Locke quickly read through their background information.
From the assignment letter, the two female wizard prospects, Nikki Crawford and Sybil Lake, both came from local mortal families in the southeastern quadrant, and both had Level 2 wizard aptitude.
Their backgrounds were relatively simple.
However, the male wizard prospect's origins were quite interesting. Like himself, he came from an overseas mortal world, except he was born on an island called Achaea.
The locals called it the Achaean Continent.
The main political system of the Achaean Continent was slave democracy, where each local nation was centered around citizens who enjoyed maximum freedom, while others were merely slaves or second-class citizens of the citizens.
This wizard prospect, Leo Sis, was a descendant of gladiator slaves from a local city-state.
As a youth, he had undergone a certain degree of gladiator slave training. If he hadn't suddenly been detected to possess wizard talent and been taken away by second-class wizard apprentices disguised as divine messengers, he would have followed in his father's footsteps, using his body as a consumable in the gladiatorial arena, destined to die there sooner or later.
Reading this, Locke looked up at Leo Sis.
That suffocating feeling constantly pressed against his throat, making him want to flee quickly from here, to escape from Locke's line of sight.
The next moment, he felt Locke's palm press on his shoulder. In that instant, his muscles tensed and his hair stood on end in fright.
Locke glanced at him. "Your physical condition is quite good."
"However, you're no longer a gladiator slave. You don't need to maintain such great vigilance toward strangers."
"You are the teacher's student, and I won't harm you. Moreover, if I wanted to harm you, you would be powerless to resist."
Locke looked at the three of them. "You can call me Senior Locke. Starting today, I will give you one group lesson each day."
"At the same time, you must also attend the three major public courses in the public classrooms. Those are the basics. You must advance to second-class wizard apprentices within five years, or you will be expelled."
"The academy is full of expelled wizard apprentices. So, you'd better not become like that."
Nikki and Sybil immediately bowed to Locke. "Yes, Senior Locke, thank you for teaching us."
"We will earnestly listen to your teachings and be grateful to you at all times."
The two of them seemed to already have some understanding of Lilith's Cottage rules.
They quickly realized that in a certain sense, Locke was their real teacher.
Over the next five years, their opportunities to see Witch Sophia would be extremely limited.
Unless they became second-class wizard apprentices, they might have a few more chances to meet her, otherwise there would be no opportunity.
Moreover, in the eyes of these two from local mortal families, a first-class wizard apprentice was already a complete big shot.
Leo Sis gritted his teeth. His thoughts had been seen through by Locke in one glance, and suddenly he felt that Locke was unfathomably profound and so reliable.
He lowered his head to Locke and said, "Thank you... Senior..."
He said in a low voice, "I indeed have some difficulty breaking free from life in that world. I'm sorry, Senior, I shouldn't have maintained vigilance against you."
Leo seemed to realize that if Locke wanted to kill him, he couldn't possibly have the strength to resist, so he finally relaxed. "Senior Locke, I heard that the apprentices of black wizards in the southeastern quadrant are essentially slaves to the black wizards."
Locke nodded, remembering the previous style of the Blood Curse Court. "That is indeed the case."
"Those black wizards are different from white wizards. White wizards at least have some order, but in the world of black wizards, those with great power can do whatever they want."
Locke said, "Alright, you three should all know about taking student loans, right?"
The three immediately indicated that their new student mentor had already explained student loans to them clearly on the wizard ship.
The interest rate was generally five percent.
Locke muttered to himself that the first-class wizard apprentice who served as new student mentor this time was much more reliable than Manager Yuri Burns.
At that time, Yuri Burns had completely failed to explain these things to him clearly. If not for his good luck, he probably would have easily been deceived into signing a high-interest private student loan contract.
Locke nodded. "Very good, follow me. Let's go to my house. Student loans are somewhat complicated. The sooner we complete the process, the sooner it ends."
"I also have my own matters to attend to. A wizard's time is very precious."
Today was the day that Mayfly Flower Cannon classes began.
Mayfly Flower Cannon was a 0.8-circle high-level cantrip spell model. Using this spell model, one could maximize the effectiveness of Corrupt Soil Taro.
Although he had applied for special protection and had been staying within Lilith's Cottage without going out, learning more protective spells was still beneficial.
For breeders, learning more botanical spells could undoubtedly increase ideas and inspiration for cultivating new varieties of magical plants.
Moreover, if he wanted to become a formal wizard, he not only needed his mental strength to reach 1000, but also needed to learn to construct a first-circle spell, which required him to learn more botanical cantrip models to broaden his knowledge.
Of course, the focus would definitely still be on advanced meditation methods, and being a potion master and breeder.
The former related to the foundation of his mana progress, while the latter related to whether he had enough magic stones to purchase large quantities of magical resources and maintain meditation efficiency.
Nikki and Sybil exchanged glances, then both carefully approached Locke, each taking out approximately 10 magic stones.
Locke raised an eyebrow. "What do you two mean by this?"
Nikki and Sybil were startled.
Sybil said in a small voice, "Senior Locke, is it... not enough? How much 'miscellaneous fees' do you need? I'm... I'm sorry, Nikki and I are both inexperienced. We only heard that each semester for classes, we need to give miscellaneous fees to the seniors who teach us, but we don't know exactly how much."
"These magic stones were accumulated with great difficulty by my family members."
"If it's not enough, could we owe it first? Could we not make the loan contract for now, Senior..."
Nikki also looked frightened.
Leo became anxious. "So there are also teaching miscellaneous fees... But I don't have any magic stones on me, and I still owe the academy 30 magic stones."
Only then did Locke suddenly realize that those first-class wizard apprentices and second-class wizard apprentices who taught substitute classes would privately collect additional 'miscellaneous fees' from newly enrolled wizard prospects.
He remembered that Lorne and Pierre had also mentioned to him a few times about having to pay many additional tuition fees, but he hadn't paid much attention at the time.
Probably throughout Lilith's Cottage, under normal circumstances, formal wizard mentors exploited first-class wizard apprentice students, and first-class wizard apprentice students then tried to exploit the students below them...
It was just that he had initially encountered Witch Sophia, and Witch Sophia seemed to have never collected additional tuition from him, and had even subsidized him quite a bit.
Locke felt somewhat speechless. These wizard prospects' small amounts of scattered magic stones, even if he took them, what meaning would it have? He might as well launch a few more new varieties of magical plants to earn magic stones faster.
Locke waved his hand. "No need. I don't collect miscellaneous fees here. Just study well."
"Follow me, don't waste my time."
After all, Witch Sophia had never collected from him either. Nᴇw ɴovel chaptᴇrs are published on NoveI-Fire.ɴet
Probably those first-class wizard apprentices had the habit of collecting miscellaneous fees only because when they were wizard prospects, they had also been charged this way, so it became a habit.
Nikki and Sybil, hearing that Locke wouldn't collect fees, found it somewhat unbelievable.
Leo, on the other hand, breathed a sigh of relief, because he simply had no money.