124 Appraisal Part 2

Wallace tried to recall this little girl in front of them. Erza has long red hair tied at the back of her head. She wasn't wearing their Zairus uniforms and was instead wearing red flowery dress matching her pale white skin.

She appears to be around 12 or 13 years old and seemed to be having a vacation in this island country.

Now that Wallace had thought about it, he was quite curious about this little girl who seems to be acquianted with Shirley.

'What's the identity of this girl anyway?' He thought briefly before sending his Divine Sense to probe the girl. Very well, she's a genuine young girl unlike the other. But if that was the case, how could she help them evaluating the Mana Artifact?

"Hello Uncle Troy, you called me?" The girl said after seeing Troy Webb. The two students never had an idea about her identity and Van was only aware that Erza was connected to Ministry of Magic Education. Aside from that, he know nothing else as he didn't bother to dig deeper.

"Right, these students here wanted to appraise a magic structure stone and I couldn't properly evaluate the grade of this artifact, so--" Troy said as he gestured to introduce the two students but Erza seems to be excited to speak.

"What? Something that you couldn't grade? Then that should be amazing." The girl was curious about anything that would trouble her uncle. It wasn't easy for someone in his level to be stumped on something.

"Correct. So you check it for me."

"Eh? How would I grade it if even you, Uncle, were unable to appraise it?"

"It should be easy for you..."

"Really? But I haven't finished learning from my master yet..."

"That should be enough. I know you can do it."

Troy said as he tried to convince the girl to start appraising the stone.

He handed over the Basilisk Stone, now vessel of a Magic Structure, to the girl and waited for her to start appraising it.

"Who made this?" The girl ask after checking the Basilisk Stone visually.

"I'm Wallace. I made it just now." Wallace stepped forward and smiled at the girl.

Erza seems to have given up as she nodded at Wallace and started fulfilling her uncle's request. Although she doesn't feel that confident since even her uncle was unable to grade it himself, she could only try and see.

Wallace observed the girl as she starte pouring her Mana into his magic structure. He was a bit skeptical at this girl's ability but since the Peak Adept Mage had trusted this girl, he didn't dare to say a word and just silently waited for the results.

Anyway, they wouldn't lose anything if the girl was attempting to appraise it carefully. There could only be some problem if ever she had failed to identify some formulas and the girl tried to push herself or exerted a lot more Mana just to further evaluate the magic structure within the stone. He believed that when reaching that point, Troy would know what to do.

There are cases like these were the structure would be slightly be damaged or even be wasted completely if it was not handled carefully.

Just like whenever Yumi tries to dig deeper at Wallace's Magic Jammer Canceller, the Jax Stone would always shatter as it couldn't handle the burden of Mana that was constantly interfering or going around in it's core.

"Brilliant!"

A few minutes had passed as Erza finished evaluating it. A look of surprise can be seen on her face as she realized the surprising capability of the magic structure she's holding. She couldn't help but praise the stone and have another look at Wallace. She actually had an impression to this Mana Technician because he was the same person who made Shirley's Mana Artifact during TMAC.

On the other hand, Wallace was also surprised to see that this girl did something similar to Arcane Link.

'That felt like Arcane Link. But it has a different feel to Troy's method.' Wallace thought suddenly but he could only put this at the back of his mind for now since the topic was still completely foreign to him. He can think about it later after this whole competition.

Wallace showed a visible smile after hearing Erza's but didn't say a word while Van at the back clenched his fist. Although he tries to hid his worry, Wallace had clearly felt Van's aura. He was surely starting to lose his confidence on his own Magic Structure and only with his pride as a senior made him stood proud and look undisturbed.

After all, there's a professional young magicians girl here so he had to show the professionalism of a 3rd year student as well.

He was waiting for Erza's evaluation but it sounds similar to Troy.

"Impressive core structure. Those 105 magic spells aside from the core structure was amazingly connected. This means that this magic structure is dedicated to only one offensive spell. Wow! It's rare to see these dedicated Mana Artifacts recently. If this was successfully made to an artifact, I'd definitely have one."

Erza paused for a bit as if she was trying to find words to properly describe the spell before continuing.

"Also, with all these modified Grade 1 Spells, once activated at once, could probably turn an Adept to a dust if they don't have enough defensive power. After all, the remote mirror spells was also modified to control the direction of these Grade 1 spell..."

Van appreciated her praise as he was also learning something new but it would actually be better if she just given them the grade of this Mana Artifact. He was dying to know whether it surpassed the grade of his creation or not.

Their competition was to create a Magic Structure with the best offensive spell infused within the Basilisk Stone.

If Wallace has lower grade of Magic Structure, obviously, he will win this bet and take Wallace's slot in the competition. It was all because the appraiser would always consider the destructiveness as core value that the Magic Structure possesses in grading them from 1 to 5.

Aside from that, if it was actually tie, he might not be too embarrassed if he lost as he could still keep his dignity.

Yes, if it was a tie, he believed that he would still actually lose the bet. Why? Because that's 100 Magic Spells that can be activated all at once.

He felt that his infused Grade 3 through secret method could not contend to it. After all, even though there's three Grade 3 Magic Spells into it, it can only be activated in interval. It was impossible to cast those 3 spells successively and had to wait for about 10 minutes so the materials that will be used would not be destroyed.

While Erza was praising the magic structure, Troy's face stiffen a bit.

'105? It's not 100? What are the other five spells?' Troy thought as he didn't dare to ask the kid. It would be too much of a blow.

It was already enough to ask Erza to review the structure for him.

Luckily, he didn't told Erza that he only evaluated 100 Magic Spells.

He waited for Erza to enumerate the remaining five spells but the girl doesn't seem to even plan on listing the one hundred and five Magic Spells.

"What's the Grade of this Mana Structure then?" Wallace asked finally.

"Well, this is Mid Grade 3 Magic Structure."

Erza said casually. Her voice doesn't have any hint of hesitation at all.

'How could you say it's Mid Grade 3?!' Van could only say in his mind as he tried to suppress himself from abruptly questioning Erza's judgment as he might just offend a Peak Adept Mage in the corner. Although he was doubting Erza's ability he could only endure as he would still like to return to Zairus in complete piece.

Unlike Wallace who had a Divine Sense and felt how amazing Erza was during her appraising process, Van only has an  unrefined probing skills. He didn't dare to use his probing skills to Erza during her appraisal as she might be disturbed once she felt it. That would not be a good idea with Troy supervising them.

***

Wallace won the bet and Van didn't have the courage to dispute the result and could only bitterly accept the reality. He promised to hand over the blueprints of the six Magic Structures after the competition and let Wallace hold his Impact Ring, a Peak Grade A Mana Artifact, for now.

Troy and Erza already left the room after giving their evaluation. After all, Troy only spared them 15 minutes of his time.

"Alright... We'll meet again." Wallace said before having their separate ways. Van went back to his room to silently make an arrangements for the six blueprints that Wallace had requested. He had to secretly give this to Wallace later on so he was making sure that no one would notice him.

Wallace visited the waiting room where Sheryl and Jun was waiting.

"Oh... I thought that Van had convinced you to give up your slot." Jun said as though he was expecting Van to have a chance against him.

"Hahaha! He's just being generous to me." Wallace said.

'Generous? That guy?' Jun and Sheryl felt that it was impossible for Van to just give up the slot but they somehow believed Wallace since he said so.

They weren't aware that Van didn't just gave up his slot.