Clock Tower, the hub of the modern Mage's Association. Ninety percent of magi in Western Europe chose the Clock Tower, where magi from all over the world gathered and diligently studied magecraft day and night.
It also managed magecraft patents for magi and was deeply trusted.
For example, the Tohsaka Family's patent fees came through here. Otherwise, after Tohsaka Tokiomi, the Tohsaka Family's participant in the Fourth Holy Grail War, suddenly died, Rin would not have obtained the Tohsaka Family's Magic Crest so easily.
This was also the highest institution of learning in the magecraft world, though its students were mostly left to their own devices. Those who could understand came to listen, and those with genuine talent might be taken on as assistants.
Even though it was the hub of "modern" magecraft, the Clock Tower remained rigidly hierarchical. An invisible atmosphere of pressure completely separated it from the British Museum outside, as though they belonged to two different worlds...
"Damn it, he's just jealous of my talent! Does being a lecturer give him the right to act like this? This is too much!"
Waver Velvet strode through the school corridor, his face full of fury. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became.
Earlier, he had written a paper on the new generation of magi, arguing that as long as one's understanding of magecraft was deep enough and one's methods and techniques were sufficiently refined, even new-generation magi could become outstanding magi.
Yet this paper had been criticized into nothing by one of the Clock Tower's Twelve Lords—Kaineth El-Melloi Archibald, minister of the Mineralogy Department and a first-rank lecturer in the Department of Spiritual Evocation.
He had even brought it out during the entire Spiritual Evocation class for all the students to mock.
There was no