring.)
Nick had not slept for even a minute while he was within this realm. He was too afraid of the consequences to himself if he did and something that he could not defend against got too close to him or Silent Ark as a result.
(I basically used up most of my wealth in constructing Silent Ark and fueling it and if it ended up destroyed because I wasn't paying attention, who could I cry to then?)
Nick quickly summoned a tennis-ball-sized, blue projection stone from his space band and threw it at his feet, following which, the projection stone glowed and projected a blue colored magic formation onto the ground below Nick. Nick spoke the magic formation's trigger phrase and its blue light turned to bright-silver light and enveloped him. When the silver light vanished from Nick's vision, Nick appeared within his underground parking lot again, above his main space path transportation magic formation, near to the closed entrance to the parking lot.
Nick performed a quick glance at the jade-green wyvern that was sleeping at corner of the parking lot before going upstairs to the ground floor. Nick sat at one of the waiting tables and called Dewy using his smartphone, telling him to prepare a meal of fried chicken, fried rice, spiced gravy and potato salad. Dewy was pleasantly surprised that Nick had returned after being gone for over three months.
He quickly had Nate help him prepare the meal which was going to take about two hours to complete. Nick waited patiently for his meal and in the meantime, summoned his laptop from his space band in order to set an appointment with the appraisal house that was situated on Richter Order Academy's campus.
The appraisal house was named, Great Appraisals, and was used to appraise valuable magical items, meaning that the exact nature and identity of most magical items could be obtained there.
(Online rumors are that the appraisal house is owned by a powerful rank 7 Magician and that he had more appraisal operations situated on dozens of magic academy campuses. The owner of Great Appraisals must be really wealthy.)
The latter guess was important because Nick planned to sell the magic materials that he had obtained after figuring out what they were. Since he would probably have to pay high fees for the materials' appraisals if he ended up not selling them to Great Appraisals, he was hoping that the magic materials that he obtained from the unknown realm were really valuable. Nick set the appointment for three hours from now and after about an hour, Dewy finally came out of the kitchen area with Nick's meal.
Nick thanked Dewy and began eating the food voraciously. Dewy wanted to ask Nick how his trip went but then he remembered that Nick did not like to talk while he was focused on eating, so Dewy left the waiting area about a minute after handing Nick his meal.
When Nick was finished eating, he went to the second floor so that he could take a shower before getting dressed into a long-sleeved, red dress shirt that he tucked into a pair of dark-blue jeans pants and a pair of laceless, black dress shoes. Nick then left his commercial building and headed straight for Great Appraisals by casting Grey Room and moving towards his destination. He cancelled Grey Room once he arrived at the front of Great Appraisal's building.
Great Appraisals had a building that was the size of a large warehouse. It was in the shape of a cube and had had metal walls that had been painted a mix of grey and black. The building's front door was an automatic, glass sliding door and Nick entered through it without hesitation.
As soon as he walked through the door, a man dressed in a three-piece, black and white suit and a pair of well-polished dress shoes appeared in front of Nick instantly. Nick immediately sensed that the man had used a light path movement method to appear in front of him and that the man was definitely at a higher rank than himself but not yet a Regular Magician.
The man had a white complexion, well styled, flowing grey hair on his head, light-brown eyes and had average height. The man greeted Nick cordially, saying:
"You must be Nick Capitol. The time of your appointment has not yet arrived but I can still attend to you, right now. My name is Chester Drexel and I am one of the appraisers within this appraisal house."
Nick was not surprised that the appraiser knew his name because in order to set the appointment, Nick had to make use of his student ID, considering that he was not a licensed Magician. Although Nick was still a student, Chester treated him with respect because Great Appraisals handled high value deals every day and would not dare to lose its reputation in excellent customer service over one insignificant student. Great Appraisals also had certain agreements with Richter Order Academy that prevented them from turning away the academy's students. Nick spoke to Chester:
"Mr. Drexel, I am here today to make use of your appraisal services and sell some high ranked items. Can you please help me with that?"
Chester was internally annoyed with having to serve a student since they hardly had anything really worth appraising but when it came to business' fees, its owner only cared about the overall profits being high and not how worthy the customers who were paying for the appraisals were. He also knew that:
(Fouling up the boss' operation, even a little, would be a death sentence for a mere rank 4 Magician like myself.)
Chester politely replied:
"Sure thing, Nick. Follow me."
Chester led Nick past the reception area to a hallway that had several doors on either side of it and was uniformly painted dark-blue. Chester walked into the first door on his right and Nick followed closely behind him. The inside of the room that they entered featured a large closed space that had a polished, light brown, wooden floor, a grey metal table with four blue, padded, metal chairs around it and high ceilings. The room appeared to be magically lit because Nick did not see a single light source within it.
The room was as big as a high school gymnasium, being about thirty-five meters in height, thirty-five meters in width and thirty-five meters in length. Chester moved to sit at the table, which was positioned immediately next to the farthest wall to the entrance, and Nick did the same thing. Chester said calmly:
"Show me what you have."
Nick acted quickly by summoning the space bubble filled with the unknown dark-brown liquid from his space band, which then filled up most of the room when it appeared. Chester widened his eyes slightly as he looked at the large space bubble, thinking:
(This is space magic. Looks like this student is not average. that is good.)
Nick then cast Absolute Pull in order to derive a much smaller space bubble, about the size of a tennis ball, from the larger one and placed it floating over the table. The small space bubble had some of the dark-brown liquid inside it. Chester stared at the small space bubble for a moment and was slightly surprised that he could not identify the magic material on sight.
(Hmmm...must be a rare one that I don't normally see.)
Chester pointed at the small space bubble with his right hand and asked Nick:
"May I?"
Nick silently nodded his head in approval. Following that, Chester cast a light path spell on the small space bubble that enveloped it in impenetrable, orange light for ten seconds before the orange light completely dissipated. Chester then rubbed his shaved chin with his right hand and spoke with a hint of incredulity in his tone:
"Rank 5 earth path material, soil essence enrichment water. This magic material is formed from the degeneration of soil polluted by powerful earth magic over at least a few hundred years. You have so much of it. How did you come by this magic material that exceeds your rank and even mine?"
Nick indifferently shrugged his shoulders and replied:
"I extracted it from the ground within a realm that I recently explored. Don't ask me what realm it was; I will not say."
Chester wasn't bothered by Nick refusing to tell him the source of the magic material since that was normal.
(Presumably, so long as he did not steal it, it doesn't matter where it came from. Soil essence enrichment water is a powerful help in managing realms where high ranked crops are produced. This much of such a useful and high ranked material is worth a lot...)
Chester stared at the large space bubble for a few seconds, then turned his focus to Nick before asking:
"You said that you are planning to sell this to us. Is that correct?"
Nick nodded his head and replied:
"That's right. I want to sell all of it."
Chester put on a thoughtful expression in response to Nick's answer and then held up three fingers, saying:
"I will purchase all your soil essence enrichment water for 3 vatas or the equivalent of £300,000,000,000."
Nick gulped when he heard that number and immediately replied:
"Sold to the man in the black and white suit for £300,000,000,000."
Chester appeared slightly amused by Nick's reaction; he himself could offer such a price so naturally because he usually did business in vatas every day. Dealing in pounds sterling was also common but less so with rank 5 magic materials. Chester acted quickly to store the large and small space bubbles within his own space band.
Nick was not worried that Chester would take his magic materials without paying him because his goods were protected by the rules of the academy. Chester asked:
"Anything else?"
Nick then summoned a pick-up-truck-sized boulder consisting of a hard, rainbow colored material that glimmered slightly and waited for Chester to appraise it. Chester pointed at the boulder with his right index finger and the boulder was then enveloped by a thick, orange light. After ten seconds, the orange light abated and Chester spoke calmly:
"Rank 5 light path material, rainbow mineral. It is formed from regular minerals being exposed to harsh magical lights for a time exceeding eight hundred years. It is used in manufacturing high ranked light path weapons. I can purchase that boulder for £536,000,000."
Nick's indifferent expression broke into a slight smile as he replied:
"I have one hundred and eighty-five more of those rainbow mineral boulders of similar and greater size. Will you buy those too?"
Chester's right eye slightly twitched and he answered with:
"Show me."
Nick summoned all the other one hundred and eighty-five rainbow mineral boulders from his space band and after spending an hour looking them over, Chester looked at Nick weirdly and said:
"I am willing to buy all of these at a bulk price of 1 vata or £100,000,000,000. Do you accept?"
Nick had no interest in negotiating after hearing that price so he replied:
"I accept."
After Nick's confirmation, Chester stored all of the rainbow mineral into his own space band and sat back down in his chair; Nick followed suit. Once Nick sat down, Chester asked:
"Anything else?"
Nick then summoned a small piece of grey rock from his space band that had a copper colored material embedded within it and using his right hand, he placed it on the table in front of Chester. Chester looked at the small rock and took it up within his hands. Feeling the magic energy emanating from this magic material, Chester's brows creased and then his face took on an expression of suspicion when he rubbed his right thumb against the copper colored material that slightly came off as dust.
Chester place the grey rock back onto the table and cast his light path appraisal method, enveloping the grey rock with impenetrable, orange light. When the orange light abated, Chester's eyes opened wide and he spoke with clear incredulity in his tone:
"Rank 6 metal path material, great bronze. It is formed from extremely old and arid soil that has been influenced by the deaths of millions of high ranked magic beasts. It is used in the construction of research magic towers and large scale defensive weapons. Where the hell did you get this?"
Chester lost his composure a little after he appraised the great bronze:
(Rank 5 magic materials are difficult for an Apprentice Magician to get ahold of because they usually exist in environments plagued with high ranked magic beasts, but it is still very possible for a weak Magician to obtain them if they have good luck. Most rank 6 magic materials, however, that I am aware of require high ranked methods to extract them and usually only exist in realms that are under the influence of rank 6 magic beasts. Are you telling me that this rank 2 Magician has been to such a realm, took away this coveted material and returned alive? Who does he work for? No, if he worked for someone, he would not be selling these materials in his own name because that would attract the ire of whichever organization has the access rights to the realm that he took the great bronze from.)
Nick replied calmly:
"I got it from the same realm that I extracted the other magic materials."
Nick, of course, was not going to say any more than that and Chester had to be fine with that. Nick then summoned the rest of the great bronze from his space band onto the floor beside the table, nearly fifteen tonnes of it. Chester looked at the pile of great bronze and became a little envious:
(Since when was it allowed for rank 2 Magicians to get this rich? Hmph!)
Chester squinted his eyes a little but then openly sighed and declared his buying price:
"I will purchase all this great bronze for a bulk price of 12 vatas or £1,200,000,000,000. Do you accept?"
Nick heard that price and laughed heartily, almost not believing what he was hearing. Somehow, after spending a little over £100,000,000,000, after nearly four months he was able to earn that amount back by fifteen times.
(What dog shit luck is this? Has my time finally come?)
Nick wasn't worried that Chester artificially lowered the price because that was against the academy regulations when dealing with their students. Merely one Chester would not risk lowering the price when he was not even the one gaining the profits and would be the one to bare all the risk if the academy found out. Not to mention, the materials themselves were very valuable and his Regular Magician boss would not tolerate losing the opportunity to acquire them. Nick's face was all smiles as he replied:
"I do accept your gracious offer, sir Chester."
Chester's right eyelid twitched a little when he heard Nick's flippant tone but he had to admit:
(If I became so wealthy at his age and rank, I would probably have run down the street in my underwear during the middle of the day.)
Chester then stored the great bronze into his space band and after that, he asked Nick:
"Anything else?"
Nick thought about it for a while and ultimately decided not to show Chester the strange, red glowing soul. Nick answered:
"I have no more magic materials to sell."
Seeing that the appraisals had concluded, Chester spoke like a true professional despite his envy:
"I can have the funds transferred to you by the end of the day. Which bank do you use?"
Nick, still very excited about his new level of wealth absentmindedly replied:
"United English Bank."
Chester slowly shook his head and replied:
"That won't work. United English Bank won't accept such a large transfer of money because it would usually involve a high ranked Magician which they preferably do not serve due to security risks. I advise that you let me help you secure a bank account with the Magicians Association National Bank so that way, you could receive your money in vatas instead of pounds sterling."
Nick contemplated for a while and realized that he had no choice but to accept Chester's help, so he replied:
"Help me, oh great Chester."
Chester's right eyelid twitched once more in response to hearing that but he still summoned his laptop from his space band and contacted a representative of the Magicians Association National Bank by video call in order to back Nick in obtaining a bank account despite his student status.
The Magicians Association National Bank mostly served licensed Magicians and those Magicians had to have a great amount of funds to deposit. However, either of those rules could be bent if one of their existing customers vouched for someone and an employee of Great Appraisals was definitely qualified to vouch for someone.
Nick was allowed to speak to the bank representative and after providing a snapshot of his student ID and some other personal details, Nick obtained a vatas denominated chequing account in thirty minutes and the relevant information was sent to his email.
After obtaining the new bank account, Nick gave the relevant information to Chester so that he could have the money owing to Nick transferred by the end of the day. Nick thanked Chester for his help and left Great Appraisals feeling like a new man.
Nick breathed in deeply, then breathed out before declaring aloud:
"Rank 3 is my next major goal."