Chapter 52: No Matter How Much Money, It’s Never Enough
Chapter 52: Chapter 52: No Matter How Much Money, It’s Never Enough
’It’d be nice to be as carefree as you someday, with someone to feed me and everything.’
Andre looked at Potato, a wave of emotion washing over him. He then returned to his room to clean. After four months of being away, dust had settled everywhere.
"Clear Wind Technique." Standing at the doorway, Andre chanted the Spell. As he finished, streaks of green light materialized and transformed into a gentle breeze that swept all the dust in the room into a single pile.
"Mud Transformation Technique, Stone Formation Technique!" Andre chanted again. The pile of dust turned first to mud, then to a small rock, which he promptly tossed out of the room.
’Everything’s back to normal, except for the smell.’
Andre sat down and took out the vast majority of his haul from the Black and White Forest from the Storage Ring on his hand. He then unfastened several more Storage Rings and Spatial Bags from his waist, placing them all on the table.
Combined, these items represented eighty percent of his current net worth. The Storage Rings and Spatial Bags alone accounted for half of it.
’Time to sort through this stuff, see what’s valuable and what I can sell.’
Andre went to the Inheritance Hall and grabbed several books on minerals and Magic Plants. He carried them back to his room and began to identify his haul, cross-referencing each item with the descriptions in the books.
The sorting process took him all the way until the following evening.
"Whew, finally done."
Andre looked at the notebook in his hand, which now held a clear record of his gains from the Black and White Forest.
This time, his total earnings from the Black and White Forest amounted to over three million Magic Stones—or more than thirty thousand Medium Magic Stones.
It sounded like a lot, but the vast majority of that value came from the Storage Rings and Spatial Bags themselves.
After subtracting the value of the Storage Rings and Spatial Bags, twelve thousand of the thirty-thousand-plus Medium Magic Stones were already gone.
The next most valuable items were the Witchcraft Artifacts from the six Black Wizards he had killed with poison.
These also made up a huge chunk of the value, nearly equal to that of the Storage Rings and Spatial Bags.
Only the remaining six thousand Medium Magic Stones represented the actual value of the Magic Plants, minerals, and other materials.
But no matter how he looked at it, his haul from the past four months was immense.
’Thirty thousand Medium Magic Stones should be enough for me to become an Official Wizard... but I’ve got other mouths to feed now, don’t I!’
Andre did a quick calculation. A Magic Plant Space bound to one’s Soul was worth at least eight to ten thousand Medium Magic Stones, and the price would be even higher for a larger one.
Add in the cost of buying some Earth Element Crystals, and half of his thirty-thousand-plus Medium Magic Stones would vanish.
And that wasn’t the end of it. Cultivating Magic Plants had its own requirements.
To meet those requirements, he would need to purchase various Nutritional Potions for the Magic Plants.
This was another major expense. Then there were the Magic Potion Tools he used, which also needed to be upgraded.
When he had left the academy a month ago, he had only purchased the most basic set of Magic Potion Tools, lacking much of the essential equipment.
As a result, when he tried to sell Potions in the Black and White Forest, others constantly lowballed him.
Now that he had this fortune, he definitely had to upgrade his tools. But equipment for making Magic Potions wasn’t cheap; a decent set would cost one or two thousand Medium Magic Stones at the very least.
If he wanted to buy some of the most precise, large-scale equipment, the price could easily double, or even reach five thousand Medium Magic Stones.
After factoring in the cost of a Magic Plant Space, Nutritional Potions, new Magic Potion Tools, Earth Element Crystals, and everything else, he would only have a few thousand Medium Magic Stones left over.
That number might still seem large, but he had another major expense looming: constructing his own Ladder of Truth.
Building the Ladder of Truth required a massive amount of Magic Stones to purchase the necessary materials.
Each and every one of the materials needed to build the Ladder of Truth was expensive. What’s more, he planned to build a Ladder of Truth that had no precedent in the Wizard World, which meant the material requirements would be exponentially higher.
When he added it all up, not only would he spend his entire haul from the Black and White Forest, but he might even have to take out loans and go into debt.
Fortunately, he didn’t need to buy the materials for the Ladder of Truth right away. He could accumulate them slowly. Otherwise, he would have gone from a rich man to a man deep in debt in the blink of an eye.
’I’ve got to earn more money!’ Andre put all his gains away, sat on his bed, and began his Meditation Technique, using its Power to restore his drained Spiritual Power.
The next morning, Andre was woken up by Potato.
Potato was next to the bed, whining incessantly and demanding a Honeycomb.
"I never should have fed you that honey in the first place."
Andre watched with a sense of resignation as Potato tried to butter him up for the honey. Still, he broke off a piece of Honeycomb and gave it to the creature.
’There isn’t much Honeycomb left, only about half. I need to find a way back into Secret Realm No. 1 to bring back some more.’
After giving Potato a piece, Andre took a piece of Honeycomb for himself, popping it into his mouth and savoring the sweet taste.
For Andre, sweet things were brain food.
’After breakfast, I should go shopping. I wonder if they’ll have any Magic Plant Spaces for sale. Any kind of space that can sustain living things is always exorbitantly expensive.’
Andre got up from bed, washed his face, and walked out of the Wizard Inheritance Hall.
Just as he stepped out of the Wizard Inheritance Hall, a figure darted out and startled him.
"Selena, do you have too much time on your hands?"
Andre gave Selena a resigned, exasperated look.
"It’s fine, I guess. Anyway, you were tossed into the Black and White Forest for four months! Tell me, what was it like?"
Selena said, nodding and holding out her hand to Andre expectantly.
Andre stared at Selena for a long moment before sighing in resignation. He placed a piece of Honeycomb in her outstretched hand and began to tell her about his life in the Black and White Forest.
As for Selena, once she had the Honeycomb, her attention was completely fixated on it.
"You’re the descendant of a vice-dean. Is a little piece of honeycomb really worth that much of your attention?"
Andre watched her, his mouth agape. Finally, he couldn’t help but ask the question that had been nagging him for over a month.
"You can’t feel it?" Hearing this, Selena looked up at Andre in confusion.
"Feel what? What is there to feel besides it being sweet?"
Andre was baffled by her words. ’It’s just a Honeycomb. It’s got honey in it. What else could there be?’
"The Honeycomb you give me contains a Power that can mend damage to the Soul," Selena explained. "Otherwise, why do you think I’m always asking you for it, and not someone else?"