Chương 40: Rendezvous

"Beep—Balance deducted: 200 Terra Credits. Mana supply terminated." Inside the public Mana Supply Pod, a narrow chamber barely large enough for one person to sit cross-legged, the cold synthesized voice interrupted Rowan's meditation. As the miniature mana-gathering array at the bottom of the pod dimmed, the surrounding mana—barely enough to be called "dense"—was instantly drained away, returning to Terra's usual dry, acrid state.

Rowan opened his eyes and sensed the condition of the Source Crystal Core in his left chest.

"Six-tenths." Four hours ago, he had come to the cultivation room attached to this public facility. Scrap Iron Street had two of these rooms that sat unused almost all year round, which saved Rowan the trouble of waiting in line. Facilities like this, built to squeeze money out of mages, were everywhere. At the expensive rate of fifty Terra Credits per hour, it had only advanced his Tier 1 single-phase mana pool by one-fifteenth.

Compared to the other world, where cultivation felt like sticking a pump straight into a great river, this was no different from paying a high price to drink muddy water.

"Too expensive. I'll channel the rest slowly on my own." Rowan glanced at the remaining balance on his terminal with a pained expression and chose not to renew the session. He did not leave the cultivation room. Aside from the Mana Supply Pod, there were still a few square meters of space inside. Rowan began practicing the seamless switch between [Minimalist Water Blade] and [Frost-Chill Gauntlets] again and again. As for [Wellspring Step], this cramped place did not even give him enough room to move his legs.

He could only repeatedly deduce the Spell Model in his mind. Just as Rowan had practiced the Water Blade to the point where he could maintain it in his hand for five minutes without letting it disperse, his high-grade AR implant suddenly projected a blinding scarlet warning across his retina. [Warning: Aether Loan repayment countdown: 3 days. Amount due this period: 2, 500 Terra Credits.] Looking at the red pop-up obstructing his vision, Rowan's eyes turned cold. This was a repayment reminder he had set himself.

A year ago, he had still been a student who could see hope. With his exceptional theoretical talent, he had applied for the Spark Consortium's student aid program. It was the Consortium's investment in promising students, made so they could recruit better workers in the future. The monthly subsidy helped Rowan repay his loans, and he had even been able to save some money each month. However, eight months ago, the Spark Consortium had been maliciously shorted by some unknown Consortium and declared bankruptcy.

Without the student aid subsidy, his debt snowballed under compound interest. In the blink of an eye, it had become a mountain heavy enough to crush a person to death. Fortunately, a few days ago, he had passed the preliminary screening for the Military's special recruitment, triggering a protection mechanism that temporarily froze his debt. Even so, the debt collection reminders still popped up on time like flies.

"Every credit matters now. Since it's temporarily frozen anyway, there's no need to repay it early." Expressionless, Rowan swiped the pop-up away. At that moment, a message from his close friend Rad appeared in the communication channel.

"Rowan! The Starlight Consortium is holding a pioneer art exhibition in the Upper District at the end of the month. They're recruiting service staff. Pay is 2, 000 Terra Credits for one shift! Requirements: Tier 1 or above Transcendent, young, decent-looking. This is basically an easy payday. Hurry up and sign up!" Rowan read through the recruitment poster and could not help letting out a scoff.

In the Lower Hive, countless people risked their lives to become Tier 1 Transcendents, believing that once they crossed that threshold, they would finally be able to control their own fate. But in the eyes of the Consortiums, a Tier 1 mage was nothing more than a stronger, more presentable employee—barely qualified to serve as advanced security and a human backdrop.

"So Tier 1 just makes you expensive labor." Complaints were complaints. Rowan still quickly filled out the application form and sent it in. A legal job that could openly earn him two thousand credits in one go was rare enough to count as a gift. Who would complain about having more money?... At the appointed time, Rowan left the rental room early and headed toward the Blues Stimulant Bar beside the Mage Association Branch.

As he walked along the muddy street, information about the middleman "Syringe" surfaced in his mind. In truth, he and Syringe had known each other since childhood. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Both of them had come out of Snail Street Orphanage, and they had attended the same public middle school.

In Terra's extremely capitalized society, where even breathing seemed to cost money, the federal government's "nine years of free compulsory education" was the only form of social welfare with no threshold at all. But to Rowan, it also carried a strong sense of dissonance. He had long seen through the essence of this system. It was not charity at all. For some reason, the Consortiums and the government had jointly created a giant "filter."

Through compulsory education, they sifted through the vast population of the Lower Hive poor, selecting those with some promise as potential "caster seedlings." As for the overwhelming majority who were filtered out, they would be trained into standardized high-grade industrial consumables—people who could read instructions and understand orders. They popularized basic magical knowledge through compulsory education, yet tightly controlled the quotas for core resources like Mana Primordium.

Resources on Terra were indeed scarce, but Rowan felt that they were also consciously controlling the number of Transcendents. Still, there was no denying that both he and Syringe had benefited from this system. Back during the High School Entrance Exam, Rowan had been admitted into Westpoint Magitech High School, while Syringe had failed.

In order to repay the various basic student loans he had accumulated during middle school, Syringe had no choice but to work as an apprentice at a shop under a company called Clear Spirit Pharmaceuticals. The shop manager was an elderly elf. Back when Rowan had been poor, he often went to the old man to buy cheap painkillers that worked reasonably well. After going back and forth a few times, they had become somewhat familiar.

Later, according to Syringe, the old elf had joined a ruin exploration squad as an accompanying field medic. In the end, that squad was completely wiped out. The old man never returned. Seeing that Syringe was quick-witted, Clear Spirit Pharmaceuticals hired him to continue watching the shop, and he had worked there ever since. Rowan's relationship with Syringe had been limited to buying and selling materials. But Rowan had keenly noticed the changes in Syringe's attitude toward him.

At first, when Syringe saw Rowan wearing the uniform of a magitech high school, the envy in his eyes had been impossible to hide. But later, when Rowan could no longer repay his enormous loans and had been tormented by debt until he barely looked human, the way Syringe looked at him gained a trace of relief. That small, humble relief—at least I started grinding at the bottom early, but I'm not like you, buried under massive debt and waiting to die—Rowan understood it perfectly. But he had never cared.

"Still..." Rowan stopped walking, his brows furrowing slightly. His high-grade AR eye flickered faintly in the rain.

"Syringe did mention before that he had an older brother doing logistics for some exploration squad. But today, he said his brother is a Tier 1 mage and the captain of this pioneer squad." A strange sense of abnormality began to grow in Rowan's mind. In his memory, Solly was at most one year older than them. If Solly had been admitted into a magitech university back then, Syringe would have bragged about it everywhere long ago.

Since he had not, that meant Solly had not even been a Tier 1 mage when he graduated from high school. Besides, the contribution points earned from logistics work were far lower than those earned by formal exploration squad members like Rad. If Solly was already the captain of an exploration squad, that meant he had to have become a Tier 1 mage at least half a year ago. Only then would he have had enough time to cultivate to the Tier 1 Dual-Phase level and form his own squad.

Had he really paid off his student loans right after graduation and earned enough contribution points for a Mana Primordium?

"This so-called older brother is rather interesting." Rowan brushed his fingers over the hilt of the blade at his waist and quietly raised his guard.... Blues Stimulant Bar. This place did not sell coffee. The air was filled with the sharp smell of mint mixed with industrial alcohol. In the booths sat mercenaries and scavengers whose eyes were streaked with bloodshot lines. Rowan pushed the door open and stepped inside.

His newly replaced AR retina immediately began working, filtering through the crowd for his target. Soon, he saw a man in a grey tactical jacket sitting in a corner booth. The man had a buzz cut, and a dagger tattoo was drawn near his temple. He was the target. Across from that man sat another person. That person was wrapped entirely in a loose black hooded cloak and did not say a word. Rowan's AR retina flickered slightly. He did not activate detection.

First, the VIP tier of his software was too low, so it probably would not be able to detect much anyway. Second, the fluctuations from detection were relatively obvious. In this kind of situation, using it would be an impolite provocation. But this person was most likely also a Tier 1 mage. Rowan had just stopped beside the booth when the door was pushed open again.

"Syringe," skinny as a monkey, walked in while rubbing his hands together. Behind him followed three burly men who smelled of machine oil. Rowan swept his gaze over them. All three were Half-ironmen with torso modification rates above forty percent. They were equipped with second-hand refurbished mechanical arms and subdermal armor. The leader among them was a muscular man with a mechanical jaw.

His equipment was clearly a level better than the other two, and an undisguised aura of a Tier 1 mage faintly leaked from his body. A Half-ironman mage. The three men had clearly also seen Rowan's young face under his worn-out robe. The burly Half-ironman mage frowned and asked the buzz-cut man in a rough voice,"Boss, this is the outside support mage you found? Isn't he still a student? Don't tell me we'll have to spare attention to protect him once we're underground."

The buzz-cut man ignored his subordinate's complaint. His sharp gaze swept over Rowan from top to bottom. Then he tapped the table.

"Enough. Everyone's here." The buzz-cut man gestured for Rowan to sit.

"I'm Solly, Syringe's older brother. No need to introduce Syringe. These three are Carl, Adams, and Logan." Solly pointed at the three burly men. The Tier 1 mage was Carl. Then he looked toward the hooded figure.

"This is the other outside support mage I invited. Just call him Grey Raven." Dressed entirely in black, Grey Raven nodded slightly as a greeting. Solly then looked at Rowan.

"Rowan Vance." Rowan gave his name simply and directly. He had no intention of saying anything more.

"Ahem. Let's get to the main business." Solly tapped a few times on the tabletop terminal, projecting a holographic blueprint of an underground facility.

"Our target this time is an abandoned D1-grade biological warehouse. Originally, for a ruin of this level, I could have taken the three of you and pushed through with firepower alone. But the day before yesterday, the official deep scanner detected a mana heat source in that area. It's suspected to be a living creature." The expressions of several people immediately grew serious. A living creature inside an abandoned ruin was almost certainly an unknown mana-beast born under high-density mana.

"That's why, to be safe, I invited these two mage friends as additional support." Solly pointed at the hooded man, then at Rowan.

"The higher the risk, the greater the reward. Now, confirm the coordinates." The holographic map suddenly shrank, and a flashing red dot appeared at the very outer edge of Terra's urban circle.

"Coordinate location: beyond the energy shield of the Seventh Abyssal Hive, thirty kilometers into the outer edge of the No-Man's Land." The moment that location was spoken, the atmosphere in the entire booth sank. No-Man's Land. Beyond the energy-gathering protective shield, that place was not only a forbidden zone of strong acid rain and lethal radiation, but also a completely lawless land with no network and no Public Security Bureau patrols. And this was thirty kilometers into its outskirts.

Without regular suppression by armed cleanup squads, that place was the hunting ground of high-tier aberrant beasts.