Evin was unconscious for almost a week afterwards. When he finally woke up, he had to be hospitalized for almost a month, as the pain and trauma his body was experiencing after having his mana-core explode wasn't sothing he could survive at the leisure of his own ho.
His family would co to visit him occasionally, but Evin could see so traces of suspicion and hesitation in their faces when they talked to Evin. Well, it would be obvious after what Evin had done to those n. And according to Theor, it seed like Lora and Elina still had so nightmares about that night.
But Evin had a feeling that his family wished to ignore those dubious points about Evin and pretend that nothing out of the ordinary happened for the ti being. Evin did not mind playing dumb alongside them, but he had a feeling that they all had to face the problem in the future.
Aran also ca at so point and congratulated Evin on becoming a pseudo 1st grade citizen.
"How were you able to co back two weeks earlier than expected?" Evin asked the man.
"My service was already finished. I was just preparing to traverse the distance normally, through a military transport device, but I went dozens of gold coins into debt and rented a Cosmic for an hour. Well, you can guess what happened next, quite easily,"
Renting mages sounded a bit unethical to Evin, but it also sounded exactly like what a Cosmic Feline would do.
"How did you know that Kens would take such drastic actions against us?"
"Well, as I've hinted, I didn't actually know what was going to happen, although I had a bad feeling about everything. But I also have a security beacon on my body that notifies when the magical devices that you use are activated. After that, I inford my contracted Cosmic and started negotiating a deal with them," Aran explained.
"By the way, I always wanted to ask this of you Are the Cosmics trustworthy?"
"They are trustworthy. They will try their best to get a better deal out of every character they communicate with; but after they make the contract, they will not break it. They may seem a bit questionable at first, but you must understand that they are a race that has connections with every mage in the kingdom. If word cos out that they openly swindle their custors, their prestige will plumt greatly"
"Is that so? Then it's great if it is true. What else do you know?"
"They prefer to keep their distance from the other races, strictly keeping their relationship to business. I have heard of so humans receiving guidance from them, but I personally don't know how Perhaps one simply has to pay enough money. Honestly, they are too elusive. But one thing is for certain. If you can offer enough benefits, they will do anything in their power to get them from you. The Feline's motto is: 'Everything can be bought with money', after all," Aran replied.
Evin was delighted to hear such news. He would be able to implent his plans much easier with this confirmation.
"One more question, could you tell about how the economy for Mages work?"
"As you know, most normal people use bronze, silver and gold coins. But us mages mostly use mana lodestones. What do you know about them?"
"Practically nothing, I only know it stores mana inside itself sohow and allows mages to absorb the energy inside. I also noticed that it recharges over ti," Evin replied.
"Hmm, sothing like that. As you probably know, lodestone is another way of naming a magnet. So, mana lodestones are exactly that. They absorb mana from the air, and the mana sticks to it like moss. After a long ti, you can find that so part of the mana has actually beco part of the lodestone. There are two principal ways to differentiate lodestones: quality and size. Size is quite obvious, the bigger the better. For quality, we categorize lodestones into three tiers: dust, rock and crystal"
"Dust is the most commonly found state of mana lodestones. Over ti, they would accumulate and turn into the rock state. A few decades later, it would beco crystal. But, as I've ntioned earlier, you can use the Heavy World to accelerate the process sowhat"
"So, what's the main form of currency for mages? Lodestones?"
"No, mages make up only about 10 percent of the total populace, so while lodestones are a little expensive, everyone still uses gold and silver. There are so periods when lodestones are more popular than gold, but such periods will never last because of one simple reason: every century, all mana lodestones are used up to create World cores. Soon after, they will reappear in the wild, making it so that any kind of accumulation of lodestones is aningless."
"What? Why?"
"The reasons are unknown. But you will probably learn many other theories regarding this phenonon in the Academy," Aran shrugged.
"Anyway, the lodestone market is simply too chaotic. Sotis, an important discovery appears, and it requires enormous amounts of lodestones to research. Then suddenly, lodestones which used to cost a few silvers would actually start costing gold coins, or vice versa. So I don't recomnd you invest too much in them"
"One more question, is there a way to make a contract that is impossible, or at least extrely hard to break?"
"What are you trying to do Sigh, there are. There are a few and I will tell you about the most safe one first, though they're practically impossible to find. It's called the Velvet Contract. You know that the Final Empress' original na is the Empress Velvet, right? She used to be called that for about three centuries, but then her other na, Final Empress, beca much more popular in the countries under her rule. It also sounded much cooler. Anyway, the Velvet Contract is basically the sa as swearing on the na of the Empress. If you fail to uphold your end of the contract, you will instantly be smitten with divine punishnt and die. The other party will be inford of your death as well. The problem with this contract is the how rare it is. The Empress only gives out a few hundred of these contracts every few decades, and it vastly depends on her mood. So you can be sure that only very wealthy people would have the chance to use it," Aran concluded.
"Are there more of such contracts?" Evin asked. Unbreakable contract is good and all, but sothing actually obtainable would be good.
"Yes, yes. I'm getting to those. They're called the World contracts. This ti, you swear on the na of World Authorities. Failure to uphold the contract results in you being smitten by a slightly smaller and kind of survivable divine punishnt. Though if you do manage to survive, you will find that you beca unable to use said World. You have a chance to fix your relationship with the World Authority afterwards, but it's quite a slim chance. This contract is not rare, but whether or not you will be granted the contract will depend on the World Authority's decision"
"Okay, thanks for your help, Aran" Evin remarked politely.
"I should've stayed back and let you keep acting like a kid. Look how mature and uninteresting you are," Aran then lanted.
"Humph" Evin snorted and said his goodbyes.
"If you hit a huge deal with the Cosmics, you owe about 180 gold coins, alright? Do you know how expensive that tal panther was? Not to ntion my house and every other device in it. I saved your life and everything, too"
"Sure, sure," Evin sighed.
The two exchanged pleasantries and Evin was left alone in the hospital room again.
Evin didn't bother asking about Aran's deadly spell. Judging from how mages acted, Evin could tell that they weren't able to indulge certain information to others freely.
'Well, all things considered, I should focus on obtaining more gold for the ti being,' Evin concluded.
"But I guess I should do it when I get released from this place..." he muttered.
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