After a moment of consideration, Logan made his decision. "I'll take the Blazing Orchid and Infernal Lotus."
Once he'd read through the detailed effects on all the available herbs, the choice was clear.
The Blazing Orchid is a rare calming flower plucked deep inside A-rank dungeons near volcanoes, only reappearing after a decade. Once consumed, it provides a massive quantity of very pure fire-type mana to the consumer.
The Infernal Lotus was even rarer, only ever appearing inside S-rank dungeons. This particular flower had a calming effect on agressive fire types and helped with the refinement of large mana quantities.
'The current bid on the Lotus is 28 million dollars and there's a 24 million bid on the Orchid,' Logan thought, amazed.'Buying bread from the store is around a dollar... To think something like this is so expensive.'
Although Logan was amazed at the high prices, he knew their true value was far greater when they helped him strengthen his core to its limit during the evolution.
'Not only will it let me draw more mana for spells, but with a strong foundation, future evolutions will be much easier,' he thought.
Logan withdrew 70 million dollars and bid 38 million and 32 million on the items.
'I need to make sure I get them,' Logan thought. 'My evolution is just around the corner and I can't afford to miss these items then.'
Getting a confirmation notice on his watch, Logan continued scrolling through the auction house a little more.
'Some of these items are incredible,' Logan thought, enjoying scrolling through the listings.
After a while, Logan stopped and decided to go meditate.
'If I cultivate a few hours today and tomorrow, I should be able to evolve my core the day after,' Logan thought. 'And both the Lotus and the Orchid should be getting delivered tomorrow.'
Sitting down, Logan closed his eyes and concentrated internally.
Logan's consciousness entered his inner world and began guiding mana threads to his core, improving the old gray color to a beautiful bronze, thread by thread.
Logan cultivated until midnight, only stopping once halfway to eat the dinner brought by Edric.
Laying down in his bed, Logan stared at the ceiling, a little nervous and excited. Tomorrow would be the day the world would know who he really was.
'I'll be revealing my identity to the whole world,' Logan thought. "Although it will earn me more money to spend on the system, I can't deny the danger it'll bring with it.'
'And even though I'm nervous, there's no turning back now,' Logan thought. 'Neither do I want to. I chose this path, and I'll see it to the end, no matter what happens.'
With that in his mind, Logan fell asleep.
Waking up even earlier the next morning, Logan immediately started writing the short speech he would give to the press as he revealed his identity.
'It has to be short but impactful,' Logan thought, staring at the blank piece of paper in front of him.
Sighing, Logan stared out his windows at the dark sky outside. "Maybe I should've let Edric write one for me after all," he muttered.
He'd decided against it at the time since he wanted to get some experience with addressing the public himself.
After a while of struggling, Logan finally started writing. He tore page after page, but kept on continuing, determined to do it himself.
Two hours had passed when Logan finally sighed in relief, having created what he considered a good speech.
"There's still around 7 hours until I have to give the speech," Logan muttered, looking at the time. "Guess there's plenty of time for Edric to go through the speech and correct any errors."
Logan sent the document to Edric and also informed him of the item delivery that was scheduled for the middle of the day.
After he'd bid on the Lotus and Orchid, no one made any attempts to bid any higher. This had somewhat fallen within Logan's prediction, since he was already paying two million above the market price.
'Now it's time for some more meditation,' Logan thought, sitting down on his bed.
And like that, time passed once again.
After 4 hours of meditation, Logan was interrupted by an alert from the cameras on his door.
"Edric is here," Logan muttered, standing up.
Opening the door, Logan found Edric standing with three different items in his hands.
"Good afternoon," Edric greeted Logan, stepping inside.
Setting down the items on the table, Edric went by them one by one.
"These are the two items you bought, which were delivered a few minutes ago," he said, pointing to two boxes made of some special kind of metal.
"And this here is your lunch," Edric said, pointing at a metal food tray. "Special meat from an A-rank winged deer."
"Thank you," Logan said, giving a nod of appreciation.
"That isn't all," Edric said, smiling. "I also made some minor improvements to your speech."
"I'll be sending you the document now," he continued, pressing a few buttons on the hologram coming out of his wristband.
"Great, thank you a lot," Logan replied, very satisfied with Edric's work.
Without hesitation, Logan dug into his food first.
Edric hesitated for a moment, before speaking. "Also… I might know someone. A good teacher."
Logan put his fork down and looked at Edric, raising an eyebrow.
"There's an S-rank fire affinity expert," Edric said slowly. "He teaches at the Global Arcane Academy."
"No, thank you," Logan immediately answered, as he continued eating his lunch.
He'd had plenty of bad memories related to schools and teachers. He also felt like there wasn't anything they could teach him that he couldn't learn himself, or pay someone to teach him within his room.
'I would much rather just hire an S-rank to teach me here,' Logan thought.
"The S-rank teacher isn't all," Edric started. "Hidden behind the school, are five SSS-rank individuals."
Logan perked up, hearing what Edric said.
"Continue," Logan said, putting down his fork once again.
"The S-rank teacher I was talking about is a student under one of the SSS-ranks there, whose primary affinity is also of fire type," Edric continued.
Logan contemplated before answering. "Tell me more about it after my speech," he said.