New Apprentices

East District's commercial street.

When Saine once again came to the shop where Fatty Baus was staying, Baus had already sold off all the goods Saine had handed over to him earlier.

Nearly a month had passed since Saine returned from completing his mission.

Fatty Baus could have sold all the goods long ago, but in order to earn more Black Gold, the fellow had actually found a way to put the three Blue Jaw Feather Eggs into a small auction recently held in the City of Mozhsuobula.

It had to be said that the fatty truly had a sharp head for business.

In the end, Fatty Baus handed Saine a full 577 Black Gold coins, even after his commission had been deducted.

Such a huge sum of Black Gold was the most Saine had ever seen in his life.

And this influx of Black Gold would help Saine move faster along the path of alchemy.

Senior Brother Zorro had been right. In its early stages, alchemy was purely a money-burning endeavor, one that offered no visible returns for the time being.

The bird claws and beaks of Blue Jaw Feathers alone were far from enough for Saine to practice with.

He needed to buy more experimental materials, as well as some tools specifically used for alchemy.

He could not possibly shamelessly go borrow things from Senior Brother every time he wanted to conduct some Alchemy Experiment, could he?

In truth, Mentor Moxidu's laboratory had not only a complete range of alchemical equipment, but all of it was exceptionally high-end.

But precisely because it was too high-end, Saine simply did not know how to use it—or rather, he was worried about breaking it.

One should eat only as much as one's stomach could hold.

Saine did not need to aim too high. He only needed to keep his feet on the ground and accumulate experience from the basics.

After all, he was still young.

More than five hundred Black Gold coins filled an entire medium-sized cloth sack. Beside him, Baus was still chattering endlessly about how wealthy those Demi-human Tribes were.

Ever since attending a small auction in the City of Mozhsuobula, Baus's horizons and ambitions had gradually broadened.

He had little talent for cultivation, but he truly had a knack for business.

Moreover, Baus was not without capital. With Meili and Saine behind him, so long as the two could steadily provide him with Magic Potions and alchemy items in the future, he dared to pound his chest and guarantee that all three of them would make a fortune.

Baus's ambitions and promises made Saine want to laugh.

Just as Saine was about to say something, a muffled "Whooo! Whooo! Whooo!" of steam whistles sounded, gradually echoing across the skies above the entire City of Mozhsuobula.

Almost at the same time, Saine and Fatty Baus rushed out of the shop.

Many others in the City of Mozhsuobula did the same.

Every resident of the city could not help but raise their heads at the sound of those peculiar blasts, looking toward the jet-black colossal shadow outlined beneath the glow of fluorescent stones.

It was a massive vessel that seemed to have suddenly sailed out from nowhere.

It was enormous—two hundred meters in length alone, and a full fifty meters in height.

The instant the Floating Behemoth appeared, several Formal Black Wizards immediately flew into the skies above the City of Mozhsuobula.

More than a dozen Owl Academy Supervisors followed them into the air, scattering across every corner of the Floating Behemoth.

At Saine's side, Fatty Baus could not help sighing. "Another batch of newcomers has arrived. I wonder how many there are this time, and how many among them can meet the academy's minimum Mental Strength requirement."

Fatty Baus seemed to have recalled the time when he had first arrived in the Underdark, which was why he appeared somewhat sentimental.

Saine did not think so much. The instant he saw the Floating Behemoth above the City of Mozhsuobula, his first thought was, Another year has passed. I'm seventeen now, too.

Half a month later, nearly every apprentice of the Black Wizard Academy knew that the Formal Black Wizards had abducted nearly a thousand children from the Surface World that year.

Yet only 272 of them met the Mental Strength requirement—not even one-third of the total.

The minimum requirement for becoming a Black Wizard Apprentice was an initial Mental Strength of at least seven points.

Saine's initial Mental Strength had been eleven points. This was likely one of the reasons why his progress in magical cultivation had gone relatively smoothly over the years.

The level of one's initial Mental Strength did, to a large extent, determine the advancement speed of Magic Apprentices during their early learning period.

Saine's promotion to Intermediate Apprentice at the age of sixteen already qualified him as a minor prodigy.

As for those who still wasted away at the low-level apprentice stage in their twenties or even thirties—

Besides their lack of intelligence and limited ability to comprehend magic, their low initial Mental Strength was likely another major shortcoming.

He wondered whether one's initial Mental Strength value was linked to intelligence.

The arrival of over two hundred newly enrolled apprentices injected fresh vitality into the long-silent, oppressive Black Wizard Academy.

Looking at these little ones, whose faces were filled with timidity, fear, and faint curiosity,

more than one Black Wizard Apprentice was reminded of their former selves.

Go on, savor the coldness and despair of the Black Wizard Academy! Quite a few Black Wizard Apprentices sneered inwardly.

According to the usual pattern of previous years, by the second year, the number of these two hundred-odd newly enrolled little ones would plummet to less than half.

Most of those little ones would be "eliminated" for all manner of reasons, simply because they could not adapt to the academy's environment.

Even among the small number of apprentices who remained, very few would ultimately mature and step into the low-level apprentice tier.

By probability, having fifteen would already be considered quite good.

Over the years, Entry-Level Apprentices had been replaced batch after batch, yet the accumulated number of Intermediate and Advanced Apprentices had always remained around the same figure. That alone explained many things.

Unlike certain idle apprentices, Saine did not make a special trip to the Apprentice Dormitory of the newly enrolled apprentices to "inspect the goods."

After only briefly learning about the circumstances of these new apprentices, Saine returned to his studies.

Mentor Moxidu's laboratory.

As usual, Saine came here that day.

Slightly unlike usual, Mentor Moxidu was not in the Alchemy Laboratory conducting an experiment.

Instead, he sat in the first-floor sitting room, chatting with the visiting Formal Black Wizard, Di'ersi.

After respectfully greeting Mentor Moxidu and Master Di'ersi, Saine headed toward the laboratory.

As he passed through the sitting room, Saine happened to overhear Mentor Moxidu and Master Di'ersi discussing this batch of newly enrolled apprentices as well.

"This time, there are only a little over two hundred apprentices whose Mental Strength qualifies."

"I wonder whether, ten years from now, the academy's number of qualified apprentices will meet the requirements set by the Dean and the others." Master Di'ersi was the one speaking.

Because she had frequently come to visit Moxidu recently, and because she and Moxidu both hailed from the Western Islands, this Formal Black Wizard had secretly formed an offensive and defensive alliance with Moxidu.

A month earlier, Di'ersi had obtained from Moxidu secrets that ordinary Black Magicians in the City of Mozhsuobula had not even begun to touch upon.

This advantage in intelligence alone was enough to place Di'ersi among the top ten of all Formal Black Wizards in the City of Mozhsuobula.

Who knew what information she had obtained that made her, for the first time ever, concern herself with whether the academy's apprentice numbers would qualify in the future?