Ruger watched the old man ramble on at length, silently committing his boastful claims to memory.
He recalled the man he had met last time in the Nightmare World, the one followed by a cluster of indistinct figures. That fellow with the fake smile must have been a Faith Wizard. During their battle, Ruger had also seen a temple the man had shaped in his mental power space. He wondered whether Faith Wizards had to begin their preparations with their meditation methods. Just as Ka Liu in the diary had missed the chance to solidify a zero-ring spell and could no longer embark directly on the path of a Beast King Wizard, some Wizard paths began at the very outset. Wizard Apprentices without connections would miss crucial choices simply because they lacked information.
Ruger thought of the Supreme Council again. Since it was promoting successive improvements to meditation methods and, by his reckoning, wanted more Wizards to emerge, why would it stand by and let this happen? Naturally, not everyone whose potential went unrecognized could have gone far down those paths, but there were bound to be some gifted apprentices among them whose progress had been held back.
Firelight flickered in the little square.
Perhaps this was exactly what the Supreme Council wanted, Ruger thought.
It wanted not only large numbers of Wizards, but Wizards capable of creating something new. If everyone followed established paths, that would undoubtedly stifle the Wizard world's creativity, slowly and invisibly killing its future. Of course, the Supreme Council's approach would also destroy the prospects of many Wizards and Wizard Apprentices. Some people, driven into a corner, would forge paths of their own. Others would spend the rest of their lives trapped in frustration and regret.
Listening to the old man, Ruger felt that the