Chapter 187: The Society President |
Led by the mages, Fulan entered the Mage Tower.
The space inside was obviously much larger than it appeared from the outside, clearly making use of spatial expansion technology.
There were quite a few mages standing about in the main hall, talking among themselves. When Fulan and the others walked in, not one of them so much as glanced their way. All of them were immersed in their own worlds.
What struck Fulan as strange was that none of those mages had books in their hands. Instead, each of them was holding a transparent crystal tablet, with lines of text displayed across its surface.
The moment Fulan saw that crystal tablet, she was instantly reminded of the tablet computers from her previous life.
What kind of place is this? Since when does a magical world even have something like this? she thought in shock.
The mage leading the way seemed to know she would be puzzled and explained softly, “This is the Mana Communication System that our society president purchased at great expense fifteen years ago. It is perfectly normal that you do not recognize it. Many societies do not even have one.”
“With this system, a single spell device can be used to carry out a large amount of written communication, without the need for huge numbers of books to record everything.”
Fulan scratched her head, unsure what to say.
Still, it was a good thing. At the very least, she would not have to bury herself in piles of books searching for the spell information she wanted in the future.
She turned back and followed the mages up the stairs. Yes, the stairs.
There was something like an elevator inside the Mage Tower as well, but it was not the same as the sort of elevator Fulan remembered.
That lift was actually located outside the Mage Tower. Once activated, it could form a curtain of light capable of supporting objects.
Its primary purpose was to transport large-scale spell devices. After those devices were raised to a specific floor outside the tower, a designated spatial transfer apparatus in the outer wall would teleport them inside.
As for using it for ordinary trips between floors, the mages could forget about that. Activating it even once cost a great many gold coins.
Perhaps after advancing to the rank of a Formal Mage, the leap in tier did improve a mage’s physical constitution to some extent, preventing them from becoming too frail.
After climbing more than a dozen flights of stairs, Fulan was completely unaffected, while the mages leading her had to catch their breath slightly.
At last, Fulan was brought to a large golden door. On it were the emblems of the Alchemy School and the Northern Society, and at the very top was the image of a mage’s hat formed from red gemstones.
“This is it. The society president is inside. You may go in.”
The mages who had guided her stepped aside and stood by the door, their eyes fixed on Fulan.
Fulan walked forward and looked up at the rather extravagant door.
If she knew nothing about metalworking, she might well have been deceived by the materials used in those decorations and believed that it truly was a golden door, with real gemstones set into it.
But with her Extraordinary-level Forging, Fulan could tell at a glance that all of those materials were fake. They looked convincing, but that was all they were.
Sure enough, the moment Fulan laid a hand on the golden door, she could tell that it would swing open with the lightest push.
“It’s lighter than a wooden door of the same size,” Fulan muttered, before pushing it open and stepping inside.
The instant she entered, the decorations almost dazzled her blind.
The floor gleamed with a silvery shine, the walls were black and crystalline, and the ceiling was a blazing gold.
There were also candelabra that looked entirely wrapped in gold, along with chandeliers emitting a faint white glow...
From the moment she entered this room, Fulan felt that the entire place radiated an aesthetic utterly different from her own. Why would anyone like a room where everything reflected light?
But Fulan was not this society president, so she had no say in how the room ought to be decorated.
“Oh... you’ve finally arrived.”
A gentle female voice reached Fulan’s ears.
Fulan turned her head. There was a small door in the room, and the voice had come from behind it.
The small door was flung open rather roughly, and what entered Fulan’s sight was a figure dressed in a gray mage’s robe.
She had a head of beautiful, smooth long hair with a lustrous sheen, cascading naturally down her back. At a glance, it was obvious that she took great care of it.
The society president had a lovely face, but her eyes were unusual, as though round blue gemstones had been set into them. Within them were gemlike patterns, reflecting the faint light of the room.
“My name is Elise. I am the society president of the Northern Society.”
Fulan introduced herself as well, but after hearing Elise’s introduction, she found herself slightly puzzled.
The other woman had no family name. That meant she, too, must have risen from being a commoner to become a Formal Mage, then climbed all the way to the position of society president.
Fulan could not help clicking her tongue inwardly. As the president of a society, and one with a complete advancement path at that, Elise had to be a mage of the third tier or above.
And for a commoner to reach that position was no easy thing.
In the Alliance, where family-based privilege ran rampant, mages from mage families found it far easier to advance than ordinary mages. The difference in resources was simply too great.
For Elise to have climbed to this point, her talent for magic must have far surpassed that of ordinary people.
Elise, meanwhile, was also sizing up the disciple whom her old friend had entrusted to her care.
In truth, she had received Habos’s letter a long time ago, five months earlier.
In that letter, he had written about his recent circumstances and explained that he had found a genius much like herself, someone with a rare gift in magic.
The only odd thing was that this genius he had taken in actually wanted to study the spells of other schools.
So Habos had thought of sending her here, to a place isolated by the Alliance, precisely because within her society she allowed mages to publish their own insights into the various schools.
Even though the mages here only published optimized versions of those schools’ spells, versions that differed greatly from the originals, those schools still remained deeply uneasy about effects so similar to their own spells.
As a result, they had pulled strings in every possible place, until she had been pushed aside to the Northern Frontier.
Only after several decades of development had the Northern Society grown into what it was today.
And now, because the mentor of the person standing before her had published a paper that shocked the Alliance, the name of the Northern Society had once again become known throughout the Alliance.
Blinking those blue gemlike eyes, Elise looked at Fulan. She remembered Habos saying that Fulan possessed exceptional talent in mechanics.
The mechanical components employed in Habos’s paper had all been extrapolated from Fulan’s own work.
At the same time, Fulan herself had created two apprentice-tier spells and, by her own efforts alone, completed the advancement system of the Forge Furnace School.
That certainly qualified her as a genius.
Still, when it came to the spells used by Formal Mages, she probably needed a few more opportunities to learn. Elise blinked, already thinking about how she should arrange Fulan’s future.