Chapter 298: Last Preparation

Day 81.

Emery and his friends once again met up at his estate as they did their routine of sharing information among each other.

Klea and Julian could see that Thrax and Chumo, although looking tired, they smiled brighter than usual.

It appeared they managed to earn around 80,000 spirit stones, which split among the two of them, from hunting Dumas for the past five days.

As for Emery, he himself now had 110,000 spirit stones lying comfortably in his storage ring as well as hundreds of Caracas Flower.

Hearing this caused Julian and Klea to be a little bit jealous. They became a bit regretful they did not join when Emery invited them. But there was nothing they could do about it, as they had other things and commitments to do in the past 5 days.

Thrax and Chumo then proceeded to tell the two jealous friends that it was becoming harder and harder to find the Dumas' nest lately. So, this activity probably would not be a long term thing for them.

Other than the trouble of hunting the Dumas, Emery also had trouble in the potion making side.

It appeared his excessive and blatant use of the free ingredients privilege Master Grom granted him finally being discovered. Thanks to his incessant potion concocting, the required ingredients to make a Freezing Potion were quickly depleted from the warehouse.

Emery now had to spend 40 spirit stones to acquire the ingredients for one potion. Due to the additional expense needed, the project profit became much less lucrative.

Starting from today, the five of them only had ten more days to spend at the Academy before they returned to Earth. Because of this, they all were reminded to prepare themselves.

Before they went to the classes, Emery told them that on Day 87, three days before their second year ended, they were invited by the headmaster to attend a meeting that would be held at the headquarters of the Alliance of Men.

Like previously, when all other elite classes used their half day for more duel practice or getting pointers from the magus instructor, Emery spent all his time attending the lectures during the day, while using the night at the Apothecary Institute, acting as an assistant.

The next day Emery made a new breakthrough. 

[Acid Potion - Tier 2]

[Originality - Level 3]

Apparently, the solution to his bottleneck was closer to home.

Emery used [Fragmentation] on his Cleansing Potion, took out some of the ingredients from his home, and combined them mainly with the blue powder itself. In the end, a new recipe for a Acid Potion with higher potency was created.

Unfortunately, with the limited amount of blue powder he had, Emery could not mass produce the potion. But still, his 2 weeks of constant meddling with the Caracas Flower and Acid Potions had rewarded him with a recipe that he could use for his fourth rank exam, which would be held on Day 88.

Besides the new Acid Potion recipe, Emery also had another amazing finding. He discovered there was actually a different kind of flower among the dozens of Caracas Flowers. Said flower still had a distinct disparity that defined it from the rest.

In this special flower, Emery found out that a certain spore was produced that could be turned into a seed, a Caracas Flower Seed. He analyzed this seed and discovered it could grow easily in any place, as long as it was not exposed to heat or light.

Emery was extremely excited with the thought of growing his own Tier 3 plant. If he managed to do so, it would personally be a huge achievement for him.

From the three main ingredients for the blood genes, it appeared the reagents and the acid ingredients were ready.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the third ingredient, the one that looked like blood which his senior had been experimenting with.

"I'm sorry, Emery. I have tried my best. I even forced Master Grom on this matter, but he said that Gene Sequencing is completely out of his expertise."

Emery knew his senior had tried his best to help him. Of course, he would not blame him.

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Day 85

Five days more had passed, At the end of the last mandatory elite class, Emery concluded it with having the least duels won.

Well, it was to be expected, as many of his classmates like Micah, Gerri, Aiko, Lodos and even Anas managed to reach the 100 duels benchmarks. That was Emery's result in the combat department.

As for the theoretical exam, Emery only managed to reach 71% for his grade, which once again landed him in somewhat middle to bottom tier of the class, as the average score for the class was 78%.

Despite his 'average' result, Emery was not dejected. After all, what mattered was he learned something from the lectures and benefited greatly from them.

Still, it pained his heart to see he didn't receive the last spirit foundation pill reward. Among the five friends, Klea received the extra reward from winning the 100 duels. 

Surprisingly Julian also received one of the extra spirit foundation pills, but not from the duel but for getting a 90% score in the theoretical exam. Apparently, the Harlight faction had helped him prepare for the exam. 

On the last day of the mandatory elite class, strangely Grand Magus Aimon was nowhere to be seen. It appeared that there was something more important he had to do than giving his final lecture for the elite class.

The second year elite class was finally closed up by magus Minerva with her cheerful and strange speeches about the future.

------

Right after Emery finished his last day of mandatory training, With his time in the Academy almost coming to an end. It was time for Emery to finalize his preparations before he departed for Earth. 

[Contribution points 118.650]

[Spirit stones 141.515]

In the end, Emery decided to spend 50,000 contribution points for the special box. As for the [Universal Formation Pattern - Rank 1], he did not use his contribution points to acquire it. Instead, he bought it at Golden City with 2,000 spirit stones.

Now that two things in his checklist were crossed off, the next important thing on the list was the Void Crystal, which he bought through the Furia market, converting 90.000 worth of spirit stones to Furia credits.

After all these things were bought, Emery finally decided to do one thing that he had been keeping off for quite some time. The unbinding of the Tier 3 Moon Dagger.

The procedure cost him a total of 16,000 spirit stones. 1,000 used to buy the Absolve Potion from the Apothecary Shop, while 15,000 was spent to pay for the unbinding service, which was done by a formation expert.

The formation experts were masters of runes. They dealt with the engraving of magic items, artifacts and so on. Hence, for this particular unbinding service, the formation expert would first decode the artifact runes, before using the Absolve Potion to erase the previous owner's blood markings on the item.

Only after all the traces of the previous owner were gone could the artifact be tied by the new owner. It wasn't a simple job, hence the reason for the high cost of service.

At first, Emery thought that with the same amount of spirit stones, he could easily buy another Tier 3 weapon, maybe even two. The thought really tempted him to forget about the dagger. 

However, Emery quickly swatted the thought away as he really wanted to know the secret behind the dagger that had been used to kill Lanzo and sap him out of his power.

When the unbinding process was done, Emery only had to bind the magic artifact with his own blood, marking it with his signature. Next, time for the revelation.

[Moon Dagger - Tier 3 Artifact]

[Weight 0.9 kilogram, Length 35 centimeters]

[Spell - Blessing of the Moon]

[Enhances the user spell strength by harnessing the Moon's power]

The secret was not what Emery expected. Initially, he had thought the dagger was the one who was responsible for absorbing the life energy from its victims. Apparently, its effect was enhancing spells.

Emery then remembered that during the Night of Mistshire Massacre, a special moon exuded its luster through the night. It was what they called the Blood Moon.

Either way, he could not wait to try the effects of this dagger. It must have its uses.

After his round of shopping, Emery checked his remaining balance.

[Contribution points 88.650]

[Spirit stones 18.515]

Now, the only thing that Emery had not acquired was the Bloodline recipe. Alas, he still did not have enough stones, even if he traded all of his remaining contribution points.

Realizing the situation he was in and knowing he only needed one last item but unable to buy it, Emery sighed deeply.