Chapter 1490: Chapter 873: Imperial Crown
The powerful Wizards standing in the two lofty rows on either side actually had some misgivings in their hearts.
No kidding—this year, a Prince had actually passed the exam to enter the Witch Spirit Court.
The Wizards did not meddle in politics, the Imperial Family did not involve themselves in Witch matters; the only point of intersection between the two sides was that emperor and their High Priest.
Now a Prince had wedged himself in—what did that mean?
Many Wizards’ gazes grew deep, while the youth standing in the middle, whose looks and bearing crushed everyone present, remained silent-faced.
Would the High Priest refuse?
But she only swept him a single glance, seemingly without even looking at the youth standing in the middle.
Then she lowered her head again and continued reading her scroll.
"I’ve read it. You may go down."
"Yes."
The Wizards led the newly inducted Wizards away...
The youth cast a distant look at that ruler seated high above.
Then turned and left.
Life in the Witch Spirit Court was not easy, for this was the Wizards’ world: they were powerful, noble, independent, with strict hierarchies; their conduct and tastes differed from ordinary people. The other nine new recruits wailed endlessly under the high-intensity study regime, yet this Prince-turned-Wizard never uttered a single complaint. Though cold and indifferent by nature, he would still help the other nine of his intake organize key points of their lessons... diligent, enduring, kind-hearted... Gradually, the Wizards who had looked into him changed their view of him. Although they still did not regard him as one of their own, they no longer targeted him...
The character of a ruler largely determines the character of those beneath him.
To frame and bully a junior—none of the Wizards in the Witch Spirit Court would stoop to such a thing.
Compared to the constant schemes, treachery, and petty humiliations he might face daily in the palace, this place was something like paradise to him... His performance was also in the upper middle among the ten.
For someone with no foundation at all to reach that level was already an exception.
Until the test half a year later...
His body had already been crippled; he could no longer cultivate Witch Power.
Everyone’s gaze toward him shifted from wariness to complexity...
Who had ruined him? No one could guess, because there were too many people capable of making a move on him and succeeding.
When a witch doctor of the Witch Spirit Court submitted a report to the High Priest, it detailed, line by line, that this sixteen-year-old Prince harbored no fewer than twenty-four kinds of toxins in his body, had accumulated three hundred and twenty instances of internal bruising, and had suffered thirty-five life-threatening injuries...
Even the prisoners subjected to the harshest punishments in the dungeons had never received such treatment.
Nor were there many people with a life this tenacious.
The High Priest only skimmed it casually, without reading closely, for on that first meeting she had already understood what this person had been through.
She closed the report.
"Transfer him to the Strategy Chamber."
The people below were stunned.
The Strategy Chamber was a library, a place for sorting and compiling texts. Though it looked inconspicuous to outsiders, only the Wizards within knew that the Strategy Chamber was the most important place in the Witch Spirit Court.
"Imperial Crown, this person’s Mind Art and computational reasoning are excellent?"
From the few reports they’d reviewed previously, they really hadn’t seen that—it had only seemed slightly above average.
"Every report he submitted was meticulously calculated—never too high or too low, never leaning to one side—yet the speed of his writing and his heart rate far surpassed all Wizards in the Witch Spirit Court. Not a word more, not a word less. In terms of Mind Art and reasoning ability, only Loulan can match him in the Witch Spirit Court."
Loulan was a monster in Mind Art and reasoning, and even more monstrous was his Talent in Technique—he could practically be called a born Wizard. Such a freak was one of a kind in the Witch Spirit Court; all the High Priests naturally knew this.
They had never expected that this late-starting Prince would possess such Talent as well...
Only, Loulan’s Talent was monstrous, and his temperament was monstrous too, inspiring fear; the only one who could suppress him was the High Priest.
As for this Prince... as powerful as the Witch Spirit Court was, it had never feared imperial authority.
But it also meant this Prince’s intelligence was far from ordinary, at least vastly superior to all the bloodlines within the Imperial Family. For someone like that to have drawn such a life—if his circumstances had been arranged even slightly better, if his body had not been ruined—it would not have been impossible for him to scheme his way to that Supreme throne...
Looking now at his situation, sent into the Witch Spirit Court and left to live or die on his own, it did evoke a certain sighing pity; no wonder he had to feign mediocrity to conceal himself...
Later, this Prince—whose path as a Wizard had already been cut off—was demoted to the library to do odd jobs... When this news reached them, every Prince and every Noble Clan merely gave a disdainful laugh, unwilling to waste even a shred of Mental Power on this abandoned child.
That exalted High Priest never saw this youth again...
Spring passed, autumn came, and then another summer flowed eastward.
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