Hilia went to class, left class, ate, and returned to her dormitory as usual.
Out of habit, she picked up her fishing rod, but then rembered Rose had told her she didn’t need to fish anymore.
"It’s enough... if you keep fishing, the lake’s fish will go extinct."
The girl put down the fishing rod.
"It feels like sothing’s missing today..."
She glanced around the dorm room, thinking for a mont, when suddenly she heard the sound of the door lock turning.
She turned her head and saw the magic puppet walk in from outside.
"Missing Mr. Rose’s sarcastic comnts."
Curiosity arose in Hilia’s heart—she wanted to know what Rose was doing with her magic puppet today.
But after hesitating for a long ti, she still didn’t ask.
Just pretend not to know.
So thought the girl.
Rose didn’t bother with Hilia’s little thoughts. Seeing Hilia there, he tossed the magic puppet casually to the side.
"This weekend, go to Lake Beia and check on the progress of the Summoning Array."
As he spoke, he motioned for Hilia to look toward the kitchen.
"I wrote a materials list. Prepare everything according to the list. Those are the items needed to deal with the Sea Successor White Whale without combat. So might be a bit expensive, but the rest are all common magical materials."
"Once the summoning progress is confird, we’ll decide on the priority for collecting these materials. But in the end, you’ll need all of them."
Hilia walked over, picked up the list, took one look, and almost blacked out.
"That’s...that’s way, way too much!"
"If you reach Tier Two before the white whale appears, you can halve the materials." Rose said coolly.
"But for now, just focus on collecting these materials."
With a bitter face, Hilia stared at the 108 materials on the list.
As Rose said, most of the items were common magical materials available at school—just file a request and they’d provide them.
Only the twelve specially marked materials—half of which Hilia had never even heard of, and the rest she’d only learned about in her materials class—were unreasonably expensive for soone at her current stage.
"Most of these I can get from the school. But these twelve rare ingredients will be tough. So the school has, maybe I can borrow a little from materials class. But Golden Heart, Dragon Scale Stone, Advanced Magic Crystal, Ghost Fruit... I’ve never even heard of these. What should I do?"
"They’re all beginner-level items. Look around—you’ll find them."
"..." Hilia went silent for a mont, then pointed at a na on the list. "Golden Heart... Does that an extracting magic power from gold?"
"Golden Heart is just a na. It’s not the essence of gold. It’s an ink used for inscribing runes. The color is gold-like, and the magic power concentration is a hundred tis that of gold, so it’s called Golden Heart."
"Dragon Scale Stone isn’t a stone made from dragon scales either. It’s a gemstone with extrely high hardness, nad because dragons like using it for bathing."
Rose briefly explained, then said, "Circle the materials you don’t know, or that are difficult."
Hilia imdiately circled the twelve rare ingredients. After thinking, she crossed out three of them. "These three can be bought at the Mage Guild. My money... should be just enough."
Then, Hilia couldn’t help complaining, "Why is it twelve again? Twelve Main Gods, Twelve Heterodox Sects, twelve archbishops, twelve materials... Even the curriculum has twelve courses. I feel trapped by the number twelve."
"No idea. Maybe you’ve discovered the root of the world."
Rose was very calm. When he played gas before, he’d bitched about this as well. Everything seed to be tied to twelve—for example, so quests would tell you to go to three places, then find three things... Only when you hit the magic number twelve did it end.
It could only be chalked up to the designer’s fetish... or maybe the Creator God’s peculiar taste.
Thankfully, in the ga, you never actually had to gather that many things. It would say you need a hundred plus, but the quest NPC would have most ready for you. Rose only needed to collect the twelve rare ones himself.
Just like now—so many items listed, but most were common, like white swan feathers, sweat from a Tier One Mage...
"For the remaining nine, three you can request from your principal. You helped him a lot—applying to use them for research won’t be a problem. Another three you can get from the Huijin Divine Hall. They’re sorting through High Priest Dylan’s contraband and it includes these."
Rose crossed off six materials, marking out Golden Heart, Dragon Scale Stone, and Ghost Fruit. "These three: Golden Heart is simple, the other Holy Daughter candidate, Benovia, has so at ho—you can ask her for a bit."
"Huh? Ask Benovia? She’d never give it to , no matter what."
"Normally, yes. But there’s an exception. When the ti cos, you just have to say three words, and she’ll give it to you."
"What three words?" Hilia asked, full of curiosity.
Rose didn’t answer, instead looking at the other two items. "Dragon Scale Stone and Ghost Fruit are trickier. One’s found in dragon territories, and the other only grows where there have been many deaths."
"Lots of deaths..." Hilia thought a bit. "There’s a sect that loves to gather its believers for sacrifices to gain divine gifts. Would their stronghold grow these?"
"Which sect?"
"The Dusk Sect. They worship a so-called god of death who claims to bring dusk to the gods. What they love most is mass sacrifice. It’s the most hated heterodox sect by the Holy Court."
"Mass sacrifice?" Rose thought for a mont. "They might be cultivating those materials. It’s worth checking out."
"But Dragon Scale Stone... I don’t know... Dragon territory... Do dragons still exist in this world?"
Rose raised his brows. "Dragons are extinct?"
Hilia nodded, then shook her head. "I don’t know. I only know they were active before the Era of Calamity. After that, there are no records. No one in the Five Great Empires or other demi-human empires has seen a dragon anymore.
"Legend is, when the Calamity began, all the dragons fled to the overseas Giant Dragon Island. Don’t know if it’s true."
Rose couldn’t hold back a chuckle. "Forget the gods—even humans dream of becoming dragon knights. The mont the gods descended, they wanted to ta dragons as mounts. If it was , I’d run too."
Dragon knights were a distant thing to Hilia. She didn’t really feel anything about it; she cared more about getting the Dragon Scale Stone. "With dragons gone, is there still Dragon Scale Stone?"
"Dragon Scale Stone isn’t sothing born with the dragons. Of course it still exists. First, get Golden Heart and Ghost Fruit—then worry about Dragon Scale Stone."
"Okay!"
...
So, after school the next afternoon, Hilia followed Rose’s instructions and bravely went to find Benovia.
"Miss Benovia, hello, I’d like to talk to you about sothing. Do you have a mont?"
Benovia looked at Hilia with so confusion. "Why can’t you just say it?"
"Sorry, it’s sothing I can’t let anyone else hear."
Benovia clearly didn’t want to interact much with other candidates. Hearing this, she flatly refused: "I need to go make up so classes. No ti. If you can’t say it, then let’s not talk. Goodbye."
"Wait!" Hilia hurried to stop her. "I’d like to ask you for a bit of Golden Heart, is that okay?"
Benovia paused, turned around, and frowned. "This is your supposedly ’private’ matter?"
"Of course not. But if you don’t want to hear it, Miss Benovia, then I won’t say it."
"Whatever. Sorry, Golden Heart is very precious—I can’t just give it away."
"Tell her—this matter is worth exchanging for her Golden Heart," Rose said.
"This matter is worth you exchanging your Golden Heart for," Hilia relayed Rose’s words.
Benovia didn’t stop walking, heading toward the school gate.
Hilia hurried to ask Rose, "Mr. Rose, please stop keeping in suspense."
"Tell her—Hiro Association."
"What?!"
Hilia’s body jolted, but Benovia had already gone far. Without ti to think, Hilia rushed over and caught up with her.
"Hiro..."
Benovia stopped, then turned and changed direction.
"Too many people here. I’ll take you sowhere else."
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