The list full of items made Angor felt both tired and satisfied since he had so many meaningful things to do.
Paying his debt was the foremost task at the moment. He did not have time to read The Mystery of Nightmare Domain yet, so he scanned the book into his tablet and put it away. He was going to look for information to finish his first item.
An Energy Stabilizer was the foundation for all of his following alchemy attempts, so he placed it at the top of the list. A crafting draft for an Energy Stabilizer had a rental fee of 1.1 million merit points in Cloud Library, while his alchemy books provided it as common knowledge.
Soon, he found the files for it among the folders. He already read them before, now he did it again just to make sure. After carefully memorizing everything, he put away his tablet. While the device kept working on the arrangement of spell models, Angor took out his pen and paper and began his work perfecting the draft for an Energy Stabilizer.
Soon enough, his paper was occupied by all sorts of magic formulas and illustrations.
The materials used to craft an Energy Stabilizer were relatively cheap. The item was costly because of the requirement for energy-related expertise which involved a good number of different aspects including something called “wave frequency of energy”. An alchemist who wished to create an Energy Stabilizer had to spend money to study such knowledge first. Angor, on the other hand, knew something about it after spending his years with Jon. Now he only needed to apply the knowledge to his case.
He spent some time working out the final formula on his paper and acquired a conclusion by using Samuel’s Energy Separation Law—that the energy should be increased or decreased according to the “golden ratio”.
This was the basic application of an Energy Stabilizer, which was to condense chaotic energy and lift stable energy.
“The data is working… and the formula is fine…”
He could not help smiling at his initial success. He expected to spend several days working on the result, and he just did it within half a day. In his mind, he thanked Jon for giving him the much-needed teachings.
With the core theory in place, he needed to get to the crafting.
Again, knowledge was the most valuable asset in the making of this item. If he already had a blueprint, he would not need much wizardry effort to handle the materials. There was only the part that absorbed or retrieved stable energy which might require enchantment or synthesis.
His basement was just the right place to get to work too. There was enough space for him to design the appearance of the Energy Stabilizer as he liked.
By the time the night had descended, he finally created a draft which presented a finished machine. It included a mechanism that would help him lift the machine onto his lab table, or put it back under the table when it was not being used.
It had an egg-shaped material inlet, an oval energy separation chamber, and a cylindrical, duct-friendly outlet. The overall shape of the machine looked like a blower that was both handy and solid.
Next was choosing materials for the drafted design.
He took out several one-use space capsules from his pocket which contained everything he bought from Twilight Well, including the items he won from the auction.
He placed the capsules with more valuable contents into a secret chamber in his soundproofed room and broke open the remaining ones to arrange the materials in the available storage space.
His once vacant laboratory was almost filled up by the time he was done placing the materials. As a mild neat freak, he still arranged the items in a fine order according to their types and storage requirements.
It was becoming a bit harder to walk in his lab.
He comforted himself that everything would be fine once he got his space storage. Well, maybe not everything. There were materials that required special “habitats”, such as magical plants, live organs, or mineral which required constant intake of air… He could not place these into his space storage.
Unlike a Sorcerer’s Garden, a space storage could not store live beings.
With the materials placed, he prepared to start making the Energy Stabilizer. While picking the proper materials though, Sailum came to his door.
“Angor, it’s me!”
“Open the door!”
“You home, Angor?”
Angor walked away from his lab with two giant dark circles around his eyes. He always felt energetic while doing his work in the basement. But somehow, the air outside immediately triggered his tiredness.
He opened the door, yawning. “Here.”
“Come quickly! Miss Nausica is going to show us her cooking skills personally, and we’re waiting for you!” Sailum urged.
Angor nodded. “One moment. You go on ahead. I’ll get washed.”
He entered his bathroom and somewhat combed his messy hair. Before leaving, he took a peek into his bedroom and made sure Toby was sleeping well. Then he left some food for the bird, deployed an illusion in the bedroom, and walked to the door.
…
The yards rented by Sailum and Nausica were only a dozen meters apart. Their houses both looked similar to Angor’s villa. Only the color of the paint and the objects in their yards were different.
Nausica made her bigger yard into an outdoor training ground where a series of bloodline training devices were scattered everywhere. Sailum’s yard was full of vegetations as well as a white greenhouse just like Angor’s. However, the greenhouse was completely unused.
They were waiting for Angor in Sailum’s yard. Sailum was preparing meat slices while humming a small melody, while Nausica was doing the grilling. When they saw Angor coming, Sailum happily called out.
The fence around the yard prevented Angor from seeing all details from outside. Once inside, he saw tables and chairs already in place as well as a good number of well-prepared dishes on the table.
Angor took a seat. Sailum quickly carried a bowl of pork broth to him as he said, “Try this one Angor! I never thought Nausica could make such delicious food!”
Angor took a small sip and sensed the rich flavor. It was not top-class, but it contained a good taste of life. It had been some time since he last had a good meal, so he could not help applauding.
Nausica heard her cooking being complimented and chuckled, “Since when did little kids learn to flatter people? Oh, I know. You want to make me feel proud, so I become your chef and cook for you every day?”
“No no no, Miss Nausica. Anytime you feel like cooking, I’ll accept your invitation! Besides, I truly loved your cooking. Right, Angor?”
Angor was busy enjoying his soup. Upon being mentioned, he simply nodded without minding what Sailum just said.
After the pork broth, Angor felt greatly satisfied again by a bowl of creamed mushroom soup. Then an appetizer, snow scallops, was served.
When it was time for the main dish, Nausica left her grill and joined them with a large tray of roasted meat and vegetables.
Angor quickly lost himself in the food and completely forgot about his nobleman manners.
They talked about random topics, during which Angor also spoke of the meals from his homeland, especially the dishes cooked by Jon. When delicious food was mentioned, they naturally thought about Barbie’s Restaurant, one of the most divine dining spots for wizards.
“You’ve been to Barbie’s Restaurant, Angor? Did you enjoy something made by Lady Greya?” Sailum asked.
Angor shook his head. He had a Golden VIP card on him back then, but he had never actually eaten anything. He only received a “living food” called Section Ephemera from Greya, and he had been keeping it alive in his soundproofed room.
Speaking of Section Ephemera… Angor wondered if he could sell it to pay his debt. Surely something like that could get him at least a hundred thousand magic crystals.
“Aw, shame… Lady Greya’s gone, and no one will ever see her dishes again…” Sailum looked down. “So if we want to enjoy the best food in the southern wizarding region, we can only go to Lady Felicia’s Butterfly Tavern, right?”
“It’s not like you’ll get to eat there easily,” Angor commented.
“But we should have dreams!”
“That’s a pretty small dream then.” Speaking of dreams, Angor remembered talking about dreams with another young man under the stars not long ago.
“Small?” Sailum seemed serious about his idea. “Anyone who can go to the tavern is at least a wizard. I’m aiming to become a wizard, is it a small dream to you?”
Angor chuckled without responding. Now he thought about it, Sailum was the only one who did not have a clear goal among his friends. It was a good thing for the boy to have a dream.
Sailum suddenly crept closer to Angor and asked, “So, we two got our new homes. Aren’t you going to celebrate for us?”
“Celebrate? How exactly?” Angor raised an eyebrow.
Sailum rolled his eyes. “Maybe teach me a new cantrip? That ‘Create Water’ you told me was pretty handy.”
The cantrip mentioned by Sailum was created by Angor through the rearrangement of the model of an existing cantrip. He was not allowed to tell anyone any cantrips he learned from his professor or from the books he rented— if he did rent any— from Cloud Library.
He believed that with the help of his tablet, he should know more cantrip models compared to the other apprentices of the same level. Most of the cantrip models were relatively pointless. Amongst them, only a small number of them proved to be quite useful, and of which, Angor had noted down in his notebook.