Chapter 186. The Mage Tower
After Fulan was recognized by the gate guard, she was taken away by several mages who had rushed over, all under Dorian’s astonished gaze.
Faced with his questioning look, she rely scratched her head and said nothing.
She had never concealed her na or school from Dorian, and Dorian himself had never thought there was anything strange about Fulan also belonging to the Forge Furnace School.
He had only assud that the Forge Furnace School was a relatively low-profile school, one that was simply not as widely known as the Elental School.
He had never imagined that the Forge Furnace School had only been established not long ago, and that at present, Fulan was its only true Formal Mage mber.
After this happened, Fulan felt that Dorian had probably guessed her identity. Otherwise, no one would have co specifically to receive her.
Looking at the mages leading the way ahead of her, she asked, “Where are we going?”
One of the mages in a black robe turned back and said, “Our society president ordered us to bring you to see him the mont we found you.”
“You arrived a little late. You should have reached here before this disturbance began.”
As for the president of the Northern Society, Fulan rembered Habos ntioning that he knew him.
Ordinarily, Fulan’s arrival at the Northern Society should not have caused such a commotion, but her ntor had happened to do sothing truly enormous.
Just from that report alone, it was easy to see how major a thing her ntor had done.
At the very beginning of the report, its author had kept targeting the forr First Seat of the Elental School. It was practically adding fuel to the flas.
Then, in the middle of the piece, the report kept introducing the Northern Society. Although it never explicitly stated what the other societies were like, anyone who understood the situation could almost imdiately reach the sa conclusion after reading it: the report was mocking and condemning the monopolization of research results among the various societies, as well as the practice of privately setting up excessive barriers.
On top of that, Habos’s paper had been published in the Northern Society. Fulan did not know whether it had been published anywhere else, but she was certain that publishing it in the Northern Society alone was already a serious problem.
To begin with, the Northern Society was a society ostracized by many others within the Alliance, yet Habos had still submitted his paper there. That really was a direct provocation against those societies.
Moreover, the results presented in that paper quite clearly belonged to the Elental School. Just from the na of those results alone, Fulan felt that the paper should have been considered an Elental School paper.
Under those circumstances, Fulan could already imagine what an enormous storm that report would stir up.
It would not only be Habos. Fulan herself, Elan back in the Apprentice City, and those apprentices affiliated with the Forge Furnace School were probably all standing in the very center of the vortex.
Given that situation, it no longer seed strange that the mont Fulan arrived at the Northern Society, those mages had imdiately escorted her away.
After all, she had heard from Dorian that quite a few Alliance mages had co to the Northern Society after reading that report.
Once those mages who had objections to the paper reached the Northern Society, if they then heard that she was Habos’s disciple, would they not co looking for her for a round of “academic exchange”...?
So in a situation like this, it was only natural that the society president had specially arranged for soone to bring her to him as soon as she was found.
Presumably, Habos and this society president shared a rather deep friendship. Otherwise, Habos would not have sent her here.
Fulan followed those mages through the broad streets. The houses here seed to owe their unusual appearance to the peculiar sand and clay used as building materials, giving their exteriors a distinctive dark red color.
The entire street looked much the sa as the buildings Fulan had seen within the Alliance. Presumably, when the mages here built their houses, they had simply taken the Alliance’s architectural style as their model.
After the mages led Fulan across the street, she saw a giant tower about fifty ters tall standing in the center of a plaza.
Compared to the furnace that rose over a hundred ters high, the giant tower looked sowhat small, which was why Fulan had failed to notice it earlier.
The tower was grayish yellow. At its summit was the image of half a hand, with a pattern of flowing sand pouring down from the palm. Fulan recognized it. That was the emblem of the Alchemy School.
That ant the society president who had founded the Northern Society ca from the Alchemy School. In fact, most of its earliest mbers might also have been mages from the Alchemy School.
Below the school emblem was a symbol ford from layered snowflakes. Fulan recognized that as well. It was the emblem of the Northern Society.
There were quite a few temporary huts set up around the plaza, wrapped in cloth, and from inside them, Fulan could sense all kinds of spell fluctuations.
Fulan looked curiously toward those cloth-wrapped huts, and one of the mages beside her explained, “Those are places temporarily requisitioned by so of the mages inside the Mage Tower to conduct experints.”
The space inside the Mage Tower was limited, and many newly arrived mages had no way of obtaining space within the tower, so they could only co out to this plaza instead.
“The Mage Tower...” Fulan quietly turned the na of the giant tower over in her mind.
As a structure directly tied to mages, the functions it could provide were naturally all related to them.
In the ancient era before the Alliance had been established, Mage Towers had been the key sites where most magical activities were carried out.
Back then, Mage Towers not only handled the magical education of apprentices, but also gave mages the freedom to explore spells and to create or modify them.
At the sa ti, Mage Towers also had to possess powerful defensive functions in order to resist attacks from other Professionals or other mages.
However, after the Alliance was founded, the educational and defensive functions of Mage Towers were greatly weakened.
The magical education of apprentices could be moved to population centers, where education was easier to conduct.
As for external defense, the Alliance had battle mage corps under its command, as well as Floating Cities that could be mobilized at any ti. Those were already enough to deal with attacks from other powers.
As a result, by the present day, the Mage Tower had been left with only a single function: allowing mages to explore spells.
Once its responsibilities were reduced, the cost of Mage Towers also fell, allowing more and more of them to be established throughout the Alliance.
In theory, as long as one was a mage, even a First-Tier Mage like Fulan could build a Mage Tower by pouring enough money into it.
After all, while the Alliance restricted knowledge, it did not restrict the circulation of various materials or the sale of magical devices of this kind.
But the standard for being “wealthy” was still quite high. Even soone like Fulan, who was already far richer than most First-Tier Mages, could only build a Mage Tower with roughly one-third of its functions relatively complete.
Only mages of the third tier and above possessed the financial strength needed to build Mage Towers with all kinds of specialized functions.
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