January 31st, 8:00 a.m., Imperial Capital time. Jingji Tower, Hall of Thousand Towers.
Though there were still three hours until the lunch buffet, the vast Hall of Thousand Towers was already packed with children and parents. Besides a group of Mana-Less children around twelve to fourteen years old, there was also a gathering of Mana-Wielders who were young but already quite tall.
Starting in 998, Landen's Gallop Academy would hold admissions twice a year, in spring and autumn. Autumn admissions were set for July and focused on Mana-Less children aged twelve to fourteen, while spring admissions were held at the end of January, recruiting ordinary Mana-Wielders or Apprentices under eighteen.
According to Landen's plans, spring-admission students would primarily be taught various magical skills. After reaching the intermediate level or graduating at the age of twenty-three, they would mainly return to work in new workshops in the regions where they had been recruited. Only the very best students would remain in Night-Kirin City.
The intake would be split fifty-fifty between the children of great nobles' retainers and young Mana-Wielders trained by the Tower of Purity, for a total of one thousand students per year.
The children recruited in autumn, meanwhile, would be trained more as residents for major cities such as Night-Kirin City, White Wolf City, and Iowa. Half would come from collateral branches of noble families in five major cities—Dragon Tooth City, the Imperial Capital, Nikolagrad, capital of Girislav, the capital of the Southern Kingdom, and the capital of the Southeast Kingdom—and half would be Mana-Less students from the Tower of Purity, for a total annual intake of two thousand.
In other words, every year, five hundred Mana-Wielder students and one thousand Mana-Less students would be sent from the Tower of Purity's various magic schools to Night-Kirin City. Not only