Mage Manual-Chapter 275 - 238 Academic School vs. Adventure Faction
Chapter 275: Chapter 238: Academic School vs. Adventure Faction
Chapter 275: Chapter 238: Academic School vs. Adventure Faction
“Why?” asked Ash, somewhat surprised. “Isn’t your mentor a Three-winged Holy Sanctuary Mage? How could she not know about the Time Continent?”
“There are two reasons for this.”
Sonia held up her index finger. “First, compared to the data in the Sea of Knowledge, books introducing the Time Continent only make up one tenth. Not only are there far fewer Two-winged Mages than One-winged Mages, but more importantly, compared to the Void Realm, mages place more emphasis on advancing their faction realm. They also prefer to create silver tomes and golden secret texts about how to elevate their faction realms.”
“For example, in the library, there are thirty rows of shelves filled with books on the Sword Skill, covering different areas such as summoning Technique Spirits, combat, production, and more. By contrast, there are only two rows of books describing the Sea of Knowledge, and even fewer books on the Time Continent—just a few dozen.”
“Mages like us who reap rewards in the Void Realm every night are just too few, rare enough to be considered an exception. For common mages, the Void Realm is merely a place for absorbing Magic Power and cultivating combat skills. They don’t expect any extra gains in the Void Realm but hope to acquire more Technique Spirits through advancing their faction realm and using the trading platforms, thereby constructing a Technique Spirit system that suits themselves.”
“Once their faction realm is promoted to a higher level, they will ascend to a higher layer of the Void Realm and then repeat the process. If it weren’t for the fact that every layer of the Void Realm forces mages to explore and move around, I’m sure many would be content to stay in one place, peacefully absorbing Magic Power every night.”
“Second,” Sonia held up her middle finger, “my mentor is a genius. She left the Time Continent and reached the Distant Realm in just four years. She has been at the academy for four years and still occasionally forgets where her office is, let alone the Time Continent.”
Ash sighed, understanding that this was the rift between the Academic School mages and those of the adventure faction.
It’s like people who won’t rebel as long as they’re well-fed, or the fact that more people save in fixed deposits than speculate on funds; mages naturally vote with their feet, finding their own comfort zones.
It’s quite understandable, really. Rather than pinning their hopes on the unpredictable Void Realm, mages would rather invest in themselves. At least what they can control. For Academic School mages, although relentlessly advancing their faction realm requires effort and talent, the path to advancement is stable. And as long as they can improve their faction realm, there’s no bottleneck, after all, both fools and geniuses absorb Magic Power at the same efficiency in the Void Realm.
In contrast, even if one does well in the Void Realm, without a breakthrough in their faction realm, they’ll still be marking time.
If the Void Realm is the fulcrum and the faction realm is the lever, then the Academic School is constantly reinforcing and lengthening their lever to pry more power from the Void Realm; while Ash and other adventurers seek a more appropriate and effortless fulcrum, prying here and there, with an ineffable technique.
Whether on the individual, organizational, or societal level, the Academic School has a comprehensive advantage over the adventure faction. The only drawback to the prosperity of the Academic School is that by overly emphasizing the importance of the faction realm, the potential value of the Void Realm may be overlooked.
After all, they are so busy with advancing their faction realm that they have no time to unearth the secrets of the Void Realm, let alone organize relevant materials.
Of course, this doesn’t mean the two schools are incompatible; Sword Maidens like Diya are currently balancing both Academic and Adventure School approaches, advancing at a rapid pace. But for a mage civilization in the throes of development, they can only focus on the knowledge system of the Academic School, unable to illuminate the tech tree of the adventure faction.
It seems the academy on Diya’s side can’t be counted on; they’ll have to rely on themselves to uncover the treasures of the Time Continent.
“Speaking of which, I just remembered…”
“Do you have another fairy tale to tell, more thrilling than an adult’s story?”
“No.” Diya shook her head, sharing her discovery at the lumber yard—that logically, if the non-depleting wood continued to accumulate, it would fill the entire nest, but the actual amount of wood in the yard wasn’t much.
Ash pondered and said, “Thinking back, if all the ordinary materials in the several resource points we searched before were continuously stacking up, they should have been overloaded by now…”
“Is it possible that the overloaded resource points have been blocked, so we can’t find them, and we only discover the ones that haven’t overflowed yet?” Sonia pointed out a blind spot.
“The survivorship bias does make sense, but there’s another possibility.”
Ash added, “It’s that seemingly useless ordinary materials might be regularly taken away.”
Sonia shook her head. “I haven’t heard of any other mages, aside from you, who can utilize ordinary materials.”
“That means, those who can utilize those ordinary materials might not necessarily be mages…”
In the midst of speaking, Ash already opened the Void Realm Map, ready to drive in search of the next resource point. But just then, he noticed an unidentified red dot pop up at the edge of the map.
“Using numbers to your advantage is a manifestation of ‘Wisdom’ (Unknown Entity)”
Unknown Entities imply those that are not knowledge-based creatures, and aside from such entities in the Time Continent, the only ones moving around could be mage projections!
“It seems like there’s a mage projection taking a walk ahead.”
“Crush him!” “Run him over!” The Sword Maiden and the Witch issued highly dangerous commands.
Ash complied smoothly, driving straight at them. Their favorite enemies now were the wandering Mage projections because their sports car, nicknamed the “Evil Blade,” could just run them over, instantly killing them. They didn’t need to fight to reap the rewards of the Technique Spirits and Mage’s Handbooks from their victims. It was less like mooching and more like robbery.
As they closed in, Ash saw more details from the Void Realm Map.
Then he slammed on the brakes.
“Why did you stop?”
Ash rubbed his eyes, making sure he hadn’t misread the map’s indications, “Behind the Mage projections, there’s a huge swarm of snake-scorpion dragons…as well as some thousand-feather Bird Dragons! They seem to be heading our way!”
“Everyone else also considers this to be true (some·thousand-feather Bird Dragons).”
“The statement below is correct (a swarm·of snake-scorpion dragons).”
“Outnumbering the enemy is the embodiment of Wisdom (an unknown entity).”
Mage projections moving together with herd creatures?
Sonia thought of a horrifying possibility, “Quick, hide, don’t block their path!”
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Ash quickly drove the car to a side area and asked, “Why would Mage projections be mixed with Knowledge creatures? What kind of bundle deal is this?”
Diya said, “Or maybe it’s just a coincidence that they’re taking the same route?”
“No!” Sonia shook her head firmly, “It’s not like that… they are one entity!”
As they spoke, swift predators rolled through the land like bulldozers, the groan of grass bending, the low growl of trees bowing, all merged into a catastrophic symphony of nature.
Even with the shielding of the reverse Golden Rain, Ash and the others could still clearly hear an army made up of Knowledge creatures recklessly marching by their side.
The Mages’ bodies were nearly stiff, as though they were too scared that any movement might disturb the passing monsters.
Ash’s fingers hovered over the directional keys, his eyes glued to the points on the map, ready to flee at any moment.
They all silently prayed that this unknown army would proceed with their own plans in another location, hoping desperately not to be noticed by these pitiful little wild creatures.
Even though Ash and his team could clear three resource points, when facing hordes of monsters they still needed to seize the advantageous terrain or even create narrow terrain themselves, reducing the numerical advantage of herd creatures, often resulting in the three of them ganging up on two monsters in a localized area.
In other words, they didn’t actually have the ability to engage in group combat.
This was not a den or cave, the Mages couldn’t find any favorable terrain here; if this Void Realm army attacked them, all they could hope for was that their four wheels could outrun the flying creatures.
Only when the wails of the trees gradually faded away did they finally breathe a sigh of relief. Although one wouldn’t sweat in the Void Realm, each of them felt a chilling feeling of evaporated fear all over their bodies.
“What was that?” Ash asked.
“This is my first time seeing it too,” Diya muttered. “Thankfully it is the first time, or little Red would have been doomed.”
Red Death Cultist: “I knew that only a battle with certain death could bring about my complete appearance.”
“This must be the second most dangerous entity listed on the ‘Time Continent Danger Rankings’.”
Sonia whispered, her voice tense, “They are the reapers of Life, Wanderers—the Nightmare no Mage wants to encounter, the unreserved malice of the Void Realm towards outsiders—”
“The Heroic Soul Army.”
