Frostwater Harbor City Lord’s Office.
"...Whose letter is it?"
Salvatore looked at the letter that had just been teleported onto the desk with so curiosity.
It was a simple public ritual—three sticks of purple pine, one piece of athyst, and you could set up a simple directed teleportation formation. Although not everything could be teleported, other people who mastered this ritual could use a special type of aluminum foil paper to exchange ssages with one another.
Almost every Wizard’s Tower had a similar heritage, mainly used to notify tutors to co back for classes. The cost of the ritual itself was quite low, but since it required the use of a number similar to a "telephone number"—a two-digit code that each Wizard’s Tower had uniquely—generally, you wouldn’t get your own number until you reached the silver rank.
Due to his unique status, Salvatore had received one early.
After all, the tutors of the Wizard’s Tower, as Transcendents who are guaranteed to be at the silver rank, couldn’t possibly stay in the Tower all year round. They had their own affairs to handle, their own families, relatives, and friends to socialize with, and they had their own precious materials, curses, and influences to search for.
Though the Wizard’s Tower had a vast amount of materials for the tutors to use, influences were hard to co by. Not to ntion nightmares; there weren’t even corpses in the Tower, let alone nightmares.
Take the Heath Tower of Black as an example, even though they only accepted children around fourteen years of age, their teaching model was different from other schools outside.
—Because they had no textbooks.
On the one hand, the great wizards couldn’t be bothered to compile them, and on the other hand, the diligent wizards might not get the approval of other wizards.
Every year, the Heath Tower of Black would admit sixty or seventy new wizard apprentices, but the number would never exceed one hundred.
After all, even though it’s called a wizard school, there is only that one tower—though the tower is quite wide and large, it serves as a place for studying, researching, and residing, and they couldn’t admit too many people.
For the first two years, the typical wizard apprentice had to learn common spell knowledge, Transcendent world general studies, mathematics, Elvish, basic rune studies, drawing and sculpture, unard combat, and military weapons training. These subjects were elective courses each apprentice took once every three months, with no textbooks, no holidays; if they did not understand sothing, they had to look it up in the library or ask a tutor with whom they had a good relationship...
Only after completing and passing exams for these subjects were they allowed to choose their own specialization school and construct spell models. If an apprentice was clever, this would typically be around their third year... For the slower ones, there were wizard apprentices who couldn’t pass exams after five or six years.
Once they chose a specialization school, they were basically on a free-range model—there were one to three major classes per month, notified a week in advance, which were attended by wizard apprentices and wizards of the sa school. What was taught specifically was decided by the tutors... of course, you could also choose not to attend, as long as you were able to pass the exams of various schools, advance in rank, and graduate.
For example, transformation wizards had to pass an exam for their gift of the gab.
Beyond the major classes, apprentices were mostly on their own to look up information. Newly initiated apprentices, those who chose a specialization, advancing wizards, wizards preparing to advance to a great wizard... the level of resources available to wizards at different ranks also varied. The only restriction was—if you left the Wizard’s Tower without advancing to a wizard, then you were not to co back.
Of course, tutors would generally persuade those who couldn’t advance to a wizard after many years to leave... If they really didn’t want to leave, they wouldn’t be forced, as long as they didn’t disturb others.
After all, besides talented children who were recomnded by wizards outside...
There was also the special enrollnt project of "sponsors".
If you want to give it a try, then go ahead, it’s not like you’ll starve if you can’t learn spells.jpg
Wizard’s Towers do not charge tuition since wizards are not short on money... but they are short on manpower.
As compensation, if you advance to a wizard or a great wizard within the Tower, you would have to serve the Wizard’s Tower for five to fifteen years as paynt.
Of course, if you could pass the Tower Master’s test, you could also beco a tutor. Then you would have a salary.
However, wages ant little to wizards of the silver rank. They could easily make money, and there was nowhere much to spend it... What mainly tempted these silver-ranked wizards to stay were the libraries inside the Wizard’s Towers.
This was the core component of the Wizard’s Tower—every book seen by wizards who graduated from a Wizard’s Tower was evaluated by the Tower, with their content copied and uploaded to the library. After their death, any curses left on their bodies would also be teleported to the Tower... So old yet powerful wizards would even offer themselves up to the Tower, allowing themselves to move freely within the Tower as a soul, a projection, or a construct, and naturally, their curses would be fully absorbed by the Tower... that is, if the Tower was interested in them.
The Wizard’s Tower itself was a gigantic, living curse.
In this world, there were no such things as spell scrolls, and experintal products could basically be sold. Like transformation wizards who could make a hefty sum by selling stuff, Prophet wizards who could earn quite a bit by fortune-telling, and Idol wizards who were masters of cursing and counter-cursing, respected by all people of importance...
And after advancing to the silver rank, if you didn’t want to progress further... you could live like an ordinary person.
Spellcasting was just a professional skill... at least to most wizards, the spells themselves were not the goal of their lives.
The pursuit of powerful strength, power, money, social influence... These were the choices of more wizards.
Gathering materials to perform rituals, solidifying heterogeneous abilities, extending life, optimizing the body... or doing what they wanted, and when they ran out of money, they would co out to work and earn so. This was essentially the life trajectory of wizards who graduated from the Wizard’s Tower.
Even though the path of the Transcendent led to the heavens, not everyone possessed such aspirations.
Or perhaps... not everyone is willing to let go of the wonderful life they have in their hands, and risk even greater dangers to continue climbing upwards.
The path from silver to gold is known as "Stigmatization."
The imnse risks of breaking through human limits, the foreign craving to alter one’s own personality, the destruction and remolding of an old soul... each hurdle, each failure, could potentially lead to one’s utter doom.
Salvatore, too, once rely aid to advance to silver.
He wished to beco a respected grand wizard, maybe get hired as an advisor by an earl or a marquis, or casually open a secret shop in any Royal Capital and sell things made in his spare ti. Then he would earn enough to buy several estates, hire seven or eight servants, marry a young and beautiful girl, and have two or three children... That was his life plan, simple and humble.
But at so point...
Such a future had gradually beco blurry in Salvatore’s heart.
"Look at the letter," whispered the shadow at his ear, "I bet the Tower Master is calling you back. You’ve delayed too long, Saul."
"I bet so too."
Salvatore casually replied, opening the envelope.
Reading its contents, Salvatore was first surprised; then his expression gradually turned solemn.
The letter was from the Tower Master, and the ssage was simple... they had learned that Salvatore had successfully obtained the hamr. It urged him to hurry back to prepare for advancing to silver.
This was not unexpected to Salvatore.
But what caught his attention was that, in the letter, the Tower Master referred to Annan as "that young duke." He didn’t believe for a second that the Tower Master had made a writing error...
...Had they already figured out it was Annan, not Tan Juan?
This ant soone had already verified the fact using the spells of the School of Prophets.
Salvatore could guess that much.
After all, Annan hadn’t solidified any deviation to deflect prophetic spells on himself, nor brought a double. High-level prophetic spells would definitely be able to read this intelligence.
But why did the Tower Master say it would be dangerous to stay by Annan’s side?
"Annan is going to the Royal Capital a few months from now..."
Salvatore thought with so worry.
If the Tower Master had already learned of Annan’s true identity... could soone at the Royal Capital also be aware?
Are they planning to cause trouble for Annan?
What might Annan encounter on his trip to the Royal Capital?
Could soone be plotting to curse Annan?
"No, I have to talk to Annan before I leave..."
Salvatore murmured, condensing crystal on his fingertips, then conjuring a fla to burn the letter.
Then he took out a piece of paper and started writing sothing on it rapidly.
——I must hasten the advancent ritual.
If all goes well, I should be able to advance within a month.
Heath Tower of Black... is not that far from the Royal Capital.
"If you run into any trouble, I’ll co to help you, Annan..."
Salvatore murmured.
And the shadow, usually fond of arguing, remained silent in response to these words.
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