Chapter 159: High Arcane Academy

Friday, Day 77, Tutoring Lesson:

As usual, Zulu lectured the larger group for a few hours, then discussed the advanced Chapters with Zane. As the lesson neared its end, Zane, curious, couldn’t help but ask, "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"No."

"Oh, alright."

Zulu exhaled deeply as she suddenly remembered the conversation with her mother after the tutoring program started. She also remembered how much progress these Earthlings had made. All of them were terrifying. There is nothing to say about the two with high IQ; their ability to absorb knowledge and recognize patterns is absurd. Meanwhile, the magic knight herself is also brilliant, no less than her.

Even the worst of them, the Mind Mage, had this scary intuition for anything related to Mind Runes or Mind Magic. She might perform worse on overall tasks compared to the others, but when it came to mind magic, she performed no differently than the two high-IQ ones. With that in mind, Zulu changed her tune.

"What is it?"

"Um?"

"What do you want to ask?"

"I’m curious about why you’re in the analytic club. From my perspective, as a daughter of a Grand Mage, surely you have better options; I don’t think you need or care about making connections, nor do you really need the resources."

"Who said I don’t need connections or resources?"

"You do?"

"Your understanding of Alkira’s framework as a dimension seems fundamentally flawed," Zulu stated, immediately drawing Keesha and the others’ attention. "On Earth, a Grand Mage is, or should I say, will be a civilization-defining moment; their presence will fundamentally alter the course of this dimension’s history.

"But in Alkira, they are literally everywhere. Our world has 3 High Gods and 4 Supreme Archmages, and countless Grand Archmages, Middle Gods, Archmages, and True Gods. Becoming a Grand Mage only means entering a middle-level tier of power."

"So, Grand Mages are useless?" Tom Nguyen asked.

"Of course not — that would be absurd. Advanced Transcendents are the minimum requirements for Plane Expedition, so no civilization would deem them useless. However, their value is not as high for a developed civilization as ours."

Zane nodded.

"In Alkira, Grand Houses, Grand Tribes, and Grand Clans are extremely large. For example, House Maliketh is only a middle Grand House, but we have 12 Grand Mages, hundreds of direct descendants like me, and even more illegitimate or indirect members. So, you can imagine how fierce the competition is. I need all the resources I can get my hands on; the tower is a unique opportunity that I had to fight tooth and nail to acquire."

"Sounds like a nightmare." Evelyn’s family was just her and her brother, and they were already fighting fiercely over the inheritance. So she could imagine how much worse it was for these powerful houses and clans.

"It can be," Zulu replied, nodding.

"I thought you came for Grand Analyst Alieda," Zane commented.

"And you would be correct."

"Oh?"

"One thing you must understand is that not all Grand Mages are equal. People like Grand Mage Alieda, who is not only a gifted analyst but also has a high chance of becoming an Archmage, have much more political power and influence than regular Grand Mages. With my status, I can’t meet her directly, even if both my parents were willing to lower their pride and beg for an opportunity. However, the tower is the best opportunity to meet such rare individuals."

"And how exactly can you go about meeting her?"

"I only need a 90 on the analyst exam."

"You know the grading system?"

"You don’t? Oh, right. You need a 40 to pass; 60 to become a First Class Analyst; 70 for Second Class; and 80 for Third Class. A 90 means you can meet Grand Mage Alieda, and 95 means she’ll write you a recommendation letter."

"A 40? I can do that, right?" Zane thought.

"Recommendation letter? To what?" Evelyn asked.

"Maybe the tower," Keesha added.

"No, the tower is much easier to join."

The earthlings’ interest was immediately piqued. Meanwhile, Zulu realized she had said too much, but since the words had already escaped, she might as well continue.

"There is this school in the Astral Cosmos called the High Arcane Academy, created by three Sages. It’s the most prestigious magic academy in the universe, and it has trained 5 Sages throughout its history. It accepts only descendants of Archmages and True Gods, but recently it’s opened recruitment to a few children of Grand Mages.

"But, as you can imagine, the competition involved thousands of dimensions. If I want to have the slightest hope of attending, I must get the recommendation letter from Lord Drakken, Grand Mage Alieda, and Rune Master Ruben."

"Elitist much," Zane thought. A school that only accepts the children of Archmages and True Gods oozed snobbery and pretentiousness.

"That sounds like a lot of pressure," Evelyn said, and everybody nodded.

"My dream is to develop the name Maleketh into a True House, and eventually, a Saint House. And no matter what, I must try my best."

"Well, I wish you good luck."

"Thanks, and same to you. I really think you might have a chance to become an Apprentice Analyst."

"Your words mean more than you think," Zane said, and Zulu blushed at his beautiful, sincere eyes. The session soon ended, and everyone went on with their schedule. Rumors and gossip about the [Little Giants] and the [Oracle] kept spreading, but Zane paid them no mind. During the Elite Class, he came close to meeting the instructor’s requirement to move to stage 4, but he fell short by a small margin. Meanwhile, Tom Nguyen also fell short by a small percentage. Another good piece of news is that Evans finally reached the Stage 3 Orc, and using the tactics Zane gave him earlier, he made rapid progress.

Learning from his previous failure, Zane finally defeated the Stage 3 Orc the next day, on Saturday. As the knight warned, the Stage 4 Orc was fully armored, not just ordinary armor, but enchanted armor that reduced both physical and magical damage. The ensuing battle was a tragedy. Zane’s spell had little to no effect against the armor, but more importantly, the knight was faster, stronger, and more humane than before.

In that one battle, Zane detected more than 10 tactics and countless more variables. Moreover, the orc seemed to have a more human-like instinct that let it act more unpredictably than a simple program. After facing that orc, Zane realized the knights probably weren’t going all out during their training session; they probably feared hurting everyone—both physically and mentally. They also trained only with weapons, not armor, which further weakened their strength.

"Until an elite mage starts learning advanced magic skills such as [Nonverbal Casting] or [Instant Cast], their strength is incomparable to elite knights — especially the ones with good, full-body enchanted armor," Zane thought.

Of course, the current battle system is relatively simple: there are no potions, enchanted items, scrolls, alchemical products, etc. However, at a fundamental level, Zane’s statement is true. Elite Mages must learn advanced magic skills to compete and surpass Elite Knights.

"How are we supposed to beat this thing?" Tom Nguyen complained. A few minutes after Zane’s success, he met the requirements too. Unfortunately, he suffered a brutal defeat; his orc was easily suppressed, and his Flame Tiger was sent flying into another member’s area, drawing countless complaints.

"I tried memorizing the patterns, but that seems useless."

"It’s not useless, but it won’t be as effective as before," Zane said. Patterns are never useless, even for humans. Zane has memorized certain patterns or tactics for when he faces his group in training or in tournaments. When any of them cast a spell, they usually have a few ways they like to use it, and after memorizing these patterns, he used them in their battle. However, unlike the orcs, the people he faced don’t stay the same; they buy new spells, which means new patterns, or they sometimes act in the moment, introducing new, unknown variables into the patterns.

Tom Nguyen sighed. "I can’t believe those knights already defeated the Stage 4 orcs. Wait, if those guys are so powerful, how on Earth did we ever stand a chance?"

"Wasn’t it obvious when they decimated us on the first day when we did mage vs. knight?" Keesha said. Their training session had to include one knight per team because of that terrible defeat.

"Oh, that’s true," Tom Nguyen replied while resisting the urge to complain about how unfair it was. The group left the class and returned to their dorm. Tom separated from everyone and headed to the Nether Locker to store his undead and repair the damage they had taken over the past few days. Zane continued with his thesis project and his other studies; the analyst test was approaching, and he didn’t want to waste a moment.