There were too many spells here!

After formally appointing Rhode as vice president, Audric, the president, disappeared to who knew where.

One president and two vice presidents, and suddenly Rhode, the newly arrived vice president, was the only one on duty.

So all the Magic Tower's affairs fell to Rhode.

Those affairs mainly involved assigning work to the mages under him.

For instance, nobles from other cities sometimes invited the mages here to conduct academic research or help clear out monsters.

The Novice Magic User and apprentice magic user from Audric's Tower were away doing exactly that sort of work.

Some of these assignments lasted two or three months, or even longer, and paid quite well.

Aside from the portion the magic users kept for themselves, some of that income had to go to the Magic Tower. After all, they belonged to the tower. It was effectively a tax.

Of course, there were actual taxes too.

A vast area surrounding the Magic Tower fell under its jurisdiction, and the people living there had to pay taxes to it regularly.

Then there were local trade associations and merchants who sometimes asked the Magic Tower to identify magic items, provide information about magical creatures, and so on. Someone had to be sent out for those jobs too, and naturally, they were another source of income.

All those different sources of income made the Magic Tower quite wealthy, allowing it to pay Rhode such a high salary.

But although there seemed to be plenty of business to handle, very little of it actually required Rhode's personal attention.

After all, people didn't need a mage's help every day, nor did they come to pay taxes every day.

Even when they did, his two capable assistants, Alex and Sally, could handle most of it.

As for his other "assistant," Lilia... well, she brought more laughter and joy to the Magic Tower. Clearly, that was a considerable contribution too.

Rhode had one other job: instructing the magic apprentices.

However, their foundations seemed rather weak, and they couldn't fully grasp his teaching methods.

After all, his spell models were simply too advanced!

There was just one exception: Alex.

He was already an apprentice magic user, putting him well above the ordinary magic apprentices. Under Rhode's guidance, his use of Mage Hand, at least, improved considerably.

Other than that, Rhode spent most of his time in the library on the seventh floor.

After all, learning more spells was his main reason for coming here.

The library had many categories of books. Spells like Fireball belonged to offensive magic, along with Frostbolt, Arcane Missiles, Flamestrike, Arcane Explosion, Blizzard, and the like.

There were even more defensive spells, such as Ice Armor, Frost Armor, and Mana Shield... protective buffs like these alone were too numerous to count, never mind all the different kinds of Protective Ward.

There were also control spells, support spells, spatial magic, construct magic... so many that Rhode hardly knew where to look.

Rhode knew he would have to learn them one at a time. After all, one mouthful wouldn't make you fat.

You had to keep eating to get fat!

So he needed to decide what to learn first.

Naturally, spatial magic interested Rhode most.

It was something he had wanted to learn from the very beginning.

Being able to reach your destination quickly was incredibly important in a world where travel was so inconvenient.

Just walking from Southshore to Durnholde Keep took three or four days, and that was only a tiny part of the Kingdom of Lordaeron.

Traveling to other cities or even other countries would probably have him walking until he cried.

Not to mention that the roads here were mostly unpaved, and many were rugged mountain trails.

Then there were man-eating beasts and bandits to encounter along the way.

Even if you could beat them, it would still cost you plenty of time and energy;

If you couldn't, forget traveling any farther. You might already have become someone's meal or died beneath their blade.

Even if dwarves had swift flying mounts like gryphons, or goblins had zeppelins, none could match a mage reaching his destination with a quick "pew!"

And it looked impressive too. That was how a stylish, graceful mage ought to travel!

But after researching it, Rhode discovered that spatial spells had a special restriction: they required a relatively high maximum mana capacity to activate!

Even though Teleport itself didn't actually consume that much mana.

In game terms, it was roughly like Teleport costing 100 mana, but requiring the caster to have 500 mana before he could cast it.

Rhode didn't quite understand the principle, but he guessed it was something like installing software on a computer: even if the software only took up 100 MB, the installation might require 500 MB of hard drive space.

Spatial spells needed more space. That made sense.

So Rhode could only set them aside for now.

His current mana didn't meet the requirement.

He would have to develop a little further before looking into spatial spells again.

Construct magic then became Rhode's first choice of study.

He didn't choose it because it was especially powerful or anything. It was mostly because it was novel.

Compared with conventional attack spells like Frostbolt and Fire Blast, construct magic seemed quite distinctive.

Once he learned construct magic properly, he could summon constructs like arcane golems to help him fight. He could even build mechs he could ride!

Hmm... sitting atop a Battle Mech and launching Great Fireballs sounded thrilling just to imagine.

Of course, all that would have to wait until he truly mastered construct spells. For now, he needed to understand the principles.

With that decided, the other branches of magic temporarily lost their appeal for Rhode.

There was no need to mention attack spells, and for control, he already had Frost Nova, which worked very well.

Rhode didn't want to study defensive spells yet. His time was limited, after all, so he had to take things in order.

Besides, the best defense was a good offense!

No matter how much a mage strengthened his defenses, could he really compare with a Warrior in heavy armor?

The same went for support spells. With all the creative uses Rhode had found for Mage Hand, it was already immensely useful. He didn't need more.

Besides, many support spells were things like Conjure Food, Conjure Water, and Conjure Table. Rhode felt that only mages aspiring to a culinary career would learn those.

At any rate, Rhode wasn't going to.

With his high salary and his position as vice president of the Magic Tower, he had no worries about food or clothing. There was no way he would waste time and energy learning those spells.

Besides, Rhode had once taken a curious bite of magically conjured food. That taste... the less said, the better.

In short, Rhode had spent the past few days poring over Assembly and Technology of Constructed Creatures.

Normally, magic books like that couldn't be taken out of the library, but Rhode was now vice president, and that came with privileges.

So after deciding to study construct magic, he often took the book back to study in his room.

It was an entirely different discipline. Rhode practically had to start building his spell models from scratch again, so progress would be fairly slow.

But that was fine. He could work through it bit by bit. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Whenever Rhode studied, his assistant Sally thoughtfully brought him snacks, fruit wine, and the like.

Eating while he studied kept things from getting too dull.

This time, when Sally brought his refreshments up, Rhode stopped her. "What's your full name, Sally?"

He asked mainly because it had suddenly struck him that the name Sally sounded a little familiar.

"Why do you suddenly ask, Lord Rhode..." Sally blushed, but still answered, "M-my full name is Sally Whitemane."

"..."

Holy shit! Whitemane? She was actually the future High Inquisitor Whitemane of the Scarlet Monastery! One half of that infamous couple!

Wait, wasn't she supposed to be a Priest? Why was she a little magic apprentice here now?

If she wasn't a Priest, how could she say, "Arise, my champion!"

Oh, and those long legs of hers...

Rhode couldn't help glancing down at Sally's legs.

Sally's face had turned as red as an apple. "L-Lord Rhode, wh-where are you looking?"

"Uh... the sun sure is bright today..."