Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems-Chapter 216: Atlas Palette Academy

Elagabalus said regretfully, "Unfortunately, although the condition was diagnosed later, just as you said, customer, it was an imbalance in the elemental composition of the body and soul."
"But I didn't have the money to hire a formal wizard to treat my wife, and the potion master assistants all had no solutions and refused me."
"Not even one person gave a potentially viable solution like you did. If I had met you back then, perhaps my wife would have had a chance to live."
"Although [Volcanic Core], [Heart of Extreme Ice], and [Lung of Storm] are also very expensive, at least these were things I could possibly afford after signing loan contracts."
"So my first wife still died in the end."
A trace of sadness appeared on Elagabalus's face.
Elagabalus changed the subject. "However, I later married a new wife, and we're living very happily now."
"My current wife is my fourth wife. My second wife divorced me, my third wife died during a mission, and my current fourth wife is a student of my wizard mentor..."
Locke turned to glance at him, feeling quite speechless.
Earlier, when he saw this person talking about his first wife with such sadness, spending over a year creating a magical painting to preserve her most beautiful appearance in the world forever, he thought he was a devoted romantic.
Who knew the guy was a player.
So you hung your first wife's magical painting portrait in the most prominent place in your gallery to maintain your devoted lover persona.
Locke frowned, hesitating before forcing out a sentence. "Well, the path of love is always full of obstacles."
Locke quickly returned to the main topic. "Sketch artist, I want to hire you for one month to help me use magical paintings to record my magical plant works and potion works."
Elagabalus obviously did this kind of work often and naturally knew about it.
His eyes lit up. Opening a shop in an expensive market like Chimera Trading Market, far from his wizard organization, and having to pay expensive rent annually meant his yearly costs were quite substantial.
Therefore, Elagabalus desperately needed business and someone like Locke, who wanted to hire him for an entire month and needed him to draw a complete set of magical paintings, was obviously a relatively large project for his personal gallery.
Elagabalus immediately smiled even more broadly, and even his artistically melancholic face became somewhat sunnier.
"Yes, of course. I have some scattered orders that will take about a week to finish. After I'm done, I'll come to your place to help you draw the magical paintings you need."
Elagabalus smiled, "Customer, I haven't asked your name yet. I'm called Elagabalus. Oh, there's my personal information introduction at the door. I'm a first-class wizard apprentice from [Atlas Palette Academy]."
"I also have a certified sketch artist badge, and I have 16 Grade B articles, 1 Grade A article, 45 Grade C articles from our academy, plus one of my magical painting works once placed in the top 100 in the White Wizard Association's magical painting competition, so I received a top 100 certification badge."
Elagabalus quickly told Locke about his credentials.
Locke indeed saw a blue badge marked with "100" among the badges on his chest. The top of that badge had the White Wizard Association's emblem, the sketch artist's professional mark, and the competition mark.
This showed that Elagabalus had indeed participated in the southeastern quadrant's magical painting competition and achieved a top 100 result.
Locke said briefly, "I'm Locke Augustine, a student of Lilith's Cottage."
Elagabalus said to Locke, "My pricing structure is as follows: the simple sketches and watercolor hand-drawings that sketch artist assistants mainly sell, those mainly for decoration and daily use assembly-line simple artworks, I don't do here."
"I only sell proper magical paintings. That means a magical painting starts at thirty magic stones minimum."
Elagabalus said, "A basic magical painting that only records two-dimensional images costs 30 magic stones. Magical paintings that record three-dimensional images of landscapes or people cost 80 magic stones."
Locke nodded slightly. This pricing was basically quite reasonable.
Because the wizard lady portrait from earlier required using the 0.5-circle Phantom Projection technique, and the sketch artist had to use all their abilities to perfectly replicate it in both two and three dimensions.
A medium-quality magical item generally cost between 100 to 150 magic stones.
A medium-high quality magical item cost around 500 magic stones.
Although both were first-class wizard apprentice level, a sketch artist's magical painting could only sell for 30 to 80 magic stones. From this perspective, alchemists made more money.
However, Locke thought about Tyne, the alchemist assistant from Kent Workshop, and how every time he saw him, he looked disheveled and shook his head slightly.
Alchemists did make money but every day they had to make themselves look like coal sprites who just crawled out of coal ash.
Being a breeder and potion master was still better.
Potion master assistant level potions ranged from Memory Ointment at 15 magic stones per tube, to Stardust Tears Potion at 150 magic stones per bottle, to Beholder Potion at 300 magic stones per bottle.
There were potions at all price ranges.
Moreover, potions were consumables that wizards must have. Wizards would purchase them frequently, and you didn't have to get yourself disheveled like Tyne every time.
The breeder side was similar: Super Mandrake Vines at 30 magic stones per plant, Crystal Palm Fire Lotus at 5 magic stones per plant, Perseus Eye Lichen at 100 magic stones per plant.
However, cultivating these crops was still slightly more tiring than being a potion master.
Elagabalus continued telling Locke, "The most basic magical paintings use illusion to preserve certain information you want to preserve within the magical painting, so that time can no longer easily wash it away."
"If you want magical paintings with more functionality, you can add functions to the most basic blank magical paintings."
"For example, adding illusory attack capability costs an additional 50 magic stones. Adding illusory control capability also costs an additional 50 magic stones."
"To create map-type magical paintings, or even magical paintings that can display your location information on the map, costs an additional 100 magic stones."
"This is relatively complex. Although it seems like a simple function, implementing this function requires using at least three illusion spell models within the magical painting. The more illusion models, the higher the difficulty of creating the magical painting. It's a very complex matter."
Hearing this, Locke looked up at Elagabalus.
Elagabalus thought carefully. "Besides this magical painting function that costs an additional 100 magic stones, other additional functions basically only cost 50 magic stones."
"For example, there's also adding trap-type functions. If you want to create trap-type magical paintings, storing one of your spells in my magical painting to attack enemies the moment they touch it, this is also achievable. This function also costs an additional 50 magic stones," Elagabalus said. "This is much simpler than making maps. It only requires using one 0.5-circle [Delayed Illusion] model."
"Creating qualified magical painting maps requires using the 0.8-circle illusion model [Animated Map]."
Elagabalus thought carefully, "That's basically it. Magical paintings have quite a few uses. For example, you could have me use a basic magical painting to record the evolution of some ecological disaster, a laboratory getting out of control."