No one knew when, but the formerly silent Icewind became lively once again.

Humans and intelligent lifeforms from various regions started to gather here, working and toiling toward a united goal.

There were the apprentice adepts of the Crimson Clan, the witch apprentices of the Fate Witches, the goblin apprentices selected from the Goblin Plane, as well as wandering apprentices that had come for the reputation of the clan. The Crimson Clan's higher-ups had demonstrated rare compassion toward these apprentices, allowing them to reasonably enjoy the privilege of using the magical facilities of White Tower.

The spacious and comfortable living environments, the peaceful and harmonious atmosphere of study and scholarship, the powerful adept teachers, the systematic and comprehensive library, and the plentiful magical laboratories; all of these became the most attractive of magnets, firmly drawing the hearts of the apprentices to the tower and making them the loyal followers of the Crimson Clan.

Several different cliques had quickly formed within the apprentices after a few months of trials and studies. Several small social circles centered around powerful apprentices had silently developed based on the potential and talent of the individual apprentices themselves.

The core of these circles were almost always pseudo-adept apprentices!

Such pseudo-adept apprentices always belonged to a unique group in any clan. They might still belong to the category of an apprentice adept, but they were already starting to enjoy the privileges of a newly advanced adept from many other aspects.

In fact, even part of the basic curriculum of the apprentice adepts was taught by them.

It caused them to become towering and shining figures in the hearts of most other apprentices, becoming pioneers that were admired and idolized.

As an outsider, Little Locke was introduced by Eco and was successfully able to join her social circle. It was a study group built around the pseudo-adept Ponta.

Ponta. Human, thirty-seven years old. He was a Pseudo-Adept with an affinity for dark elementium, born in a small human kingdom in the Vikas Region of Zhentarim. According to the customs of human kingdoms, Ponta seemed to retain his identity as a prince. He had been sent into the adept's tower after he was discovered to have magical talents at a young age.

He was also one of the earliest free apprentices that had chosen to join the Crimson Clan after its establishment. His power could only be considered average amongst the six pseudo-adepts of White Tower. However, due to his ability to summon a powerful shadow assassin, he was the one type of pseudo-adept other pseudo-adepts did not want to provoke.

Pseudo-adepts often lacked powerful defensive magic before their advancement to official adepts. As such, no pseudo-adept opponent would want to try and experience a taste of the wicked shadow blade of an untraceable shadow assassin.

In truth, Little Locke was not qualified to join a learning association like this one with his power of a beginner apprentice. However, Eco's recommendation, as well as his own odd identity as a goblin mechanic, drew the interest of Ponta, who allowed the goblin to join them.

After two months of study, Little Locke had grasped the basic meditation technique. Apart from that, he had also very unexpectedly awakened to his talent as a goblin mechanic. It gave him a strange ability that resembled bloodline powers. It allowed him to bring out the combat power of magical machines to their fullest potential.

Sadly, he had come to the World of Adepts with absolutely nothing on him. There wasn't a powerful magical machine he could manipulate to his benefit. Moreover, magical machines often contained a myriad of mechanical components and magical parts. Little Locke's weak Spirit couldn't possibly sustain such delicate and sensitive manipulations.

Thus, with no options left to him, Little Locke could only pay out of his own pocket to purchase some magical machinery modification knowledge. He also bought some of the cheapest metals and proceeded to construct an eyeball combat machine.

He called it an eyeball combat machine, but in truth, it was only a metal ball that could not be any cruder.

It was only the size of a human head and freely propelled itself in the air through pressurized air shot out of small ports located all over its body. To reduce its weight as much as possible, he had carved out the inside of the metal ball entirely. In place of metal, the interior was carved with a series of wind arrays.

The most direct consequence of this was a sharp decline in the metal ball's physical defense. However, in exchange, it obtained rapid movements and a fast flight speed in the air.

The only offensive option of the eyeball combat machine was a ruby shard embedded in an indentation. The eyeball combat machine could gather wandering elementium energy through the energy gathering array and then shoot out an eleven-point heat ray through the ruby shard.

Due to the impurity of the fire elementium within the ruby shard, this was the most powerful attack that the machine could muster, even with Little Locke's efforts. If Little Locke wanted to improve the power of the heat ray further, he would have to swap out the ruby shard for something of higher quality– a flawed ruby, perhaps.

However, while a ruby shard only cost three magical crystals, a flawed ruby went for as much as twenty magical crystals. The massive price difference forced the poor Little Locke to go for the cheapest and most available materials.

The magical intensity of the ruby shard could only sustain an attack rate of one shot every five seconds. Anything beyond this frequency had a high possibility of burning out the arrays within the eyeball combat machine and ruining the precious shard.

Even so, a magical machine helper that did not require too much control allowed Little Locke to rapidly become one of the few strongest individuals amongst the beginner apprentices. After all, being able to fire an apprentice-level spell with fifteen points of power in five to seven seconds was already decent for a beginner apprentice.

Other beginner apprentices had to constantly be wary of the agile metal monster zipping about in the sky when fighting with Little Locke. With two against one, there were very few individuals among the newbies who could beat Little Locke!

To train the practical combat skills of the apprentice adepts, the White Tower would organize a venture of fifty kilometers in the Black Forest on a weekly basis for some of the apprentices. They were to hunt and kill some apprentice-level beasts or magical creatures. Of course, White Tower would always send an official adept to lead the party on every operation. The adept would bring the apprentices to a suitable area before allowing them to split up and act independently.

One had to admit that the management of Crimson Clan's White Tower took a well-thought-out approach to the trials that the apprentices had to undertake.

If the apprentice parties ran into trouble in the forest, they were free to request help from the leading adept. However, if they did so, all their spoils would automatically belong to the adept. That was why the apprentices preferred to gather around a pseudo-adept. It afforded them some additional protection in moments of crisis.

After all, with the power of the pseudo-adepts, they were entirely capable of unleashing a single First Grade spell if they exerted to their limits!

It was a fairly important ability to have in the border region of the Black Forest. A pseudo-adept that had grasped a First Grade spell might not be said to be undefeatable, but it would make most of the area safe for them to travel.

It was also the place in which their value to the other apprentices best manifested themselves!

The spoils of the apprentices in the Black Forest would belong entirely to themselves or their party. They could sell these spoils to the merchant unions under the clan once they returned to White Tower, or they could also host an auction themselves. The gold coins and magical crystals earned through such hunts were sufficient to sustain their lifestyle in White Tower.

The subordinate trading firms and auction houses of White Tower separated the prey and their spoils into different qualities. The apprentice-level beasts and magical creatures were directly sent into the factories, where they were processed into sealed metal cans by the goblins working there before being put into boxes and transported to the continent's central area.

There, the Happy Coin Trading Firm established by Snorlax would be responsible for selling the goods to every human noble's villa and city.

The flesh of ordinary beasts might not attract the interest of the human nobles, but the meat and hides of low-grade magical creatures were still popular products.

After all, everyone knew that the bodies of magical creatures contained some degree of elementium energy. Being able to absorb this energy through daily consumption regularly would provide a pronounced increase in an individual's Physique and elementium affinity.

Such minor changes might be insignificant in the eyes of the adepts, but they had immense meaning to the human nobles, who had enjoyed all manners of luxury and only sought to extend their lives for a few more years!

If these nobles could consume magical creature meat on a daily basis, they could improve their Physique. However, more importantly, it could increase the chances of their descendants possessing magical talents.

And that was what the nobles truly wanted!

Of course, this change in percentage was a negligible one; only a small tick in the third or fourth digit past the decimal point. Still, through the incredible oratorical skills of Snorlax, who could turn a dead man living, the meat was exaggerated and described as mythical meat that could forever change the fates of the noble families.

With some intense and effective marketing, Snorlax successfully started a new trend in Zhentarim– a trend towards eating healthy and improving one's Physique through magical creature meat. Moreover, this trend was something that other clans could not take advantage of!

Every single adept clan had their own hunting parties that were responsible for killing magical creatures and gathering rare magical plants for the consumption of adepts. That should naturally give them the advantage needed to compete with Snorlax. However, firstly, the amount they hunted was still too little. It was insufficient to satiate the appetite of such a large group of human nobles. Secondly, the preservation of magical creature meat was a difficult task that demanded quite a lot of rare materials.

If the meat were meant for the consumption of the adepts, the rich adepts would have no problem spending money on the preservation process. That allowed the hunting parties to make profits easily. However, trying to provide meat at the same price to middle and low-class human nobles was a foolish endeavor. These nobles would not be able to afford such a lavish magical creature feast even with all their worldly wealth.

The subordinate goblin engineers of White Tower had specially created a vacuum-sealed metal lunchbox for this matter, solving the issue in a perfect yet affordable manner. This process allowed for the possibility of selling high-energy magical creature meat at a low price!

It was through such methods that the White Tower successfully developed a living for the civilians who arrived in its territory. They only needed to learn the simple operation skills of a streamlined factory under the tutelage of the goblin technicians, and a qualified worker would be born!

Chapter Notes:

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