Surviving The Fourth Calamity

79: Chapter 72 The Bountiful Harvest of Hill 79: Chapter 72 The Bountiful Harvest of Hill Hill was surprised to see these children bring in three to four thousand books, one by one.

When dealing with high-level professions, they had adopted a very prudent method.

While Hill was picking, he didn’t see any duplicate books.

Even if there happened to be duplicates, they were all books with notes in the margins—he found that they had wisely brought them all over.

Hill first took out all the magic books.

Books that could be called “magic books” were special-made books that only contained spells officially recognized by the rules.

Most of the books here were common repeats of the Mage level.

Occasionally, there were a few non-traditional spells, which were also outdated.

For example, the chain fireball technique originally involved casting five fireballs at once, which had been determined as the most stable and cost-effective combination.

Yet some people thought it would be better to cast six, even if it required one and a half times more mana, and they arrogantly wrote it into magic books to spread the word.

One of these books, featuring the six-fireball chain technique, happened to be in Hill’s hands.

He looked at it with interest for a while.

The books Fran had given him were all conventional, and he rarely saw magic books with such unusual thinking.

Seeing Hill’s interest, the male apprentice approached and said, “This is the signature spell of a mage from our Danton City.

He only put it on the market when he left.”

Hill looked up at him and said, “You know this isn’t a standard spell, right?”

An apprentice from the Mage Association wouldn’t be so foolish.

“Yes, but for those who can barely become mages, an extra fireball makes a big difference.

Their mana is nowhere near enough to consecutively cast two beaded fireballs.

And even the fireball technique takes a long time to cast.

That mage had been practicing this six-fireball spell from the start and had refined it significantly.

He could also add two more fireball techniques, which is quite remarkable among the common mages in Danton.”

As the apprentice saw the odd look on Hill’s face, he added slowly, “Besides the Mages’ Association in Danton, there are not many conventional mages.

The lord prefers those who can make special potions for him at any time.

With such mages in abundance, the conventional mages don’t really want to come to Danton.

Even the Mages’ Association reluctantly sent an archmage here.

After all, it’s the biggest city in the North, so the branch must be maintained.”

Hill took the hint and didn’t inquire about the lord who had gone on the run and what potions he might be involved in; the kind of potions beloved by decadent Nobles were predictable.

In any case, even though there wasn’t a book containing Archmage-level spells and despite all being repeats, Hill wanted them all.

After all, in his library, there weren’t even two shelves filled with magic books.

He counted and saw there were quite a few here—over three hundred and sixty.

When put on the read-only shelves, they would add some breadth of knowledge.

Like this six-fireball technique, which had probably been in use for decades and seen improvements by the mage, increasing its power somewhat.

The thinking behind it might be worth looking into, Hill thought somewhat sadly, considering that the current mana cost for him to use the chain fireballs with five projectiles was higher than this spell’s.

Although he tried not to use Fire Element Spells, Hill still needed to know them!

In case he found himself in a situation where only fire spells were an option, it was better than being completely helpless.

Right now, half of the magic scrolls in his ring were Fire Element Spells given to him by Fran and Adrian.

There were also plenty of Alchemical Bombs.

Hill looked at the multiple piles of more books from these Nobles with their strange collections.

These ordinary books could be considered valuable; after all, even the worst kind was worth more than ten gold coins.

But in a mage’s world, any book that could be bought with gold coins would always be cheap.

Hill quickly flipped through them and decided to buy the entire lot.

The books of Haifasardo’s Nobles have an even older legacy.

Many of these books might even date back to their time of arrival from Cortez.

What makes books in this world expensive is the fact that the so-called paper is made through alchemy, and it lasts for millennia.

Many alchemy apprentices, as long as they learn papermaking, can survive quite well.

The profession of Alchemy doesn’t have high barriers to entry; a little bit of magic power is enough to start learning.

If one doesn’t desire to advance further, learning papermaking—or even a bit about herbals—means one can live quite comfortably among ordinary people.

It’s generally passed down from generation to generation, as even if money could buy education, it isn’t something most illiterate commoners can aspire to.

Any book acquired by the Mages’ Association has some value.

Hill looked at several books among them that could be up to 5000 years old and deeply felt that Nobles, as a species, always considered money the most important thing in the end.

No matter how much they glorify the image of upholding Noble traditions, when push comes to shove, heritage still makes way for money.

Hill nodded to the male apprentice and said, “I’ll take them all.

How much?”

The kid handed over a price list efficiently: common Common Spell Books were ten crystal stones each.

Those few non-traditional ones were fifty crystal stones.

Those containing spells of Archmage level were one hundred and fifty crystal stones.

As for the Noble’s books, regular ones were ten gold coins each, a thousand-year-old was one hundred gold coins, two thousand years were five hundred gold coins, three thousand years were one thousand, four thousand years were two thousand, and five thousand-year-old books were five thousand gold coins each.

Hill, preparing to pay, was deeply shocked to see the apprentice happily bringing out two boxes to collect money, wondering if this branch was entirely run by two apprentices without a mage in sight.

The male apprentice, observing Hill’s astonished look, calmly said, “Our Danton branch Mage Guild Leader has gone…