Ian A portal appeared behind him, and the mages followed closely. They found themselves in a dark and spacious room.
However, no one paid attention to the environment of the room, because their attention was immediately attracted by a towering door in front of them, which was engraved with various symbols and Rune runes. It was so beautiful and majestic. All mages could not take their eyes away from this door.
"What is this?" a mage asked.
"This is Gate of Truth," Ian said calmly. "I created it for three purposes: to enhance your talent in sensing and controlling energy; to enhance your soul's ability to withstand specific energies; and finally, as the name suggests, it contains knowledge beyond your imagination."
The mages looked at each other, but before they started whispering, Ian pointed at the king and said, "You come first."
"Me?"
"Yes. Put your hand on the door and close your eyes."
The king hesitated for less than a second before walking toward the awe-inspiring door. He closed his eyes and did so. A white light enveloped his body, startling several mages.
Wang opened his eyes and clenched his fists. He felt that he seemed to be a little different, but he couldn't describe it in simple words. When he closed his eyes, he could feel that there was something in his mind, no, in his soul - another door.
"Try a spell that you usually need to rely on a magic weapon to cast," Ian instructed. Wang thought briefly, and then jumped into the air. A yellow energy materialized under his feet, and he used it as a fulcrum to keep moving upward; he jumped more than ten meters high, and then slowly descended in the same way.
"Valtor's Jumping Boots," one of the mages commented, recognizing the spell used by the king. The mages became excited when they realized that the king was only wearing ordinary shoes but was casting such a powerful spell.
"Now, it's your turn," Ian said. The mages lined up and walked to the front one by one, placing their hands on the door to get their own Gate of Truth.
Considering the door's large surface area, the entire process took less than an hour. "I wasn't kidding when I said this door contains knowledge beyond your knowledge," Ian said calmly. "However, such precious knowledge cannot be given away for free. Before anyone raises objections and talks about Kamar-Taj's principles of knowledge sharing, remember what I said - things are different now.
"The knowledge behind this door will allow you to twist the natural laws of the universe like a plaything. It can point you to a path to god-like power. This power must not be obtained by anyone at will." Ian paused to give everyone time to digest the news.
"So how do we acquire this knowledge?"
"Good question," Ian said. "I believe in the Equivalent Exchange principle. In other words, you have to exchange knowledge for knowledge. However, I also understand that innovation is not everyone's strong point, especially when we don't have enough time for research. So, I created another exchange system."
Ian Another portal appeared next to it, and the mages followed it. Due to the huge heat and the unique noise made by the machine, they were now in a red room.
A huge crucible stood in the center of the room, which released heat and made noise. Ian raised his hand, summoned a dead interdimensional creature and threw it on the floor. The creature suddenly disappeared, and a few minutes later, two marble-sized orbs and a bottle of Potions appeared in front of him.
"Do you recognize these?"
"Power Amulet," said a female mage.
"And this is Beast-Repelling Amulet, an interdimensional creature that can repel certain animals."
"I have never seen this bottle of Potions."
"Healing Potion," Ian stated.
"Our new system at Kamar-Taj requires us to be more proactive. You will perform more missions, or actively participate in fighting the invasion of more aggressive enemies. Then, you will bring their corpses to Crucible Room, where they will automatically be refined into magic items, magic weapons, and Potions to deal with the coming turmoil."
"In other words, we are stocking up for battle."
"That's right," Ian nodded. "The more enemies you kill, the more weapons we have, and the greater our chance of survival. Of course, you have 30% ownership of the magic weapon created by Crucible Room, and the rest will be reserved for sale or future use."
Everyone was silent. Although they knew they had made a choice, facing this cruel reality, some people began to regret their decision.
"Supreme... I mean, Arcane Emperor. You just mentioned selling magic weapons. Are we going to start using money?" A mage asked with a frown.
"No. We are going to start implementing a point system based on the missions you perform or the enemies you kill," Ian explained, then waved and showed a list to everyone.
There are various missions listed on the list, many of which involve traveling to other dimensions to search for magic items, make allies, or infiltrate enemies to gather intelligence and cause sabotage. Each mission rewards a different number of Arcane Points based on its difficulty level (from F to SSS).
The list also lists the list of intruders that Kamar-Taj encounters most frequently, as well as their corresponding point values.
"From now on, Arcane Points will be our currency system. If you want to gain knowledge from Gate of Truth, you must use it."
"What about the knowledge in the Library? Do we need to spend points for those things that we already have access to?" Wang asked.
"No, those are still available for free," Ian replied.
"How do we get knowledge from the door?"
"You just need to close your eyes and connect to the door. There is a system here that will record your available points. You only need to touch the door connected to the main door in your soul to gain knowledge," Ian explained. "The good news is that this system can ignore the barriers of most dimensions, so if you are in another realm and need intelligence to assist with a mission or are in trouble, you can use Gate of Truth to save your life."
"What about the non-combatants? What role do we play? How do we obtain Arcane Points?"
"There are many roles for non-combatants," Ian replied. "I will eventually open new Sanctumss to strengthen Earth's defenses, and it will be your job to manage them. Jobs like teachers, librarians, etc. will be paid monthly like any real job.
"Secondly, we must increase our numbers. Kamar-Taj In the past, we only recruited mages who were destined to come here, but we must now take a more active attitude and recruit more mages.
"Finally, non-combatants can learn a crafting skill to supplement Crucible Room's output. You can sell anything you make; all points are yours. Crucible Room will even buy what you buy at a fair price."
The non-combatants breathed a sigh of relief as they realized that they would not be ostracized because of the decision they made. Although they made the decision not to participate in combat, they still loved magic and wanted to do their part to protect the world, so they were equally eager to obtain Arcane Points and gain more knowledge.
"Do you have any more questions?" The mages actually have a lot of questions, but they feel it is not appropriate to raise them now; their questions are more related to the specific details of certain things, but these can be clarified after the meeting.
"Very good. In that case, let me show you the last change of Kamar-Taj." He pointed at Void and made an opening.
"This..." the mages murmured to themselves. Their senses took them into a purple world, filled with a power that they could only describe as beautiful and charming.
"This energy is called magic," Ian explained. "In my opinion, it is the best mysterious energy because it is almost omnipotent. I only use the word 'almost' because I never speak too absolutely. This entire dimension belongs to us, and you can use all its power as you wish without any restrictions or conditions."