Chapter 142 - Town Square
"Good morning, mom. Is there any news from father?" Clarice asked her mother, Elaine, after seeing her cook their breakfast.
The siblings arrived in this town late at night so they didn\'t have a lot of time to chat as they\'ve immediately gone to sleep.
"Oh Clarice, you\'re awake. He messaged me last night and said that he will have some time the day after tomorrow. You missed your father, huh?" Elaine replied while still busily preparing a heavily meal for everyone. The family, excluding Chase, plans to join an event within this small town later.
"Great. I\'ll only be here for two weeks. What\'s with his job?"
"Your father was assigned as a Project Manager. It seems that some new discoveries were found about the crystal they were mining there."
"Ah, now that you said it, I remembered that the Seed Holdings was the company dealing with mining and processing the memory crystals. What could possibly be discovered there? They\'ve been mining it for almost 50 years." Clarice said but she\'s not really interested on what was being done there. She was more concerned whether her dad could really spare them some time.
"Haha... Who knows, maybe they\'ve unearthed a gigantic crystal that they couldn\'t easily process?" Wallace answered coming from upstairs. He woke up early as a habit since during the past months, he always had to make some progress in his works.
He then checked the morning newspaper for some latest news. He was looking for some news surrounding the Tanza City but he didn\'t find any significant article.
Although he have his A.I. to help him in this case, it still has it\'s own limitation and he also wanted to properly integrate himself to this world.
Nevertheless, he still couldn\'t help using his Divine Sense in this scenario as he quickly gathered all the information within the newspaper. He found some latest news about their town instead.
He then folded the newspaper as he already smelled his mother\'s cooking. His stomach immediately grumbled as he sat on the table waiting to be served. He noticed that his sister was just taking a sip of a hot coffee as she waited for the meal. It was refreshing to have this kind of morning.
The two can only act like this now, they totally appreciated these moments where their mom would always cook for their breakfast. It has been several years when Clarice had to serve military and then followed by Wallace as he had to move in his dormitory near the Academy.
The siblings can also cook for their own but they could never reach their mother\'s level of attainment.
On the other hand, Claire, their youngest sibling, was still sleeping on her room but they\'ll probably have to wake her up soon as they planned to visit a place in their town.
"I\'m thinking about what you\'ve said, about the gigantic crystal. That\'s actually possible but your father said that it was classified so I didn\'t ask that much. Oh... check whether Claire has already woken up. She\'s been sleeping for over ten hours now. We\'ll leave after breakfast." Elaine said instructing Wallace whilst serving the food.
"Don\'t worry. We have plenty." Elaine chuckled sweetly after seeing Wallace\'s expression after being instructed to wake up his sister. It seems that the man was really hungry.
***
It was nine in the morning and after having their breakfast, the family went to the town square and saw many residents. It even looked to them that residents of other nearby towns had also visited their small Red Star Town.
There were several events this morning and there was even a surprise guest on this event. One of the event was showcasing of several Mana Artifacts made by a rising group, Veritas. They had been going town-to-town to promote their products that was helpful to magicians and even non magicians.
Their efforts were being highly appreciated by the local government as it lessens the invisible division between the magicians and those that are not.
Aside from this, there was a surprising appearance of Miya Linus. The residents never expected that this Celebrity Idol would actually be present in their small town. She was recognized as a star rookie of the entertainment industry.
"Whoa... She\'s really getting popular, huh." Clarice said looking at one of the buildings near the square. She was referring to Miya who had a fan meeting and album signing event in the said building. It seems she wouldn\'t be performing at all as there was no preparation at all.
"Not really. She wouldn\'t be here if she is. Look at our town. Most of the residents just wanted to have a look at the new Mana Artifacts that Veritas made and that other thing." Wallace said not in a negative manner but just a matter of factly. Their small town doesn\'t have good or outstanding qualities at all.
\'Oh... We have the Luna Lake nearby and the red star flowers. I think it can be counted.\'
Wallace thought whilst also getting interested at the displays of Mana Artifacts.
Elaine brought them here not only for the displays but also to see the airship that this group made. They will be given a chance to have a ride if ever they purchased a total worth of 50,000 credits for the Mana Artifacts they are selling. It is a significant amount to many people so most of them were only interested to see the airship in person.
Soon, the sunlight was blocked by a floating ship. The ship looked like an exquisite wooden sea ship but it was floating in the air instead.
"Whoa... That\'s huge..."
"Amazing, there\'s hardly any noise coming out."
"How could they fly this ship?"
"I wonder if this is for sale?"
"Nah... I heard that this was the only ship they made and the engine was so expensive that their group would go bankrupt if they didn\'t sold all their stocks of Mana Artifacts."
"Really? So that was why they\'re so hardworking going town to town and even enticing people to purchase that large amount."
"Haha... That\'s normal. I heard they borrowed a huge sum of money to make this airship. Unfortunately, it is almosy defenseless and only good for showing off."
"Right, I heard that it doesn\'t possess powerful attacks and mighty defense."
"Maybe a flock of birds could even put that thing down."
"That is where you are wrong, man. Even though the ship doesn\'t have strong defense. It houses several combat magicians to protect the ship."
"Anyway, I won\'t purchase that large amount for the sake of riding that ship."
"Me too.. But some artifacts were quite interesting so I will still try purchase some." They couldn\'t see the airship well while looking up so they took their eyes on the displays after a few admiring glances at the ship.
There were artifacts that helps in cooking, laundry, sanitizing, entertainment, and other more which were being sold in a discounted price so anyone would still be interested.
An artifact called Problem Solver 2 was a garbage collector that could make garbages turn to dust. It helps in disposing things that you\'d never want anyone to learn of. It was also powered by Mana Stone and were being sold for only 5,000 credits. Although it was small and can only be used for five thousand times, they could just replace the Mana Stone so it can be used again.
There were also toys like remote controlled flying airship, trucks, and cars.
It seems that Magic Engineers were also gradually mixing technological science and mana study perfectly. Before, Mana Stones were only being used as power source or battery for mechanical products. But now, there were also magic structures, magic formation and arrays that were being integrated by the engineers. Of course, there were these integration before but they\'re not being popular as mistakes or problems would still occur in some.
There were some cases that machines would melt because they couldn\'t handle the existence of a concentrated mana within their structure. There was even a time where a product exploded because of gradual declination of materials harnessing the Mana Stone.
Well, about a century had already passed since 5th gen was made so it was about time to have them mixed together perfectly and for the engineers to learn their mistakes.
Wallace spread his Divine Sense and sure enough, he discovered that a Mana Stabilization Array was also placed in the artifacts itself.
He was familiar of this array which was called Three Layered Protection Array. It helps in avoiding any Mana Destabilization in an already made product.
It was actually one of his creations. Although he had only perfected an already made Array, it was still named to him as its creator. Anyway, Wallace thought that it was only a matter of time before someone would make this. He just basically consolidated several engineer\'s work to perfect the array.
Now, his eyes turned to where the Celebrity Idol was.