58: Chapter 58 ‘Veteran’ Nicholas_1 58: Chapter 58 ‘Veteran’ Nicholas_1 The new students were chatting away, while Nicholas stood to the side, waiting patiently.
Just as Zheng Qing had guessed, he was not an upperclassman of the First Academy.
But there was no denying that he was a veteran student at Jiuyou Academy.
Nicholas Green Oswald, a freshman at the First Academy of Jiuyou for the third year running.
He had already twice failed to pass the promotion exams at the end of his freshman year.
At the end of July, Dean Yao of Jiuyou Academy had a frank discussion with him.
“If you still fail to advance further by the end of this third year, the academy may have to reassess your qualifications for admission.
This may not only affect your future as a wizard, but also impact Liz’s future application.”
The scene of the conversation was still vivid in his mory, and he could rember how many tis, exactly, professor Yao had tapped his pipe that day.
For this reason alone, he was filled with fear for the coming school year.
He did not worry about becoming a qualified wizard, but he did worry about his sister, Liz.
Nicholas was born in the northern district of Beta Town, an area known for being a gathering place for tricksters.
In the Wizard’s Codex, tricksters are categorized as wizards with ‘limited action ability’.
In other words, wizards recognize tricksters as other wizards, but they only do so reservedly when it cos to their magic abilities.
Because the abilities of tricksters are too weak.
Most of them can only pull a white rabbit out of an empty top hat; or build a castle out of a deck of playing cards; at most, they can turn a bouquet of roses into a flock of white pigeons.
For wizards, these abilities are at the level of a kindergarten child.
Their weak abilities even prevent them from being able to work as wizard apprentices.
The ntal state of tricksters is easily damaged in a wizard’s lab and their bodies cannot endure the pressure of working in an alchemy workshop.
All in all, tricksters cannot find suitable employnt in the wizarding world.
Without suitable employnt, there’s no steady inco.
That ans a life of hardship.
Many tricksters have tried to escape this life, but the qualities they have always hoped would earn them recognition now bind them like shackles.
The Wizard Behavior Managent thod, issued by the Wizard Alliance, imposes very strict limitations on the secular life of wizards.
It clearly stipulates that without permission, wizards are strictly forbidden to stay in mundane society for a long ti, engage in mundane jobs, or have deeper economic dealings with mundane society.
So, these poor folks can only hang on for dear life in the reservations delineated for them by the Wizard Alliance.
The young and able-bodied grit their teeth, venture into the Dark Forest, do the gathering work that regular wizards disdained, or even serve as bait for so unscrupulous hunting teams.
The old and weak huddle in street corners, showing small tricks, hoping that so kind-hearted person would toss them a few bronze coins.
To wizards, they are as disgusting as cockroaches.
Stubborn wizards think the existence of tricksters diminishes the mysteriousness of wizards, makes the distance between wizards and the mundane not seem so far, and is a blasphemy to magic.
Radical wizards see tricksters as failed evolvers, they even object to the identification of tricksters in the Wizard’s Code.
So now, for any orthodox wizard, being called a ‘trickster’ is just like calling a normal person an ‘idiot’ or ‘moron’.
It is considered a very serious offense.
Nicholas’s mother, Mary Green, was a trickster.
But she was a beautiful one.
No matter in the mundane world or the wizarding world, no matter in ancient tis or now, beauty has always been an outstanding talent.
Perhaps the Gods deed the beauty they bestowed upon her too generous, and decided to withdraw a bit of their favor through other ans.
Like her children.
Nicholas and Liz were identified as tricksters shortly after they were born.
That was like sentencing them to a life of hardship.
Mary was a brave woman, and she didn’t want her two children to repeat the tragic lives of tricksters.
And so she crashed the werewolves’ fire-lit feast.
She succeeded.
Liz and Nicholas were bestowed talents by the drunken King Oswald.
But she also failed.
Rabid werewolves viciously wounded her at the feast.
When she stumbled ho, her whole body was dyed red with blood.
“Live well, take care of your sister,”
those were her last words to Nicholas.
Throughout her lifeti, this woman could only perform a little trick: turning a bunch of thorns into a bouquet of lilies.
But this brave woman used her life to enact a great magic – allowing two children destined to be tricksters to step back into the wizarding society.
Nicholas felt a sting in his eyes, he blinked, looking at the inexperienced newcors before him.
There was a ti when he stood here, listening to his seniors narrating the stories of this hall, this university.
Now, those story-telling seniors had all graduated, and the friends who entered the school with him were busy in their laboratories.
Only he still lingered in the corridor of the first hall on the first floor, bearing the malice of this world, thick-skinnedly begging his old schoolmates for a grade reward.
Liz deserves a better future, she must attend the first university.
For their mother.
Nicholas muttered to himself, his gaze once again becoming firm.
“Let’s continue,” he clapped, interrupting the lively discussion among the freshn.
“The murals on the wall behind the corridor depict the history of wizards.
Those magnificent scenes, those powerful images, are all traces of the existence of wizards in this world,” he explained.
Zheng Qing was fascinated by a scroll.
In the painting, a wizard waved his magic wand, confronting a ferocious giant beast.
Their surroundings were full of thunderbolts and lightning, red lava rolling beneath their feet, the space around them distorted in their view.
The earth-shattering aura seed to be about to break this mural.
Nicholas stood in front of him, blocking his view.
He looked at these young people in front of him, recalling the warnings from his predecessors, and repeated those words to these freshn:
“What you need to be aware of is: don’t get overly obsessed with history.
However majestic the history might be, it’s a ti already passed; the future lies beneath your feet.
If you lose yourself in history, it’s easy to lose your way.”
The freshn reluctantly took their gaze from the murals.
Nicholas nodded in satisfaction.
He turned around and introduced the first hall to the freshn:
“There are nine big gates encircling the first floor of the entire hall.
One is the one we are standing in, the gate to the outside world.
The remaining eight lead to the four colleges and four research institutes.”
“The four colleges are Jiuyou Academy, Alpha Academy, Atlas Academy, Starry Sky Academy, as you all probably know.
The four institutes are the Alchemy Research Institute, the Astronomical Research Institute, the Potion Research Institute, and the Divination Research Institute.
Of course, there are also famous research institutions like the Star Sign Tower and the Talisman Institute.
However, those places are not open to freshman students.”
“There are nine gates in this hall, but there are countless doors within the four colleges and four research institutes.
The mysteries in them will be for you to explore slowly on your own.
Perhaps sowhere in your lecture hall, there are a few doors that lead directly to the center of the first hall once you go through them.
Or a wall you pass every day might open a gate to Beta Town.”
“But behind most doors, there’s just a classroom.”
“Every doorfra has its own unique symbols, marks, or proverbs.
As long as you pay attention, you won’t go wrong.”
“Just like the gate of Jiuyou Academy—’the seat of learning’, its door fra symtrically faces six characters—Heaven rewards the diligent, Earth values steadiness.
Only by understanding the aning of these six characters can one step over the threshold and truly enter the Academy.”
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