A High-Profile Entrance

After giving Ake the magic notes Chris had annotated and answered, the Smoke mission was promptly completed: "Mission complete. Reward: Water Archmage Ake Loides Truth."

"As expected, Ake is about to break through and become an Archmage... But then again, how exactly are Archmages distinguished from ordinary mages?"

Liszt was deeply puzzled by this. Magic, unlike battle aura, had no divisions of low, intermediate, high, and dragon battle aura. So aside from the different types of magic they mastered, he had no idea what else separated an Archmage from a mage. Nor was there anyone who could answer his question.

So far, the only Archmage he had ever seen was Grimandan Truth, the Court Archmage who had set off fireworks for Marquis Merlin back on Red Crab Island.

They had drunk together at the banquet, but exchanged no more than a couple of sentences.

Chris had clearly encountered Archmages before. Her teacher had been an Archmage, but that teacher had not told her too early what being an Archmage meant—most likely treating her as cannon fodder for the Goat Gathering and having no intention of teaching her more advanced magical knowledge.

"Once Ake breaks through to become an Archmage, I'll study it properly. Maybe I can compile some useful information and feed it back to Chris, helping her break through to Archmage as well... Then I'll have two Archmages... Mages may indeed be evil, but the two of them shouldn't harm me."

Liszt did not hold a favorable impression of mages. Certainly, knightly cultivation depended on mages to supply potions and create magical equipment.

But mages' obsession with truth left them in awe of nothing, and they were always doing horrifying things—setting off the occasional explosion was one thing, but they even casually set their sights on dragons—the Archmages of