When outside the tree spirit hall, Angor was still in a bad mood. That odd woman just gave him an extra enemy, Fosah.
Oh, damn it!
Still, Fosah already hated him, being Hookdick’s follower and all.
Nausica approached him on her elegant steps, “Aw such a pity. I would like to see the end of the drama.”
“Drama?” Sailum followed up. The boy looked unsure of what had just happened.
“Oh, you’re too young to understand those women,” Nausica revealed a sly smile as she explained to Sailum. She continued, “There’s something called ‘moral coercion’. You will know it in the future…
“Angor was so firm. I thought he was going to lose it and accept that Melaner girl,” Nausica joked.
Angor only humphed, to tell them that he heard it.
“Alright. We don’t have to talk about it. Let’s discuss something else,” said Nausica. She took out her bone card and read the information on it before asking, “What’s your spirit indicators?”
“Fifteen,” Angor answered without using his card.
“Eighteen,” Sailum said.
Nausica glanced at Sailum, “My my, you’re the highest among us three? I’m 17 by the way. So what does this thing do?”
Angor answered her question nonchalantly, “A higher spirit power allows you to channel mana flow more efficiently. To make it simple, you train faster.”
Angor knew a lot of wizardry knowledge while the other two did not. Sailum and Nausica already knew about Angor’s decent knowledge base so they were not surprised at getting the answer.
“I see. So Sailum is a little genius,” Nausica commented.
The boy blushed.
“You can stop teasing him. His spirit power was fine, but there are a lot more people with higher levels. I happen to know a talent who has a spirit indicator of 23,” said Angor as he recalled a certain man’s face in his mind.
“Man. You’re only one year older than Sailum but you sound like an adult already.”
They chatted along the way until they joined everyone else who had gathered under the tree. As they were trying to figure out what to do next, a young woman wearing a miniskirt and big, black-rimmed glasses appeared in front of them while riding on a colorful animal. It was a deer of three different colors.
“Greetings everyone! I’m—ouch! Aw aw aw…”
The glass girl introduced herself and jumped down from the triple-colored deer. She somehow crash-landed… with her face hitting the ground first.
They stared at her speechlessly. Another actress, but a comedian this time?
The girl knelt on the ground and picked up her now shattered glasses.
“Another pair… gone! How could I be so clumsy…” She slapped her own head with a sad look.
After sulking for a moment, she tossed the glass shards away and took out another pair of glasses from a small, heart-shaped pouch hanging on her waist. She dusted herself a bit and stood up.
“Hi everyone! I’m Abelle. I’ll take you to your places of residence.”
With that, Abelle climbed back onto the colorful deer, somewhat struggling in the process.
The rest of the people remained silent as they watched.
Why did she jump down from her mount in the first place?
Abelle was pretty talkative. On their way, she kept speaking about all kinds of things and some of them appeared to be secrets. According to her, she was an Elementary Apprentice who joined Brute Cavern five years ago. She could only take on simple jobs with less reward because she was too weak; jobs such as leading new talents to their dorms. She could earn five magic crystal fragments this time.
On a side note, a hundred fragments equaled to one magic crystal.
Abelle seemed to be naive, innocent, and careless. When they moved for quite a bit, she suddenly remembered something and asked them a question, “I almost forgot. Did you get your professor posters?”
Posters?
The talents exchanged puzzled looks, not knowing what she was talking about.
Abelle scratched her hair in embarrassment, “Oh… my job is to take you to accept professor posters, then lead you to your accommodations… But I fell and forgot about the first half.”
Abelle quickly ordered her deer to turn to another direction, “Sorry! Let’s go to the posters now.”
Everyone remained silent. This girl was… unreliable.
Abelle pointed to the center of the tree spirit garden and let out an “Onward!” joyfully.
They were somewhat complaining about Abelle’s bizarre behaviors but they did not point it out. Elementary Apprentices were still supernaturals to them.
However, Hookdick’s little group began to show some hostility toward Abelle.
“All the wizards have received your information. The professor posters will determine whether they would accept you. When a wizard is interested in someone, he or she will send a poster. When you take the poster, you automatically become the wizard’s apprentice,” Abelle explained.
“So every one of us has a poster?” Someone asked.
Abelle shook her head, “Nope. You won’t have one if no wizard is interested. But don’t worry, even so, you still get a tutor. But in this case, the tutor is chosen at random, so you never know where you’ll go to.”
Abelle paused for a moment before she continued, “There are some wizards who prefer doing researches alone, and they hate apprentices. It will be really bad if you’re arranged to one of those people.
“In my batch, there were 30 or so talents who didn’t get posters, and several were sent to such wizards. I heard that they were made into fertilizers for flowers and slept underground forever a few days later. So you know… you need some luck,” said Abelle.
She realized everyone was showing fear now, so she quickly added, “of course, if you are lucky, you get to study from a powerful and gentle wizard, and your path in the future will be a lot smoother.”
Soon, they reached their destination.
“This is where we distribute resources. However, this place is only for wizards. Every wizard can claim their allowance here each month. We can also acquire certain resources here, such as rare materials. If any of you have spare magic crystals, you can buy them right here,” explained Abelle.
She looked left and right. Once she made sure no one else was looking, she lowered her voice, “That said, the prices here aren’t really good. If you really need materials, try to find someone else who sells them in private. There are also shops in nearby villages that are run by apprentices, and they sell stuff a lot cheaper.”
Someone asked, “You mean the underground villages?”
Abelle nodded, “Yup. You’ll learn such tricks once you spend some time and get used to this place. Now go and check out your professor posters!”