"Ramsey, what you're doing isn't necessarily good for him. You're only encouraging him to keep making mistakes."
Just as the tension began to ease, one of their classmates stepped forward and spoke.
"Someone made a good point earlier. A mage's honor and dignity cannot be violated.
Under Imperial law, slandering a registered mage carries a sentence ranging from three years of hard labor to life, and in the most severe cases, even death by burning.
Some mages who practice witchcraft or ancient black magic will even deal with it themselves. When that happens, even death would be a release.
As I see it, poverty breeds scheming, while wealth nurtures conscience. A commoner's son from a little town like him needs to be taught a lesson before he'll learn to behave!"
Everyone shuddered at those words.
Perhaps he had a point.
Unless Roland was taught a lesson, he might never understand how a loose tongue could bring disaster.
Roland felt nothing when he heard this. If anything, he almost wanted to laugh.
How could he possibly fail to see through the petty schemes of Ramsey and his cronies?
They were merely apprentices raised in the sheltered confines of an ivory tower, flowers grown in a greenhouse.
Even their malice was rather innocent and endearing.
Still, some of what they said did reflect the realities of the Arcane Empire.
After graduation, they would drift further and further apart. By the time they met again, they might already belong to different social classes.
There was truly no telling whether they would ever have another chance to spend time together as classmates like this.
Even children like these could wield the power of their social class to leave his former self helpless and anxious with hardly any effort.
This gave Roland a profound, bone-deep understanding of the Arcane Empire's social hierarchy and made his future path all the clearer.
Enter a tower, become a mage, and make my achievements in Arcana the foundation of my place in this world!
With that settled, Roland could not even muster the interest to argue.
He slipped both hands into his pockets and quietly watched their performance, treating it as a monkey show.
"What nonsense are you all spouting? Stop making things up!"
Just then, Cynthia's angry voice rang out from behind the crowd.
A moment later, Atali parted the crowd and stepped forward resolutely, silently placing herself in front of Roland.
Though she was a knight apprentice facing classmates from the mage program, she did not back down in the slightest.
Cynthia followed her over, planted both hands on her hips, and let loose.
"Every last one of you just wants to stir up trouble for fun, don't you? And you dress it up with all this talk about teaching him a lesson. You're not Roland's parents. What business is it of yours?
There are so many of you, and you're all picking on him alone!"
Ramsey became painfully embarrassed, while resentment simmered inside him.
What kind of damned luck does Roland have, getting people to speak up for him even now?
This stalemate can't go on forever. It's time to hit him hard.
He had, in fact, long since planned how to target Roland's weaknesses step by step and deliver a crushing blow.
Financial pressure, for instance.
He could simply find a few classmates to provoke Roland and make him angry, then have some expensive porcelain or decorations used for the party "accidentally" broken during the argument.
The enormous debt would crush him!
Through constant exposure, Ramsey had seen and heard plenty of ways to deal with disobedient employees.
For example, exploiting their need to feed their families to force them to work overtime.
Or encouraging cutthroat competition, making them desperately push one another out.
At their core, these methods all consumed people's time and energy, wearing them down into puppets who obeyed every command.
No time or energy to think, no time or energy to learn, no time or energy to grow...
And money was the fundamental key to the rules of society, enough to ruin a person and keep them trapped forever!
Though he had never heard the saying that even a hero could be brought low by a single coin, he understood the principle just as well.
A farmer's son from a little town had little to fall back on. His greatest weakness was his lack of money.
With just a little pocket money, Ramsey could make his already poor family even worse off. How could Roland possibly fight him?
If he handled it well, he might not even have to spend a single copper. He could pin all the blame on Roland.
"The headmaster is here!"
Suddenly, the crowd ahead fell silent.
The headmaster of Falando Academy had arrived.
Atrelin had already given its finest resources and most outstanding teachers to the Empire's budding youth.
Quite apart from the archmages they would encounter after entering a tower, even the headmasters and other senior administrators of these middle and high schools were Higher Tier mages whose Arcana ranks were also Higher Tier.
As the headmaster and the director of academic affairs led a group of attendants into the banquet hall, everyone instinctively stood at attention and straightened their backs.
The headmaster and the academy's senior administrators all wore classical mage robes. Expensive fabrics adorned with exquisite, intricate magical runes emphasized the nobility and refinement unique to mages.
Behind them followed a group of mage guards and attendants in light armor, all neatly presented, with swords at their hips and staves in hand, cutting imposing figures.
That's how a man ought to live!
Roland had just been thinking about the path ahead of him. At the sight, he could not help marveling inwardly.
Nobles were not inherently mages, but mages were inherently nobles!
Especially in a place like Atrelin in the Arcane Empire, becoming a mage meant gaining all sorts of privileges. That was why so many people had fawned over Ramsey merely for gaining admission to the Wendis Mage Tower.
Even a low-ranking mage was still a mage, a member of the Empire's ruling class.
Such a future was entirely foreseeable.
Suddenly, someone leaned close to the headmaster's ear and said something, pointing their way. The headmaster then walked over.
Ramsey and the others froze briefly, then instinctively straightened their backs even further, eager to attract the attention of the headmaster, the director of academic affairs, and the others.
When the administrators looked their way and even began approaching, excitement surged through Ramsey. He thought that, for some reason, they had noticed him.
But he soon realized that the headmaster and the academy's senior administrators were actually heading toward...
Roland!
Under the crowd's shocked, bewildered, and confused gazes, the headmaster parted the people before him and hurried up to Roland.
He clasped Roland's hand firmly and said with a warm, friendly smile, "Ah, Roland! You've truly brought honor to our academy!"
He clapped Roland heartily on the shoulder, looking positively delighted.
After the headmaster, the director of academic affairs came over as well.
To the shock of everyone present, including Ramsey, Atali, and Cynthia, the director took the initiative to extend a hand and shake Roland's.
Then came several of Falando Academy's senior administrators. One after another, these high-ranking mages, figures who belonged to Atrelin's upper society, stepped forward to shake his hand and greet him.
"What... what on earth is going on?"
Ramsey and his classmates felt as though they were dreaming, unable to believe what they were seeing.
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