Chapter 7 The Difference Between an Apprentice and an Assistant

That morning, Jace came into the mage area, having rested for a few days, he thought he was ready to see people.

There were still some bruises on his face and he still walked a little unnaturally, but at least he had removed the bandage from his arm and was superficially a normal person, the picture of being engaged in life again.

Arriving at the mage area and knocking on Eden Marin’s door, Master Marin was not inside, a young woman in her twenties was inside cleaning her room.

She glanced this way, a slightly English square face with angular features and short dark brown hair slicked back. As soon as Jace saw her, he thought she looked a lot like Marin.

“Hello, you’re Mr. Jace Sesso, aren’t you? Father’s gone to Red Ridge and may not be back for a week, and he mentioned that you might be coming lately, but he didn’t say anything about you being so young ……”

“You are Master Marin’s daughter?”

“Yes, I’m Amy Marin, a trainee mage at the Sorcerer’s Temple. Speaking of which, you ran into the Jackals over at the Western Springs Fortress the other day, or was it during the night, yes?”

“Yes. If it weren’t for Master Marin, I might have been dead.”

Amy Marin said worriedly, ”I didn’t expect the jackals to make a comeback at this time. The orcs also wreaked havoc on their tribes when they invaded this land, and they were the beneficiaries of the orcs being repelled. I didn’t expect that they would turn around and start attacking us, it’s really abominable.”

“Maybe they can’t even get to that level of gratitude or cooperation with their intelligence.” Jess said.

Amy said, “I wish I could treat them as pure beasts, except that jackals have warlocks too. Even if black magic has always been accepting of all who will embrace it, it requires at least some degree of intelligence to understand the spell. Sorry for the digression, but perhaps I was a bit backed up by my experience the other day and worried that my father might be hurt. He asked me to help you familiarize yourself with the work when you arrive, so we’ll start here ……”

Watching Amy put down what she was holding and wash her hands from the wooden tub sitting next to her, Jess said, “Actually, I’m here today to discuss treatment.”

Amy wiped her hands and asked, “Don’t you know how mage assistants are treated on this side of the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary? By the way, you’re from the north, right, and your accent sounds like you’re from the Kingdom of Lordaeron.”

Jace let out a “hmmm”, when he first came to this world, he had learned the common language with his memories of Chinese and English, and had gone through a lot of trouble to avoid a strange accent. At the time, he didn’t expect to grow up and be able to tell that he was from Lordaeron.

Amy said, “So let me make it simple and see what you think. 6 silver coins per month, for meals you can enter the Wizard’s Sanctuary and go to the dining hall with the mages. For housing, there are free dormitories in the mage area specifically for apprentices and assistants to have a place to stay, they were always full, but because of the expedition, some of the apprentices have traveled with their mentors to the Watchtower, so there might be room available, I’ll keep an eye out for you. You’ll be able to live in it next month at the earliest.”

“Thank you, it’s a real pain in the ass.”

“No, instead I want to thank you for helping my father.”

“Is the food free too?”

“It’s free, but it can be very monotonous with only a few snacks and bread, if you want something better you can go out to the tavern. It’s best not to go to the Slaughtered Lamb, I don’t recommend it, the atmosphere is always strange.”

Listening to Amy’s description, it had been pretty much what Jace had expected, it was just one more month in a rented house, paying an extra month’s rent was something he could live with, and let’s not forget that the next thing he knew he could always live in a free dormitory.

He had expected the monthly pay to be a bit higher though, especially considering it was working in the mage district, but 6 silver was already better than a lot of places in the city as well.

Most importantly, he was given a chance to become a mage.

“Next up is work.” Amy lifted the mop and said, “Every morning before my father gets here, which is about this time, it’s time to clean my father’s study. That includes mopping the floor and removing the dust. After the ogres have been here, it’s a lot dustier than when I was a kid. The books, if you don’t usually have to organize them, my father will put them away himself, much easier than if I had to organize the library …….”

Tidying up the study and cleaning up the dust were certainly no problem for Jace, who had been the health committee for several years in middle school.

“My father will explain the specifics to you in detail when he returns, so you can start by cleaning up the place today.” After saying that, she wiped the sweat from her forehead, let out a sigh of relief, and said, “Speaking of which, I finally have someone to do me a favor, ever since my father sent that apprentice of his to Red Ridge Mountain, all these jobs have been thrown to me yet.”

“Those are no problem, ma’am.” Jace couldn’t help but ask, “I actually wanted to ask when I can become an apprentice?”

“Apprentice?” Amy froze for a moment, then asked, “You mean, a mage apprentice at the Wizard’s Temple, to become my father’s apprentice?”

“Right.”

“An assistant and an apprentice are not the same thing ……Assistants just help mages with their daily tasks, an apprentice has to learn magic.”

Listening to Amy with a sense of entitlement, Jace felt like he was struck by lightning. How could one become a mage’s assistant and not become an apprentice, what kind of reasoning was this?

So that’s what it was, so that’s why he was willing to admit himself, Marin just wanted a help with manual labor, not looking for any apprentices at all.

So why all the god-awful questions? Jace had the feeling of being cheated out of his feelings, but it was weird enough to feel that way about an old man.

Looking at the boy as if he was surprised, Amy asked, “How old are you?”

“Seventeen, soon to be eighteen.”

Amy shook her head and said, “Becoming a magical apprentice is either trained at a very young age, and you have to enroll in school at around 11 or 12 years old. If you don’t have extreme talent when you reach your age, you might not be able to train to become a qualified mage anymore. I followed my father’s instructions and entered the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary to study at the age of 12. By now I’m already 26 years old and still haven’t become a full-fledged mage, so my father will probably be disappointed if I don’t get my promotion by the time I’m 30 years old.”

She sighed and continued, “But there are quite a few apprentice mages in their thirties in the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary, and the vast majority of them became apprentices when they were less than fifteen.”

“What if.” Jace said, “I mean what if, I have a strong talent? The extra strong kind.”

Amy asks, “Have you never tried to cast a spell before? Master Madivan was already proficient in multiple factions of magic by the time he was 10 years old ……”

The hell with hanging out, huh?

Is it a big deal to have the King of Demons, the Dark Titan Sargeras, possessing you?

Having the 800-year-old Guardian of Tirisfal as your own mom is a big deal?

Jace clenched his fists, feeling the pain of not having a golden finger, of being hung up and beaten by the brainless bloodline geniuses of this realm.

He took a deep breath, eased his emotions, and said, “There is certainly no way that a …… like me can be compared to the most powerful mage mankind has ever seen. But I also want to try, is there any way to test my talent?”

“Of course there is.” Amy said, “The foundation of the foundation of all arcane abilities, establishing a connection with the magical web.”

With that, she pulled a book on arcane runes from the shelf and flipped to a page with one of the runes, which Jace recognized as an arcane rune.

Amy than drew the rune skillfully on another blank paper scroll, eyeing the completion of a rather complex new rune.

Now Jace had a little bit of a heart attack, he felt as if he wouldn’t be able to practice this skillfully for ten years.

While the female mage was drawing, Jace even glanced at the top of her head to see if she had secretly buffed herself with Arcane Wisdom or something like that, or else this trainee mage was too far off the mark.

After the drawing, Amy handed the stretched out roll away to Jace and said, “Please let it shine.”

“What?” Jace asked, looking at the rune scroll in his hand, “There’s no way to instruct?”

Amy said, “A gifted child will comprehend the ability to resonate with the magical web as they grow up and practice this resonance habitually, like biting their nails, it’s not a pain but an addiction …… so it’s very hard for a child to deliberately refrain, the High Elves could be considered the extreme form of this habit. If you don’t know what to do with it, it might mean that you really aren’t cut out to be a mage.”

“Yes?”

A bit annoyed, Jace grabbed the scroll and tried to close his eyes to feel the presence of the so-called “magic web”.

The Magic Web, which can be understood as the bloodline of Azeroth.

Azeroth is actually an unborn infant titan, and instead of blood, the titan’s veins flow with extremely pure arcane energy.

The Well of Eternity, guarded by the ancient elves, is the wound accidentally inflicted by Amanthar, leader of the Titans, commander of the Pantheon, and father of the gods, in ancient times, in an attempt to remove the evil aberrations parasitizing Azeroth.

It could be said that every living being born on Azeroth was affected by the Magic Web to varying degrees, and these living beings who were able to utilize the Magic Web would, in turn, affect the Magic Web and even Azeroth itself.

Jace was in no way convinced that he couldn’t resonate with the magic web.

Maybe the golden finger is here – awaken the supreme magical gift.

He concentrated, even ignoring the lower abdomen that ached from too much concentration, where Hogg’s kick had hit.

Yet after half a day of concentration, the scroll did not change in the slightest.

It’s not your rune drawing that’s wrong, is it, Trainee Mage?

He wanted to ask it outright, but didn’t have the heart to do so.

Amy took the scroll and glanced at the rune on it, and that arcane rune immediately emerged with a slightly whitish magical light, covering the walls of the entire room, and all the objects, with a faint purple aura.

“That’s it.” Amy raised her eyebrows and said, “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Jess Sesso.”

Jace felt a buzz in his head, he didn’t want to believe that it had turned out this way.

What kind of crossing is this?

Not only did he have no talent, but he was even no better than an unusual apprentice?

But the disgruntlement was only a flicker, and over the past decade or so he’d gotten used to such disappointments.

He’d actually done a similar arcane quiz when he was a kid, not as reliable as this one, but it was more or less indicative of what was going on, he just inwardly hoped that this time would be a bit of a change.

Though at the end of the day, it really doesn’t change much.

He realized that the path of the mage, most likely, was not going to work.

“Thank you, Ms. Amy.” Jess said, “Actually, well, I don’t necessarily have to study magic if I want to become an apprentice, I just want to expand my horizons and learn something I don’t know much about.”

Amy narrowed her eyes and smiled, “I’m glad to hear you say that, the library is open to all who work in the mage district, so stop by this afternoon and I’ll give you the badge that will identify you, and with it you’ll be able to come and go freely in and out of the Wizard’s Sanctuary.”

“Great, that’s exactly what I was expecting.”

As Jace spoke, an idea had come to his mind that he had to make another trip to the slaughtered lamb …… No, more than one trip.

He would go again and again, not just to earn money, but for something else more important.

Black magic is not arcane, and as Amy says, “Black magic is willing to accept all who accept it.”