New Era of Xin—Year -21
Northern Countries · Oysaster
In the blink of an eye, half a month had passed.
When the old monk pushed open the monastery gates once more, he was surprised to find that the entire monastery, from top to bottom—including the tables, chairs, and bookshelves—had been cleaned spotless.
Even the books displayed on the shelves bore signs of having been reorganized.
What caught the old man's attention most, however, was a stack of notes deliberately left in a conspicuous place.
The old man stepped forward, picked them up, and flipped through them. The notes clearly recorded the order of the reorganized books and indicated which books had already been copied out by their author.
Seeing this, the old monk smiled and shook his head. "I never expected that, during this old one's absence, this little monastery would receive a fellow traveler seeking shelter."
"That is truly a fine thing."
At the end of the notes, the mysterious visitor had also expressed apologies for the presumptuous visit and had used the cleaning of the monastery as payment for lodging there these past days.
Looking at the spotless surroundings, the old man nodded repeatedly.
Following the instructions in the notes, he pulled a book copied by the mysterious visitor from the shelf and compared it against the original to verify the quality of the transcription.
"Not bad. The content is complete, the handwriting is neat, and the annotations are accurate."
"Every requirement for transcription has been met to an excellent standard. Even by the standards set by senior monks, this is an exceptional work worthy of being passed down."
"It is only a pity that I did not get to meet this fellow traveler."
The old monk sighed regretfully. "This old one does not have much life left either. This monastery should be passed on to a fellow practitioner."
Wandering the streets of Oysaster, Guter restrained his mana fluctuations as much as possible.
The city had already gradually grown lively after Serie announced the founding of the Continental Magic Association. After this period of buildup, the atmosphere had become even more fervent, as though some festival were being celebrated.
Mana fluctuations that had once been rare to spot across an entire street could now be sensed by Guter from four or five people within his field of vision alone.
For Serie, that "Magic Old Timer," to achieve such an effect, her influence was truly astonishing.
Guter lowered the brim of his hat slightly. After politely nodding to the mages who had likewise sensed his mana fluctuations, he quickly left.
Now that he had finally preserved the trait of living apart from the world, Guter had even less reason to relax at a time like this.
Relying on his previous familiarity with Oysaster's streets, Guter hurried toward the designated examination site.
In truth, there was no need to know the roads at all, because most of the people in the entire city were gathering in the same direction.
Among the crowd were mages participating in the examination, but the largest portion consisted of city residents who had come to watch the excitement.
Thanks to the body he had forged according to a warrior's standards, Guter successfully pulled ahead of the vast majority and arrived at the examination site designated by the Continental Magic Association relatively early.
Even so, seeing the packed scene before him, Guter could not help but sigh softly.
The sun had only just risen. What time had all these people come here?
Fortunately, most of those surrounding the area were Oysaster residents. Once he identified himself as a mage, they consciously made a narrow path for Guter.
After thanking them, Guter swiftly made his way through and finally arrived at the site of the First Mage Examination: an extremely grand hall within the city.
The Mage Examination had not yet begun. Several armored guards stood outside the hall, blocking the road leading inside.
Yet before Guter, more than twenty mages were already waiting in line.
That was by no means a small number.
In the future, when Feren earned her First-class Mage certification, there would only be a little over two thousand mages on the entire continent.
But now, because the Demon King had only recently perished and the war between humanity and the Demons was still raging fiercely, there were somewhat more mages than in later generations.
Still, Guter estimated that even at the highest count, there would not be more than five thousand.
Moreover, more than half of all mages were apprentice mages.
Truly mature mages capable of standing on their own were never numerous, regardless of the era.
Yet among the more than twenty mages ahead of Guter, most were quite capable. There were only four or five apprentice mages, and all of them stood very near the front of the line.
Those few had probably come to line up in the dead of night.
Guter smiled and shook his head. He could more or less guess their motives.
They had simply wanted to arrive first and show Serie their sincere attitude, hoping to make up for shortcomings in their strength or talent.
In fact, it was not just them. The more than twenty people ahead of Guter probably all harbored such thoughts to some extent.
Unfortunately, their little schemes would most likely come to nothing. After all, Serie's standards for accepting disciples mainly depended on talent.
Those at the front who had arrived before dawn and were still standing in perfect "military posture" would be better off sitting down to meditate for a while and restoring their bodies and minds.
Guter paid no attention to the looks from those around him. He plopped down, crossed his legs, and quietly closed his eyes to rest.
Unlike their mindset of making up for lack of talent through diligence, Guter had only one reason for arriving so early: to end this long wait as soon as possible.
If he did not start socializing again soon, his personality really might become warped from being cooped up.
Still, Guter was rather curious.
This time, every mage from the Northern Countries and most of the Central Countries with any ambition had come.
Even if those mages only accounted for ten or twenty percent of the total, that was still a number that could not be ignored.
Would Serie personally interview every one of these many mages?
After all, this was the first examination. The Continental Magic Association had not yet established numerous branches to screen out apprentice mages, and the old timer did not yet have many reliable disciples at her side to share the duties of examiner.
What would Serie do?
The answer to that question was revealed soon enough.
About half an hour later, the officially announced starting time of the First Mage Examination arrived.
As the guards waiting before the hall stepped aside and opened the road leading inside, before the apprentice mage at the front of the line could excitedly rush forward, a hemispherical barrier rapidly expanded from within the hall.
In the blink of an eye, it covered the entire hall.
Even the guards waiting before the hall were pushed several steps outward by that gentle yet irresistible force, ending up outside the barrier.
"What is this?"
Several apprentice mages near the front swallowed and muttered unconsciously.
Among the queue were naturally several knowledgeable mature mages who recognized the magic covering the hall.
"This is Barrier Magic developed by Lady Flamme, the ancestor of human magic."
"Many cities use this very kind of magic to resist Demon attacks."
"But..."
One mage wore a bitter expression. "This is the first time I have seen a barrier capable of shutting people out."
There had been a lot going on lately, so this update came a little late.
Before you continue