Chapter 779 – The Flame of the Stars

Chapter 779 – Flame of the Stars
“Are you really going to use the cat’s retribution?” Paul looked at his best friend Nero disapprovingly.

Nero inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, feeling his chest change from hot to cool.

He let out a bitter laugh, “Paul, you know me, I’m thirty-five years old. Although there are people who have been promoted to full wizard at any age, if I can’t be promoted before I turn forty, my mentor won’t fund me anymore. At that point I’ll have to go to the practicum and do the most dangerous energy-draining work in order to pay off my debts.”

Third level apprentices often had to pay a lot of magic crystals and resources to continue their apprenticeship in the Grand Lecture Hall, or to find a better mentor outside.

But not everyone had a strong background of strength and someone willing to fund their studies.

In Sky City, sorcerer apprentices could obtain a large amount of resources and wealth if they signed a kind of contract. But at the same time, if they couldn’t be promoted to full-fledged sorcerer before the number of years specified in the pact, they would have to go to the Courtyard of Seeking Knowledge or the Courtyard of Practicing to do the most dangerous energy-consuming work.

This was different from the people who applied to the two courtyards, and many of those who went to do energy-consuming work never came back. Even if they did return, they were terrified as if they had come back from the dead.

But without a contract, most apprentices never get the chance to continue their studies.

Therefore, even though this contract has swallowed up the lives of a large number of apprentices, there are still many people who go to sign the contract every year.

It was for the small possibility of being promoted to a full-fledged sorcerer.

Because in Sky City, Level 1 and Level 2 apprentices similarly don’t have a good life.

Less than a third level apprentice, without the qualifications to work independently, they didn’t even have the right to give up that lifestyle.

Paul could only be silent as he looked at his best friend.

Back then, if he hadn’t accidentally had Mina as his daughter, he was afraid that he would have also signed his name in the deed issued by the Inquisition Academy.

For the sake of his daughter, he couldn’t take any more risks and lost the chance to go further forever.

He opened his mouth, but still didn’t say the promise that Saul had given him the other day.

On the one hand, Saul didn’t necessarily like to see him give away his chance for help; on the other hand, hadn’t Nero been listening to Saul’s lessons and hadn’t he failed to get promoted?
Paul closed his mouth and grimaced, looking like a horrible murderer ready to stab someone.

Looking at Paul like that, Nero smiled instead.

“You see, it’s you being like this that makes everyone else afraid to approach you.” He patted his friend’s shoulder, “Don’t worry, recently someone has already researched how to circumvent the ‘Cat’s Retribution’ curse method. I’ve heard that several people who have used it haven’t had any accidents. Moreover, we are already third level apprentices and have some resistance ourselves. You won’t have to worry too much.”

Nero was comforting Paul as well as himself, “When I get the method to circumvent the curse, I’ll tell you. That way you can try it out as well, and maybe you’ll be directly promoted to a full-fledged sorcerer!”

Paul, however, was not moved at all and shook his head, “Forget it, I can’t have an accident.”

He still had his daughter.

Now that Sky City was still under martial law, it was very hard to get out of the city, and he hadn’t been able to grab a spot so far.

If something happens to him in Sky City, Mina she ……

He didn’t even dare to imagine what would happen to Mina.

Looking at the air pressure on his best friend even lower, Nero could only shake his head, “Forget it, I’d better try it myself then.”

Conversations like the one between Nero and Paul happened in other parts of Sky City as well. It was just that it mostly happened among people with weak strengths, plus the curse didn’t even cause any new deaths, and it didn’t even cause the upper echelon to pay attention to it.

But sometimes, a weak power accumulated enough was able to ignite a prairie fire.

After the first trial connection, Saul had failed to find Pelle’s coordinates, but had determined that their research was not going in the wrong direction. The two sides then got together to discuss the improvement program, and Ophelia proposed to make a second attempt a month later.

Saul originally didn’t want to drag it out for such a long time, but Ophelia said that the Mechanical Heart had to be repaired every time it was activated, and it would take almost a month.

But Saul always suspected that a month might just be an excuse for Ophelia to delay him.

There was just no way to refute it.

And after returning to the Grand Lecture Hall, Nathan began to follow Saul’s instructions to have the squire who was also forced to stay in Sky City and couldn’t get out of the city to flow the replica of the white porcelain cat into the market.

The squire was just an ordinary person, and everyone knew that he was definitely not the real mastermind behind it, but as a result, no one was aware that the person behind it was actually an equally inconspicuous official wizard.

That’s right, under Saul’s one-on-one guidance, Nathan had successfully promoted to a first-rank official sorcerer.

During this period of time, apart from completing the tasks explained by Saul, he spent the rest of the time studying as hard as he could.

Because he didn’t know when Saul would leave Sky City, and when Saul left Sky City, he was afraid that no one would be able to guide him in his studies with such precision.

Therefore Nathan hated to even take a break and only wanted to improve himself as soon as possible.

After another week, Saul received an invitation from the Knowledge Seeking Academy for the second time.

And this time, after considering it for a day, Saul finally agreed to serve at the Inquisition Academy.

At the same time, he also took this opportunity to secretly bring the white porcelain cat to the Inquisition Academy.

Gradually, the legend of “the cat’s gratitude”, which was only spread among the apprentices, spread among the lower-ranked wizards as well.

For formal wizards, the cat’s favor basically can’t affect their research, but it can still bring some help occasionally.

Moreover, the curse of the cat’s retribution that may drown people has been researched to find a way to avoid it, so its side effects can be ignored.

These roughly crafted white porcelain cats gradually became a kind of inexpensive witchcraft props.

Even some second-order sorcerers would use the cat’s retribution before conducting experiments with a high degree of uncertainty to increase the success rate of their experiments.

Saul still maintained the persona of a first-order sorcerer in the Courtyard of Knowledge, picking up topics from the academy and handing them over to Nathan, who had just been promoted, and only giving him a few pointers when he was occasionally free.

And the newly promoted Nathan had to face difficult problems that he shouldn’t even be facing at this stage.

On this day, Saul had just handed over a report that Nathan had written on his behalf to the second-ranked sorcerer of his team, when he was blocked at the entrance of the Courtyard of Seeking Knowledge by Sorcerer Oona.

Oona looked at the gate of the Knowledge Seeking Courtyard behind Saul, then looked at the sorcerer’s robes on Saul, and said with some resentment, “Sorcerer Saul, if you really like the Knowledge Seeking Courtyard, Lord City Lord can also arrange a position for you as a vice dean. Why bother mixing your life among the lower-ranked sorcerers?”

There was no one else around Saul, or else he would have been surprised at how Saul knew the sorcerer who was directly under the White Glazed Castle.

Saul shrugged his shoulders and didn’t deliberately explain, “I’m counting this as imprinting what I’ve learned.”

Ona still couldn’t understand, a third-order sorcerer studying a first-order sorcerer’s subject all day long, wasn’t this a waste of resources?
But generally high ranked sorcerers had odd temperaments. Previously, Ona had felt that Saul was normal to the point of being a little abnormal. Now that she saw that he liked to disguise himself as a lower-ranked sorcerer, she suddenly felt that the other party was worthy of being a high-ranked sorcerer, and that anything he did was possible.

(End of chapter)