Chapter 464: Chapter 461: The Design Competition Opens
Back in his previous life as a lowly engineering student, Rorschach knew the most common way to promote industrial software was to sponsor and title various competitions. The goal was to get engineering students familiar with the software during their formative years, cultivating user habits... and then everyone would just happily use pirated versions!
What could you do? Those engineering grunts were a miserable lot, and Rorschach could attest to that, having been one of them himself.
Regardless, the method was worth emulating. In essence, it was about spending money to make apprentices struggle through technical manuals, get hands-on experience, and build an ecosystem. This was especially crucial now, with a severe shortage of instructors. Aside from Rorschach himself making a rare appearance at the podium, it was Caroline who managed the teaching, with the Valois mages who had sought refuge in Bayern alongside Andre filling in as well.
Fortunately, the long-term monopolization of knowledge had fostered a tenacious self-study spirit among the current generation of Casters. As long as they had books, they would grit their teeth and start learning.
In short, just as the Bayern Kingdom was catching its breath from the little stir caused by "Alchemy Magic," the "Bayern Stable Insurance Cup: First National Magic Apprentice Spell Chain Design Competition" officially kicked off amidst a massive wave of publicity.
The competition successfully dominated the headlines of Bayern’s newspapers for three reasons:
First, the organizers were offering an insane amount of prize money. Second, nearly every property owner in Bayern, big or small, had sponsored the event—albeit involuntarily, and under the name of the very insurance company that nickel-and-dimed them. Third, participants had to form teams of three to five, and each team was required to include a non-Caster.
Teams composed entirely of Mages were immediately disqualified.
The main contestants were the apprentices who had recently joined the Mage Tower. Rorschach’s Mage Tower was a bit of a hodgepodge; the apprentices he’d poached from the Tower of Secret Techniques were simply housed alongside students from other schools. The only things the apprentices seemed to appreciate were the study rooms and the brand-new Alchemy Equipment.
Besides the study rooms, the residential area also had a common room, which had been deliberately decorated in a classical style. Following Rorschach’s bizarre instructions, a fireplace was lit with a Constant Flame Magic spell in the middle of summer. Rorschach cast the spell himself in front of the apprentices and left them with a single challenge: "If you think it’s hot, try to put it out."
In the common room, aside from those trying to summon ice, water, or other things to contend with the "Eternal Fireplace," everyone else was discussing the competition and poring over the Technical Manual. "The standard frequency band of the Feature Symbol... and the four ways to connect it with the Descriptor are as follows..."
"Within the timeline... the essence of a Spell Inscription is a temporal calibration point..."
One apprentice slammed his precious manual down in a rage. "What is any of this even talking about? I give up!" After leaving behind the abstruse Secret Techniques and grand, metaphysical magical theories of the Tower of Secret Techniques, the apprentices found they had dived headfirst into a different kind of rabbit hole, one that exuded a "weird vibe" from every corner.
This weird vibe originated from a distant Otherworld. Rorschach had served it up with a mix of threats and enticements, forcing the Mage Tower’s newcomers to have a taste while tricking them with claims that it was ’real fresh, real tasty.’
His teammate immediately reminded him, "The first-place team gets eight thousand Golden Eagle Coins, and second place gets five thousand... Even for just participating, everyone gets to pick a Three Ring Spell Scroll... and there are Points..."
The apprentice, who had just thrown his book in a fit of rage over the weird vibe, immediately did a complete one-eighty. Carefully smoothing the wrinkles on the manual, he said, "Oh, I was just letting off some steam. Let’s continue, let’s continue..." Of course, not everyone could be like Richard and receive a real-time updating "Ink-Wash Screen Scroll"; the materials all the other apprentices received were just ordinary prints.
Requiring team participation was another one of Rorschach’s insidious schemes. An individual contestant might easily give up and slack off at the first sign of trouble. In a team, however, members would support each other. When one person showed signs of quitting, their teammates—not wanting to see their own efforts go to waste—would drag them along. As for the entire team deciding to collectively slack off, Rorschach could only rely on "Gold Element Magic" to prevent that.
Of course, there was also the scenario where the team’s "pillar" was forced to complete tasks that weren’t their own.
’Back in the day, after I finished my part of the process, I still had to help revise the drawings. "Revise," they said, but it was basically redrawing the whole damn thing! Meanwhile, that worthless teammate just dusted off his hands and took a vacation...’ In the dead of night, the thought still made Rorschach’s blood boil as he sat at his workbench. He slammed a hammer down on the "Spider Assault Type Magical Circuit Layout Map (Draft)."
Meanwhile, Feuerbach was in a meeting with other professors from the Tower of Secret Techniques. The Meeting Room in Sen Ran was cool and refreshing, but most of the attendees were fuming.
An old-tim—...er who enjoyed mountain climbing, a balding, Middle Level Mage of advanced age, was the first to speak. "This is outrageous! Utterly outrageous!"
There were many outrageous things. First, to the astonishment of the professors from the Tower of Secret Techniques, the number of apprentices willing to go to the Rorschach Mage Tower far exceeded their estimates. Although they would never say it out loud, many Mages within the tower shared a latent sentiment: ’I can refuse to teach untalented apprentices, but you can’t steal my student pool.’
Had it not been for the current circumstances, Rorschach probably couldn’t have poached so many people. But with the general economy in a downturn, pressure from their families was already trickling down to these full-time students. Valon’s actions wreaking havoc in the financial markets only served to greatly accelerate this process.
The Mages of the Tower of Secret Techniques enjoyed the best treatment and squandered Casting Materials. They were only concerned with "peacefully pursuing their studies and researching profound Magic Skills," completely oblivious to the fact that the Magic Guild had already cut salaries.
Rorschach had punched a hole in the Tower of Secret Techniques. Not only did this allow the trapped apprentices, who had no hope of advancement, to flow out, but it also forced the cloistered Mages inside—who acted as if neither Bayern nor the world had changed—to glimpse the outside world’s true, humiliating reality through that very hole.
Another "outrageous" development was that, in order to achieve their team goals, apprentices had begun exchanging spells with one another—including those among them who had students of their own already learning First, Second, and even High Tier Magic.
In the past, the Mutual Aid Association had been limited by learning costs and casting difficulties. The spells they exchanged were restricted to the Zeroth Ring and a few First Ring Spells, so the masters at the Tower of Secret Techniques could turn a blind eye. Now, under the banner of the competition, the personally-taught spells of the masters were spreading directly to even the newest students.
For those sharing, this was hardly a loss. Everyone had spells they excelled at, and now they were all trading them. Plus, just for making it through the qualifying rounds, they would be rewarded with a Three Ring Spell. It was a net gain no matter how you looked at it. Most importantly, anyone who wasn’t a fool could see that the emergence of the "Spell Cloud" would lower the barrier to entry for learning. Low Tier Spells were no longer so "precious."
The most heretical rule of all was Rorschach’s stipulation that each team must include an ordinary person. He even thoughtfully provided team-building suggestions, like recommending students from the Munich University of Technology for teams dealing with Transformation Magic or the Shaping Power Energy System. This opportunity allowed many apprentices and secular university students to learn, for the first time, what the other group studied and what they were capable of.
Inside the Rorschach Mage Tower, it was easy for the two groups of students to communicate. However, the teams from the Tower of Secret Techniques found it somewhat difficult to find ordinary teammates. Fortunately, this difficulty was temporary. The apprentices from the Tower of Secret Techniques only had to put up recruitment notices in the taverns of large cities. Drawn by their curiosity and fascination with Magic, many university students would willingly undertake the arduous journey to the small mountain village at the foot of the Tower of Secret Techniques.
For the common folk, placing in the competition meant a handsome sum of prize money. Even just qualifying for the main event would earn them a Second Ring Scroll (one ring lower than the prize for Mages, and it couldn’t be a Learning Scroll). It was a guaranteed win, provided they were invited by an apprentice.
Merchants smelled opportunity. Soon, public carriages began running to and from the village. New inns were built. A bustling market even sprang up, with street stalls selling all sorts of Divination trinkets, amulets, and Potions of questionable efficacy, alongside other small business ventures.
Although the protective wards of the Tower of Secret Techniques were still active, preventing ordinary people from seeing it, the apprentices were constantly coming and going. Everyone knew the tower existed and where it was. The Tower of Secret Techniques had finally "graduated" from being a lesser sanctuary hidden in the woods to a "greater" one hidden in plain sight amidst a bustling market. Even when they hired the Magic Guild to drive away the outsiders, the burgeoning temporary accommodations and gathering spots merely shifted a symbolic distance away.
The outsiders were bold, and the Magic Guild staff in charge of enforcement were lazy.
"Things have come to this, Master! Please, give the order! We must forbid the apprentices in the tower from participating in that... that competition!"
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