Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 1 Orlean Academy and the Continent of Corfu
Aurelian Academy.

Red brick floors, arcade-style corridors, elegant fountains, and pristine white marble sculptures, along with four three-story houses painted in off-white.

This is the most prestigious academy among the seven kingdoms of the Corfu continent. Countless nobles from the seven kingdoms, whether they are wealthy earls, noble dukes, or even the supreme kings, will send their second sons to this academy.

It can be said that being able to enter this academy is itself a mark of being a child of a high-ranking noble family.

For children of minor nobles to enter this academy, strict requirements must be met, including achievements in horsemanship, swordsmanship, linguistics, history, and philosophy.

The students in this academy are either extremely wealthy or exceptionally talented.

Meanwhile, at Aurelian Academy, today is the day of the entrance examination for the new season's students.

Many people have left the academy with regret and great disappointment.

Either they failed the assessment, or their identity was not verified, and they were directly rejected by Aurelian Academy.

The veteran students stood in the academy's corridor, watching the dejected expressions on the faces of the group of failures who had not passed the academy's assessment with a mixture of disdain and amusement.

An older student's son said to the students around him, "These low-ranking nobles and peasants actually want to get into this academy."

"This is insane. Can they even afford the tuition of thousands of gold coins every year?"

"Do you really think Aurelian Academy accepts any kind of trash?"

This person deliberately said this in front of those who failed, and the trainees who did not pass the test all showed expressions of inferiority and fear on their faces.

They all knew the prestige of Aurelian Academy, so no one dared to refute it.

Locke Augustine, also a third-year student at Aurelian Academy, frowned.

Seeing Locke frown, Cohen Julian turned around and looked at him with displeasure. "However, we also have some dead rats mixed in with us."

“Locke Augustine, you’re still in our academy. I’ve heard that our Frankish Empire has already captured the capital of your Kingdom of Anjou, and the territory of your Augustine family has also fallen.”

"Can you still afford the college tuition this year?"

Cohen Julian and his two fat henchmen wore gloating expressions.

"Your kings have all died in battle, and your countries are gone."

Locke was surprised that this idiot would suddenly point the cannon at him and raise his eyebrows.

Cohen Julian and his henchmen were both nobles of the Frankish Empire; the Julian family was a count family of the Frankish Empire.

And I... or rather, the original owner of this body, was the youngest son of a count in the Kingdom of Anjou.

Therefore, Julian and the original owner of this body were not on good terms and often clashed.

At this moment, upon hearing of the calamity befell the Augustinian family, he would naturally mock him.

In the past, I would probably argue with him, and then, because the country was in trouble, I would be at a disadvantage and be ridiculed by Julian.

But at this moment, Locke was already a time traveler, and he had no feelings for the Kingdom of Anjou and the territory of Augustine, so he was naturally not provoked.

So Locke shrugged and looked at Julian and his cronies. "So what does that prove?"

Julian and his men were taken aback when they didn't see Locke's expected outburst of rage and loss of composure.

They suffered a minor setback.

This made Julian feel gloomy for a moment, but he quickly turned to Locke with malice, pointing at the children of minor nobles and commoners participating in the academy's assessment. "You'll soon be just like them."

"The tuition at Aurelian Academy is thousands of gold coins just for the basic fees, and even a single course costs hundreds of gold coins. If you don't attend enough classes or pay your tuition in full, you will be expelled."

"Locke, I look forward to the day when you, this stray dog, are kicked out of the academy."

"When the time comes, I hope you won't beg me to take you in. I've specially reserved a guard job for you."

"Hahahaha..." Julian left with his followers.

Locke looked at him with a puzzled expression, showing no emotional fluctuation, but rather thinking that those three Franks were somewhat out of their minds.

This is inexplicable, as if there's any benefit in making things difficult for oneself. It just goes to show that the students in this academy are all a little bit mentally unstable.

That's right, Locke, who had only been in this world for two weeks, had already figured out the true nature of Aurelian Academy.

To put it nicely, this academy is an academy that brings together the sons of high-ranking nobles and outstanding young people from seven countries across the entire continent, but in essence, it is just a gilded academy for high-ranking nobles.

Those nobles spend exorbitant tuition fees every year to throw some good-for-nothing non-heirs into this academy, just to give them a makeshift education and to find a place to settle them, so that these people won't cause trouble all day long.

Therefore, this academy has a rather peculiar curriculum. On the one hand, it requires 100 gold coins for a semester of language courses, while on the other hand, the course requirements are very lenient.

Recruiting outstanding individuals from among the minor nobles and commoners is merely adding a layer of brilliance to the academy's resume.

In fact, most of the students in this academy are mediocre second-generation nobles, so no teacher takes teaching seriously.

But contrary to the mediocre teaching quality, the tuition and course fees here are damn expensive.

It's ridiculously expensive!
Locke himself, the original owner of this body, was originally one of the many mediocre second-generation nobles in this academy.

But Locke took a deep breath; he really was unlucky.

He originally thought that he had transmigrated into the body of a count's youngest son, and that he would have no worries about food and clothing in the future. He could just live a carefree life and enjoy life. Who knew that his country would be destroyed.

The family went bankrupt.

“My family hasn’t sent anyone to contact me yet,” Locke pondered. “But it seems no one will pay my tuition this semester. Without tuition, I’ll definitely be expelled from the academy.”

"It will be very dangerous outside once we leave the academy."

"The Franks are capturing Anjou people everywhere."

"Don't be fooled by my safety at the academy; if I leave, I'll likely attract a lot of danger."

"Such expensive tuition fees cannot be obtained through part-time work."

Locke rubbed his head in frustration, while looking at the synthesis panel that appeared in the void before him, visible only to him.

This Horadric Cube is my cheat code from time travel.

In my past life, I was playing "Gods and Magic" and won too many games, so I was struck by lightning and ended up being transported to this world with the game's ultimate artifact.

This Rubik's Cube allows you to synthesize different materials based on your character's level, upgrading lower-level materials into higher-level ones.

In the game, it was originally a super artifact for alchemy, herbalism, and potion-making, but who would have thought that I would bring it here?

At this moment, the virtual Rubik's Cube was emitting a magnificent light, and there was a virtual hourglass next to it. According to the speed at which the sand was falling in the hourglass, there was still one hour left before the three sapphire fragments that I put into the Rubik's Cube would be successfully combined!
Locke looked at the Rubik's Cube and said, "Now let's see what happens when we combine the three sapphire fragments, so we can know what my next move is."

"Moreover, according to the original owner's memories, there is another strange thing about this academy."

Because Aurelian Academy is essentially a place for second-generation elites to gain prestige, the standards for graduation and completion of courses are particularly simple, and the teachers basically don't care much about them.

Let these students do whatever they want, but this academy has one thing with extremely high standards that no teacher will fob off—the quota for outstanding graduates!
This spot for outstanding graduates seems to involve some very important interests. Even the children of the academy's noble families cannot obtain this spot no matter how much money they offer or how much power they use to coerce others.

Moreover, the number of outstanding graduates that the college can offer each year is usually only in the single digits.

It is said that only those who have been reviewed and approved by specific teachers and the dean of the college can obtain this spot.

But no one can say for sure what the specific conditions and standards are for obtaining this quota.

But Locke, a transmigrator from Earth who transmigrated into the body of a spoiled rich kid, discovered from a bird's-eye view that Orleans Academy might not just be an academy for the privileged to gild their reputations. The academy itself might exist precisely because of the quota for these outstanding graduates.

He tried hard to search his memory and found that, for some reason, no information about the outstanding graduates of Aurelian Academy each year was released, so no one knew exactly who had won the spot.

(End of this chapter)