Wizard Apprentice

Beneath a cloudless sky, an airship bearing the emblem of a white tower flew through the heavens. On its deck, children not yet eight years old chirped and played together.

Taylor sat cross-legged by himself at the edge of the deck, his eyes vacant as he watched clouds streak past. Whenever he tried to reach out, an invisible barrier stopped him.

He quietly gazed toward the horizon, then reached out again to touch the invisible barrier. He sighed inwardly. Though he had tried dozens of times, he still could not quite get used to it.

He had really transmigrated—into a world with wizards.

Taylor had originally been a junior-year college student on a blue planet. After closing and opening his eyes, he had transmigrated into the body of a boy who looked much like him as a child and even had a somewhat similar name.

Before he could even process it, he heard the children around him chattering that they had been chosen by powerful wizards and would learn knowledge and truth.

Emmmmm.

Taylor had spent several days forcibly suppressing his stray thoughts and complicated emotions, while also figuring out what he was supposed to do. Since he was already here, he decided he might as well settle in. Rather than complain about fate, it would be better to become a wizard and master extraordinary power.

The little brats who had been closest to him now kept their distance. Those seven- or eight-year-old children found Taylor utterly boring. They had lofty ambitions: long lives, great power, endless beautiful women, and vast territories. That was what children their age generally wanted.

That silent bore was obviously such a loser.

Out of the children's sight, Mendes, the Level 1 Wizard controlling the airship from its center, spread out his mental power and carefully observed these newly arrived wizard candidates.

Mendes was a White Wizard of the White Tower Alliance. Unlike Black Wizards, White Wizards might not possess combat abilities as powerful as theirs, but they did not have their strange pursuits and desires. They preferred the pursuit of knowledge and truth. They were passionate about analysis, interpretation, and experimentation, roaming the ocean of knowledge and truth.

Compared to the ruthlessness, greed, and cruelty of Black Wizards, White Wizards acted more openly and honorably. They rarely resorted to curses, sneak attacks, or coercion. White Wizards were gentler, advocated equivalent exchange, disliked taking things by force, and favored rules and order. In their view, rules and order themselves were a form of cultivation, an embodiment of truth and knowledge.

Just as Mendes was somewhat disappointedly using his mental power to observe these children, who only cared about chatting and fooling around rather than pursuing knowledge and truth, Taylor by the side of the ship suddenly caught his attention.

Taylor was silently planning his future and considering possible unexpected situations. Although he had not yet truly arrived at the White Tower Alliance, he felt it was highly likely that he would encounter troublesome matters, such as conflicts.

But he had already established the core goal of his life: to gather more knowledge and analyze more truths. After all, in this world and in the profession he was about to enter, knowledge was the most fundamental power.

When he thought of the knowledge and truth he was about to learn becoming his foundation and strength, gradually guiding him toward greater power and a longer life, Taylor could not help feeling a sense of longing. An ambition belonging to him was born: to collect all knowledge and truth, then gradually ascend to the very peak.

When would he finally be able to learn a wizard's knowledge and truth?~~~~~

Taylor's heart was filled with ambition and longing. That expression, brimming with ambition and desire, along with the faint mental-power fluctuations he unconsciously emitted, were caught and observed by Mendes's mental power.

This kind of desire was very good. It was ambition toward truth and knowledge, a manifestation of the thirst for learning.

Mendes understood the importance of such an expression to wizard apprentices.

Someone with such an expression might not necessarily become a learned wizard, but it was something possessed by every learned wizard who pursued truth.

It seemed this ship was not filled entirely with naive children. There was still a naturally gifted wizard candidate among them.

Mendes smiled in satisfaction. He did not know the child's name, but he believed that with his own efforts, this child would certainly become a powerful wizard.

It was a premonition.

The massive airship continued flying through the sky for about two more days before finally arriving at an enormous island. In the middle of the island stood an endless stretch of white towers. Wizard Towers of varying heights rose one after another, their white surfaces engraved with strange patterns and wizard runes symbolizing mysterious power.

When Taylor was the first to poke his head out and look at the endless cluster of white towers, he felt mystery and awe, as well as the unknown and unease.

Watching mysterious light occasionally flow across the white towers and the peculiar spell formations operating without pause, Taylor felt that he would probably spend the rest of his life here, pursuing that mysterious knowledge and truth.

The airship slowly descended from the horizon. After passing through the clouds, it arrived at a port established beside a white Wizard Tower.

"Disembark."

Wizard Mendes's voice rang in every child's ears at once. It was a skillful application of mental power. As he spoke, a wooden passageway extended from the airship's left side, directly connecting to the port.

After Taylor and the children aboard the airship crossed the wooden passageway to the port, they were greeted by wizard apprentices dressed in white robes embroidered with the white-tower emblem across their chests.

These wizard apprentices were lower-ranked Level 1 Wizard Apprentices and some menial wizard apprentices from the White Tower Alliance. Their duty was to guide these fresh recruits joining the White Tower Alliance through certain necessary rules and regulations: how to grow stronger, how to exchange for knowledge, how to obtain spell models, and so on.

Once they completed their guidance, they would submit the assigned task they had received to the White Tower Alliance's menial affairs office. After completing the task, they would receive points, which could be exchanged for whatever they wanted.

Together with the other children from the airship, Taylor followed the guidance of the Level 1 Wizard Apprentices and menial wizard apprentices. They were divided into different teams and followed the wizard apprentices leading them to learn about the White Tower Alliance as a whole.

In truth, these wizard apprentices did not know that much either. They merely explained many of the White Tower Alliance's rules, customs, and taboos to Taylor and the others. Through their explanations, he learned that the White Tower Alliance was mainly composed of White Wizards, who advocated order, rules, and equivalent exchange. Their conduct was relatively peaceful, and wanton plunder, mutual scheming, and killing one another were strictly forbidden.

The White Wizards believed that the wizard-apprentice stage was the time to lay foundations, nurture a spirit of exploration and research, and accumulate knowledge. If one thought every day about robbing, plotting against, or even killing fellow apprentices, how could one become a wizard who pursued knowledge and truth?

Conflicts and disputes were generally handled by law-enforcement wizard apprentices, and there were even dedicated law-enforcement wizards. Once someone committed a serious offense, such as harming apprentices or stealing knowledge, part of the core of their soul would be removed. Their soul would become incomplete, leaving them unable to make progress for the rest of their life and fit only to become consumables or servants.

White Wizards advocated rules and systems and had a relatively peaceful style, but that did not mean their methods were gentle. They certainly would not, like Black Wizards, freely exploit, dissect, or even torture wizard apprentices to death. But for wizard apprentices who had committed grave mistakes and had their soul cores removed—

As White Wizards who sought to explore the mysteries of the human body and study true knowledge and truth, they naturally needed some consumables.