The Black Iron Glory
Magus Landes Diary (2)

Chapter 62

Magus Landes Diary (2)

Claude had to admit that while Landes' diary contained many trivial details, he found it rather interesting and gained some basic knowledge about magic from them, such as the crystal ball of talent evaluation, elemental affinity, and other forms of magic, et cetera. Those were things he was not aware of. He only sleeps when it's very late at night.

So there is also an elemental affinity component to magic. . . I wonder which element I know best, Claude thought before he went to bed. Unfortunately, he did not have his own crystal ball to evaluate his talent.

When he slept rather late at night, he was not very energetic the next day. He yawned all day and was taught by his father at dinner because he used too much oil for his lights at night. However, Claude excuses himself by saying that he was studying the ancient Hez until late at night.

After dinner, he toyed with his brothers and snow dogs. Soon, the clock showed at nine o'clock and his brothers had to sleep. Claude brought a flaming oil lamp into his attic. He had only read about 40 pages of the diary and he wanted to see what else Landes had written in his diary. There will probably be something about his life as an apprentice in the tower.

He flipped an open diary over to where he left off and continued reading it. As expected, Landes described in great detail the helplessness, reluctance and disappointment he felt as he left home with a gloomy-looking magus heading into his unknown future. But he did not expect the place he was heading to was so close to his house. After crossing Lake Balinga, they arrive at their destination: the magic tower at Egret.

Afterwards, Landes wrote a full three-page account of the sensation he felt when he first saw the tower. The astonishment, admiration and admiration for the sheer size of the tower were explained endlessly within the diary. The young man who was feeling depressed not long ago immediately felt the adoration for the tower lord. He even felt proud that he would live in such a magnificent building.

The young man did not see anything more amazing than the giant tower in front of him. He is like a rustic hick who has wandered into Shanghai for the first time; nothing is familiar and every new thing is a miracle to explore. Landes even went so far as to say that he was even willing to become a slave just to be allowed to stay inside the tower.

That was the beginning of Landes' life as an apprentice. However, he soon encountered a big problem. Although he was the most talented among the chosen, he was completely illiterate.

Among the other selected apprentices, six of them were also illiterate. The magic tower naturally explained such events and they arranged a two-ring magus rune to teach them the ancient Hez script as quickly as possible.

Magic is taught in ancient Hez, which is said to be a variant of the magical dragon tongue that accommodates human pronunciation. The script was the necessary knowledge and the runes used for the magical array were extremely important. During casting spells, spells written in ancient Hez had to be perfectly pronounced for the spells to work.

The one who taught Landes and the others was a low-ranking female magus. She looked so beautiful that Landes was completely shocked. She even started calling her as her own personal goddess and wasted two pages singing praises for her beauty.

Unfortunately, the female magus did not care much about the seven illiterate students assigned to teach. The class he was doing was nothing but a memorizing routine. Coupled with a magical array that helped improve their rote, the seven illiterate children were able to master the basics of ancient Hez language and scripts.

After completing her task, the female magus disappeared somewhere into the tower. It was only when the young Landes became a rune magus that one ring, he heard that the female magus had been given to the archmagus the other seven rings as a concubine by Loenk. It is said that the seven-ringed archmagus is quite ber and cannot forget the female magus after seeing it once in one of his visits. He had asked Loenk many times for him and only managed to succeed after exchanging some precious magical resources for him.

The loss of female magus greatly disappointed Landes, probably because he was the first to attract his kinsmen in his youth. However, he could do nothing. No one dared to cross the owner of the tower, Archmagus Loenk. His orders cannot be disputed. He was an existence whose feet could only see two Landes. The gap between the two stretched the heavens and earth.

After he mastered the ancient Hez and its script, he officially became an apprentice and could be trained in magecraft like any other apprentice there. But before that, he had to be assigned a certain class.

Landes did not forget to explain the class system in detail in his diary. He had learned it from his senior, Tawari, whom he knew after he officially became a magus rune. Tawari is a gloomy-looking magus who takes him out of the Whitestag.

The world of Faslan has been ruled by magi for over three millennia. Although many magi believed that their magical civilization was so advanced and developed, their definition of civilization did not include non-magical lay people. However, they faced a crisis of lack of magical resources. That stated that the magic light would cease to shine in another millennium and the world would once again sink back into a barbaric, crude form.

The most influential body in the magic world, that is, the nine-ring council and the magic authority did not just sit and watch during the resource crisis. They make a series of major transferences in the magical holy land, the Symposium, in the hope that they can harvest magical resources from the world of Kenpus to prolong the life of their civilization.

The Landes Magical Apprentice who had just begun her studies did not understand the current state of the magical world, nor how this would affect her in the future. Tawari once told him that he asked Loenk to allow Landes to develop into a battlemagus like him. But Loenk refused and insisted on letting Landes continue the magus rune.

The world of magic that began to decay with the passage of three millennia brought two clear changes to the Faslan magi. The first was, apart from the silver white magi nobles who held power and authority, the remaining magi were only allowed to ascend to the fifth ring.

The reason for that was: not only did advancing from the fifth to the sixth ring require a large amount of precious magical resources, it was not, it also required leading meditation techniques and magical knowledge that could only be accessed by nobles. They have completely sealed off all the paths of progress for the magi from being born together.

The second change is that general magi are divided into two categories. Some would be specially trained to become battlemagi that ensured the supremacy of the nine-ring council and the authority of magic in Faslan's world. Tawari, for example, was commissioned by Loenk to maintain order in the southwest region and suppress any rebellion against the authority of the magic tower.

Even more low-ranked magi were trained to become rune magi. They learn magical theory and alchemy to become perfect research assistants for the archmagi. Some of the more talented rune magi would be given more important roles, such as leading the entire alchemy research laboratory by themselves, or engaging in the refining of repetitive magic items.

Tawari then tells Landes that he wants him to be a battlemagus because of his talent. Back then, Tawari himself scored six in mental strength and eight in fire element affinity and became the battlemagus Loenk often reckoned with. Given that Landes had scored nine in fire element affinity and eight in mental strength, there would be no better choice than him for the battlemagus profession. It is unfortunate that Loenk disagrees with Tawari's advice.

Even more low-ranked magi were trained to become rune magi. They learn magical theory and alchemy to become perfect research assistants for the archmagi. Some of the more talented rune magi would be given more important roles, such as leading the entire alchemy research laboratory by themselves, or engaging in the refining of repetitive magic items.

Landes himself did not really see any difference in the two professions. Instead, he was somewhat satisfied that he was allowed to stay in the lab and explore new knowledge in magic every day. Nothing is more interesting to him than that.

But Tawari said that only the battlemagi had the freedom to leave at will. If they find a certain opportunity outside, they can even make a quick buck and gather more magical resources for their own use. Although the hope of being able to surpass the fifth ring was still few, it was better than not having it at all. The rune mage on the other hand could only stay inside the tower to do his master bidding. Not only did they not have the opportunity to find another opportunity, they did not even have personal freedom.

Landes wrote that when he managed to become a first rank magus rune and got the assistant position of a five ring magus rune, he studied alchemy like there was no tomorrow. He was completely uninterested in the battles and commotion that occurred outside of the tower. To him, the magical world was so elusive and mysterious and he could not take the time to travel. He prefers to stay in the lab to unlock the mystery of magic.

When he officially became an apprentice magus, the young Landes only discovered that there were over 130 other low-level apprentices who would become magi runes like him. There were also over 200 slaves waiting for their magi master. However, the apprentice magi lived inside the tower while the slaves lived in a stone building not far from the tower. Without receiving explicit permission, the slaves were not allowed to enter the tower.

Given Landes' status as an apprentice magus, he was only allowed to stay in the tower's basement. The entrance of the basement is a staircase in the middle of the lowest floor of the tower. There were six students in one room. Other than the bed and wooden crates underneath to store personal items, the apprentice magi had nothing.

Landes wrote that his relationship with his five roommates was not so good. The main reason for that was envy; they were not happy that the Landes were testing the highest magic abilities. Not only that, Landes was not a subtle speaker in his youth and would inadvertently hurt the feelings of his roommates and classmates during his speech. Even though he did not mean to say the hurtful things he said and even apologized to them about it, he remained their target for intimidation and exclusion.