From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 611 Sturhaven Admissions Office

In the conference room on the second floor of the Modian Pavilion at the Stryhaven University of Magic, Central Campus, in the Akaviswara Time and Space.

The special inter-departmental meeting of the deans is proceeding smoothly.

"...In principle, Professor Doom, the deans unanimously support your plan to open an admissions office in Faerlen, but there are a few practical issues that need to be addressed," said Ogota, the ever-present moderator of the inter-departmental meeting. Since the start of this meeting, the deans had voted on Ivy's proposal without much discussion.

Holding a meeting in a world with magic is the same as holding a meeting in a world without magic.

The saying goes, "Small matters are handled in large meetings, big matters in small meetings, and exceptionally important matters are not handled in meetings." Prior to this inter-agency meeting, the proposal regarding Ivy had already reached a tacit understanding after a series of assurances and exchanges of benefits, which is why it was included in the meeting agenda so quickly.

Even after the vote was over, the deans only remembered to ask these practical questions.

"For example, how can Stryhaven efficiently transport students and supplies between the various admissions offices? Magic ships and the like?" Dean Ogota of Order looked at the scroll in his hand and picked out the most difficult question.

Even at a magical university like Stryhaven, which is filled with portals, teleportation magic on a spatial and temporal scale is extremely rare. Apart from Planeswalkers who can travel through time and space autonomously using Spark, only a handful of people have mastered the highest-level teleportation spell, the Gate of Another World, which can accommodate multiple people.

However, the duration of the interdimensional portal is extremely limited, making it impractical to use this highly difficult spell to transfer people and supplies across time and space. Otherwise, Stryven wouldn't have simply distributed flyers across various worlds and adopted a casual admissions policy for students from outside the Akevivo timeline.

Ivy was actually prepared for this problem. His legendary class, the Realm Explorer, has the ability to continuously open interdimensional portals. As it stands, he can easily maintain an interdimensional portal that would normally only last for a few seconds for an entire day.

“Stridern needs to start allocating resources now to the magical fields researching interdimensional teleportation. Our library has enough knowledge, and Stridern has enough experience in setting up teleportation networks; what we lack is simply a technological breakthrough that will come sooner or later.” Ivy calmly presented her solution to the deans. “As for the immediate situation, the transport of supplies for the first admissions office can be handled by me alone for now. I can open interdimensional portals in different time and space that can sustain operations for 24 hours. As long as the transport sequence of supplies and personnel is planned in advance, the task can be completed quite efficiently. However, this method, which relies entirely on my personal magical abilities, is destined to be unusable on a large scale. Therefore, it is fine as an initial transition. If Stridern decides to officially build admissions offices in multiple different worlds, then relevant research must be conducted.”

The ten deans around the round table exchanged glances and nodded in agreement. Finally, Ogota summarized: "A very sound and feasible approach. Starting today, or more precisely, next semester, Streihaven will allocate more resources to the course 'Teleportation and Teleportation Portals,' transforming it from an elective into a compulsory course for all five colleges, at least for first-year students. Professors who make outstanding contributions in this area will also receive increased research funding. As for the supplies to be sent to the admissions office in Faerûn, you can bring that up now, but the personnel involved need further discussion, as this matter is currently only circulating among the deans."

“I have two mage towers in Faerûn. Besides my own plot in Dawnstar, I also have the Ramages Tower at Baldur’s Gate. It originally belonged to the archmage of that port city, but after his disappearance, it has been left unattended for many years. I can offer the Ramages Tower to Strathaiven at an extremely low price, as another bridge connecting the worlds.” Ivy didn’t hesitate much before revealing her entire plan. Compared to other magical places in Faerûn, Strathaiven had a significant advantage in size, and how to leverage this advantage was what the ten headmasters should consider.

In Ivy's view, almost all universities suffer from some degree of discrepancy between theory and practice, making it difficult to apply teaching content in practice—a very common problem. Of course, a similar situation exists at a magical university like Strelhaven.

However, as a supernatural power capable of altering reality with individual effort, magic inherently possesses a stronger practicality than other forms of knowledge. This is why, whenever a major event occurs in Faerûn, mages are invariably involved as masterminds or supporting characters. No one can resist the temptation to change the world with a flick of a finger.

Even so, there are still discrepancies between knowledge and practice among the five academies of Streihaven. However, if we divide them by academy, the most serious discrepancies are found in the Quantification Academy and the Essence Academy.

The magic taught by the former professor seemed far too profound and complex to outsiders, and it also intersected with another highly demanding discipline, further straining the already limited minds of many spellcasters. With their brains occupied pondering philosophical questions far beyond reality, how much positive interaction could they possibly have with the real world?

As for the Magical Arts Academy, Cui Li, their magic is grand, magnificent, and highly artistic. However, it's also something that ordinary people find difficult to resonate with. After all, you can't expect a farmer who deals with mud and weeds every day to understand the magical art that urban nobles admire. Although the pursuit of beauty is universal, living beings can't live solely on "beauty." After appreciating the beauty of magic, one still has to return to the mundane affairs of reality. Even a demigod like Ivy has to gradually plan his power and territory, don't you think?
Aside from Liangxi and Cuili, the other three of the five major academies seem much more down-to-earth. Skipping over Hengjian Academy, which spends almost half its time buried in the ground, let's start with Mihua, which studies the magic of life and death.

Death is the ultimate question that all life encounters, and this seemingly profound question is played out every day, every hour, in every corner of the world. As a school specializing in resurrection from the dead, the magic they study is clearly intertwined with the students' real lives. With so many druids from different schools joining them, the Mi Hua Academy is actually quite adept at reaping food or even corpses from the ground. They are skilled not only at making food grow from the earth, but also at making all sorts of bizarre creatures or inanimate objects emerge from the ground. Thanks to the uniqueness of this philosophical philosophy, Ivy estimates that Mi Hua students are the most likely to cause controversy in other worlds among all the students of Strychren. After all, there probably aren't that many druids studying necromancy on the continent of Faerûn.

Next is the Silverhall Academy, specializing in language and writing. Although the students of this academy may sound like magic liberal arts students, they are actually the ones who best embody the unity of knowledge and action. This is because the magic studied by Silverhall students primarily affects humans (or intelligent beings) themselves. Using words and writing to instigate conflict or quell disputes is something even Muggles without magic can do. However, with the acquisition of magic, Silverhall students can usually do much more than one might imagine.

This can be seen from the annual student disciplinary statistics of Sturhaven. Although the data on paper shows that students from the five academies are evenly matched, a detailed analysis of specific issues reveals that Silverhaven students frequently appear in many similar records of quarrels and impulsive violations, even accounting for more than 90% of the records (considering that the proportion of disciplinary violations among the five academies is not significantly different, it is somewhat difficult to delve into the details of other students' violations, even though they are still students, they are also a group of mages).

Therefore, if the Silver Scholars were placed in the major cities of Faerûn, Ivy knew without a doubt how much trouble they would cause. After all, for them, fooling civilians who lacked awareness of magical protection was incredibly easy. Whether instigating or quelling war, it would become exceptionally easy. However, this also included Ivy's bias; perhaps these magical arts students, driven by their ideals, would travel among the nations and bring peace to the bustling continent of Faerûn ahead of time.

After all, no one can underestimate the power of language and writing; for an individual, they can sometimes be even more threatening than physical destruction.

"...You also applied for a production line for the school's engineering department's golems. That's not a big problem, but in places without the Striaven Vortex, their power source is a significant issue. Also, I can't give you the production line, since there's only one Striaven Vortex. However, I can provide you with the materials for building the production line, as well as mages to assist with its construction." Ivy snapped out of his reverie. The inter-academy meeting's chair, Ogota, was revising his proposed aid plan. "Considering the need for adaptation to local conditions, the golem production line might require some adjustments. I've heard you have considerable expertise in constructs, so you can handle that yourself. However, the technical data needs to be backed up and archived in the Modian Pavilion. Is that alright?"

“Of course, no problem.” Ivy nodded in agreement. With the support of the Sturhaven school’s golem production line, his experiment on creating intelligent machines that combined blank souls with golem bodies could officially begin. Even if no major breakthroughs could be achieved for the time being, the golems’ sturdy bodies could still handle the infrastructure tasks of Dawnstar and Duskstar.

However, the energy problem that Ogota mentioned is also an urgent issue to be solved. But Ivy already has a direction: the energy that Dusk Star City uses to power the adamantite furnace comes from the scorching magma at the Earth's core.

All that's needed is to find a highly efficient way to store the heat from the magma, which can then be used as the golem's power core. Moreover, this lava from deep underground is inexhaustible, making it a cost-free and readily available energy source. Aside from the fact that it's somewhat dangerous to use, Ivy really can't find many faults with it.

“There is another matter that requires Dean Valentine’s help.” Ivy looked at Dean Valentine, the Bloodline Dean. “I have seven thousand vampire progenitors among my subjects, and they need enough food to ensure the peace of the city.”

“That has never been a problem,” the old vampire Valentine chuckled. “As long as animal husbandry is developed enough, any vampire’s survival problem can be solved.”

“The area around Morningstar City is not suitable for developing large-scale animal husbandry.” Ivy shook her head. This method was indeed simple and crude, because vampires do not necessarily need to eat people to maintain their vitality. “My idea is to combine plants with flesh magic to create flesh plants that can alleviate vampires’ appetite, such as berries rich in blood, or something like that.”

"So that's why you gave me that interesting plant sample?" The old vampire bared his fangs, which, combined with the spikes growing rampant on his face, made him look particularly creepy. "Alright. We at Mi Hua have been conducting similar research for a long time, and we've even cultivated some experimental crops, but they still have significant problems and aren't worth promoting. Let's see how much impact your plant sample can have on our research."

“Thank you,” Ivy said simply, then asked, “May I request one or two crop samples? For the sake of harmonious relations between the lord and his subjects.”

"What a boring request, but since you made it, I'll grant it. Once the date for transferring the supplies to the Faerlen Admissions Office is set, I'll take it there." The old vampire lost interest in the conversation and sat back down in the shadows.

“Very well, now that this problem is solved, we can move on to the next topic.” Ogota’s words stopped the fire giant who was eagerly jumping up from his chair, and under his impatient gaze, he announced the name of the topic, “The ‘Opinions and Methods on Recruiting and Training Planeswalkers’ proposed by student mentor Kmina, the documents are all on the table in front of you. Yes… that stack, Dean Nathari. Don’t rush to object, this topic has a background—a student from Hengjian Academy awakened the talent of Planeswalkers on his own, but got stuck between two worlds while traveling through time. Thanks to Professor Doom’s magic, the student is not in immediate danger.”

“We cannot turn a blind eye to the Planeswalker problem.” The speaker was Anbos, the Dark Theater Master of Silverhall Academy, a middle-aged mage with graying temples. “Given the Planeswalkers’ stealth and the suddenness with which they travel through time, none of us can guarantee that there aren’t any Planeswalkers from other worlds among our students. Rather than ignoring the elephant in the house, we should keep them under surveillance in advance. At least we can be alert when they bring trouble from other timelines to Strathaiven.”

(End of this chapter)