Wizard: I have ten trillion nanomachines

Wizarding organizations are not charities. They recruit apprentices to ensure the organization has new blood, maintains its operation, and better serves the professional wizards.

The same applies to Silver Blood Academy.

New apprentices receive a welcome bonus for the first three months, including free basic courses and accommodation.

But after three months, you'll have to rely on yourself.

It's all about talent, ability, and family background.

The wizarding world is a world with extremely rigid social classes. The most promising apprentices all come from various wizarding families, and some even have elders who are formal wizards.

The academy will only use the best resources on the family members of those six official wizards.

Good things in the world are always limited, and they will become increasingly scarce.

Apprentices like Charlie, who come from the Land of Oblivion, can only serve as supporting characters and resources.

After the newcomer benefits period ends, everything from clothing, food, housing, and transportation to potions for meditation and cultivation, as well as knowledge of witchcraft models, will require contribution points from within the academy to purchase.

Go on missions, hunt monsters, collect potions, guard resource points, and exchange extraordinary materials and magic stones.

There are many ways to earn contributions, but ordinary apprentices, especially those from the Forgotten Lands, are of humble origin and naturally cannot get lucrative positions. Hunting magical beasts is also too risky, as they can die with the slightest carelessness.

For ordinary apprentices, just finding a place to live is a big problem.

To live a good life, one needs both talent and ability.

Wizards are highly talented, meditate and cultivate quickly, and develop combat power in a short time, so naturally some people are willing to attract investment.

They have strong learning abilities and know several skills, such as potion making. Even if they only know one basic potion, they can still solve their food and lodging problems.

Unfortunately, Charlie didn't touch either of those things.

Talent is the most common level five, and ability is average, with at most a little bit of cleverness.

Fortunately, he still has connections.

As a friend, Wu Ke, who possessed only third-rate talent, was soon approached by others eager to win him over.

It was an apprenticeship group called the Dawn Society.

They wield considerable influence among the apprentices, with five senior apprentices alone, and even more intermediate and junior apprentices.

Most of them are members of small families with few strong individuals and talented individuals from the Forgotten Lands. Their motto is to stick together for warmth and help each other, and that all members of the society have a bright future.

But to put it nicely, it's actually just a tool for making a profit.

The lower-level members are charged a monthly membership fee in exchange for a semblance of legitimacy within the organization, which protects them from being bullied.

The academy forbids apprentices from causing death to each other, as long as no one knows.

Although Antonio died somehow on the way here, there are many people like Antonio in the academy.

Those without background or ability, and working alone, are at the very bottom of the social ladder. Without joining a group, they are likely to die mysteriously and without explanation.

The members at the bottom level worked honestly for a month, and after deducting living costs and membership fees, they had almost no contribution left. Where would they find the time, energy, and resources to meditate and cultivate?

If one's strength stagnates, one can only waste time day after day and be exploited.

The number of beneficiaries in the society grew day by day, and only those invited by them were eligible to join.

Talented and capable, with a relatively simple background.

A third-tier talent from the Forgotten Lands, who also has a foundation in potion making, would naturally receive an invitation.

As someone close to him, Charlie also received preferential treatment.

Charlie didn't have to pay membership fees, and he would even receive help from Wu Ke when things got tough... Charlie's situation was much better than that of others at the same time, which gave him more time and energy to meditate and learn some skills.

There's nothing shameful about relying on friends, especially when you're also working hard yourself.

Three years passed, and Wu Ke died, reportedly from an alchemy accident.

Once people leave, the tea cools; without anyone to rely on, and not wanting to be exploited, Charlie, destined to remain a lowly apprentice forever, can only struggle alone in the academy.

And just like that, very quickly, he lost his left hand.

When a wall falls, everyone pushes it down. Whether out of jealousy or other reasons, Charlie became a thorn in the side of many, especially those low-level apprentices like him.

Why can you live so comfortably while we suffer so much? Is it because you have a capable friend?

They didn't have the guts to attack those people, but they certainly did have the guts to attack Charlie, who had been doing better than them for the past three years.

"Later, I had no choice but to return to the society, since I was all alone. I spent a lot of my savings to get a job guarding an overseas resource point."

"There, I spent my remaining savings to buy a bottle of Soul Burning Potion from an old apprentice at the stronghold, hoping to break through to the intermediate apprentice level."

"But I failed," Charlie said with a pained expression. "The Soul Burning Potion and the side effects of the failed breakthrough damaged my soul. I have less than twenty years left to live."

"I don't want to be a wizard anymore. I just want to go back to the continent of Volo to live out the rest of my life and bring back news of Wu Ke's death."

"So I sold everything I could and moved to a different location on a pyrotechnic ship that traded with the outpost, but it was a trap, and they weren't going to send me back!"

Charlie became visibly excited at this point.

He was so stupid to believe that those people would keep their promises.

Luo Kunlun was not surprised by this.

Merchant ships, by their very nature, cater to different people.

They only trade with regions that have official wizards, and in regions without official wizards, they simply plunder.

If you have power, they are businessmen and partners. But if you lack power, they are robbers!

Both the ship that betrayed Charlie and the White Tower that made a deal with Lokunlun were examples of this.

"After that, I was crippled and became a prisoner. Not long after, the ship had an accident. A sea monster damaged it, and I was swept away by the waves."

"When I wake up again, I'll be here with you, Mr. Luo."

The ocean is vast and rich in resources, so organizations on the Wizarding Continent naturally wouldn't let it slip by.

Any organization with a bit of spare capacity will set up an overseas base.

It's for the sake of resources, and also an obligation.

The relationship between the Wizarding Continent and the Southern Continent, as well as the Polar Islands and other wizarding communities, is not good.

Since good items like magic stones are becoming increasingly scarce and resources are running out, what should we do?

Rob.

Invading other worlds is possible, but this is rare and usually occurs when powerful forces dominate those worlds.

Because smaller factions were lucky enough to discover the spatial passage, and larger factions demanded it, would they dare refuse?

But even if you voluntarily hand it over, you might not get any benefits. Forget about bones, you'd be lucky to even get a sip of soup.

Therefore, small forces should forget about invading the world; instead, they should attack other small forces or, under the leadership of a large force, attack another place similar to the Wizarding Continent.

That was the real feast, where the winner takes all, and whoever grabs the good stuff keeps it all. Even the spilled soup is enough to fill the little people's stomachs.

The Southern Continent is one of the few regions whose size is comparable to that of the Wizarding Continent, and both sides secretly want to kill each other so they can have a good meal.

Unfortunately, due to the presence of sea creatures and other forces such as those in the polar regions, the conflict between the two sides has always been localized.

.......

"Mr. Luo, you...you don't seem surprised at all."

After recounting his past, Charlie noticed Luo Kunlun's expression and asked...

"Of course I'm not surprised at all. Four years ago, after I learned that the spiritual water used to break through to the first level was made primarily from the source matter in the apprentice's brain, I completely understood that the more powerful a wizard is, the more unscrupulous and unprincipled they become."

"However, as a prince of a country, you should know how despicable people can be."

Hearing this, Charlie was silent for a moment, then said, "...Indeed."

"But no matter what, we have to at least save face. We have to have bottom lines and principles, otherwise no one will be willing to serve us."

"But the strong don't need these things, so principles and bottom lines no longer exist, and ruthlessness, faithlessness, and injustice become the norm," Luo Kunlun replied.

This is how it is when the gap between the upper and lower classes truly widens: the rich get richer, and the poor become more numerous and poorer.

Similarly, for those who are extraordinary, the greater the gap, the more and more ruthless the exploitation of different social classes becomes.

If we have to say that extraordinary individuals, especially powerful ones, have principles, then their principle is to have no bottom line.

Having a bottom line means having no principles.

They are nothing but beasts in human skin, yet they claim to be seekers of truth.

Wait, that's not quite right.

Because power is truth, and absolute power is absolute truth.

They can say whatever they want; they have the power to define things. How can the weak possibly refute them?