Elan's Thoughts

"My God!..."

Inside a small room in the Base Camp, Elan sat on a rough little chair and sighed.

"When will this end...? No, I think I can just tell Fran and leave now..."

Elan slapped his forehead; it was during this break from work that he realized for the first time that he seemed to be able to leave whenever he wanted.

"But when I left, I think I reported to the City of Apprentices that I would return in two months."

If Fran were at the Northern Lands Society, Elan would probably have sent these apprentices here and then gone back immediately. After all, the Northern Lands Society is part of the Alliance, so their safety would be guaranteed.

However, Antir, where Fran lived, was quite different. This region had been at war since before he met Fran, and it remained dangerous to this day.

If these apprentices are left here, Fran might get distracted by other things and, without warning, lose all three of them, which would be terrible.

Although these three apprentices are only mage apprentices who have passed one examination, there is still a chance that they will not be able to advance to the rank of Formal Mage due to insufficient knowledge or difficulty in mastering spells.

Most School only emphasize certain aspects; in many School, passing exams and achieving rankings is merely a foundation for learning higher-level knowledge.

However, for the Forge School, the significance of these three apprentices was quite different; they could be considered the only three remaining members of the Forge School.

Moreover, only Fran had successfully traversed the path to becoming Formal Mage before this, and it was unknown whether other apprentices could replicate Fran's method and become Formal Mage.

And it is clear that these three apprentices are the School's only hope at present.

Elan's original plan was to bring the three apprentices to Fran's side and then have them stay with her for two months.

During this time, Fran should also be able to find some time to teach these apprentices.

If, two months later, the place where Fran is staying is basically safe, then he will return directly to the City of Apprentices and let Fran take care of the three apprentices herself.

If the place where Fran stays is too harsh, and Fran doesn't supervise them properly, these apprentices might die there.

Then Elan will bring all three apprentices back to the City of Apprentices, and consider these two months as Fran giving the three apprentices a little extra tutoring.

Elan believed his arrangements were perfectly in place, and even Harbos had no objections after understanding them.

But Elan never expected that after arriving here, he would be dragged into a small house by Fran, and his only job was to keep rubbing the same small parts.

Although Elan had considered that Fran was a mage who had only recently been promoted, less than a year in total, before coming here, Elan himself could be considered a senior, Formal Mage.

In this situation, Elan always thought that if Fran needed any help, he would do his best to help.

Once they arrived, Fran didn't seem to need much help, but Elan didn't refuse at Fran's request, which led to the current situation.

"This won't do. This isn't how you work. I'm not one of those apprentices. I'm quitting..."

Elan thought for a moment, and his first thought was that he didn't want to do it anymore. Fran didn't have any good reason for him to keep doing it.

"But those apprentices..."

Elan thought for a moment, then his thoughts drifted to another group of people in the Base Camp —the apprentices.

Based on what Elan had observed, Elan felt that Fran had fulfilled her teaching responsibilities.

Although Elan himself lacked a thorough understanding of the Forge School's philosophy, he knew that the most important aspect of this School was the construction of machinery.

Fran's decision to give her apprentices a thorough understanding of the machines she created, and even let them operate them themselves, can be described as incredibly generous.

Many Formal Mage do not directly teach their original content when teaching; instead, they repeatedly explain things that everyone already knows.

Those apprentices could only hope that they would gain some unique insights from the teachings of the Formal Mage.

And for someone like Fran, having her apprentices directly participate in the machines she builds seems to be the best teaching method.

Moreover, what these apprentices need now is precisely this kind of knowledge about machinery.

The current apprenticeship curriculum of the Forge School is written by Fran herself, but it has always lacked practical components. And clearly, Fran seems to be having these apprentices fill that gap...?

Elan couldn't help but wonder about this. Although, judging from the process, these apprentices had learned knowledge, gained practical experience, and developed a deeper understanding of machinery.

From the process, it couldn't be better.

However, judging from Fran's expression and thoughts when she asked them to perform this operation, as well as the overall construction of the Base Camp,...

Fran seems to be using Elan and his apprentices as a means of production, thinking she'll use as much as possible.

Elan even suspected that Fran had anticipated that she would start to get bored and refuse to work at some point, so she crammed a lot of work into her at the beginning in order to extract as much value from her work as possible.

"So, should I go back to the City of Apprentices, or stay here?"

Elan thought back to his initial question: Should he leave now, or wait two months?

The Base Camp under Fran's control seemed to be very orderly, with the workers working like spinning tops without stopping.

The entire Base Camp works for a little while longer at night before resting; all the machinery is running non-stop throughout the day... no, many machines are still running at night.

Elan recalled the previous night; although Fran had deliberately kept a distance from where he was staying, his keen senses still allowed him to hear the sounds of the machinery operating.

Despite the intensity of the work, the workers hardly showed any anger on their faces, and they were not particularly thin.

Furthermore, Elan observed that the management here was very strict, with Gray Robes constantly supervising the workers. If any conflict arose among the workers, these figures would intervene and resolve the situation...

In such a place, if Elan hadn't previously endured a long journey, he still wouldn't believe that he was actually in Antir. He would have believed it if it were somewhere on the Alliance's Floating City.

Elan had no idea how Fran had managed to train such a disciplined and motivated supervisory team, especially in such a short time.

If it weren't for the fact that mind-controlling spells at the First Order could basically only give the controlled person a skeleton-like mind, Elan would have suspected that Fran had used some kind of magical method.

But that's simply impossible, because to manipulate a person's mind and make them act, talk, and handle complex matters like a normal person would require at least Third-Order Spell.

Shifting the focus back, Elan believed in the safety of this territory, but then again, this was, after all, the Antir Region.

Even if Elan ultimately doesn't take these apprentices back, and he returns to the City of Apprentices completely at ease, is that really a good thing?

After much deliberation, Elan decided to stay put for now, but he was definitely not going to do any work.

Fran dragged her weary body back to the Base Camp.

Changing her body's information was extremely taxing on her energy; it involved profound changes within her body, and she had already worked continuously for three days before ascending to the Spirit Realm.

So all the fatigue from the past few days has piled up, making her desperately need rest, but...

She needed to get things arranged first, so that by the time she finished her rest, the Base Camp would have completed the first round of tasks she had planned.

Fran wrote everything down on a slip of paper, handed it to Brian, and explained the situation to him.

"Collect these items first, about ten kilograms of each."

"Okay, I'll arrange for someone to take care of it right away."

Fran's task for Brian was actually to develop methods for preparing various materials for gunpowder.

Although Fran doesn't plan to start a black powder production line, it's still necessary to get some samples of black powder to experiment with firearms.

And once you get here, that's another benefit of Fran's development of the Base Camp.

Faced with the various materials needed to make gunpowder, she now only needed to tell them the methods, and Brian was already able to carry them out well. Her workers had also become quite skilled, so she no longer needed to oversee the details.

"Ah..."

Fran yawned, rubbed her eyes, and looked at another stack of drawings in her hand, which contained blueprints for various parts of the gun assembly.

Perhaps the workers aren't skilled enough to perfectly replicate the parts on the blueprints.

"Just let the apprentices help out; they've actually forged these weapons before."

Fran walked toward the delivery room where the lathe was located. On the way, she met Elan was outside getting some fresh air.

As soon as Elan saw Fran, he immediately said:

"Fran, I'm not doing what you asked me to do. I'm just too tired..."

Elan stopped speaking because he suddenly sensed something was wrong. The Fran in front of him was still using the appearance of ' Lai ', but the feeling she gave him was completely different.

From his Mental Power Formal Mage, it was like a high-quality reproduction, with many differences in the details.

"If you're not going to do it, then don't. Divide these blueprints into three copies and give them to the apprentices. Tell them to pause their training of the workers and focus on guiding the workers to make these parts first..."

"What's wrong with you?"

Fran looked at Elan, who was stunned, with curiosity.

"It's nothing, I'll pass it on to you..."

Elan snapped out of his daze. Although something seemed amiss at that moment, for some reason, he had no doubts whatsoever as Fran spoke and continued her actions.

But the feeling was still strange, like a high-quality reproduction that also captured the essence of the original.