Chapter 99: The Office of Andromas

The spell for Arcane Wisdom wasn’t difficult, and with Jace’s sensitivity to spells, he memorized it after hearing it only once.

“Mistis, Euphoria, Hininger.” After Marin read it, Jace could even make out the connection between the spell and the contemporary common language, which presumably meant for the arcane arts to grant eyes that saw deeper things.

But the really difficult part of this spell is casting it on yourself.

It was the first time Jace had ever learned a spell that was released on himself, his previous spells were either directly aimed at the person releasing a wave of shadow energy to destroy their sanity to terrorize them, or gathering a miniature ball of energy from his fingers, self-casting was the first time he had ever attempted it.

In the process, he also understood Marin’s intention; it was also safer and more skillful to learn a simpler spell for self-casting first, and then to summon other, more complex forms of arcane magic to attach to himself later.

After Marin performed a demonstration, Jace then began to try to follow his gestures and began to cast his own spells.

Unsurprisingly, it failed miserably the first time, and he aggregated a cloud of unnamable arcane energy coalescing in the air into a number of disorganized symbols subsequently dispersing, nearly burning his hair.

“Connecting the magical web to itself, imbuing itself with arcane energy from the bloodline, and having to mold that arcane energy to the spell is much more subtle than allowing it to cause damage.” Marin says, “So, this is an entirely different experience than simply coalescing arcane brightenings, Mr. Sesso. Don’t be in a hurry, this is something you can practice on your own at home. I need to make a trip to the university library in a little while, and I need to eat something now, I haven’t even taken a bite of the bread I bought.”

Despite the promise on his lips, Jace was a little frustrated.

Obviously, learning and mastering the Light spell didn’t mean he was any more talented in other arcane magic, and it was obvious from Marin’s demeanor that he wasn’t doing any better than any of Marin’s other students.

After saying goodbye to Marin, Jace ascended to the top of the Sorcerer’s Sanctum and went to Master Andromas to pick a class, as Marin had told him to do.

Despite hearing many mentions of the leader of the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary, High Mage Leader Andromas, he had never met the man in person.

Walking to the very top of the Wizard’s Sanctum, turn left from the path to the library, past the busy office area, and then past a circular, ascending, red-carpeted corridor filled with the great mages of the Wizard’s Sanctum through the ages.

Here, Jace saw a portrait of Nerath Elam, the poor father who had just been mistakenly killed by Madivan in his stupor, as Marin had mentioned.

It was a rather handsome man, with a scholarly style octogenarian beard on his mouth, his long hair tied into several braids resting on his chest, and his stoic, lean face staring straight in front of him, looking less like a stubborn, conservative mage and more like a prince of some country.

In the portrait he was probably just under forty years old, and had he been younger, he might have been even more dashing.

It is no wonder that Egwene, the guardian of 800 years, finally chose this man to be her “twilight” companion and was willing to give birth to his offspring.

At the end of the hallway was a dark red door, so old that it felt like it might be about as old as Egwene.

The door was hidden and Jace pushed his way in, behind it was a rather large polygonal office, there were quite a few other people working here and there, others talking quietly about something, and above their heads there was a huge window on each wall, this was the spire of the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary.

Jace had never been here before in the game, so he was somewhat drawn to the novelty of the hall, when a middle-aged man asked, “Can I help you, Apprentice?”

“I am a student of Master Marin and have come to see Master Andromas.” Jace said.

“I’m Andromas, and if I’m not mistaken, you’re Jace Sesso, right?”

Jace looked at the speaker, a very fit man, his sturdy build evident even in his heavy purple robes and golden shawl.

Even the workout was visible on his face, with visible muscles visible on his neck.

Somewhat incongruous with his gladiator-like physique, he was calm and collected, looking at people with a somewhat indifferent look, like an outsider watching the place from the sidelines, so much so that Jace felt in a trance as if he hadn’t been the one who had said that to himself just now. He was a bit younger than Marin, but his status was obviously much higher than Marin’s, and One obviously had time to work on his physical strength in addition to studying magic, which was perhaps the magical talent that the Sorcerer’s Holy Destruction had been emphasizing before.

I wonder how many people like Andromas there will be in Dalaran.

“I am indeed Jace Sesso.” Jace bowed slightly and said, “It was Master Marin who told me to come here to take a class.”

“You came quickly.” Andromas said, “But you’re picking your classes now, and you probably won’t be able to officially start them until after Winterfell, did Master Marin tell you about this?”

“Said so.” Jess replied.

“Come over to my desk.”

Andromas led Jace over to a corner and rummaged through the desk.

Jace looked behind him at the books on those bookcases, and could even feel the arcane energy overflowing from them, all of them were undoubtedly related to magic, rather than the encyclopedic museum tomes and novels that littered Marin’s study, the difference being like that between the library of a wizard’s sanctuary and the library of a university.

“Each apprentice is to pick a school of specialization, a spell language, and a secondary course.”

As Andromas spoke, he set a few pamphlets on the table and asked, “Have you ever learned anything related to the Arcane School?”

“Yes.” Jace said, “Summoning, Divination, Illusion, Enhancement, Transformation, Shaping, Protection, Necromancy.”

“I see you’ve read the set of books by Master Anslem Ruinvovil.” Andromas said, “For reasons that are well known, the Necromancy school is not taught at our academy, so you will have to pick one of the other schools.”

He smiled and continued, “The canons of every school in the Wizard’s Sanctuary are here now, and I assume that since you are willing to make it your wish to the King to enter here, you probably know the Academy much more in depth than most new apprentices, don’t you? I don’t need to believe in introductions either. Sign your name on the roster at the end of the schoolbook, and you’re officially a new student of that school.”

Jace nodded, then placed his hand on the school of protection’s academy.

“The School of Protection.” Andromas said, “Unfortunately, the most accomplished mages of the School of Protection are in Lordaeron and Dalaran, but it would be good to get a foundation in the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary. Next choose a spell language, you can choose one of Elvish, Dragon or Giant Rune, and after you pass the graduation exam you can choose another, I think in your case it’s up to a year, so there’s no need to get too hung up on it.”

Jace had just gotten the booklet of language choices and saw that it actually had a general language program on it.

“Common language?”

“Ah, that’s a course for people of the Alliance’s inner and outer races.” Andromas said, “You probably wouldn’t expect some dwarves or gnomes to be willing to come to the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary to learn magic, would you? But there are indeed such cases.”

“Understood.” Jace remembered Marin saying that the Elvish language program in Stormwind was a mess, to say the least, and had basically become an improvised training ground for the royal family’s diplomats.

“Dragon language, I’ll take dragon language.”

“Your ambition is High Spells?” Andromas nodded slightly appreciatively, “Dragonese is a very difficult language, be prepared to attack it.”

“Master, are any of the protective magic spells dragon languages?” Jace asked.

Andromas remembers for a moment and says, “There are many, many of the protection spells are very old and basic, naturally coming from the ancient dragon language, legend has it that dragons created many protection spells to protect their precious treasures, such as the Cold Protection spell, the Mage Armor spell, the Ice Armor spell, etc.”

Hearing Mage Armor, Jace made up his mind.

“So, next up are the extra courses.” Andromas said, “You can choose one from the list below.”

Jace pulled down a list of classes that contained a long list of cultural classes, history, humanities, geography, and so on, and of course schools like Inscription, Alchemy, and Herbology that appeared in the game, and as for Enchanting, it would have been a class that branched off in the Enhancement school.

Inscription and alchemy are feared to be one of the two important economic sources of the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary, especially inscription …… magic scrolls, writing engravings, magic paper and ink manufacturing, and so on are all included.

Alchemy he had found a teacher, Ursula Delin, not sure what the level was, but it still sounded pretty bluff. Might as well just enroll in Inscription, I don’t know if there’s any chance of whoring out pen and ink to get into the Inscription course, or learn some simple way of being able to create ink with magic, that would save some money.

Signing under the school books for Inscription, Andromas puts them away and says, “Be sure to pick up your course schedule from Master Marin after Winterfest and before January 18th of next year. Until then, you can take some pre-courses with Master Marin on the School of Protection. Master Marin is one of our best teachers here in the School of Protection, so follow him for two months of serious study, and you might already be ahead of many apprentices by then.”

After putting the schoolbook in order, Andromas smiled as he surveyed Jace’s outfit and said, “By the way, Jace Sesso, is it time for you to get a new outfit once you enter the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary?”

“I’m used to it, Master.” Jace rubbed his head in embarrassment, “Could it be that being out here in this getup would be a disgrace to the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary?”

Andromas chuckled, “It won’t, after all, no one else will even think you’re from the Sorcerer’s Temple.”

Jace ahs for a moment and asks, “So where should I go to get a suit that fits a mage?”

Andromas glanced around and said, “Go to Larson’s Readymade Clothing Shop outside the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary, the Larson’s have an agreement with the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary that they will take our mages’ measurements, so remember to pick them up from them.”

Jace was a little short on cash right now, and getting a new set of clothes or something wasn’t his most urgent need at the moment, after all, he had quite a bit of work to do.

So after he came out of the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary, he immediately rushed back home to continue learning Orcish, and began to take the Demonish Common Language Interpretation Paper that the Kid had translated, and translate that Orcish Demonish Bilingual Tome against it.

It was less than a month to November 12, and he had to grab whatever time he could.