The 121th chapter “tradition”
Not waiting for him to finish his words, Du Wei patted the soldier on the shoulder and smiled: “its fine then, I’m just asking. Damn, if I knew he would be going back, then I would have asked him to help bring a message for me.”
Although Alpha frowned with dissatisfaction, but the guy didn’t stop him. The only thing Alpha did was glance at the soldier a bit before calling someone to bring the carriage over. With Du Wei safely inside his coach, Alpha saddled onto his horse and led the way in the front.
Located on the west side of the capital, the main branch of the magic union is surrounded by a gigantic circular plaza. Unlike what Du Wei had originally expected, the mysterious and legendary atmosphere he was looking forward to could not be found anywhere in this place.
With circular white columns erected throughout the entire plaza, the overall shape rendered into a diamond form magic array on the ground. Using this array as an energy source, all the flames inside this magic array would never die out. Even at night, the land around the magic union would be lit a bright. It is said that the flames in this place had never been extinguished since 960 years ago. The representation behind this is to show the world that magic will continue to flourish endlessly!
At the same time, because of their unique status, no party would dare mess with the magic union. This was especially true during the two times when the empire fell into turmoil.
Once Du Wei’s carriage came into the vicinity of the plaza, their pace quickly slowed down; like this, they took one of the six paths available to them and headed towards the six pointed tall building in the middle of the plaza.
If one were to look at the place from a bird’s eye view, they would find that the different magic themed buildings around the plaza would just be in the right spot and form a six hexagon magic pattern.
Getting off his carriage upon arrival, Du Wei took a long look at the building.
Though the structure only has three floors, but the shape is similar to that of a well with a hexagon shaped tower in the middle. According to the records Du Wei read when he was a child, this magnificent tower should be exactly 88 meters in length and only slightly lower than the one in the palace.
Then from his side, Alpha suddenly spoke up: “Young master, this place should be very secure. You should go alone, I’ll wait here.”
Du Wei took one look at Alpha: “You are not coming with me?”
With eyes filled with pride, Alpha smiled: “Young master, you forget, I am a knight!”
On the Roland continent, both magic and martial arts may have a long history, but because of how prosperous magic has been in the past millennium, martial arts have long been suppressed by magic through the ages.
Typically speaking, when a Mage is in actual combat, their fighting strength is usually higher than a warrior of the same rank. For example: a single Mage Clark was enough to fend off multiple assassins by summoning a single undead warrior.
Although in general theory, a Mage specialized in long range remote attacks while a warrior specializes in melee attacks. But with the passing of time, it would seem the trend is leaning towards long range more than melee.
While the public believed a Mages biggest weakness is close combat, but as magic developed over the ages, the profession has developed certain methods to counter this weakness. Like the spirit warrior of death from before. This undead creature is capable of providing close combat protection for the magician. Other examples include defensive barriers and etc.
Adding all of these points up, a Mage should have a huge advantage over a warrior of the same rank.
If not for the fact that training a Mage is much more difficult than a warrior, the “Society of Knights” would be in an even more embarrassing situation.
After all, even if a person lacked talent, they could make up for it with hard work to become a low ranking warrior.
But magic is different. If the person has no talent, they could never become a Mage no matter how hard they tried!
As a tradeoff for being extremely difficult to increase their numbers, a Mage is capable of wielding destructive and powerful magic. It is precisely because of this bottleneck situation with the Mages that the “Society of Knights” is capable of competing with the magic union.
But no matter what, the status of these two associations is different.
For example: the magic Union is comparable to the Temple and is considered one of the major power factions on the continent.
In contrast, the reputation of the so-called “Society of Knights” is so low that they can’t breathe under the repression of magic union.
However, warriors still have their pride. For someone like Alpha – a high leveled warrior – he would strictly adhere to the dignity and integrity of a warrior….
Also, high leveled warriors on the continent have a motto that has been passed down from some long bygone age.
“Warriors do not go into the magic union!”
Of course, with the decline of the Society of Knight, there is hardly anyone that still follows this rule in this day and age. Only warriors that have managed to reach a superbly high level would still adhere to this motto.
For example: in order to make up for their lack of close combat capabilities, a Mage would hire warriors to act as their bodyguards. This can be considered a method for Mages to make up for their profession’s weakness.
And those that were recruited as Squires by a Mage would always be looked down by people like Alpha.
Of course, Du Wei is aware of these allusions too, so he didn’t say anymore regarding Alpha’s refusal to enter.
Subsequently, Du Wei organized his garments a bit before entering the six pointed star shaped building.
But what surprised him somewhat is that the magic union actually…. Has no doors!
From where the door should be on the wall, only the contour of the shape is there. Then from his surroundings, he could sense a fluctuation of magic scanning over his body. It is at this moment, the badge on his chest reacted to the energy in the area. With a pulse from his badge, the energy faded away.
Inwardly, Du Wei knew this was probably a security measure put in place by the magic union. While there may be no door in place, but the magic union is not somewhere a person can so casually enter!
Only a Mage wearing the official badge granted by the magic union can enter the magic gate!
Of course, because of the scarcity of the number of Mages – the number of Mages on the continent only numbered in the hundreds – a new profession emerged to take care of the daily chores required to run such a place like the magic union.
The name of this profession is called “magic apprentice”.
Such people tend to only have talents slightly above the average person. Because of this, they are stuck in a limbo situation where they cannot even become a first leveled Mage. So, these unfortunate people would normally be recruited by a full fledges Mage to become their assistants and apprentices. But in reality, they are no different from servants in status.
Other than private recruitments by Mages for personal use, officials at different magic union branches would also recruit people to become apprentices – these people are like handyman’s and filing personals.
The moment Du Wei went into the main building, he could immediately feel something was different.
Here, the head on the ceiling is devoid of any sort of construction material. In its place, he could vaguely see: some clouds, a sun, a moon, and twinkling stars floating above his head. Together, they formed a strange and magnificent spectacle.
Of course, such a scene is only possible by using magic.
Looking around, Du Wei could see the vast majority of the people walking around all wore a Mage styled robe.
And of course, the colors varied from certain individuals.
Lower and middle ranked Mages wore a gray colored robe. Only those of high rank are allowed to wear a white robe. As for the silver robed individuals, their status is that of a magic apprentice.
Walking into the main hall, the first sight he saw was the vast majority of silver robed individuals walking back and forth minding their own business. Only on occasion would Du Wei see a gray robed Mage appear in his sight.
As for Du Wei, the moment he walked into the hall, he garnered the attention of everyone around him due to the black Mage robe he wore.