A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 463 No, what are you going to do with it?

Is this your purpose, Rorschach?

Feuerbach frowned. He didn't have much to say about the match itself, but Rorschach's insistence on having the Rafi casters team up was too deliberate and excessive.

The young monks organizing the competition are blatantly offering incentives; for any participant, simply submitting a work guarantees victory and a fortune. But regardless of whether it's achieved through sheer money, once things start, they tend to spiral out of control.

The Tower of Arcane Arts deliberately maintains an atmosphere of "cohesion," insisting on selecting the best of the best and employing a subtle elimination process—no longer caring about those lagging behind, letting them give up on their own. Now, Rorschach is forcing these people to cooperate and engage in cohesion, not only among apprentices but also between apprentices and ordinary people.

The popularization of "magic cloud" is like this, as is the exchange between apprentices and ordinary people who have received higher education.

With this event, it no longer matters whether the Tower of Arcane Arts headquarters offers the "Spell Cloud" course.

Then he recalled their first meeting and his own words: "It is obvious that all equal intellectual entities jointly created order, especially the symbolic order, while this deity has stolen the authority and shamelessly proclaimed himself the 'Lord of Order.' Only then can we reclaim the power given to us by the Creator!"

The master was silent for a moment, then suddenly stood up.

He was about to announce his decision, but Feuerbach's opening words disappointed the expectant mages: "No, apprentices of the Arcane Tower can participate; this is part of our agreement with Mage Rorschach."

Kano is mostly very lenient and is considered a good-natured person, which led to his being elected as the leader of the Tower of Stars. It wasn't until last year that he showed his fangs to the noble faction, while Feuerbach in the Tower of Arcane Arts has always been a man of his word.

The eerie conference room fell silent, save for the flapping wings of the gargoyles serving tea and water. A younger mage broke the awkward silence, offering himself a way out: "Well, at least that mage Rorschach didn't treat us badly."

Of course, the money couldn't just be given to apprentices; the main target was still those already in positions of authority. Besides giving the bank a hand, Rorschach also used joint training programs and inviting professors to be judges in competitions to slip in a lot of stuff, such as mithril that's hard to find in Bain now, transmutation dust that's less valuable for research but still very useful, and the simplest and most direct way—money.

Feuerbach's second decision was even more surprising: "Remove the illusion shrouded in the Arcane Tower."

This means the Arcane Tower will return to the public eye. The master explained his reasoning: "Look how lively things are at the foot of our mountain. We must admit, it's no longer a small village. Everyone knows our location, so there's no need to deceive ourselves anymore. The existence of the Red Dragon Seal prevents us from changing the spacetime in which the Mage Tower is located, so let them see it for themselves."

"That might pose a security risk."

"Gargoyles are easy to deal with for ordinary people, so what do we have to be afraid of? Are you afraid of ordinary people, huh? Or are you worried about not being able to protect your students? Fortunately, a large portion of them went to other mage towers."

The monk, caught off guard by the questioning, stammered, "No, Chief, that's not what I meant."

"That's it, meeting adjourned."

Rorschach was unaware of and unconcerned about the internal meetings of the Arcane Tower; all he knew was that his plans were progressing smoothly.

The design competition was divided into three groups as required: the Disruption Group, the Creative Group, and the Application Group.

The first track is about pursuing power, whether it's against people or objects, requiring you to create a series of spells with sufficient power within the limitations of the "spell string" itself.

For safety reasons, even though participants have to sign a waiver from the organizers, Rorschach still "thoughtfully" requires participants to verify their design ideas under the guidance of a teacher.

This group is an advantageous program for apprentices who stay in the Arcane Tower. They have more teachers to supervise them than in Rorschach's personal mage tower, and those who are willing to stay are generally so-called "top students" who have mastered more and higher-level spells.

The application group has the simplest requirements in terms of magic, but the requirements are more complicated—they need to come up with a seemingly wonderful idea for the judges, prove that the spell strings developed by the team have practical uses, and verify their feasibility, including their application in machinery and alchemical artifacts.

This group is the comfort zone for apprentices who have come to Rorschach's Tower. They generally have low-level spells, but they can team up with interns who have spent two months working in the factory (and voluntarily extend their internship or get jobs early).

If the spell is to be applied to a physical object, one must also be able to draw blueprints that meet technical standards, write feasibility reports, and design specifications.

Then the magic apprentices will discover that the factory workers have already learned to write these formulas, which have a familiar, strange feel to them, just like the "Technical Manual" in their hands.

It has that distinctive dog-like smell of engineering students, and the apprentices are gradually being assimilated.

As for the creative group, it was an option for contestants who couldn't be placed in the first two groups. Luo Xia hadn't expected that this "creative group" would almost kill him.

Halfway through the competition, a strange thing suddenly appeared and began circulating among the male apprentices and university students in the special zone who were "restless with their blood and qi".

"Is it genuine?" The buyer found the seller through an acquaintance's introduction.

"Authentic guaranteed, money-back guarantee if you're not satisfied." The seller pulled a cup from his storage ring. It was shaped like a cup, but with a soft and narrow inner wall; its product name was "Magic Cup." Boys who had used it to relieve their blood rushing to their heads praised it as "truly magical."

"How do I use it?"

The vendor made a strange request: "Hey, can you perform magic?"

"Of course, I come from the Tower of Arcane Arts."

"Who isn't? If you can cast spells, you can save money on materials. Listen, the 'Magic Cup' can be used normally, but after nine o'clock at night, you need to infuse it with magic power and then close your eyes."

"Will there be hallucinations?"

"Yes, this is the high-end version; it will have both visuals and sound."

The above scene occurred among students. After 9 PM, in a special service location in the old town, several thin young men were selling "magic stickers" with runes that shimmered with a subtle pink glow: "Just stick it on your forehead, and it will at least double the time, understand?"

"Does it really work?" New customers expressed doubt, while experienced customers who had already verified it immediately confirmed its effectiveness.

Meanwhile, Rorschach finished his evening work and decided to send his spirit to the border to observe the situation of the Tree of Law.

The Tree of Law is growing well, but strangely, one branch is constantly flashing with light, almost the brightest, and Rorschach can confirm through his connection with the Tower Spirit that all the computing cores are working.

Huh? What's going on? This link is under high load.

Rorschach meticulously examined the spells corresponding to each active branch. "A timed-activated [Indifference] spell, but very weak, like it's activated by a scroll. However, there are many signals [Communication], which is the most active and has the highest load. Moreover, the descriptor is strange, constantly changing. Finally, it's [Advanced Illusion]?"

"What the hell?"

The third-circle Enchantment spell, "Calmness," draws out the strongest emotions and suppresses the target's impulses.

The third ring of the Illusion system, [Advanced Illusion], creates a realistic illusion.

These three seemingly disjointed spells were actually flashing together, meaning they might be in a spell chain and had been activated multiple times. Rorschach's interest was piqued. If that were true, the ability to integrate two level-three spells, [Calmness] and [Advanced Illusion], was likely the work of an intermediate-level mage.

"Let me see." Rorschach directly conjured the magical prototype of [Advanced Illusion], and then synchronized it with the flashing of the Tree of Law.

What the hell!

Rorschach was immediately plunged into a hallucination that severely violated public order and morality; it contained not only visuals but also remarkably realistic sounds and touches. After a while, the hallucination changed again; the theme remained the same, but the actors in the hallucination had changed.

He quickly broke free from the illusion through a test of willpower.

Is this a live stream? I feel like I've achieved synesthesia with the sender—sight, hearing, touch, and speed. Who are these people using the spell strings for? Luo Xia returned to reality with a dark expression. He needed to find the team that developed this spell string for the competition. No, it was an illegal H-related gang!

(End of this chapter)