Murder, entrance examination.
These two seemingly unrelated terms put together made Richard feel that this world was truly wondrous.
"Do I need to murder someone to pass an entrance examination? On which page did you see that?"
Richard suspected this to be a prank; what kind of academy would want a bunch of murderers as students?
Ali, sobbing, handed the enrolment rules to Richard. Just then, the magic light in the room happened to turn on, and Richard, who had already learned the Wizard Language, opened the dog-eared page of Ali's book in the light.
The page read as follows:
Before entering the Wizard Academy, prospective Wizard Apprentices must undergo an entrance examination called the Life and Death Race, the details of which are as follows:
At the start of the exam, each prospective Wizard Apprentice will receive a crystal ball and seven nutritional potions that can substitute for a day's food. The Wizard Apprentices must reach a designated location set by the academy within fourteen days, carrying at least two crystal balls.
Those who do not have the required number of crystal balls, or fail to arrive on time within fourteen days, will lose their qualification to enter.
Note: The academy does not provide return services. If one loses the qualification to enroll, the apprentice must return to their place of origin on their own.
Having read that, Richard tossed the enrolment rules back to Ali, climbed onto his bed, and pulled out his own copy of the rules, turning to the same page.
The content was exactly the same.
"This is going to be somewhat troublesome."
Richard closed the rules. He didn't know why the academy did this, going through great lengths to bring them, these apprentices, to the academy just to filter out half of them through an entrance examination.
But he was clear about one thing, that concern was pointless now; he was already on the airship.
So now he must find a method to pass the entrance examination as soon as possible.
Among these prospective Wizard Apprentices, there were those from the lower peasant class as well as those from the higher-class nobles. The commoners, much like Richard, were malnourished and slender of build. In contrast, those nobles possessed strong bodies, along with martial skills they had learned from a young age.
Every noble is a knight; this saying was widely circulated in the Golden Bird Flower Kingdom and regarded as the foundation of the rule by the nobility.
In the Golden Bird Flower Kingdom, a knight was not just a title, but a symbol of personal strength.
Every knight was a muscular man who could move swiftly even when wearing plate armor and wielding a two-handed greatsword in one hand.
Moreover, in the Golden Bird Flower Kingdom, a noble's title had to be inherited by a knight.
Hence, these noble offspring, even if morally questionable and not too bright, had bodies that, due to their training from an early age, were far superior to the common folk even if they slacked off.
Competing with such a group, Richard and his fellow commoners had virtually no hope of survival.
"It's impossible; the academy wouldn't recruit commoner students only to give them no chance at all to resist."
Richard's mind was racing as he immediately took out the three books issued by the academy.
The Wizard Academy wouldn't specifically spend energy designing a test that a commoner couldn't pass; they must have left something behind that could bridge the gap between the students.
Richard spread the three books out on his bed; one of them was a Wizard Language Dictionary, another was the enrolment rules, and the last one had a more direct name called—
"How to Become a Wizard Apprentice"
[Material: "How to Become a Wizard Apprentice"]
[Extractable Information: Basic Meditation Method, Magic Rebound construction, Basic Magic Rules]
[Extraction Cost: 7 spiritual power]
At one end of the flying airship, the exclusive resting cabin for wizards.
"Aireli, how many of these apprentices do you think will survive this time?"
Taylor looked out at the sea of clouds through the window. The flying altitude of the airship was around two thousand meters; at this height, it seemed as if the sea of clouds was the actual ground.
"Maybe over four thousand. This class cancelled the exchange of crystal balls for magic stones, so it's unlikely anyone will go out of their way to hunt others."
The muscle-bound woman who had before held a door-sized greatsword, now leaning against the cabin wall, responded casually.
"I heard the dean took a big loss in the Plane Wars and needs to replenish wizard numbers as much as possible. The students these last few terms are lucky indeed!"
Taylor's tone carried a hint of exclamation—he too had once been a tough character who fought his way through a crowd of apprentices.
But after a failed promotion, he was doomed never to become a Wizard.
Now he could only work for the Academy to make ends meet.
Looking at the current batch of prospective apprentices, Taylor, who was already over a hundred years old, couldn't help but reminisce about his younger self.
"Speaking of which, why haven't I seen Ma Lou around?" Taylor asked.
"This group has a few quick-witted kids; they pooled together some Magic Stones to have him go over the Meditation Method."
"Oh?" Taylor was somewhat surprised, "Isn't that against the rules?"
Aireli shrugged, "If you don't tell and I don't tell, how would those Big Shots at the Academy know?
Moreover, those kids spent Magic Stones, which conforms to the principle of equivalent exchange. Even if the Academy found out, they would probably praise them for being smart."
But Taylor shook his head.
"The textbooks written by the principal are simple enough. If they can't learn from materials of this level, even if they did get in, they would just be waiting to die.
The path to truth must ultimately be walked by oneself. If they succeed by taking shortcuts now, can they take shortcuts for the rest of their life?"
Richard sat cross-legged on the bed, striving to still his mind.
After refining the knowledge from "How to Become a Wizard Apprentice," Richard had fully mastered the theoretical knowledge of the Meditation Method.
The Meditation Method is the Cultivation Technique of Wizards.
Its main purpose is to help Wizards increase and recover their spiritual power.
"The three key elements to becoming a Wizard Apprentice are linking to the Sea of Souls, constructing a Magic Rebound, and engraving Magic Marks. And among these, the most difficult is linking to the Sea of Souls."
Richard adjusted his state according to the information in the book.
According to the book, the stronger one's spiritual power, the easier it is to connect to the Sea of Souls.
As long as he connected to the Sea of Souls, his meditation would be half-successful.
As Richard's inner peace grew, he began engraving Runes in his spiritual world.
There are three Runes in the Basic Meditation Method, and when Richard finished engraving the Runes, his spirit suddenly felt as if it had left his body and plunged into a bottomless abyss.
Within the abyss, there was an eerie silence; time and space seemed non-existent.
Richard's spirit didn't know how long it stayed in this abyss—boredom, loneliness, and fear surged in his mind like a tide.
But he endured it all.
Because this was the necessary path to linking with the Sea of Souls.
Finally, after an unknowable duration of falling, Richard's spirit at last touched the Sea of Souls.
In an instant, Richard saw an endless astral sea.
"The Sea of Souls reflects the Material World, and every Plane in the Material World is a star in the Sea of Souls. This magnificent sight has influenced every Wizard who has seen it, and it is why Wizards later referred to the Material World as—the Star Realm."
As records from the book flashed in Richard's mind, at that moment, his thoughts seemed to overlap with those of countless Wizards through the millennia.
"This is truly beautiful."
With a sigh of admiration, Richard then began to leave his own mark in the Sea of Souls.
With this mark, he would be able to connect to the Sea of Souls more easily.
"What kind of mark should I leave?" Richard, gazing at the endless stars, suddenly felt a wave of solitude wash over him.
Alone in an Otherworld as a stranger, looking at the stars only deepens the longing for home.
Using his spiritual power as a pen, Richard drew a five-pointed star in the Sea of Souls.
After all this, Richard's spirit began to feel somewhat faint.
The Basic Meditation Method only allowed him to stay in the Sea of Souls for this long. If he wanted to stay longer, he would need to find a more advanced Meditation Method.
A few seconds later, his spirit returned to the Material World.
At this moment, he had completed the most difficult and important step of becoming a Wizard Apprentice.