Cornflower Witch

Chapter 360 Reflections in the Rain

In class, the teacher wrote on the blackboard the knowledge that Hilti had already learned.

Sitting by the window, the girl opened her notebook, looked out the window, and occasionally wrote a few lines.

A month has passed since she arrived in the Asura District, and her life is gradually becoming more stable. Because her appearance has been specially modified under Elofis's guidance, it is now difficult for others to associate her with the former Siltia.

Not only has her hair color changed, but her bangs hairstyle has also been altered, her eyebrows have been slightly modified, and with the addition of simple changes in light and dark makeup, the current Siltia, despite her good looks, has not reached the level of being stunning and unforgettable upon her first appearance. Her temperament has become much more reserved and low-key.

In addition, the best way to hide a candle is to place it among a group of candles, or next to a larger flame.

With Lowell and Aurora helping to share Sylvia's attention, her life has become much more normal.

"Lovely, Aurora, after school today I'm going to Wasp Street to buy herbal ingredients, so I won't be going home with you."

“Okay.” Aurora nodded after hearing this, and then told Lovell, who was concentrating on taking notes on the other side.

Of the three, Aurora is the most talented on the surface. She is already at the 'Second Tier - Hibernation' stage, and her destiny, abilities, and profession are basically complete. She is very close to stepping into the third tier.

Although Luo Wei'er is said to be 'Second-Tier Blazing Sun', there are clearly still many areas that need to be filled, such as the knowledge of secret history in the middle stage and powerful abilities.

As for Sylvia, she currently displays 'Tier 1: Secret Words' to the outside world, but when Aurora learned that she had achieved such results in less than a year of practicing the path of secret words, she was filled with admiration and surprise.

On weekdays, aside from playing and sleeping, Luo Weier spends all her time studying. Surprisingly, this young lady is the diligent type, probably due to the characteristics of the 'blazing sun' personality. She is also the most energetic of the three.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, Hirutia, who had been dismissed from school early, bid farewell to her two friends and boarded a public carriage to Hu Feng Street.

The tall draft horse is a 'Tier 1 Blood Law' creature; a single horse can easily pull a carriage carrying twenty people forward on the road.

Sitting by the car window, Hiltiya watched the pedestrians on the roadside with great interest, slowly analyzing the situation in her mind.

The Mage Alliance's system for cultivating extraordinary individuals is completely different from that of the Woodlands. Or rather, the Woodlands Alliance has a more primitive organizational framework, like scattered artisans who pick up suitable materials from the roadside, process them, and then carve them into decent works of art.

The Mage Alliance's method is to mark all suitable timber in a forest, cut it down, send it to a sawmill, saw it all down, and then process it according to an assembly line. This makes the proportion of extraordinary individuals in the Mage Alliance much higher than in the Woodland Alliance's regions.

Regas is a relatively small country among the nations of the Woodland Alliance. It takes about 150 Regas countries combined to equal the sphere of influence of the Woodland Alliance. When Hiltiah first awoke, Regas had approximately 400 Tier 3 Transcendent beings, half of whom were knights and nobles, and the other half were from various professions.

Expanding this to 150 times, that's over 60,000 Tier 3 professionals. Considering Regas is located in a mountainous region and not very developed, and other prosperous areas have even more extraordinary individuals, the number could fluctuate to over 100,000 Tier 3 extraordinary individuals. The Mage Alliance recruits nearly 200,000 new students each year, of whom 1% will become Tier 3 professionals within ten years, and 10% will reach Tier 3 in their lifetime. Considering that older mages have limited usefulness, we'll take a middle value, which is 5%.

This means that the 200,000 new students in the Mage Alliance each year can add nearly 10,000 Tier 3 professionals to the entire alliance. Tier 3 professionals generally have a longer lifespan, reaching up to 80 years old. Taking 45 years old as the median value for reaching Tier 3, this means that they can serve the Mage Alliance for nearly 35 years. Combined with the previous data, this means that the Mage Alliance can maintain a normal level of more than 350,000 extraordinary professionals.

In fact, this calculation method is conservative. Considering that the Mage Alliance's various technologies and strengths are improving, the Mage Alliance's peak state is probably around 50 or more third-tier or higher extraordinary beings.

This means that the Mage Alliance, with only 1.5 times the sphere of influence of the Woodland Alliance, has a difference of more than 5 times in the number of extraordinary beings, and this number will continue to grow in the future. This is what makes the Woodland Alliance lack the confidence to fight back.

'Well, it's probably the way industrial reforms have crushed the old-fashioned workshops.' Hiltiya thought to herself.

However, this model is not something that other forces can easily imitate. The Mage Alliance has shattered all the royal powers within its territory and brought them under its control. Whether it is taxes or talents, they are all controlled by the Mage Alliance. If other forces want to do the same, they will definitely have to fight each other first.

The education and training of 20 new students each year is an enormous expense. The students themselves simply cannot afford the exorbitant tuition fees. Becoming an extraordinary individual is not something that can be achieved by simply studying hard; it requires a great deal of resources and practical experience.

Take, for example, the various resources that Hilti requires to advance to the third-tier gardener level, such as clear spring water, gems, and plant seeds. If an ordinary second-tier professional were to save up money to buy these, it would probably take them nearly ten years.

Furthermore, even with these resources and materials, how can an ordinary person know how to coordinate the compatibility of various special plants in the courtyard and make them get along harmoniously? It requires a huge amount of experience and insight, which also requires time and effort to accumulate. One must get in touch with the cultivation of various second- and third-tier plants in advance, which in turn requires various resources, such as better soil, clean water, etc., to cultivate plants to a higher level. In this process, one accumulates experience, and each step requires the consumption of resources.

Currently, in order to supply the advancement of the many new forces within its ranks, the Mage Alliance has invented various large-scale machines, excavated mines within its sphere of influence, explored various resource nodes in the Shadow World, cleared and plundered various Twilight Monsters, developed resources that these monsters can convert and provide, and also used the shattered and confiscated royal authority to provide assistance to students of the 'Secret Words' and 'Castle' types.

Under such circumstances, the resources within the Mage Alliance are being consumed at a rapid pace, and when they become insufficient, external expansion and war will become inevitable.

However, if it is merely a matter of resources and efficiency, there are still solutions. More serious divisions are occurring in various corners of the Mage Alliance, but they have not yet erupted or attracted the attention of the Mage Alliance's higher-ups.

If the Forest Land Alliance is to undergo reforms in the future, will they be able to avoid these problems?

We've arrived at Wasp Street.

As the driver announced, Hilti raised her umbrella and stepped out of the car. The sky then darkened, and a few cool raindrops began to fall, dampening the hem of her clothes.

On a street corner, several orc laborers were huddled under the eaves, arms wrapped around themselves, to avoid the rain. The shop assistants, not wanting these people to affect the shop's image, came out with brooms and chased them into an alley out of sight of passersby.

The development of industrialization will shatter the simple warmth of pastoral life. When everything is pursued for high efficiency, it is inevitable to become ruthless, both towards others and towards oneself.

(End of this chapter)