Chapter 52: Magic (1)
Translator: Leo Editor: DarkGem/Frappe
Angele left the room together with Alu, walking down the tunnel once again. He began seeing people wearing gray robes walking to and fro, most of them greeting Alu. Some smiled and spoke with him while some just nodded their heads without speaking a word. After walking for about 100 meters, he faced a large, black wooden door in front of him.
PONG!
Alu knocked hard three times; the door opened a gap that would let one man pass through. Angele peeked through the gap and saw a huge underground cave inside.
“Let’s go get your supplies first,” Alu spoke with a low voice as he turned his head to Angele. Angele nodded, following Alu through the door.
Angele felt much better after walking into the door. He saw a huge cave that would easily fit an aircraft carrier inside. There were many holes, passages through the wall that twisted around the cave. Angele could see people wearing gray and white robes there with some entering the holes. It was highly likely that those holes were entrances leading to other areas. A huge 3-level glass chandelier hung over in the middle of the cave; many oil lamps sat on each level. It was the only thing that illuminated the cave.
“This way.” Alu led Angele, who continued to follow from behind, toward the left.
The ground wasn’t decorated at all and the roads were made of stone. Everything had become light yellow-colored under the large chandelier. The two’s shadows shook and dance on the bumpy walls, seemingly mysterious and strange. They entered another path once again and then walked into a hallway. There were several people waiting; all of them had people without robes by their sides.
Alu talked to one of the men before taking Angele to wait at the end of the line. It took them several minutes to enter the door at the end of the hallway. Various types of linen bags and wooden barrels were inside the room. An old man who had a goatee was sitting behind a desk by the door, holding a feathered pen in his hand. On the desk were a small notebook, a candle stand, and an ink bottle.
“Alu, another one?” the old asked after laughing.
“Yea, he just arrived here today. He came here by ship, so it took him a long time to get here,” Alu said with a smiling face.
“Tell him your name, stage level, and talent level,” Alu said to Angele after turning to him.
“Angele Rio, 15 years old, stage 1, talent level 2.” Angele stepped forward after nodding.
“Talent level 2, better than nothing.” The old man nodded, and he wrote down something on his notebook.
“You got a trophy?” the old man asked.
“Yes,” Angele said before handing over his ring to the old man.
The old man scrutinized the ring, his expression changing several times. In the end, he had a piteous expression as though he was feeling sorry for the item.
“Such a pity. Agility Boost Ring with a high-level spell. If it’s complete, it will be considered as a mid-level enchanted item at least. It’s from the past, at least 500 years old. We were still referred to as a college back then,” the old man said.
“Well, I’ll take the trophy. You’ll be exempted in your entrance exam,” he continued speaking as he grabbed a small gray pouch from the ground.
“It’s your basic pouch.” The old man handed the gray pouch to Angele.
“Thank you.” Angele carefully received the pouch.
“One gray apprentice robe, one stage 1 wizard apprentice badge, one emergency magic stone, and your wizard apprentice number card. Don’t lose any of those. There’s a clean spell enchanted on the robe. It will clean itself once a day. It costs ten thousand gold coins outside, so don’t break it. Otherwise, you’ll have to reimburse it using magic stones or record points,” the old man said.
“Understood,” Angele replied. Alu toured Angele to the dormitory area, classrooms, laboratories, gardens, and various places after obtaining the supply. He led Angele back to the first hallway after everything. Angele thought of how the whole school was akin to a secret base underground. It was huge and its depth was unknown to Angele.
“First course is free. Make sure you make it count. Take care, my job here is done.” Alu shrugged his shoulders and left after. He disappeared at a corner by the end of the hallway.
Angele took a deep breath before he walked to his new master’s room and lightly knocked on the door.
“I’m the new apprentice, Angele Rio. Master Liliana, may I come in?” Angele asked politely.
“Come in, please.” Liliana’s voice still sounded like a young girl. The door opened by itself right away. Angele walked in and the door closed by itself. His new master was writing something on a paper using her black-feathered pen.
“Here for the free course?” Liliana raised her head and asked. Angele saw her horrifying face once again, the bronze pocket watch embedded in her left eye still ticking.
“Yes.” Angele attempted to use the chip to analyze her attributes, but some unknown power hindered the chip from doing so.
Liliana smiled. However, she looked like she was crying to Angele. She moved the items on the table, making an empty space. She then put several things on the desk, but Angele didn’t know where they came from. From left to right, the items on the desk were: a red banana-like fruit, a fresh eyeball of some animal, and a black leather pouch.
“The one on the left represents the basic shifting skill I’m good at. The eyeball in the middle represents the fundamentals of advanced dissection skills, while the last one represents biology. These are the options I offer, you can choose one to learn for free. You have one minute to think about it,” Liliana smiled as she said.
Angele nodded. He started thinking while looking at the three items. Liliana didn’t feel restless, only sitting there as she waited.
“One minute,” Liliana said. Angele hesitated for a second. With a serious look on his face, he placed his hand on the black pouch.
“I’ll go with this one,” Angele said while looking at his master. Suddenly, the pouch started shaking as a swarm of black insects came out of it. Angele became surprised, immediately drawing back his hands. The insects were black, looking like medium-sized roaches. The pouch was, but the number of insects came out of it was great. In just a short time, they were all over the desk.
Angele’s hand that made contact with the bag felt itchy. Liliana was still smiling toward Angele, whose face was pale. She took out a small mirror and placed it in front of him. From the mirror’s reflection, Angele saw blisters all over his body; his arms, neck, and face all full of blisters. The blisters were large, shiny, and full of red pus.
“That’s your choice.” His new master’s smile looked mysterious. Angele touched his face with his hands, but he could only feel nothing, only the flatness, and smoothness of his face.
Angele’s face was pale; his mouth and nose stank. He saw a black human-like shadow in Liliana’s right eye before he plunged into darkness. When he recovered his vision, he found himself in deep water. Though there was a white light over his head, he could see nothing around. It was dark and cold, even making Angele feel suffocated that he could barely breathe.
Angele tried to reach the light above him, yet something was pulling down his feet as he sunk. He looked down only to see pure darkness. He felt like he would never come back if he kept sinking.
‘It’s an illusion…’ Angele kept convincing himself, but he couldn’t stop the growing fear inside of him.
“You should come back.” Liliana’s voice echoed in his ears.
“The knowledge has been transferred into your brain. Go back and drink a potion that will help you stabilize your mind. This transfer spell has been harmful to you. Make sure you don’t get any sequela,” Liliana said.
“You can go now,” she said as she waved her hand.
Angele, who was soaked in sweat, tried to calm down. He bowed and opened the door.
Angele left right away. Recalling the transference, the first line of the knowledge in his brain said: Necromancy.
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The following days, Angele attended the free courses just like any other new wizard apprentices and went to the library after classes. He went to the sections open to stage 1 wizard apprentices. He focused on several different subjects such as Dissection, Neuroscience, Fundamentals of Negative Energy, Spell Models, Source of Mentality, and Fundamentals of Pharmacy, basic subjects, and many different languages. Angele could learn all of those for free.
Angele finally understood the meaning of the word ‘Ramsoda’. In dragonish, it meant shadow and death. The most well-renowned researches the college had ever done were about necromancy and curses. The school had been considered to have the best shadow spells in the Wizard world.
The free course he chose was Necromancy wherein the main focus lied in studying the negative energy’s impact on living beings. It was the core of utilizing spells created from negative energy, which was something he must learn. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to build the model for the negative energy spells. This course was one of the most expensive courses in the school considering how dangerous researching negative energy was. Because of how high the expenditure would be for someone to take this course, Angele was thinking of trading Necromancy knowledge with other wizard apprentices.
Angele learned the fundamentals of spell utilization from the basic spell model book. One had to use mentality to build the spell model and release the energy using a special method. Some spells even required certain materials as catalysts.