Inside a certain mage tower.
"What kind of curse is this?" the magic apprentice complained to his mentor. "My fingers are swollen like sausages." He couldn't even bend his knuckles properly.
"As you can see," the magician wrote down the spell, "a curse that prevents the fingers from moving smoothly."
"Why can't you just experiment with your mole?"
"Isn't this more intuitive?" The magician modified the tiny details in the spell again and noted at the back: swollen fingers, useless magic.
"Of course, I've thought about it a lot. If I had written to the priests and asked them to heal a mole, they would definitely not have been willing to do so." The magician thought he was thoughtful and was very satisfied with his emotional intelligence.
"Stop looking," the magic apprentice said to the other apprentices who were hiding outside the door and peeking in. "It will be your turn next time."
The apprentices under this magician always have higher magic resistance than ordinary people.
Inside another mage tower.
"Dear mentor, why did you turn our dinner into this?" The magic apprentice asked his mentor while grabbing the wings of a guinea fowl. The whole body of the chicken was soft, as if it had turned into something like slime.
The portly magician turned her neck and said, "I didn't curse it, but would I curse you? Like that idiot next door?"
Thinking of his friends who worked as assistants to the magician next door, the magic apprentice couldn't help but shudder: "You are right."
This magic apprentice was originally the son of a renowned chef in Sunset City. He was chosen for a rather unusual reason: his mentor was a glutton, and coincidentally, he could cook a variety of delicious dishes.
After a while, the magician asked his apprentice unsurely, "My letter was pretty good, wasn't it? I thought my tone was quite gentle. Why hasn't anyone from that healing station come yet?"
The magic apprentice shrugged and said nothing. When he saw the letter, he thought his mentor was going to challenge him to a fight.
"I just want to know if there are any methods the priests have to quickly remove the curse. This makes perfect sense."
About half an hour later.
A fluffy bird flew in through the open window and stood on the coffee table inside the room, one leg stretched out with a note tied to it.
The fat magician raised her wand and tapped the rope lightly. The rope untied itself naturally and the note fell into her hand.
"There's not even an envelope," she muttered, opening the note.
The cost of a visit will be doubled, depending on the severity of the curse. The errand fee is 30 silver coins. If confirmed, have your bird deliver the errand fee.
"Okay." She asked her apprentice to bring her 30 silver coins and put them in an envelope. She then cast a feather spell on the envelope and tied it to the bird's feet.
The same note appeared in another wizard's tower.
"Double it! How could I have forgotten that priests are always greedy for money?" The magician took out the silver coins and weighed them for a moment: "30 silver coins are too heavy."
Finally he put a gold coin into the envelope and put a note inside - bring the change.
Fifteen minutes later, the doorbell in the Mage Tower was triggered.
The magician and his apprentices were a little surprised: "You came pretty quickly."
The magic apprentice leaned out the window and took a look: "Why does it look a little different from the rumors? This person doesn't look like a priest at all."
"You go and take a look." The magician immediately lost interest and randomly assigned an apprentice to open the door.
The apprentice opened the door and saw a tall, silver-haired man wearing enchanted leather armor.
He introduced himself; "I am the adventurer Giles. I have accepted the mission of the Healing Station and am here to provide you with curse removal services."
About fifty minutes ago, Adventure Guild.
"I want to post a task." Eryi asked the receptionist, "Collect the money from the magician for me. How much currency would be appropriate?"
"This..." The receptionist was stumped. He had never heard of such a task: "This sounds a bit strange. We don't collect debts for others." He suspected that Eryi was lending money at high interest rates.
Eryi realized that what he said could be easily misunderstood: "I need an adventurer to help me bring a magical item that can heal people to the Mage Tower. I will heal the people inside and charge them a fee."
This sounded much more normal, and the receptionist said, "It depends on the amount of your consultation fee and the value of the magic item itself. We require adventurers to pay a certain amount of insurance to prevent them from taking the item."
Eryi looked at the Curse Dispelling Saver (B) in the mall and thought for a moment: "The consultation fee is more than 60 silver coins, and the magic item is worth 130 gold coins."
Curse Dispel Accumulator (B): Can store up to 50 Curse Dispels. A secondary skill can be used to refill the Curse Dispel. Costs 8000 Energy. Universal, can hold three levels of Curse Dispels simultaneously.
"130 gold coins..." The receptionist took the adventurer's information and began to calculate: "Those with so much money are usually large adventure groups, or..."
"I'll take this quest." A silver-haired adventurer leaned over and said, "It sounds interesting. 30 silver coins, 30 silver coins, I can run the quest for you."
"Hello." Eryi looked at the tall man in front of her. There were many people coming to the treatment station, but she had never seen this man before.
The adventurer smiled at Eryi, then turned to the receptionist, threw out his adventure manual, and pointed to the monster corpse outside the door: "I'm here to hand in the quest, but we'll talk about it later. I think I'm qualified to take this quest."
"Of course." The receptionist took a deep breath and confirmed with Eryi: "Do you need to issue a quest? I believe this adventurer is absolutely capable of completing the quest you need. 30 silver coins is excellent value."
"good."
The receptionist took out a task list and quickly copied it. The adventurer tapped the counter with his finger and said, "Go to the Mage Tower. It must be a B-level task." As he said that, he turned around and greeted Eryi.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Giles, a B-rank adventurer." Giles extended his hand and shook Eryi's. "It's a pleasure working with you."
"It's a pleasure to work with you," Eryi said. "Besides this mission, I think we need to discuss the remuneration in detail."
Inside the Mage Tower.
"Can I come in?" Giles asked. "Let's get through this quickly."
"Why an adventurer? Wait a minute." The magic apprentice didn't come out. He answered the microphone next to the door and said, "Teacher, the person who came is an adventurer, not a priest. He said he accepted the mission of the Healing Station."
"Can others hear you talking to this thing?" Giles said to the magic apprentice. "It looks interesting."
After a while, his mentor's voice came over the phone: "Ask him if he brought Xu with him. If he did, take him to the reception room on the second floor."
"You heard me." The magic apprentice extended his hand to Giles: "Looking for the sequel."
Giles tossed out a small cloth bag, and the coins inside jingled against each other.
The apprentice opened it and took a look. After confirming that it was filled with silver coins, he waved to Giles and said, "Come with me." As he walked, he counted the money in his pocket. There were 70 silver coins in total, which was enough to count.
Giles had barely taken his seat in the reception room when the magician came down with his cursed apprentice.
"Why you, priest?" the magician said rudely. "Don't try to cheat me out of my money. I know her address."
Giles didn't explain anything and took out a square box from his bag. The top of the box was inlaid with three crystals, from left to right, light green, green, and dark green.
He recalled the instructions Eryi had given him and pressed the pale green crystal. Once pressed, the box automatically opened, revealing a funnel filled with a liquid the same pale green as the crystal. Floating in the center was the word "5" written in Common Language.
"Are you the one who was cursed?" Giles asked the magic apprentice standing beside him. The magic apprentice's fingers were swollen terribly, but he didn't care about anything else and was staring at the funnel in the box.
"It's him." The magician replied simply, then focused on the box in Giles's hand: "What is this?"
"Magic props."
Giles aimed at the magic apprentice's hand and turned the funnel over.
The liquid in the funnel quickly turned into mist, surrounding the magic apprentice. The swelling on the magic apprentice's hand quickly subsided, and the number 5 displayed in the funnel turned into 4.
Giles put the box away in full view of everyone, and took out a small notebook to read from: "One use of the curse removal spell within the light green crystal, 60 silver coins."
"60 silver coins, thank you." He spread out his hands.
The magic apprentice who had been counting silver coins in his small bag looked at his mentor, then took out 10 silver coins from his pocket and took them away. He threw the remaining silver coins and the small bag to Giles: "Here you go."
Giles weighed the coins casually. Having been an adventurer for many years, he knew the weight of every coin. Over time, he had acquired an uncanny skill in counting money.
"Wait." The magician was checking to see if the curse on his apprentice's hand had been completely lifted. After confirming that the curse had completely disappeared, he raised his magic wand towards the apprentice who had recovered...
"No, let's find someone else this time." The magic apprentice slipped under the chair and tried to hide himself.
After a great deal of chaos, Giles won another 60 silver coins.
When Giles wanted to leave again, the seemingly easy-going magician's expression changed: "You can go, but you have to leave your things here."
"I knew this would happen. Is 30 silver coins too little for this quest?" Giles muttered to himself while dodging the magic cast by the magician.
As a B-rank adventurer, Giles was of course confident that he could escape unscathed from the magician who owned the Mage Tower, which was why he accepted this mission.
Giles pulled out his little notebook and read from the notes: "If you want this item, you can have your bird or apprentice bring one hundred magic coins to the Healing Station. This item is not for sale, but it can be rented out."
"It's okay to buy one for a hundred magic coins, but rent it out?" The magician was angry.
Giles didn't care about that. He threw a ball of paper on the ground and quickly left the reception room.
"You want to leave without my permission? This is my mage tower."
The magician chanted the spell, and as each spell formed a coherent whole, his magic power flowed from his wand, connecting the nodes within the tower. When the tower was built, every location was engraved with a magic circle designed by the magician himself. Without their permission, not even the door could be opened.
This magician had set up a micro-space magic circle on each floor. Once activated, no one could wander within the same floor without his permission.
"Teacher." The magic apprentice suddenly said, pointing to a small dot outside the window, "He's gone."
"What?" The magician leaned against the window and looked out.
Another magic apprentice picked up the small piece of paper that Giles had dropped and opened it: "Instructions for renting the Healing Inn..."
"Teacher, look. One hundred magic coins are the deposit, and the rent is one gold coin every three days. There's also the amount for each type of magic spell. The one the adventurer just used costs 60 silver coins, and it should be the most basic curse-dispelling spell."
“…”
"Go count out a hundred magic coins for me."
The plump female magician was much easier to talk to, and after Giles cured her guinea fowl with a curse-dispelling saver, she showed considerable interest.
"I see there are three different colored crystals on the box you're using. Judging by the flow of magic power, these crystals should be providing a storage function. And you just used the magic contained in this light green crystal. I'm very curious to know what kind of magic is contained in the other two crystals."
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