Chapter 174: Breaking Even or Losing Money?

Soon, the second production run began. Xia Duo did not deliberately make the parchment patterns inaccurate, but instead chose to improve his personal spellcasting accuracy. Spellcasting technique and proficiency were Xia Duo's weaknesses; after all, he had been a Mage for too short a time, but spellcasting accuracy could not be relaxed.

To describe it in gaming terms, spellcasting accuracy meant the gap between the upper and lower limits of a spell became smaller, meaning the effect of the spell remained firmly in his own hands.

If a Mage could not even control the effects of their own spells, that would be too dangerous.

Just think about a precisely calculated Teleportation spell that ends up inside a crack in a rock due to a spellcasting error; wouldn't that be extremely unjust?

……

While focusing on spellcasting accuracy, Xia Duo's first spellcasting attempt ultimately did not have much error, but it still failed in the end.

The reason was that there were too many steps in the process of linking the Scroll to the Magic Net; the more steps there were, the easier it was to make a mistake, and as soon as a mistake occurred, one had to start over.

After a few tries, Xia Duo had already used up the Red Stone Ink that came as a gift when purchasing the Scrolls, but fortunately, he had purchased "Gray-White Ink," which was similar to Red Stone Ink, from the Mage Tower's Material Requisition Office in advance.

It was enough for him to squander.

This kind of ink was not suitable for ordinary writing because it was truly gray-white, and the price of 20 Gold Coins per bottle was also somewhat unpleasant.

There were quite a few inks suitable for 1st Circle Magic Scrolls, with roughly the same price and no difference in effects. After switching inks, Xia Duo succeeded after only a few attempts.

A faint light flashed, and this piece of parchment finally bore a fascinating Magic Aura. Above the unfurled parchment, the three-dimensional spell structure woven from the Magic Net hung down, its wisps and threads linking with the magic patterns on the parchment.

Xia Duo hurriedly rolled up the parchment. As the parchment deformed to a certain degree, the spell structure gradually contracted onto the surface of the parchment, finally turning into a radial Magic Net structure gathered around the Scroll.

After a moment, these radial Magic Net structures also gradually converged, and after reaching a certain point, they remained stable.

A 【Steam Ray】 Learning Scroll was made! Having had one successful experience, what followed was continuous replication.

In the end, Xia Duo produced 2 Learning Scrolls and 3 Ordinary Scrolls that could be encrypted and sold.

It wasn't that he couldn't make more due to a lack of materials, but that the Mage's spellcasting opportunities had been exhausted; all that remained were Bloodline Spells, and he hadn't even begun the conversion work for those yet!

Calculating it, his success rate for making Scrolls today was only about thirty percent; if one only considered material costs, he barely broke even.

However, considering this was his first time producing them, he should be able to make money later on.

But for low-level Scrolls, one shouldn't think about getting rich overnight; the daily production limit was extremely limited, and one could only rely on time to accumulate.

Or produce more advanced, or more widely applied Scrolls.

Otherwise, even a 9th Circle 【Change the Color of the Stars in the Sky】 Magic Scroll probably wouldn't sell for much.

For an individual, a Spell is a technology, and technology emphasizes practicality.

Currently, 【Steam Ray】 is quite practical, but not to the extent that it is indispensable. Trying to raise the price based on this probably has little hope.

"Sigh—why is making money so hard!" Xia Duo couldn't help but grumble at the five finished Scrolls, but immediately after, his stomach grumbled at him—

Rumble, rumble, rumble—

"Tower Spirit, command: current time." Xia Duo immediately called out to the Tower Spirit.

"Permission Level 2, Mage Xia Duo, current time: 9:00 AM."

"……"

Xia Duo's first reaction was not to lament that he had stayed up all night, but to regret that he had wasted a spellcasting opportunity for a rest cycle.

Thinking of this, his mood, which had already dipped because the Scrolls couldn't be priced higher, became even lower.

Fortunately, the 【Steam Scroll】 had already been produced, so Xia Duo's mood was currently in a medium-to-high state, and apart from being hungry, he didn't feel overly exhausted.

Perhaps his physique had become stronger and more resistant to fatigue.

Xia Duo tidied up the workbench in the Spell Laboratory, put the remaining materials back into the storage room, and left with the five finished Scrolls.

One night's cost also needed to include the cost of using the Spell Laboratory! Calculating it this way, he might have actually lost money.

Opening the door, there was a meal box leaning against the wall outside; it must have been placed there by the Apprentice who delivered the meal in the morning. One couldn't hear the "doorbell" inside the Spell Laboratory unless Xia Duo had set it up himself.

Xia Duo imagined the scene of the Apprentice struggling between waiting or leaving, then took the meal box and went back, starting to eat immediately.

While eating, he took out the book *Dasiruier's Advanced Protection* to read. Xia Duo had already read about half of this book.

At the beginning, he had found it a bit difficult, but after reading more than half, he felt increasingly relaxed. 【Mage Armor】 was not a high-threshold spell; on the contrary, it was a quite popular spell.

This was almost the only spell a low-level Mage could master to resist physical attacks, so he certainly couldn't be careless! Just like that, when lunch was delivered and the "doorbell" rang, Xia Duo had already finished the book and was deducing and completing the elements not recorded in the book.

Taking the lunch and returning to the inner room, Xia Duo suddenly felt that this meal delivery service was too inhumane; delivering on time was fine for people with normal schedules.

Xia Duo's schedule had always been very normal before, but as a Mage, it was hard to guarantee there wouldn't be times when his schedule was disrupted. For example, today, did other Mages just endure it?

Or were there other special services? Private butlers, private Chefs, or something? Xia Duo didn't want to think about that for now, but a simple requirement like "having food whenever I'm hungry" should at least be met.

Thinking this, Xia Duo immediately contacted Jianaer. As two Apprentices under the same mentor, he and Jianaer had long since exchanged Arcane Marks.

Contacting him now wasn't abrupt, but when Jianaer heard that Xia Duo had specifically sent him a Sending just to ask how to eat, Jianaer still couldn't help but be stunned.

"Xia Duo, I think you should communicate more with people and not always ask common sense questions."

"Am I not communicating with you right now?" Xia Duo laughed. It wasn't that he didn't communicate with people; he just used the time others spent chatting and drinking tea to research Magic and practice Spells.

Coming from an era of entertainment, Xia Duo felt bored by the so-called entertainment and social activities within the Mage Tower, and instead, magical things like Magic fascinated him more.

Of course, Xia Duo wasn't completely avoiding communication with others; wasn't he contacting Jianaer now? He just acted with more purpose.

"Jianaer, are you preparing for the Arcane Competition?"

"I don't know the specific rules yet, so how can I prepare? I've just found some materials in the Library. Forget it, let's not talk about this. You can just ask the Tower Spirit your questions; the Tower Spirit can provide instant food, or you can find an Apprentice to deliver meals specifically for you. That's it."

After saying this, he cut off the connection.

"Heh." Hearing the end, Xia Duo showed a satisfied smile. Asking Jianaer seemed unreasonable, but in fact, it was very reasonable; when a young person is asked by someone who surpasses them, they will inevitably feel a bit proud.

If it doesn't involve secrets, they are also happy to show off once.

Xia Duo suddenly remembered an interesting anecdote from his High School days. At that time, his grades were quite good, but there was a classmate in the class who liked to bully students with better grades than him.

Xia Duo had also been bullied, but one time, he asked that classmate a very childish question, and then something interesting happened—

That classmate not only didn't mock Xia Duo, but gradually became friends with him.

Looking at it from the current perspective, perfection creates distance, while imperfection erases distance, but in essence, the gap between the two, and the gap valued by society, had not been erased.

Therefore, although that classmate eventually became friends with Xia Duo, his opinions were often led by Xia Duo.

Perhaps the current Jianaer could also become such a friend.

Happy New Year!

(End of chapter)