Inside the Point Exchange Hall of the Cuilan Academy.
Furan was leaning back in a chair, holding a copy of "Fire and Biology" in her hand. On the table next to her were seven or eight other printed volumes she had just exchanged for.
"As expected of something the Elemental School doesn't even collect; this is way too superficial!"
Furan couldn't help but complain after flipping through it.
Although she knew that books placed here for apprentices to freely exchange with points wouldn't be as good as the knowledge taught by the Schools themselves, she hadn't expected this book to be so terrible.
The entire book was quite thick, totaling over two hundred pages, but Furan considered less than 20 pages of it to be meaningful content.
The content was a poor match for the title. It was called "Fire and Biology," but more than half of it was just an animal encyclopedia of creatures that had only a slight connection to fire.
Even the introductions to these animals mostly consisted of short stories about the creatures, and the storytelling was very poor—just things like where the creature walked from and to, what food it ate... The meaningful content was in the final chapter, which was also the only chapter related to Spells.
It discussed a type of fire release that could induce fear or friendly emotions in creatures. However, when Furan wanted to see what the Spell actually looked like... she discovered that the book only proposed a principle. There was no actual Spell structure at all; it was equivalent to having only an idea without any substance.
"I hope the next book contains more magical knowledge."
That was all she could do. She had no recourse when encountering books that didn't live up to their descriptions; once points were exchanged, they couldn't be refunded.
Furthermore, when choosing books, one could only look at the title—not even the first few pages. Finding such a rotten book was a very normal occurrence.
The reason Furan had come to the Point Exchange Hall to exchange for these books was that she wanted to obtain enough books to meet the promotion requirements.
After several days of doing business with magic rings, the Spells she possessed could be said to cover most of the School Spell systems. She was just short on related knowledge to meet the promotion requirements and add a few names after the 'Mage' profession on her panel.
For example, she was currently working hard to find knowledge related to the Elemental School. She had many Elemental School Spells on her panel, and half of them had even reached the Mastery level. Among them, the Wind Blade Spell she had learned at the very beginning was about to reach the extraordinary level.
So she was thinking about whether she could find Elemental School knowledge first to obtain an Elemental Spell Specialty.
However, as a long-standing major School, the Elemental School was unparalleled in terms of the number of books it produced.
She had only realized while flipping through the catalog earlier that half the books in the exchange catalog belonged to the Elemental School. From this, one could see the general quality of these Elemental School books.
Furan had already exchanged nearly ten books, but she still didn't have any feeling that she was about to condense an Elemental School Mage profession.
"Take it slow."
Although she hadn't succeeded after so many books, she could feel herself getting closer and closer to her goal.
If she went through ten more, she might successfully obtain the Elemental Spell Specialty.
She was determined to get the Elemental School Spell Specialty because her best Spell, the Wind Blade Spell, belonged to the Elemental School. She didn't know why it was available for sale, which had allowed her to obtain the Spell quite early on.
"Why hasn't he arrived yet?"
Furan frowned. She had made an appointment with someone to exchange money for points here.
The current School year wasn't over yet. Although she had chosen a large number of courses and was confident she could earn points through her own strength...
...the courses hadn't finished yet, so there was no way for her to get points. Thus, she could only return to her old trade—buying and selling points.
She was different from before. In the past, she had to sell points to get startup capital, but now she wouldn't even blink at buying a hundred points with the gold coins in her hand.
A flurry of hurried footsteps came from the entrance of the Point Exchange Hall. Furan looked toward the sound and found it was actually an acquaintance.
Milanke ran in panting. At first, when he ran to the agreed-upon spot, he didn't recognize Furan.
"Hello, are you the one who wants to buy points..."
Suddenly he choked on his words because he realized the person in front of him was very familiar—it was the same Furan he had bought points from last time.
Only this time, their roles as buyer and seller had swapped; this time, he was the one selling points.
"High-level Apprentice Furan," Furan greeted first.
"High-level Apprentice... Milanke."
Milanke's face was full of astonishment, but he quickly adjusted, though he looked embarrassed as he spoke.
"I only have four points left over from the last School year."
Seeing Milanke again, Furan's primary feeling wasn't surprise, but curiosity.
She was very curious why Milanke was selling points. To her knowledge, apprentices who bought points were usually working hard to become a Formal Mage; they were in their rapid growth phase and needed extra knowledge.
So why, after more than half a year, was Milanke selling points? Did he no longer plan to become a Formal Mage?
"Why are you selling official points?"
"I... plan to go back to my father's place and take a clerical job under the Lord."
Milanke had given up. Before participating in the Assessment last School year, he had been high-spirited, thinking he could definitely become the next Formal Mage. But after one Assessment, he had let go of that notion.
Although he had tried his best to avoid conflict with others during the Assessment, allowing him to emerge unscathed, he had accomplished almost nothing in terms of results.
Because when he stood in an unfamiliar environment for the first time, he found that his previously smooth spellcasting became sluggish or even difficult to cast... Since the Assessment, he knew he couldn't become a Formal Mage because he couldn't adapt to the Assessment environment. Failing to achieve results in the Assessment meant he couldn't become a Formal Mage.
He had made this decision long ago, but it was only a few days ago that he remembered he still had a few points left. Thinking these points were also money, he had arranged to sell them.
"Just get me those four books at the beginning of the second page of the catalog."
Milanke was a bit surprised to hear this request, but after confirming it once, he stopped speaking and brought up another matter.
"Well then, the current market price for one point is 24 silver coins."
He scratched his head. It felt a bit strange to be buying back four points at nearly double the previous price.
The price was reasonable because supply and demand were currently very unbalanced. Not only had a large number of points been used to enroll in the previous weapon forging class, but it was also the start of the School year. Everyone's courses had just begun, so naturally, no points had been earned yet.
This price is a bit high, Milanke thought. The fifty silver coins from last time had been a significant sum for him, and he had only decided to buy points after precise calculations.
Furan, however, didn't even blink. She casually pulled out her coin pouch and, amidst the sound of clinking, took out a gold coin.
"Keep the change. Loose silver coins are a bother."
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