The Patient Wizard Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – The Magic Tower(3)

At that time, I was so desperate that I insisted I had passed. Quickly removing my hand from the water and watching the yellow robe’s reaction were both due to that anxiety.

Chris pondered and pondered again. As a result, he concluded that he had talent based on the fact that the yellow robe man was strict. He convinced himself of this.

After all, I passed. That’s all that matters.

Still, the anxiety did not disappear. It settled like sediment deep in his heart.

The carriage carrying his anxiety arrived at a plaza located halfway up the mountain. Chris opened his eyes wide as he got off the carriage. He couldn’t help but marvel at how they had managed to create such a large plaza in the middle of a mountain.

While he was exclaiming in admiration, Smith poked the back of his head.

“Are you showing off that you’re a country bumpkin?”

Then he clicked his tongue.

“Flies will get in. Close your mouth.”

Now that Jack is gone, this guy is poking the back of my head. Chris stepped aside with an awkward smile. During the journey to the magic tower, Chris had so many questions he wanted to ask Smith.

What is the good thing that’s in the air? Did you really feel it? What happens when you feel it? What can you do with it? How did you create the ripples?

Chris wanted to resolve his anxiety through such questions and answers, but his distrust of Smith prevented him from asking.

He and Smith did not get along well. If he honestly opened up and asked questions, and Smith ran to the wizard saying, 

“This guy couldn’t feel it. There must have been a mistake in the test,” the situation wouldn’t be resolved just by being expelled.

Chris could never forget the indifferent yet cold eyes of the red robe wizard who had burned Jack to death. He recalled them at least twice a day.

What would happen if the cold-hearted wizard became suspicious of him?

He would meet the same fate as Jack.

He had heard that burning to death was the most painful way to die. Chris did not want to die in such a painful way. If he had to die young, he would choose to have his neck cut with a single stroke.

“Jack.”

As he thought of him, the name flowed out of his mouth. Smith frowned.

“Why are you calling that unlucky guy’s name?”

Chris scratched his short chin beard.

“Just came to mind.”

“Why would it suddenly come to mind?”

“I keep thinking about it.”

“So why do you keep thinking about it? He’s dead.”

“That’s why.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Jack hadn’t been greedy at the end, he would have survived, and we would have left the territory with ease. Jack would have been a person of the past, and we would never meet again. Naturally, I wouldn’t have reason to recall Jack. After 20 or 30 years, while eating, I might suddenly remember and say, ‘I had a hard time when I was young. There was a very nasty guy named Jack in our village who bullied me a lot.’ I might have gossiped about him like that. Or used him as a topic at drinking gatherings.”

Chris shook his head.

“But he died miserably. Jack will never be forgotten. He will continue to come to mind even as time passes.”

Smith snorted.

“This guy is unexpected.”

“What?”

“You’re sentimental like a girl.”

He pulled Chris’s ear.

“Stop talking nonsense. Look at that tower over there.”

Behind the plaza, white stone stairs extended high. The stairs were over three stories high and quite wide, making them feel very imposing.

The building was five stories high, but combined with the tall stairs, it felt even taller. It seemed to pierce the sky.

The sign read ‘Mick Tower’ (Chris couldn’t read, so he found out by asking someone else). They said it was the symbolic building of the Magic Tower.

Chris looked around. The wizards who had brought them were nowhere to be seen. Thirty-six successful candidates from ten carriages were wandering around, filled with anxiety and excitement about their future.

Smith poked Chris in the side.

“Go ask where Wizard Randall and Wizard David went.”

The red robe wizard’s name was Randall, and the yellow robe wizard’s name was David. It took Chris and Smith eight days of traveling together to finally learn the wizards’ names. They still didn’t know their last names.

Chris shrugged. His gesture was ambiguous, but his answer was firm.

“No.”

“Come on.”

“I said no.”

The apprentices who moved together ostracized the two of them because they were former slaves. Chris did not protest against the ostracism.

Didn’t Wizard David say that once we enter the magic tower, our status disappears?

Let’s not discriminate among fellow apprentices.

We’ll face many difficulties ahead, so let’s get along well and help each other.

He never uttered such words, not even as a joke. He accepted that this is how the world is. He never approached them.

Smith reacted differently. He thought that he had entered a privileged class the moment he passed the wizard talent test. So he tried to become friendly with the nobles. He frequently approached them and struck up conversations. The noble-born apprentices ignored him at first, then responded with contempt and mockery.

Smith was deeply hurt by their cold treatment, and because of that, he couldn’t approach them now. Whenever he had questions for his noble peers, he kept poking Chris. You ask them.

Chris had no reason to comply with his request. Chris changed the subject.

“Look, more carriages are coming.”

Carriages were coming up one after another along the mountain path. The path was wide and well-paved, so the carriages didn’t shake much.

“They paved the road so smoothly. Creating a paved road on a rugged mountain, wizards are really amazing. Right?”

Pride appeared on Smith’s face.

“I’m going to become a wizard too.”

Chris couldn’t agree. He desperately wished to become one of them, but it didn’t seem easy. Whenever he tried to think positively, the image of Jack burning to death appeared. Along with Randall’s indifferent gaze.

Roughly counting the people disgorged by the line of carriages, there seemed to be about 300. No one wearing robes was visible, and only a few with yellow belts could be seen. The escorting wizards seemed to have gone elsewhere before reaching the plaza.

Smith’s eyes lit up as he looked at the newly arrived apprentices.

“Let’s go talk to them.”

“No, I’m good.”

Chris shook his head as he watched Smith approach them.

‘If he talks to them, they’ll ask about his background….’

If he answers that he is a slave, he will be met with cold treatment.

Chris circled them, observing. An orphan must develop keen observation skills to survive. Jack and his cronies called Chris an idiot, but Chris was not stupid. He just acted stupid to survive among them. Thanks to that, he survived. Though he was skinny and short because he hadn’t eaten properly, he had survived nonetheless. He survived and made it here.

‘I’ll survive in the magic tower too. By any means necessary.’

He observed and read the atmosphere while strengthening his resolve.

There are people who are particularly sociable. People who enjoy parties and conversations with strangers. People who seem like they would make friends even during the war. There were such types among the people gathered here. Conversations formed around them, and groups naturally formed.

The groups were based on social status. This was unfortunate for Smith, who had been lurking here and there trying to join conversations.

The successful candidates in the plaza were divided into six groups. The first group consisted of royalty and high nobles’ children. They were the loudest and most active. The second group was formed by nobles of intermediate power, and the third mainly consisted of fallen nobles without territories and single-rank nobles’ descendants. Children of officials and knights working in noble territories also belonged to the third group. These three groups formed the so-called noble groups.

The fourth and fifth groups were mainly commoners, with wealthy families in the fourth and less affluent families in the fifth.

Commoners wealthy enough to run large merchant companies sometimes entered the second group, but their numbers were very few. Their families were likely to buy titles and transform into noble families within a few years.

The sixth group consisted of former slaves. After the groups formed, Chris stopped wandering and slipped into the group he belonged to.

Commoners were the most numerous, followed by nobles. While the large population of commoners made sense, it was incomprehensible that there were fewer slaves than nobles. This is because the slave population is much larger than the noble population.

Chris folded his arms and thought deeply. The difference in education seemed to have brought about this result. Children of noble families probably knew in advance what elements they needed to sense in the air and how to pass the test. Perhaps they had conducted their own tests and only those who passed applied for the magic tower’s test.

Chris ruminated on a fact he had known for a long time. The fact that the world is not fair.

“Let’s introduce ourselves.”

Even in the group of slaves intimidated by status discrimination, there was an outgoing person.

“My name is Alice.”

Smith, who had been looking at the royals, suddenly cursed when he saw Alice.

“Damn, you’re ugly.”

Despite this extremely rude remark, Alice did not get angry.

“Thanks for the honest answer. But you’re no better yourself.”

Chris burst out laughing. Other slaves followed suit. Thanks to her response, the gloomy atmosphere among the former slaves dissipated.

“I’m sorry.”

Smith apologized politely, and Alice gladly accepted the apology. Chris looked at her with a friendly gaze. She had upturned nostrils, pronounced buck teeth, and flat cheekbones. It was a face that would be difficult to call pretty even as a white lie. But her eyes alone were truly beautiful. They twinkled like stars.

“I’m Chris. This rude guy, Smith, is from the same hometown as me.”

The slaves introduced themselves one by one. Few people seriously consider naming slaves. So all the names were common. There were two more Smiths, more than three Jacks, and Robert also appeared frequently.

Smith said,

“They’re annoying, aren’t they?”

His finger pointed to the fourth and fifth groups. He still had a slave mentality, so he couldn’t criticize royalty or nobility and instead pointed at commoners.

Alice said,

“Don’t mind them.”

“But why do you keep talking informally?”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“I’m sixteen.”

Chris, who was listening to their conversation, laughed inwardly. Alice didn’t look sixteen. It seemed that she added a year after Smith said he was fifteen.

At that moment, the noisy noble group became quiet. Chris sensed the change and turned his gaze. A group of wizards were coming down the white stairs. Red robes, blue robes, brown robes, white robes. They were wearing robes of various colors.

Chris had thought that high-ranking wizards wore red robes and lower-ranking wizards wore yellow robes after seeing Randall’s and David’s robes, but seeing elderly wizards wearing various colors, it seemed that wasn’t the case.

Do they wear them according to preference?

Chris spotted Randall among the wizards and trembled. He recalled again how Randall had burned Jack to death.

The barony where Chris had lived and the Micclonia Magic Tower where he would live from now on both belonged to the Kingdom of Grant.

The representative of the first group was Mark Grant, the seventh son of the currently reigning King Alfred Grant. Mark approached the stairs and said,

“Wizard Thomas, when did you disappear?”

The wizard called Thomas smiled faintly. He was wearing a blue robe.

“I came early to divide the groups.”

“I see.”

Randall said,

“Let’s finish quickly.”

His tone was very businesslike. Thomas nodded and replied,

“Let’s do that.”