The message holder Mage Teft had given him had fallen to the back of his mind. It was just sitting in the Magic System Inventory. No doubt he would have remembered it when getting something out of his Inventory at some point, but for now it was just sitting there.

"Here is another one. No message in this one, and no restrictions for it, but don't open it until you are away from Silver Spire. And keep it in a safe place, like your personal spatial storage."

"Can I know what is on it then?" Damion asked.

"Every magic seal I could access from the school's Repository."

Damion swallowed hard when he heard that. How many spells had Mage Teft stolen from the school and just handed to him. With these magic seals he could start learning spells for his various affinities. By studying these he might just be able to push his Nashto to mastery, which had still eluded him, despite learning two tier 5 Spatial affinity spells. How many tier 5 spells were here in the palm of his hands? Each one was worth 1,000 experience points and 50,000 credits. Did Mage Teft just hand him the answer to getting the Magic System to level 4?

"How many tier 5 spells?" Damion asked.

"Only tier 5 spells for Water and Ice. Even as Dean, that tier of spells is restricted to people that have the right affinities."

Damion was a little disappointed by the answer. But he was still excited to hear he would be able to get access to tier 5 Water and Ice spells. However, as he was mentally celebrating, he realized there was one problem with having access to this many spells, the cost of buying that many spell slots from the System.

Sure, he could afford to buy more, after all, he'd already bought 20 additional slots, but the next 5 would cost him 5,062 credits and each purchase after would cost even more. What he needed to do, was look through and determine which spells were worth learning. While he might be able to learn every spell known to man, it was not really practical. Other than credits, which he could now earn more easily with the Magic Core Converter, he really did not need to focus on learning every spell possible anymore, he needed to work on quality, otherwise, how many spells like Clean Water would he end up with.

He would look through the spells and what they could do, once he graduated, but he had no intention of learning them all. What he needed now was versatility. A spell for any situation he could think of, then he would be able to get himself out of any tight spots he might end up in over the next few years.

Before that though, Damion felt he should improve his auto-mapper. He had already turned in his plans and received credit for the assignment. The artifact was as good as he could make it, but that was still only D Rank. With the help of the Magic System, he was going to improve both it and his body scanner.

'System, purchase Upgrade Non-System Artifact.'

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{Affirmative, please select which artifact in the Inventory you wish to upgrade.}

A list of possible artifacts he had stored in the Magic System Inventory appeared in his mind. It included his sword, the auto-mapper, the body scanner and to his surprise, the containment unit. However, the containment unit was greyed out. Damion guessed that was because the unit was already C Rank and the System limited him to artifacts of his own Rank. But that also meant he should be able to upgrade the containment unit once he Ranked up. Since it was unlikely he would need to use any of his artifacts while he remained here at school, he decided to go ahead and upgrade them all.

'Upgrade all available non-System artifacts.'

{Affirmative. Calculating cost…}

[D Rank sword to C Rank, cost – 280 credits.]

[D Rank auto-mapper to C Rank, cost – 160 credits.]

[D Rank body scanner to C Rank, cost – 290 credits.]

{Would you like to proceed?}

'Yes, upgrade them all.'

Less than a thousand credits to upgrade his artifacts to the next rank, it seemed worth it. He was a bit surprised by the cost difference between the auto-mapper and the body scanner. But the more he thought about it the more he realized that, while he had put in plenty of effort into the body scanner, he had not used the highest quality of materials he had available. Since no one else would be using it, he just made it good enough to work for his purpose. Though now, the cost of the upgrade was almost the same as a C Rank weapon artifact, even though it was a utility artifact. Even the auto-mapper upgrade cost was much higher than a C Rank utility artifact.

'System, why is the cost for the utility artifacts so high?'

{The costs are higher than average due to optimizing materials, correcting errors in the enchantments and optimizing the design.}

'Did the System just not so subtly say I'm a bad artificer?' Damion wondered as he waited for the Magic System to announce it had finished the upgrades.

*Ding*

{Upgrades complete.}

Damion took a look at the artifacts in his inventory and reviewed the information for each of them. The body scanner was now palm sized, instead of the box he had designed, and it could project the scan information into the air and could now accurately read a person's affinity and magic talent, as well as allow him to view someone's magic seals.

The auto-mapper was still about the same size. This one Damion had designed for his own use, to wear on the front of his armor. However, the materials used made the artifact stronger and apparently the enchantments allowed it to map the area around him for 25 kilometers in any direction.

His spatha appeared to be unchanged, but Damion could see the materials used had been upgraded. From the information the System provided, the sword was now made from a mix of Aurichalcum and Red Steel, allowing it to keep the coloring the blade had before, but also let the weapon channel mana more efficiently.

Seeing the improvements, Damion really wanted to take the sword out and see what he could do with it, but he decided to wait. Once he reached B Rank he would upgrade the sword again. He wanted to keep this memento of his family with him and keep it useable. Even though he had gotten used to using his Ice Sword, he still preferred this sword.

Now that his artifacts were upgraded, Damion headed out of his dormitory to do some training. After learning about his and Mage Teft's plans to build their own school, Elicia had been putting in even more effort than usual, no doubt trying to make sure she did not fall too far behind Damion. Outside in the grass he found Elicia and Phil training with each other.

Damion cast Ice Clone and then Ice Armor on himself and headed over to join them. Soon enough the four were embroiled in a battle royale. They continued to spar for a while, but suddenly stopped when Elicia grabbed her stomach and fell to her knees.

Thinking one of them had landed a strong blow on accident, Damion rushed over. Just as he was reaching her, Elicia vomited.

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