Heimarian Odyssey

Chapter 144: Magic Tower

After the banquet, Locke was back to his busy lifestyle again. He had moved his parents in the villa where he met Angelina. Now, it was his property.

Ever since Locke came home from the ceremony, his parents would look at their son's letter of appointment before going to bed every night. Both of them still couldn't believe that they were now nobility. Though, it was possible they were just trying to ease the pain of their son's impending departure.

When Locke had the time, he went to the noble council alone to register for a family emblem, which represented the profound heritage of a noble's family. It was similar to a person's title and was integral for nobility. Sometimes, it was even more important than their surname.

The creation of the emblem was all done by Locke alone, for his parents weren't nearly educated enough to take part. After long consideration, Locke chose an ordinary shield symbol as his emblem. It symbolised his roots as a normal commoner.

The noble council was very efficient in their work. It took them only three days to make him an emblem. He lost interest in it after looking at it several times, so he gave it to his parents.

Incidentally, he'd hired some servants to take care of his parents in the new house. Melson had a lot of tricks of the trade. Nobody knew how or where he got these servants from, but they were very sensible and obedient, and their salary was very low. After a few days, Locke only found out where they were from when they spoke in a Shalorian dialect.

Locke had difficulty with coming up with a surname, however. He couldn't find any name which he was satisfied with from the hundreds of words he had learned. Though Angelina had given him a few suggestions, they were all rejected by him. Soon, he just gave up, being more used to people addressing him as Locke anyways.

He grew more fretful as the day of departure approached. He hadn't been to school for several days, and Mobson even went to look for him. It seemed like he was very concerned about Locke.

Since Locke had nothing to do today, he grabbed his backpack and went to school. When he arrived at the entrance, the guard recognised him and treated him with more respect than usual.

He was now a noble knight, and the guard obviously recognised the emblem that was pinned on his chest. Locke could also engrave his family's emblem on the front of carriages like all the other nobles, and done so he had. His father's body wasn't as strong anymore as he'd been working in the field throughout the whole year, and his mother had also grown weaker by living a life of hardship, so Locke decided to get a carriage for his parents.

There weren't many students in school today as he only saw a few of them along the way. Perhaps they had all gone out to have fun. Most of the students in this school were fourteen or fifteen years old, after all, with Locke being the oldest among them.

The Faustian nobles seemed to be in no hurry to return even though the ceremony had ended. Felor was still in a festive mood for several months now, and the liveliness hadn't died down.

There were always novel things happening in Felor. Locke had been in the royal capital for almost two months, and he still made new discoveries often.

Mobson wasn't in school today. It was probably because his students were all absent, so there was no point for him to be there.

"Locke! Come here!" someone cried. Locke looked up and saw a familiar face.

Angelina wasn't wearing a dress today, but casual trousers like Locke's instead. She looked elegant all the same in the intricately embroidered trousers, which complemented her long and straight legs.

"Where are we going?" asked Locke cluelessly. Angelina merely dragged him along and ran.

"My teacher is not around. I want to show you something!" said Angelina mischievously as she stuck her tongue out.

She knew that Locke wasn't in a good mood these days, so she wanted to cheer him up. Sure enough, Locke was intrigued about what she wanted to show him.

He knew that Angelina's mentor was the most powerful caster in the kingdom. His understanding of casters was only elementary like Angelina's. During the Siege of Audis, many of Shalor's casters had displayed their terrifying powers. Back then, Locke was quite far off, so he didn't quite see the true extent of their power.

Angelina brought him to the back of the campus. He'd never been there before as Mobson and the person in charge there had warned him not to go anywhere near that place when he first entered the school.

Now that Angelina was with him, however, he didn't feel like he needed to follow the rules anymore.. He believed that there wasn't a place in Faustian that she wasn't allowed to go to. They were under surveillance the whole time until they arrived at their destination.

It was a large garden. Locke saw a water fountain and a rainbow under the trees through the iron fence. He guessed that they were going to enter it.

After Angelina chanted a short spell, the sight before him rippled and no garden nor iron fence could be seen. Instead, it was replaced by several spires. Before Locke could react, Angelina grabbed him and walked towards the tallest spire.

"I'll bring you to my mentor's tower!" said Angelina.

There were six or seven towers there. The tallest one was approximately six metres tall, and the others were only around four or five metres tall.

"Only high-rank Lehrlings can have towers," explained Angelina as she stood in front of one while making some strange hand gestures. A while later, the gate of the tower let out a hissing sound as it opened slowly. Angelina dragged him into the tower.

It was a little dark inside, probably because there weren't enough windows to let light enter. Angelina pressed on something, and the white stones on the ceiling radiated yellow light, illuminating everything in front of them.

"These are fluorites," said Angelina with a smile when she saw Locke's dumbfounded expression.

He'd seen those fluorites before in 2nd Division's ammunition depot. They only used one fluorite to illuminate the entire warehouse, but there were about twenty of them on the ceiling here.

"There are three floors in this tower. I'll bring you to my laboratory!" said Angelina.

There were many bottles and cans lying around. Angelina's mentor should be a person who didn't like tidying up. Although there wasn't any dust, it was messy all the same.

Locke could easily guess that the owner of this tower just used Cleanse to clean up his tower. Although spells were convenient, they weren't omnipotent.

Angelina also noticed the mess. She led him through the first floor carefully as these bottles and cans were all filled with valuable potions and raw materials. If they accidentally broke one of them, her mentor would definitely be heartbroken.

Angelina's laboratory was on the second floor. Within it was a small alchemy desk with a larger one next to it with some more complicated equipment, which probably belonged to her mentor. After playing with some contraptions she showed him, Locke wandered around the tower.

According to her, the owner of this tower was Crimea. He was a wise man in her eyes, but all Locke could imagine was a really short, old man.

Ever since he entered the tower, he'd bumped his head on the ceiling several times. Locke, who was 1.7 metres in height, was considered tall in Faustian, but it was just average everywhere else. He then came to the conclusion that this mage tower was unusual.

"The third floor is the control room. I'm not allowed to go in," said Angelina.

"What's that for?" asked Locke curiously.

"To control the tower's operation," replied Angelina.

"This tower can be operated?" Locke patted on the wall, it sounded solid.

Locke thought that this was just an ordinary building that was built from stones. Could it be that the stones could shift?

"What do you think?" Angelina laughed and continued, "It is to control the room temperature, adjust the freshness of the air, assist the caster in experiments... and most importantly, to improve the caster's combat power."

She listed a bunch of advantages, but Locke only seemed to be impressed by the last one.