Mage Manual

Chapter 53: Chapter 51 Blood Moon Judgement, Begin (Added for the Alliance Leader)

Slap.

As he turned the corner, Lorenz collided with a human scholar who was rushing by.

Both steadied themselves slightly shaken, the human scholar glanced at the blood-stained watermarks on his white robe, his face darkened slightly, and just as he was about to say something, he looked up and saw Lorenz. He immediately restrained his expression and took a step back.

“Lorenz? Returned from Shattered Lake Prison? I’m sorry for bumping into you just now, my apologies.”

“It’s nothing. Where are you headed now?”

“To the bar, it’s the 15th today. The Blood Moon Judgement is much more exciting when everyone watches together.”

“Haven’t you seen enough while working at the prison?”

The other chuckled, “Guess who’s on the list of inmates announced this morning? — Valcas Uer, the former Elf scholar from Kaimon University!”

Valcas?

Lorenz was slightly taken aback, wasn’t that the patient he treated yesterday… @@novelbin@@

“Want to come along? It’s been a long time since everyone saw you, your appearance at the bar would definitely give them a shock—”

“Alright.”

The human scholar’s expression stiffened somewhat, seemingly not expecting the usually reclusive Lorenz to agree, given that he had only invited him out of politeness…

“Um… then, come with me. Oh, do you want to change your clothes and treat your wounds first?”

Lorenz glanced at his blood-stained clothes, “Isn’t there Blood Wine at the bar? It can be used for treatment. Or is it inappropriate for me to enter the bar like this, would you all mind?”

The human scholar immediately shook his head, “No, no, of course not. I actually think you look quite handsome in this, quite trendy. Walking on the street would definitely turn heads…”

Lorenz inwardly sneered.

As the only Blue Scale Fishman in the institute, how could he not know the subtle discrimination and alienation from other scholars?

But it had never bothered him before; he was single-minded in his pursuit of strength, happy to be ostracized and uninvolved in any group activities.

Under the constraints of the “Racial Equality Act,” these people, despite harboring many complaints, could only keep them to themselves.

On the surface, they even had to maintain an attitude of ‘I respect you’ ‘I don’t discriminate against you’.

Otherwise, if Lorenz caught on to any slight and reported them to the Racial Committee, it could directly ruin the discriminator’s career prospects for the rest of their lives.

However, Lorenz was in a terrible mood tonight, and faced with his colleague’s insincere invitation, he suddenly felt a mischievous urge and casually agreed.

But Lorenz soon regretted it.

He had never been to the bar before.

The blue and purple neon lights, the ambiguous and melodious music, the mingling of Blood Saint Clan scholars, each aspect made Lorenz feel very uncomfortable, even nervous to the point where his skin began to secrete mucus.

“Is that… Mr. Lorenz?”

“Congratulations to Mr. Lorenz on completing the Blood Embrace Ritual and returning!”

“Come, everyone, let’s drink up!”

After everyone caused a stir, they returned to their circles, and even the anthropologists who brought Lorenz didn’t seem to want to include him in their group, vanishing swiftly.

Relieved, Lorenz found an empty table, ordered a “Blue Melancholy,” and soon, the bartender brought over a cocktail mixed with a haunting scarlet-blue hue.

“Your Blue Melancholy, 20% human child blood, 30% Blue Scale Fishman child blood, please enjoy.”

Lorenz finished his drink in one gulp, licked his lips, and the rotting wounds on his lips began to heal rapidly.

He observed the bar and felt it was no different from the Fishman bars in the slums—the bars there had pregnant women drinking, this section had Beastmen mating with humans, and some were overdosing on Moon candy, convulsing and rolling on the ground like dogs.

However, the topics of conversation here differed from those outside; people were discussing “whether any results came out,” “someday we need to slaughter that administration,” “this year is the last for ‘promote or leave,’” all adult problems that made the drinking disheartening.

A gloom crossed Lorenz’s crimson Fishman eyes—since the end of the Blood Embrace ritual, he had to sign a Junior Researcher Contract with the Institute.

Given his current Source Blood quality and the institute’s climate, he would likely have to compete in the “promote or leave” challenge, failing to produce the required results within the time limit and not getting promoted to associate professor meant getting dismissed and thrown out from the institute; whether he headed to the Crime Hunting Hall or started his own business, there was no further progression at the institute.

But the issue was that there were only a few associate professor positions, and he was competing against dozens of Blood Saint Clan researchers. It was rumored that an institute in Outer Sea City was worse, with 30 researchers vying for zero associate professor positions. When the twenty-year probationary period ended, they declared everyone unqualified and pushed these Blood Saint Clan researchers out into society, essentially exploiting twenty years of their labor for free.

Lorenz took a swig of his drink, lowered his head, and flipped over the drink menu, only to discover familiar bar advertisements. Listed were the internal organ buy-back prices of the Blood Saint Clan, with the purchasing agency being the “Red Mist Organ Exchange.”

“Human·Blood Saint: Heart 80 silver coins, Lungs 50 silver coins, Kidneys 40 silver coins, Eyes 30 silver coins…”

“Blue Scale Fishman·Blood Saint: Heart 44 silver coins, Lungs 23 silver coins…”

The organ buy-back prices of the Blood Saint Clan were significantly lower than market rates, naturally, because after transforming into the Blood Saint Clan, their organs mutated, so their organs could only be sold within the same Blood Saint species, which wasn’t a large market.

Yet every Blood Saint could recover through blood therapy; the demand for organ trading wasn’t high, hence the low prices.

If traded from normal species, the prices would be at least two to three times higher, but for the normal species to regrow organs took too long and greatly impacted their lives.

At his poorest, Lorenz sold his swim bladder and several thousand milliliters of his blood for some extra money.

Lorenz thought, ‘Now that I’ve lost my job at the prison, my subsidy from the institute has greatly reduced. Things are getting tougher for Grandma Yarn at the Blue Scale Orphanage, I should sell some organs and send her the money…’

Grandma Yarn was responsible for the Blue Scale Orphanage, and she was also the guardian who raised Lorenz.

The Blue Scale Orphanage was one of the few willing to accept Fishmen.

After Lorenz became an adult, he typically sent half of his salary to Grandma Yarn to alleviate the orphanage’s financial strain. After all, if Blue Scale closed down, hundreds of Blue Scale fry would die each year.

In a free economy and market, infants not accepted by orphanages naturally had to be reincarnated.

Anyway, Lorenz had no particular hobbies; he didn’t like trading stocks or spending lavishly. He lived in the institute, and his little money couldn’t buy any good Technique Spirits, so he might as well use it to provide for the little Fishmen at the orphanage.

Just as Lorenz was contemplating which organs to sell, a Light Screen suddenly emerged in the center of the bar, allowing all the patrons to view the live broadcast.

“It’s starting, it’s starting!”

“Mr. Snake, come over, the market is opening!”

“Ahh, when will we see the ‘battle royale’ mode again? That was really thrilling to watch.”

“I think the ‘electric’ mode is the best, the visuals of electricity zapping out of eyeballs are fantastic.”

“It’s not a special day today. No way there will be special modes… Forget it, tonight is definitely the classic mode. I love the classic mode—it’s ordinary but thrilling.”

When the Light Screen lit up, even Lorenz, who wasn’t much interested in the Blood Moon Judgement, couldn’t help but look over.

The Blood Moon Judgement commenced.