Formal Apprentice (Please Read On)

"Of course I agree."

Richard accepted the Crystal Ball and gave Gerald a slight, respectful bow.

"Then let us make the contract."

Gerald took a sheet of parchment covered in Wizard language from a drawer.

"This is a Soul Contract. Once you sign it, you will become my formal apprentice. I will pass my knowledge on to you, and you will inherit that knowledge and carry it forward."

The transmission of knowledge was the foundation of the Wizard Apprentice system. As far back as the distant Age of Ignorance, wizards had begun taking on apprentices and passing down the knowledge they had spent their entire lives exploring.

To wizards, this bond was even greater than blood.

Richard took the parchment. It contained many clauses, but most of them prohibited Wizard Apprentices from privately selling the knowledge they had inherited without permission.

Knowledge was too precious, while apprentices were too poor.

Without restrictions, even the slightest temptation might induce an apprentice to sell that knowledge.

Once the contract was signed, flames instantly rose from Richard's signature and burned the entire contract to ash.

"By ancient tradition, apprentice Richard, I will grant you Enlightenment."

Gerald placed a hand against Richard's forehead and began chanting the hymns of ancient wizards.

Richard could not understand those hymns, but in the haze, he felt his mental strength slowly increasing.

After a passage of chanting, Richard felt that his mental strength had increased by roughly 0.1.

This was far more efficient than meditation.

"All right, the Enlightenment is complete." Gerald clapped his hands and, smiling, used a spell to summon several thick tomes from the bookshelf.

"These books are your introductory lessons. Go back and memorize them, understand them thoroughly, then come find me to buy the next batch."

"Buy?"

Richard froze. Hadn't he already become a formal apprentice? Why did getting books still work like it did in the Library?

"Yes, buy." Jacques walked over to Richard and patted his shoulder. "Don't be so surprised. Senior Sister Anna and I are the same—we both spend Magic Stones to buy knowledge from our teacher."

"Why is that?" Richard asked in confusion.

"It's simple. Knowledge is precious and must not be passed on lightly. Knowledge obtained too easily will be looked down upon." Gerald stroked his beard, wearing an unfathomable expression. "Besides, the craft of alchemy requires practice. Knowledge from books alone is nowhere near enough."

"If your skill is good enough, you can use Magic Armor and Magic Potions to earn more than enough Magic Stones in the Commercial District to exchange for knowledge."

Anna spoke up as well.

"Our teacher's knowledge is not priced very high. As long as you are proficient enough, earning sufficient Magic Stones in the Commercial District is not difficult. With your current skill, Richard, I'm afraid it won't even take two years before you can exchange for new knowledge."

Since those were the rules, Richard said nothing more.

Taking the books Gerald had brought out, Richard left the laboratory together with Anna and Jacques.

"Not bad, Junior Brother. You really hid your talents well."

The moment they stepped outside, Jacques slung an arm around Richard's shoulders, looking every bit the big brother.

"That little display of yours stunned both Senior Sister and me."

Anna's feelings were somewhat complicated. Before Richard arrived, she had been Gerald's most talented apprentice in the past thousand years.

But now, that title was clearly about to change hands.

Still, Anna was not narrow-minded. After feeling gloomy for a while, she cast the matter aside.

"All right, Jacques, let Richard go. As his Senior Brother, aren't you going to give him a welcome gift?"

As she spoke, Anna took a medal from the pouch at her waist and handed it to Richard.

"This is a badge engraved with a Deflection Field. It can deflect ranged physical spells like the Ice Cone Spell."

"Thank you, Senior Sister!"

Seeing Anna do this, Jacques could not help but pull a long face.

He did not have any Magic Armor to give Richard.

"Junior Brother, it's not that your Senior Brother doesn't want to give you something. It's just that my specialty isn't Magic Armor. How about this—you wait two days, and Senior Brother will get you a little Chimera?" Jacques said to Richard with a bitter expression.

"A Chimera? Senior Brother, do you study Chimeras?"

Richard suddenly remembered the Chimera Core he had obtained during the entrance examination. He had tossed it into a corner and completely forgotten to extract its information.

"Yes, like our teacher, I study Chimeras." Jacques nodded.

"Then the Magic Beasts from the entrance examination were made by you, Senior Brother...?"

Jacques scratched his head and said with a smile, "That was originally our teacher's job, but he tossed it to me instead. So, what did you think? The Chimeras I made weren't bad, right?"

They really were not bad.

Richard recalled the situation at the time. If that Magic Beast had not been badly injured, and if he had not had Magic Armor on hand, he might not have survived the examination.

"They were indeed impressive. But I took something like a heart from one of the Magic Beasts. I wonder if it would be of any use to you, Senior Brother?"

Jacques paused, then seemed to understand something.

"A heart? You mean a Core. If you have a Core, Senior Brother can directly customize a Chimera for you as a welcome gift." Jacques patted his chest. "Senior Brother may not be good at anything else, but I know my stuff when it comes to Chimeras."

The most troublesome part of creating a Chimera was cultivating the Core. If he had a Core, Jacques was confident he could piece together a low-level Chimera from the materials on hand within three days.

"Then thank you, Senior Brother."

After leaving the Black Tower, Richard went straight to his dormitory and dug out the Chimera Core from back then.

Despite having received no outside energy for several months, the Core was still faintly pulsing. Its Life Force was exaggerated beyond belief.

Holding the Core in his hand, Richard spent fifteen points of mental strength to extract the information from it.

Although he could have exchanged for this information from Gerald, saving where he could was always best.

After the extraction was complete, Richard felt as though his head had been struck by a heavy hammer, leaving him dizzy and muddled. Fortunately, his mental strength had already reached twenty points due to the feedback effect, so even after extracting the information, he still had enough strength to hand the Core over to Jacques.

"Junior Brother, what kind of Chimera do you want?" After examining the Core's Life Force and confirming that it could still be recovered, Jacques made a grand gesture and drew up a long list for Richard. The list densely recorded over a hundred kinds of low-level Chimeras with different abilities.

Richard read through the list. There were no shortage of powerful Magic Beasts like the Seven-Headed Demonic Sheep, but after considering it for a while, he ultimately chose a low-level Chimera called the Death Crow.

This Chimera did not possess much combat power, but it had Dark Vision and the ability to see through illusions. Like ordinary magical pets, Chimeras could be linked through the senses by planting a Soul Seed. If Richard linked his senses with the Death Crow, it would be equivalent to gaining the Death Crow's abilities.

When Jacques saw Richard choose the Death Crow, he made a grand sweep of his hand.

"A Death Crow is easy. Come to Senior Brother in three days to pick it up."

After everything was done, Richard returned to his room and collapsed onto the bed, not wanting to move in the slightest.

The mental strength consumed by the extraction had left him exhausted. Normally, he should have meditated to recover, but today, Richard particularly wanted to sleep.

Now that he had become Gerald's formal apprentice, he had finally gained a firm foothold in this Academy and taken another step closer to becoming a wizard.

Richard closed his eyes. Before them appeared the magnificent sight he had seen when he first linked to the Sea of Souls, and a hopeful smile unconsciously formed on his lips.

"The Astral Realm... I really want to see it."