Chapter 8

Chapter 8: There Is a Power Called Pay-to-Win

On a new day, Theresia sat at her workstation in the library as usual, reading a book.

Aside from occasionally helping apprentices find the materials they needed among the vast, intricately classified rows of bookshelves, Theresia could proudly declare that she was able to spend an entire day here staring into space—and in fact, after obtaining this job, she truly had invested a great deal of time into the matter of staring into space.

However, aside from reading today, Theresia was indeed racking her brains over what she should do about the combat portion of her final exam.

The Magic History major did not have specialized courses that taught offensive spells or defensive spells, so if students of the Magic History major wanted to learn additional combat techniques, they had to attend elective courses and public lectures. But although Theresia was capable in all four attributes, none of her elemental affinities were high enough to allow her to easily release high-powered attacks.

For example, some white mages from the School of Theology could cause no small amount of destruction simply by smashing their opponents with light-attribute aether. Those who specialized in one particular elemental spell system could even play all kinds of complex tricks with basic spells and give them astonishing destructive power.

In other words, as a mage, Theresia’s attainments in magic could not really be called strong.

So over the past few days, she had been searching the library for attack spells suited to her. “The Possibility of Multi-Element Mixed Magic,” “The Assistance of Fringe Magic in Mage Combat,” “On the Theoretical Limits Achievable with Low Elemental Affinity”—there were quite a lot of related topics and specialized books. Among them were even a considerable number of papers written by super experts who were household names in magic history: Mage Nicholas, who opposed the Church; Mage Hans Lipper, one of the founders of arcane technology; and even Mage Johannes, the “Legislator of the Sky.”

These papers had broadened Theresia’s horizons considerably and allowed her to discover many possibilities. But without exception, all these people had merely proposed spell models that were theoretically valid. At the end, they would not forget to add something along the lines of “because we are all too strong, we do not know whether you weaklings can accomplish this,” displaying their rigor.

The thinking of these mages was entirely consistent: if one’s elemental affinity was not high, then one could only begin from the precision of the spell structure.

Before magic history entered the modern era, and before mages adopted fringe spells on a large scale to help themselves construct spells or magic arrays, high-level mages often required quite a few mage apprentices to help them draw super-large magic arrays. This also gave many mages the chance, during their apprentice stage, to grasp those abstruse and mystical cutting-edge spells. While these apprentices were drawing magic arrays, many high-level mages discovered something: apprentices with lower elemental affinity often constructed more stable portions of the magic array.

Most of the papers Theresia had read also began from this point. Using the advantage of precision in drawing magic arrays as their foundation, they described several possibilities.

The method mentioned the most was fringe magic.

Over the past few decades, fringe magic had already developed into the independent specialized subject of “arcane technology.” Technicians fused magic with machinery, and some of the powerful devices they created were enough to make even mages who had stepped into the highest realm of magic feel some apprehension. Most of these arcane devices also required specialists to operate them. The lower one’s elemental affinity was, the longer one could remain inside a control cabin filled with magic power. The core operation of large arcane devices involved a great number of magic arrays, with vast quantities of elements concentrated in one place. For people with high elemental affinity, it was simply a hell of agony.

Even though Theresia had no interest whatsoever in arcane technology, after being bombarded by papers for several consecutive days, she still had no choice but to admit that this thing truly did have its own powerful aspects.

Suddenly, someone walked over and interrupted her thoughts. “What are you reading?”

Theresia raised her head. Pulcheria was knocking on the desk outside her workstation. Seeing that she looked slightly out of breath, Theresia could guess that the other girl had only just come in.

“Mage Johannes’s The Mystery of Aether.” Theresia displayed the book cover. “I’m reading the section where he discusses his views and guidance regarding the mage apprentices under him.”

Pulcheria seemed to recognize the name. “Oh... that astrologer? I remember you’re a History major. Why are you reading this sort of book?”

Theresia hesitated for a while, but in the end, she honestly explained the predicament she was facing.

“In other words, you’re currently worrying about the combat portion of the final exam?” That clearly surprised Pulcheria. “I thought your talent was very high.”

“If that were the case, I wouldn’t have gone to study magic history.”

“That’s true.” Pulcheria was stumped for a moment as well. “Then do you have any plan right now? Are you really going to place your hopes on those unreliable fringe magic arts?”

“But those arcane devices aren’t something I can afford. If I rent them... I’d definitely be too afraid of damaging them to use them.” When Theresia thought of the few coins in her pocket, which were not even enough to cover the loose change on an arcane device, she could not help lamenting the coldness of the world.

“You’re short on money?”

“Uh...” Being asked so bluntly, Theresia could not help feeling embarrassed. “Yes... Even if I rent them, I can’t afford those devices...”

But Pulcheria’s face clearly showed no sign of teasing her. Instead, she pressed further, “Can those devices help you solve your lack of combat power?”

“If this year’s mage exam is still the traditional format of fighting against a lecturer, then there probably won’t be any problem. After all, there was even an incident a few years ago where an arcane device injured a lecturer.” After thinking for a moment, Theresia answered, “That incident is recorded in the school history.”

“Oh, then that’s easy. It’s just money.” Pulcheria waved her hand. “Easy enough. Tell me what arcane device you need, and I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.”

Theresia’s eyes widened in shock. Only after a long while did she manage to recover her ability to speak with difficulty. “Uh... Those arcane devices are actually quite expensive...”

“Quite expensive? How much is that?”

Theresia stated the figure that made her own heart tremble with fear.

She had originally thought Pulcheria would retreat in the face of difficulty. But Pulcheria did not. Instead, she even breathed a faint sigh of relief. “Only that much? I thought it was some high-level arcane device. At that price, it should just be relatively low-level arcane armor, right? I’ll just give you one.”

Suppressing the excitement in her heart, Theresia asked cautiously, “Then... What is the price?”

“The price? Good question.” Pulcheria thought to herself that if you had not asked, I would not have wanted anything. But judging from Theresia’s expression, if Pulcheria did not casually ask for something in return, the other girl would definitely feel rather uncomfortable. In her father’s words: one must give the people dignity.

And so she said, “Then be my servant for a few days.”