Chapter 100: The Rules of the Class (Request for Recommendations, Request for Collections)

After the members of the Lehmann Chamber of Commerce returned, they were likewise stunned by the sight before them.

“The magic goddess above! Truly miraculous!”

“Wow, is this the power of magic!”

… …

The crowd voiced their astonishment one after another, yet they found the sight strangely familiar. Ever since arriving at the Lehmann Chamber of Commerce, they had witnessed countless wonders, and Boen was their true master, a truth they understood all too well.

Their master was the sole heir of the Ioleum family, grandson to Count Ioleum, the higher arcane master. Moreover, Boen himself was an arcane master. Expanding space was hardly unusual for one of his caliber.

Even Lehmann found it unremarkable, for the expansion rune had been etched by their own hands, and Boen had spoken of it beforehand.

“I never imagined it could expand so dramatically!”

Lehmann sighed with emotion. “This size should suffice. The dean’s arcane garden appears to be no larger.”

The space had once seemed cramped, with most cultivated magical plants towering over them. For personal experimentation alone, it would have been ample. Yet for mass production, the prior acreage would fall far short. The Lehmann Chamber of Commerce focused on low-grade spell potions, whose varieties remained limited and whose plants were chosen for ease of care and rapid growth.

Lehmann had long fretted over insufficient space, endlessly rearranging plans without satisfaction. Now the expanded area rendered such crowding unnecessary.

(Over twenty thousand square meters—imagine the scale of a World Cup final stadium.)

“Is this… space expansion? How did you manage it?”

Lispearl stared in shock, her small hand covering her mouth as she fixed her gaze on Boen.

“Just so. Carve the rune, place the mana storage device, activate the array—that is all.”

Boen spoke with casual nonchalance, as though casting a simple cantrip.

His recovery had become astonishing after advancing the Breath Method; the faint pallor that had lingered on his features moments earlier had vanished entirely.

Lispearl was momentarily beside herself. She knew the method, of course, yet the question of *how* Boen had achieved it left her breathless.

The space-expansion rune was exceedingly rare; even her grandfather Hussein had never mastered it. Indeed, the Shamsdin bloodline possessed no knowledge of the art.

How many spellcasters in all of Sewinton could wield it?

Probably no more than a handful.

It was core, pinnacle arcane lore. Among the elves, only royal nobles could learn it—and only those with transcendent spatial talent could master the technique.

Boen had not only learned the rune but had cast it successfully. If the Ioleum Count had instructed her, she might have accepted the explanation. Yet learning and wielding are entirely different matters.

Why, then, were so few even aware of the rune? Because its spatial talent requirement was mercilessly high.

Advancing to higher life merely sharpened perception of faint spatial currents. Those capable of wielding the expansion were rare indeed; no mid-level spellcaster had ever been recorded achieving it.

“Could it be that the Count performed the rite and then departed?”

The notion flashed through her mind and was instantly discarded. The residual mana signature belonged to Boen alone—each caster’s essence left an unmistakable mark, akin to a unique signature, nearly impossible to counterfeit.

Spellcasters meditated to inscribe elemental mana, then channeled it into casting. Those with keen perception could trace a caster by the lingering aura of a spell. Thus victims slain by magic often revealed their killer, and even the most arcane curses could be reversed to their source. In later ages, the Time Reversal spell itself had been devised for precisely this purpose.

Boen was only a mid-level arcane master…

She herself was one, albeit low-grade. Even a mid-level master should not be able to construct such a construct.

Yet he had done so. If that were true, how extraordinary must his spatial talent be?

If her memory served, Boen had long satisfied the requirements for higher advancement, holding back only to pursue the rank of higher arcane master.

She could scarcely imagine how vast his talent would bloom once he reached that threshold. The very thought sent a chill through her.

Moreover, Boen now bore countless titles. The mantle of Spatial Master was all but his by right.

Spatial Master?

Alchemy Master?

Golden-Eyed Envoy?

Or the youngest arcane master?

… …

For a moment, Lispearl’s gaze toward Boen altered, as though beholding some living enigma.

(The record of the youngest arcane master was shattered many years hence by a two-year-old boy—a most controversial figure, the terminator of Neth.)

The expansion array and mana conduits stood ready. The rest required no further input from Boen. The rich soil for cultivation and the methods for tending the magical plants were matters Lehmann knew best; they had prepared for this day for two full years. Moreover, throughout his time at the academy he had labored ceaselessly in the arcane garden.

“Enough, enough—stop gawking. Take up your tools and begin.”

Lehmann then organized the laborers and set them to work.

Word of the alchemy workshop spread through all of Sewinton like wildfire.

Such a vast concentration of mana was impossible to conceal, especially now that the mana storage device lay nearly drained and the gathering array ceaselessly fed it. Any spellcaster standing nearby could feel the surge.

After the initial shock, those with even the slightest wits understood that Boen’s arcane garden had been successfully replicated.

Artificial mana nodes?

What did that signify?

Gold.

No—vast, boundless treasure.

Boen measured the speed at which the device filled. Subtracting the mana consumed to sustain the twin arrays, he discovered the complete charge required a full day. This was far more than he had anticipated; supplying two lines simultaneously still placed considerable strain upon the device.

Moreover, the colossal flow of mana rendered all spellcasters within a kilometer virtually useless for meditation. Apprentices and low-grade casters could not even cast cantrips.

“The commotion is too great to conceal. It will not be long before the entire city knows. This fat prize will draw wolves from every corner—Lehmann cannot stand against them. We must fetch my father.”

Boen immediately dispatched men to the Ioleum estate to summon Viscount Gorden. For the coming days, the workshop would become the eye of the storm.

Though the work had been Boen’s, he represented the Ioleum family.

Earlier playacting had been minor amusement; now the alchemy workshop represented far more than trifling profit. Using the Lehmann name to deceive others was no longer permissible.

The stakes went beyond wealth to matters of security and prestige.

If spell scrolls still required mana activation, yet spell potions demanded none, what did that mean?

It meant that any ordinary soul could wield magic through potions—an instrument of war.

Another consideration loomed: would the proliferation of potions diminish the status of spellcasters? High-grade casters might be unaffected, but low- and mid-grade? The bulk of the profession. With sufficient potions, even a commoner could fell a low- or mid-level caster.

Particularly now, when the threshold for spell potions was so low that mere coin sufficed to grant spellcasting. The impact upon the arcane hierarchy was catastrophic.

The varieties of potions to be produced and the channels for their sale must therefore be deliberated with utmost care. Abandoning the great houses to strike out alone was unthinkable for any reasonable mind. Those able to purchase such wares were precisely the members of noble families.

The visitors would arrive as patriarchs or heads of houses. Boen was ill-suited to lead such talks; formal negotiations required equal standing. He possessed titles, yes, and the heir’s name, yet these were insufficient. To refuse audience without parity would be construed as defiance—the immutable law of class.

Count Ioleum must serve as anchor; Viscount Gorden’s rank, though modest, was noble enough to treat with these families.

What a pity Boen could not be present. Otherwise he would have enjoyed watching the noble houses—who the day before had dismissed Viscount Gorden as beneath contempt—face him with what expression.

Thirty years on the eastern bank, thirty years on the western—do not bully the young when they are poor?

Boen regretted, somewhat, not having taught that proverb to Gorden first. He had heard that those who spoke it carried protagonist’s fortune; perhaps uttering it might grant Gorden a fragment of destiny’s grace and a lucky reversal.

“Enough of this. Let us return.”

With that, Boen escorted Lispearl and the two children back to the academy’s mage tower. Naturally, the wanderer Harper Wick must accompany them as well; the lad’s peculiar alchemy aptitude should be shown to Grandfather. With Grandfather’s decades of experience, he would surely discern something.

Boen was on the cusp of ascending to tenth-circle arcane mastery and must ready himself for the higher rank—fully purifying his mana.

If possible, he would stack his monk levels as high as the tower allowed.

He had no inkling that the disturbance he had provoked exceeded even his own expectations.

The colossal gathering array in Sewinton drank deeply of the world’s mana, warping the elemental tides that had once flowed in rigid channels. The ensuing spatial expansion sent shockwaves that drew the gazes of countless high-grade professionals.

The titanic surge roused the slumbering ancients, the corpse-ghosts who had long lain entombed. Undead from every house stirred from their rest, and from the deepest crypt of the Jeg Church catacombs, a stone sarcophagus slowly lifted its lid…

In the radiant Temple of the God of Light at the heart of Sewinton, a well-groomed middle-aged man strode with hurried steps.

“Terry?!”

A paladin hailed him. “Hah—where the haste?”

“Oh, it is Viscount Gary, my lord.”

Terry halted, bowed, and the scowl on his face melted at once into delight.

“I heard you have returned from the front lines, freshly relieved?”

“Yes, just back. I have not yet removed my armor.” With that he patted the chain hauberk of elven make, faint red stains still clinging to it.

Terry stepped back a half-pace with perfect grace. “Viscount Gary’s labors have been great and true. It is…”

“Enough—speak plainly.” Viscount Gary waved him silent. “What urgent matter drives you thus?”

Terry’s expression faltered. “I have received certain news and must report at once to the dean.”

“What news? Speak, I have only just returned—perhaps something fresh.”

“This…” Terry hesitated.

“Cannot even confide in me? Hmm?” The paladin’s eyes narrowed, displeasure flickering.

“No, it is not that.” Terry hurried to explain, then swiftly recounted the Lehmann alchemy workshop and the spell potions.

“Oh? Sewinton has produced another prodigy.” The paladin’s interest kindled at once.

“Then, if the dean will pardon me, I shall take my leave?”

Seeing the paladin’s attention shift, Terry asked softly.

“Go on.” The paladin dismissed him with a casual wave.

Terry bowed once more and fled as though the very devils pursued him.

(This chapter runs rather long—may I have recommendations?)