This Sunday was extremely productive. He had an entire day to work on his skills. He spent most of his time practicing Drowse and Reverto while not totally neglecting Illuminatus either. 

Thanks to this practice he managed to heavily reduce the required casting time for both spells. He was now able to cast both of the spells in half a second. This was great news but also made it so that Villin wanted to get another spell to save within his wand.

He also spent a few hours practicing drawing runes, something that would help in both enchanting and magic arrays. And lastly, he awakened a few nodes next to the Reverto spell nodes. He actually found a new way to make awakening nodes even cheaper.

Villin liked comparing the magical energy the nodes sent out to wild beasts. It was extremely aggressive and worked on instinct. Previously he blocked the energy on three sides making it try to escape encirclement by going to the only side available, this would allow his own magical energy to whittle it down without taking too many losses.

Now he developed this technique further. He would attack two nodes at the same time and funnel them toward each other. Then, in order to try to escape the two forces would attack each other and Villin’s own energy just had to clean up.

And so, ten more nodes were already unlocked, opening a massive amount of possible combinations.

And so, after all of that, it was finally nearing midnight. First, Vilin did the obvious thing and he eft the dormitories, then he tried looking for any sort of ‘line’. When he didn’t find one even after a dozen minutes of looking, Villin closed his eyes instead and tried to see if he could feel any magical energy.

It seemed like this was the right step as not long after he felt a small line of magical energy, he followed it through the halls for twenty minutes before he saw someone else. In front of him was a girl, also following the line. She looked rather familiar with it as she casually walked along, only checking the energy occasionally.

A bit later they arrived at a specific hallway, the only thing that stood out about it was that there were no doors on either side, hell it was even a dead-end making it seem like an utterly useless part of the school.

Villin patiently followed a dozen meters behind the other student, also checking the magical line occasionally, and when the student got to the end of the hallway, she simply walked straight through. Villin paused for a moment, looking stumped before he walked up to the wall.

Even now that he stood before it he felt nothing strange. He tried to sense magic but other than the line which went straight through the wall. And so with an excited heart, he tried to step through the wall.

He immediately felt slightly nauseous, a sign of teleportation, but he soon suppressed it and looked around, soon stunned by the sight.

This place was totally different compared to the barely decorated school classrooms. He was standing in a ginormous room with hundreds of students. There were massive chandeliers on the ceiling fifty meters above them, the walls had all sorts of beautiful drawings on them, some of them glowing, reminding him of graffiti art.

“God”

He walked forward, completely ignored by the people around him. All the people here seemed to be students but not all of them were of the first grade. People of all the six grades were here, a quarter of the room was simply an area to talk to each other and hang out while the rest of it had all sorts of stalls, items, and services were being bought all over the place, there was an extremely lively atmosphere.

After walking about for a bit, Villin properly understood the room. The stalls were first divided into genre (such as enchanting, magic arrays, sports,...) and then into grade. After understanding the rules of this place Villin headed toward the area dedicated to wand-making.

The cheapest wands for sale were the ones similar to second-grade wands. They cost a thousand magic crystals. Some people might think of this as a scam but it made sense. You didn’t actually get a wand in the school, you were simply lending them. Most people that finished their sixth grade would actually have to downgrade quite a bit wand-wise when they got their own. Additionally, the school wands were tracked and the school would know about any and every bit of magic you cast.

Villin decided to stick to the third-grade wand-makers as anything higher would be impossible to afford. 

According to a random passerby, he asked the marketplace would be open for another hour for those in the first grade. Within that time they would have to leave. And so, with that in mind, Villin quickly began looking around.

Most people simply followed the guidebook to make identical wands to one another. It looked extremely basic and Villin immediately left those people. Those that used different materials got a second look from Villin but seeing that those too only had the basic wands he left them be as well.

After fifteen minutes of browsing, he had only found a single student who sold a wand that looked different, having beautiful carvings and the life. But as this student was able to make wands similar to those of the third grade Villin already knew he wouldn’t be able to pay up and so he looked further.

Luck seemed to smile at him as he finally found someone that fit his criteria. On one of the tables were all sorts of items. He was a small walking stick, a large needle, a potato knife, and a few other items with a sharp edge. Each of these were actually wands made out of a different material. The only problem was that all of these only had capabilities a tiny bit above regular first-grade wands and so not many people were interested.

Villin smiled as he had a look at the wand-maker. Standing behind the table was a young man with long hair that was put together in a hairpin. He couldn’t spot a wand on the person’s body but then again, the hairpin was only one of many items that might actually be a wand he made himself.

“Excuse me, sir, do you do custom commission?”

Villin asked politely. The wand-maker looked at him for a bit before replying “I do, please note that my cheaper wands are still a thousand magic crystals. They might not be amazing in terms of capabilities but they are easy to hide and can allow you to catch potential enemies off-guard.”

Villin smiled at the boy as he temporarily closed his stall to talk to him. Something that was apparently quite commonplace here. “So, what is it you need?”

The boy was very to-the-point, something Villin could respect. “I would like for you to make me a pair of gauntlets. One of them working as a wand and the second one simply being identical.”

Originally Villin actually wanted to make a pair of wand-gauntlets but he simply didn’t have the required capital. Even though he had a talented student’s savings for half a year, it simply wasn’t enough to get all he truly wanted.

The wand-maker looked at him with a confused expression for a moment before lowering his hand, thinking about the commission. After a few minutes passed he looked up once more, Villin expected the boy would feel excited at being able to make something new, but his expression hadn’t changed.

“The design is larger than regular wands increasing the difficulty, I also have never made anything of the like which complicates things. There’s only a few materials with enough flexibility and I’ll have to exactly copy an existing wand so you can wear it as a pair. Normally this would cost about five-thousand magic crystals but I’ll half the price since you seem to be a rather rich first-grader, let’s say it’s for a good cooperation in the future.”

With these words, one would have been expected to have a flattering expression, yet this man didn’t he simply looked at him and held out his hand which had a crystal holder within. Villin knew of the usual practices of a sale at this point and so he sent over half the money required to the boy. He still felt nervous though, he had expected the price to be two-thousand at most before he got here but then again everything the boy said was true and overall it wasn’t that expensive compared to regular aesthetically pleasing wands.

After paying half the sum, Villin bought a few pieces of paper that could be used in ‘Cut and Crease’ cheaply under the ‘Sports’ section before heading back out through the wall he came from. This time next week he would have the gauntlet he longed for.