POV Ardan
"That thrice confounded accursed fool of an apprentice dares disobey me? I'll put a piece of him in every single one of the bags that ridiculous apprentice of his took with him, and then I'll set them on fire, and then I'll drop the ashes in the lake of memories, since thats all he'll be!" Ardan was struggling to put the degree of his dissatisfaction into words, but he was at least giving it a valiant effort.
One of the lizards his foolish apprentice, who would rue the day his mother birthed him, had been undercooked! Sure, Ardan may have been the one who cooked it, but it was clearly Egro's fault, and Ardan would have had a stomach ache if his stamina wasn't magically reinforced. A stomach ache! On his vaunted paunch, not a chance! He needed to nip these things in the bud before Egro brings in a diseased lizard or something, not that those exist but its the principle!
More to the point, he wasn't the only one who'd eaten it, in fact roast lizard legs and various other cookable parts of a lizard (of which Ardan had become something of a specialist in his 90 years on the first floor) had been fed to the 4 other masters of the 1st floor in a bid to ally together and create their very own teaching institution, something like the academy. Only, rather than them going up the floors to spread it like the academy had done, they would simply tell their students to do so for them, which seemed far more sensible.
The lizard hadn't been a central part of the gathering however the meal they had to end off their discussions was meant to be a show of friendship, not just cooperation. The fact that a part of it had been mildly poisonous did not look good. Fortunately, the scape goat for the entire first floor at this particular moment Egro, had just so happened to be his apprentice, so he knew who was truly at fault.
He may have slightly embellished some facts, but Egro was hardly going to be in a state to plead his innocence much longer.
In the tower, those who understood the strength of the geas knew that none of them were truly living. They were tools in a cog, their minds mushed and forced into machine form. All that was left for them was to be amused by the games they played, and if one or two of them died, no one batted an eye. Likely, no one would bat an eye if all of them died, the first floor members were not held in high esteem...
Up ahead, a young man was seen being attacked by skeletons, one of them held him on the ground while the other hand its hands on his face. They evidently were exceptionally stupid, considering the one with the hands on his face was covering his eyes rather than squeezing his throat, however regardless he needed help.
Soon after, the latter of the skeletons got up, clearly receiving some kind of diabolical plot from its master. In regards to who his master could be, there was no doubt in Ardan's mind.
"Egro! Egro was a necromancer! No wonder he tried to poison us!" He yelled. His charisma stat had been one he had invested to with his free attribute points almost every level since he had first experienced the power of a geas, to the extent that he could create his own lesser geas which he could place on his apprentices. Egro was well known for trying to rebel against the geas, clearly he had been more successful than anyone had thought...
The skeletons both leapt up and sprinted back into the tunnel as fast as their bones could carry them, nary a care in the world it seemed for the esteemed magic users rushing up! Of course, catching them would be no problem, but there was something more important to attend to first.
POV Bokan
After several extremely painful hours of rejecting countless proposals to become "the first apprentice of the Noble, Esteemed, Prestigious and Ostentatious Tribunal of Intriguing Senior Mages (aka NEPOTISM)", wherein he failed to find a single explanation for why 5 magic users all called themselves mages and how they were a tribunal when there were 5 of them (he was convinced someone just really wanted their name to abbreviate to nepotism, though couldn't fathom why), Bokan finally managed to extricate himself about half way through the village they had been giving him a tour of.
He was half way through the village because they had taken him on eleven tours of it, and they were currently half way through the 12th. Each time they had something they had "forgotten" to show him the first time, however by this point he managed to see a pattern, every time they completely refused to explain where a particular path went, even though he could see a large glowing building off in the distance, it was in the direction of the lake he discovered was called the "lake of memories".
Furthermore, he managed to figure out the reason for their behavior. They were bored. Beyond bored, they were nihilistic, he suspected they wouldn't much mind if he killed one of them but would fight back just for the fun of it. Furthermore, they were insane, utterly delusional and in denial of obvious realities, which was convenient considering they denied he was a necromancer and blamed it on the ice mage Egro. He could understand blaming Egro, he liked to do that too, but what proved they were insane was the fact that they refused to recognize the superiority of the necromancer class.
Strangely, the way he finally freed himself was that he told them he had eaten several raw lizards and none of them had done him any harm. He felt it was somewhat on-topic. They seemed to respond as though he had just told them the sky was blue (in this particular sanctuary, the sky was always black, since it was in a cave, although the "setting sun" over the lake of memories did make a part of it seem all orange, that was all just an illusion cast by a particularly impressive wizard. Impressive for the first floor, at any rate). In short, not well. Soon, he found himself thoroughly chastised and was told that such stupid people belonged in only one place, the Academy, and then they deposited him on the pathway to the strange building they had previously ignored.
Cheerily advancing along it, he summoned Fred and Egro with a thought to Fred, and the two made their way carefully toward him via the trees. The village he had passed to was mostly empty, he wouldn't be surprised if those 5 men and the few apprentices they had were all who lived there. It had 1 path going towards the mountains, and 1 path going towards the Academy, which was in the direction of the lake of memories. The buildings had mostly been of wattle, with colorful tiled triangular roofs no doubt kept up by timber. From the looks of things, there was an expectation for several hundred magic users to stay in the floor one village one at any given time, but currently there seemed to be more like 20.
One of the things Bokan did learn, that was useful, was that necromancer was considered a rare and ancient class that had disappeared for some reason that no one truly understood. Another, was that his plan of keeping the geas was a good one, since it seemed that the old men had scanned him for a geas and their scans had come up positive, despite it having not actually overwhelmed his mind yet.
In short, his plan was a go.
After a brief trip, he started to see more of the Academy as the trees thinned. The walls were not as impressive as the castle, but they were impressive, stones with a slight tinge of blue from the enchantments on them. No murals or any other form of art or decoration on any of the walls, with wood and stone making up all that was visible.
Still, it was tall and strong, clearly built with practicality and magic in mind, and with a significant aversion to anything like a story. Perhaps a way of protecting those within, perhaps a subtle means of rebellion, or possibly just a way of showing how the magic users were just tools, and all beauty belonged to the rulers.
Whatever it was, Bokan preferred it. There was a large main gate with curtain walls going around what seemed to be greater than a simple courtyard, he would estimate the walls went for as much as 100 meters in both directions, though they were curved. They had a sheltered platform 8 meters up, above which there was a stone roof that formed a triangle. Around the wall was a moat, filled with sparkling water although he could not tell how deep it was. A stone bridge extended from the entrance over the moat, allowing for easy access. A steel portcullis and steel-reinforced gate guarded the entrance, however it was clear that the enchantments, which practically shone, were far more significant a protection than the materials themselves.
All in all, it was a formidable fortification for his old world, though here he suspected it represented little more than a minor inconvenience. Most warriors could easily jump over this wall, and any magic user incapable of getting round such a basic obstruction would be banned from leaving the tower. Most magic users under the 10th floor were banned from leaving the tower.
He was also able to just barely make out a castle of some kind on the far side, which he guessed would have a higher, stronger wall surrounding it. Then, the accommodation and amenities were likely provided outside of that second fortification in a kind of common area, with only the higher ranks staying up in the manor behind the second fortification.
Though of course, that was just a guess.
After 15 minutes Fred and Egro caught up to him, and Bokan walked towards the gate. After he reached about half way across the bridge, the portcullis rose and the gate swung open, revealing an enlarged space filled with seemingly hundreds of students rushing here and there. After advancing through the gate, Bokan was able to get a clear look.
A large field with buildings on either side, with a central path continuing to a second gate and portcullis, behind which was a large manor, exactly as Bokan had predicted. What he had not predicted, was the several hundreds magic users rushing around, though he could see one carrying books and scrolls while another practicing casting fireballs at a target, and yet another threw powerful lightning bolts that devastated an arena. All around him he saw several different things happening, some people enchanting in a closed building and others using growth magic to grow plants for food or alchemy.
A young looking man came rushing towards him, "Good sir, welcome to the academy! As in keeping with the regulations enforced by our founders and the geas they have managed to propagate through their subsequent inheritors, we are of course a completely open institution. However, there should have been a village on your way here with 5 masters who would be very willing to take on an apprentice, are you possibly already affiliated with them?"
"No"
"I see, ah well perhaps you should go and speak with them?"
"I would like to join the Academy"
"That is of course your right, but you see, we typically only have members we have specifically poached, uh I mean recruited, from around the empire, and you may feel like you don't really fit in here. I really would advise you to just become an apprentice to one of the local masters, there are so many advantages!"
"So people pay you to join the Academy?"
"Uh, well, something like that, what family do you originate from?"
"The magishields."
"Fu- well, thats excellent, please come right this way sir and I'll sign you in. Though, if you don't mind my rudeness, I thought the only child of the magishields was currently 5 years old, which you clearly aren't."
"Check the entrance records, I was summoned recently."
"The masters are in charge of that and they didn't tell us anything..." The man thought for a moment, a frown creasing his face
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
"It seems they have forgotten their responsibilities, that happens fairly regularly, I suppose we'll have to poison their lizards again"
"What?"
"Oh, nothing, just a joke between friends, come right this way", the perplexing young man turned and walked swiftly towards a nearby building, which seemed largely vacated. All the buildings were made of stone, with tile roofs. To the left he could even see a small forest, and to his right farms growing real food, albeit all of them vegetables. He supposed he would still be stuck eating lizards for protein.
"By the way, I don't suppose you've seen our chicken? We had a chicken and a rooster we managed to... attain through totally legal means you shouldn't ask the rulers about, and we haven't seen the chicken in a short while. As you can imagine, we have been looking for it night and day."
"I'm afraid not, how long has it been missing?"
"About 5 years now, just keep an eye out okay? We really need that chicken"
"Will do"
Feeling slightly more at home, Bokan looked at the man with renewed eyes, seeing a fellow anit-lizard spirit in him. "What's your name?" "I'm called Ardan, what about you?" "Bokan" "Good to meet you" "likewise". Bokan supposed that made sense, since Ardan was a common name in the empire, he just hoped that it wouldn't get too confusing.
Continuing some minor small talk, the two of them soon found themselves before a desk within a small building. Everything seemed to be made off the strange glowing stone, Ardan was beginning to suspect the entire place was created using a single earth spell, though he did recognize that wood was used in at least some places, so perhaps not everything was done in a single spell. Looking at his two skeletons that were following him, he found that somewhat comforting. Overall, he felt like for the first time in a long time, he was back in relative normalcy. "I don't suppose you have a "resurrect chicken" spell Mr Necromancer?" Relative was the key word.
Behind the desk, partially covered by a mountain of paper work, an young woman sat with a smile on her face and a vacant expression in her eye. Ardan spoke first, "Forgetting about the paperwork again?" With a slight jump, the lady responded "Ignorance is bliss good man. Currently, there are nearly a thousand documents for me to read and sign before tomorrow morning, or I'll be put on chicken chasing duty again" Bokan immediately made 2 decisions. 1) He would avoid chicken chasing duty at all costs, and 2) he would avoid a paperwork-related job at all costs.
After about 5 minutes of chatting, Bokan finally interjected into their conversation and spoke up "Excuse me, I would like to apply to join the Academy". The lady, who he now knew to be called Ayla, responded first "Of course, the Academy is available for anyone who can make it to us to join. Admittedly thats normally only the people we go to some effort to invite, but first let me tell you some of our basic rules, and then you can decide. First, no killing anyone a higher rank than yourself. I don't know how you got those skeletons behind you and I don't care, if I see you walking around with 3 skeletons from this day forth you will be facing an investigation. Second, no stealing from people who matter. I don't care if you steal some novice's homework, but if you take any of my stuff I will hide your body so secretly that the chicken will be found first. Thirdly, you cannot leave until we decide you are ready, and we won't decide you are ready until long after you are able to break through to the next floor. The rulers insisted on this, we will give you theory and help you grow faster, but you might be able to grow faster just from advancing through the floors, since you are required to provide us with your own research on something that will have to be thoroughly field tested."
"Ok, is that all?"
"No, there is also a hierarchy to be aware of. People higher up in the hierarchy get to tell people lower down what to do. They also don't have to worry so much about the no stealing or killing rules when there is enough of a hierarchy difference. Obviously, if you kill enough people that someone higher up than you doesn't like it, you'll find yourself on the receiving end of that treatment. The hierarchy works according to your stat points. Your rank will be decided by how high a number you can show with your fingers. A geas will be put on you that will only allow you to show 1 finger, and will restrict you to follow all of our laws, including several more minor ones I haven't mentioned. As you get stronger, you'll naturally be able to outwit, outwill or outlast your geas, which will decay over time and can be fought against using both intelligence and willpower, meaning any laws you can bypass, you will have the right to bypass. The academy considers itself a tribal system, wherein everything belongs to the leader, so theres plenty to gain and plenty to lose."
"I see, how does the economy work here?"
"Contribution points, which you get for performing tasks. Druids grow plants, Witches have a high intelligence so we can do clerical duties, we have powerful spells but terrible regeneration so we can occasionally do other tasks also. Contribution points can be exchanged for food, accommodation, materials and stationery. They can even be used for purchasing certain services, one fellow I knew will follow around people you don't like and trip them with roots using their druidic powers for a day, but he died after he tried that against someone a higher rank than him."
"I see, and can I detect other people with the same geas?"
"Yes, that is why it works as a sort of badge. We teach you a spell to cast called "detect Academy member". Your soul stone will naturally pick up the fact that you've learned this with your mind and connect it to your body and soul, thus allowing you to receive it for free from the spell shop. Its the first spell we teach, and once you learn it, you'll be enrolled into classes for learning other spells depending on your choices."
"I see, and what classes do you have?" Bokan asked. "Alchemy, enchanting, elemental magic, magical theory and combat. You'll have to pass them all in order to be allowed to the next floor, which takes most people a lot of time since what is needed for magical theory is intelligence, which is not the same as what is needed to flourish in the combat class. On higher floors, more things are required of you and so you'll need to learn more. Your geas won't allow you to advance to the next floor until you are strong enough that passing all of the classes on the floor you are currently on will be easy".
*Alright, I accept, cast the geas." Shortly after, Bokan found himself signing a magical document, which he had thoroughly reviewed, and was taught the "detect Academy member" spell. With his magical sensing, he was able to see what they did with their magic when they gave an example of it almost immediately, and he successfully cast it by the end of the first hour, mastering it by the end of the day and purchasing it from the shop, thus gaining enough of a boost that it allowed him to see the status of fellow Academy members, and he had enough skill in it that he would likely be able to adapt it for his own future secret cabal. Egro said that was a stupid idea after he had confided in Fred about his hopes for this spell, but cared what Egro said? Certainly not Bokan.
Ardan guided him to his accommodation at the end of the day while he reflected on what he had learned. Clearly hierarchy was critically important in this place, as were contribution points. Ardan apparently gained contribution points just by telling people new information, which is why he was helping Bokan so much, new members were his best source of income.
Also, the laws he were told were clearly told to him purely to tell him how important the hierarchy was. Threat of investigation or otherwise, Bokan got the impression that if he killed someone a higher rank than him, then he would be considered to have earned that rank and no one would care. More likely, the word choice was intentional to make him fear the possibility of murder at the hands of someone he would be restrained from even fighting back against.
Checking his ranking from his current stats, he used his poise to push out the first geas he'd been struggling against the entire time, hoping that the second geas he had would be enough to hide him from any passing ruler, and raised as many fingers as he could.
With 125 points in intelligence and 100 points in willpower, he had 225 stat points with which to combat this geas, which 225 years of life as a normal human would easily net him. For humans, their race tier improved every time they evolved their class. A year as a tier 4 class would passively net as many stats as 5 years as an unclassed human. For a normal tower initiate, they would have 25 intelligence and willpower from their age, a further 10 in both from being level 10, and as much as 15 in both from available stat points. In total, a normal tower initiate would have 100 combined points from intelligence and willpower, whereas he had 225.
The rankings of the tower were beautiful in their simplicity:
100 intelligence+willpower: rank 1
200 intelligence+willpower: rank 2
400 intelligence+willpower: rank 3
800 intelligence+willpower: rank 4
1600 intelligence+willpower: rank 5
...
51200 intelligence+willpower: rank 10
When he had asked Ardan how many people reached rank 10, Ardan simply laughed at him, for a fairly significant amount of time, and then told him that no one in the history of the last empire had ever reached the necessary stats for rank 6, and the current ruler of the Academy was rank 4. Also, the geas didn't decay, that wasn't a thing that a geas could do, it was just something that was said to convince people specializing in wisdom to join, since they made great researchers.
When he asked what rank Ardan was, Ardan told him that he was rank 2, and there was only 1 rank 3 on each floor of the tower where the academy had a foothold, except for the 50th floor where there were several rank 3s and the single rank 4 leader.
One of the large buildings, up a spiral stair case and down a narrow hallway, had a small room with 2 beds that was now Bokan's home. Well, Bokan and 2 skeletons. His roommate was thoroughly unimpressed.
"They are skeletons! They can sleep outside!" Mark yelled, getting somewhat red in the face. "Those skeletons are my dearly beloved uncle and brother, lovingly revived through totally legal means who I by no means murdered, long before I joined the tower, and they will certainly not be sleeping outside." Bokan lied in a calm, reasonable tone.
Mark was a good fellow, but he had one fairly significant disadvantage. He was rank 1. The following morning, Bokan had 3 skeletons, and his third skeleton was easily his best yet, with 104 death mana invested into his body and a further 52 invested into his mind (death link had improved to level 2 previously so he could double how much he invested into the formation of his mind). Bokan managed to gain another level in raise dead from that,
Raise Dead: Level 4=> Level 5
Would you like to upgrade for 2 skill points?
Raise Dead(2): Level 0
The most significant reward for Bokan from this was the knowledge that came with the improvement, and he managed to figure out a way to imbue his undead up to 5 times his maximum death mana, and could even do it after they were already raised for twice the cost. He spent the entire evening improving his skeletons, and was dead tired the following morning, but with a certain sense of satisfaction.
He had also levelled up several times in death mana conversion at this point, taking him up from level 3 to level 6 of the upgraded version. He strongly suspected that getting it up to level 10 and improving it would improve his death mana capacity, which he was heavily invested in doing, even though it would cost 4 skill points to do it.
Each skill cost 63 skill points to get to max level. 1 to buy the skill, 2 to upgrade the capacity to level 10, 4 to upgrade the capacity to level 20, 8 to upgrade the capacity to level 40, 16 to upgrade the capacity to level 80, and 32 to upgrade the capacity to level 100, at which point the skill/spell will give a mastery to the user, as well as being very strong obviously.
The effect of skills doubled each time they were upgraded, so a death bolt at level 1 was incomparable to a death bolt at level 100, since every level at level 100 would give 32 times the effect from skills of level 1. For instance, a level 100 death lance would do 48000 damage just by spending 2 death mana on it, and that would increase by 8000 for every additional mana point spent per lance. It would also likely have an option to evolve it to a higher tier skill, which would cost 64 skill points but turn it into a spell of untold destructive power. In the ancient records of the old empire, one magic user had apparently levelled up "magic bolt", a very basic attack spell with 1 damage at level 1, to level 100 and evolved it, and when he cast it he destroyed the world he was standing on.
It was also worth taking into account that the cost and damage of the spells available to Bokan were significantly higher than usual. Also, most of the damage from magic would be mitigated by willpower and enchanted items. Someone with a willpower of 1000 would be able to ignore 63% of the damage from any spell, and if they had good enchanted gear they could easily ignore another 80% of it, thus only having to handle 12.6% of the damage, which could normally be negated using a defensive spell.
Warriors usually relied upon their massive health pools, enchanted gear and insane regeneration to deal with enemy mages. A high stamina warrior would often regenerate their full health pool in less than a second, meaning anything less than an instant kill would be almost impossible to kill them with. Additionally, other than spells cast with death mana, almost all other spells can feasibly be dodged since only death mana ignores space.
At lower levels, critical strikes on an opponents brain mattered a lot, but at very high levels, having one's head destroyed would only be a minor inconvenience.
Mark looked different to the other two undead. His mind had been strengthened more, as had his magic, and he could now practice endlessly in order to improve his skills. Bokan found out from Egro that they were able to learn basic spells as an undead, even though they had no access to a soul stone, because their body was more a crude extension of their soul, allowing them to see their own status without trouble and even use the spell shop feature. Likely that was partly inherited from the necromancer who raised them, and they also had access to the basic spells he had gained access to, although their version of "raise dead" and "death link" were far inferior to his own, they would never be able to make true growing undead, and couldn't give true sentience to their minions, but they could quite feasibly become liches of their own right.
The first class, far too early in the morning so far as Bokan was concerned (Mark for some reason was unsympathetic), was enchanting. So began Bokan's life as an academy mage.