Chapter 168.

“In a moment you’ll be able to see a great man, Jace Sesso.” Dushan said as he led Jace towards the door, “The host of the meeting will surely surprise you, anyone who has studied orc culture and learned the orc language should have heard of his name.”

“Who?”

Jace thought to himself why haven’t I heard that before.

“It wouldn’t be a surprise to say it.” Dushan said.

But if you’re talking about an archmage who studies orc culture and learns the orc language, there’s probably not much else to choose from.

It couldn’t be the Lord of Dalaran, Archmage Antonidas himself, presiding over this meeting, could it?

Antonidas had always taken a similar stance to Terrenus II when it came to dealing with orcs, and he had been known to argue publicly with Kelthas Sunseeker over the matter on several occasions, with some of them sometimes coming close to a brawl.

But fortunately for Kael’thas, despite his horrendous mana, stubbornness, and age over two dry years, he holds Dalaran as dear to him as Antonidas himself as ruler.

Therefore, the quarrels within the confines of Kenrito’s Council of Six never rose to a point of much seriousness, and the prince of Silvermoon City instead tended to be the one who actively chose to concede after venting his emotions. Entering the doorway corridor of the meeting hall, the rain falling outside made it rather dim inside.

Jace saw language researchers who came to all parts of the world, and some of them weren’t even mages.

Most conspicuous were a pair of men and women dressed in long dark gray coats, red and dark brown scarves, and carrying rimmed hats in their hands, a very typical Gilnean dress.

Quite a few people were already talking here, as if they had known each other for a long time.

There was only one person in here that Jace recognized besides Dushan, and that was the red-haired elf across the room who was chatting in a low voice with the female mage beside him, the elven mage that Kefal had mentioned, Aethas Sunbreaker.

After the Celestial Plague invasion of Quel’thalas and the destruction of the Well of the Sun, most of the High Elves changed their name to Sindorei at the call of Kael’thas and made vengeance their new mission.

They even used the magical energy crystals that the Prince had sought in the Outlands as a new source of mana for this goal, replacing the malfunctioning Well of the Sun as the support of the race.

The eyes of the elf who called himself Sindorei had since been colored an evil green, and the already paranoid and arrogant group quickly became even more hysterically extreme and insane than they had been in the past.

The clan’s thirst for evil energy sparked concern among many of their people, and they left Quel’thalas for Dalaran to participate in the rebuilding of the enchanted city alongside the displaced survivors, who still call themselves Quel’dorei and have created a new organization that maintains its independence from Quel’thalas, the Silver Covenant.

At that time Aethas Sunseeker, though sworn to Sindorei and recognizing the rule of Kael’thas, was given a continuation of his former status as Quel’thalas’ ambassador to Dalaran, as well as the respect of the Silver Pact.

As the Silver Covenant chose to be on the same side as Dalaran, it also naturally moved closer to the Alliance and against Sindorei, who would later join the Horde.

Against this backdrop, Aethas then naturally became the coordinator between the two splintered communities, and indeed the entire Alliance and Horde, in the city of Dalaran.

He was particularly unique then, and much more conspicuous than at this point in Dalaran, in an awkward ambassadorial role under Kael’thas.

As he looked at the elves, two copper-bearded dwarves clutching several large tomes walked in, and it took Jace a moment to realize that each of them was carrying one or two thick stacks of paper stapled together, or just a tome.

Judging by the books held in the hands of a Stormgardian near by, these were the chronicles of various nations’ studies of the orcish language.

Speaking of which, what level of orcish are these people?

Would it be embarrassing for Jace to go in there when he’d only been learning orcish for a month or two full time and hadn’t practiced much in the time he’d been traveling lately?

But the fact that he was the only two who came to the Stormwind Kingdom meant that Dushan felt that there was no second person in the entire kingdom who could have accomplished this better besides him, and at least Jace was a little better than the one who was supposed to be here in history, right?

At that moment, the door that had been closed tightly was opened, and inside stepped a young mage dressed in Dalaran robes, with a ring on his hand that was clearly the insignia of a full-fledged mage.

He bowed slightly and said, “You’ve all traveled a long way to work hard, please come in.”

Jace followed the other mages and left his hat and staff outside the door, entering the hall with the scholars and was greeted by the smell of stale wood.

The structure of the hall is somewhat like the hall of the U.S. Congress, only on a much smaller scale. The podium in the center is located at the lowest point, and the audience is located in slightly higher seats around it.

If that podium was used to display a flag it might be more appropriate, but if it was used to display something as small as a letter, it would probably require everyone to run to the front of the room to gather around, after all, it’s not like there’s anything like a projector right now.

The venue quickly became buzzing with activity as Dushan and Jess took a seat near the edge of the room.

In the midst of the hubbub, a tall mage trotted up quickly from the bottom of the steps next to the podium and took three steps to the center.

As he got into place, the sounds of conversation around him slowly ceased.

The mage was wearing Kenrito’s vestments, and his purple shawl looked extremely flashy, not only was he a member of Kenrito, but he must have been of a high status, this would be the surprise Dushan was talking about, Jace really didn’t recognize him.

His hair has gone gray, and he may be slightly older than Marin, but has much more energy and looks more spry.

This wasn’t Antonidas, he was much younger, but the big difference was that his face was ticked off rather cleanly, so his real age was probably much older than it looked, after all, Jace was used to seeing bearded mages.

Age often meant authority in the world of magical jurisprudence, especially among elven mages who were hundreds or thousands of years old, and many of the older mages preferred to rely on their beards to overpower them in the air.

For example, Antonidas might be around eighty years old, but facing Prince Kelsas, who was over two thousand years old but only looked like the human concept of thirty-something years old, without that long white beard to weigh him down, just looking at it would make him feel rather uninspired.

Even Dushan, who was next to him, had a mouthful of stubble.

A clean shave like the one at hand could be considered a maverick.

The mage tilted his head and looked at the thirty to forty attendees present and said in a loud voice, “I’m terribly sorry, all of you scholars and mages who have come here, I’ve been delayed for a moment due to a small problem, the meeting will begin now.”

“I am Klsugard, I am presiding this time, some of you may or may not have heard of me, so I will briefly introduce myself. I am one of the members of the Council of Six of Kenrito, an Archmage, and a professor at the Academy, but in terms of learning the Orcish language, I can only be regarded as a beginner, a true student, and all of you here can be my teachers. So in the next time, I hope that everyone can put aside the difference in status and rank and focus on knowledge ……”

Jace couldn’t hear much of the string of words that followed anymore, the host’s name constantly circling around in his head.