——4e, 201, the last seed month, 17th, 10:00——
Faraudah stood at the gate of the Mage Academy, a little bored.
As an elf from Summerset Island in the south, she has been able to adapt to the severe cold of the world's northernmost city, but she is still a little uncomfortable with the sharp and cold gazes cast by the residents of Winterhold.
Unlike Morningstar City in the west, which is located in a depression and has a good port environment, the coast of Winterhold is covered with snow that never melts all year round. The rocks and ice frames form a huge obstacle from Winterhold to the North Sea. There are also some Pebble beaches are dotted here and there. As a result, sea routes are completely cut off. If you want to exchange supplies with the outside world, you can only rely on land transportation between the mountains surrounding it and the ice sheet between the East China Sea. However, various violent elemental creatures will attack anyone who passes there. things, so the lives of the residents of Winterhold are also extremely difficult.
But the fault cannot be placed on the academy. A passing Winterhold guard deliberately looked at her and spat at the roadside, which made Faraudah a little angry, but in the end she suppressed the urge to use magic tricks to teach him a lesson. idea.
In Winterhold today, there is only one barren village left in the fiefdom. It is the capital of the fiefdom, located near the entrance of Winterfort College. The other parts have completely disappeared due to the "Great Collapse" more than 20 years ago. Now When mentioning Winterfort, one would only think of the Mage Academy and the "village at its doorstep", and rumors spread throughout the entire province that it was the Mage Academy that destroyed Winterfort.
What a joke!
The mages of the Mage Academy predicted fifty years in advance that Winterfort would collapse and slide into the Sea of the Undead, causing the surrounding residents to move and take refuge. However, they turned a deaf ear to this and even thought that the Mage Academy was alarming to achieve some ulterior purpose. .
Even if the Nords advocate force and disdain magic, they should not be so arrogant. Faraudah once seriously discussed with his colleagues that they should just ignore those arrogant Nord barbarians and let them sink to the bottom of the sea. , but was rejected.
In the end, when the empire and the Thalmor elves started a war, the mages used various spells to forcibly transfer all the residents of the collapsed area to a safe area, and then the entire Winterfort sank to the bottom of the sea in front of those stubborn people. The mage academy protected by magic is left. 【】
After that... Falaudah was still angry when he thought about it, such strange arguments as "Why not protect the entire Winterfort if you can protect the academy?" "Why not transfer our wealth if you can?" "The academy must provide us with a place to stay" and other strange arguments. , even after nearly two decades, there is still a market in this barren village and town.
This has also made the job of recruiting apprentices to the Mage Academy extremely difficult. Currently, there are only three apprentices who have come here, and none of them are locals from the province.
When Faraudah was about to end the recruitment and close the gate of the academy, a girl wearing a mage robe and a hood appeared in front of the gate.
"Well, is it over yet?" she asked in a thin voice.
Although she looked like a blond Nord, with the elf's intuition and the mage's keen perception, she could tell that this woman had no ill intentions at all, and Faraudah decided to give her a chance.
"Did you see the magic well behind me?" She pointed to the "well" emitting blue light on the inside of the door, and said to the Nord girl: "Light it with magic, and you will be qualified."
This kind of magic well is used as a regular lighting inside the academy. It only requires the simplest change spell "Magic Light" to ignite. It will provide gentle blue light illumination and slow mana recovery until the magic salt in it is consumed.
"Is that so?" A ball emitting white light appeared in the Nord girl's hand. She raised her hand and threw it into the magic well. A blue light beam instantly rushed out of the well mouth.
"Very good, you are qualified. After entering, go to Mirabelle Ewen to sign up and accept her arrangements."
Faraudah watched the Nord girl ignite the magic wells on the long bridge leading to the main building of the academy one by one, and was very satisfied.
The magic wells at the door will go out soon after being lit. Their function is only to test the total amount of magic power of the apprentice. Generally, a magic apprentice who has just awakened his magic ability will consume all his magic power by lighting one of the wells. However, this apprentice actually The breath ignited all five magic wells along the way, which relieved Faraudah's depression a little while standing in the wind and snow.
Mirabelle will be happy that I have found such an excellent apprentice, Faraudah thought as she locked the door of the mage academy engraved with stars, triangles, suns and double moons in relief.
————
The main body of the Mage Academy is in the shape of a huge cylinder. It can be seen from the remaining foundation parts after the collapse. In addition to the surface buildings, there are also parts underground.
After passing the test long bridge, the wind and snow suddenly stopped. This is a circular square with a barrier to block the wind and snow. In the center of the square is the statue of Shalido, the founder of the Mage Academy and the first chief mage. On the front is a sculpture containing "elements" The main buildings are the "Hall of Achievement" and the "Hall of Arcane", while on both sides are the "Hall of Achievements" and the "Hall of Faces", the residences of apprentices and mentors respectively.
The Nord girl looked at Faraudah who looked like he was "looking for someone by himself", shrugged and walked towards another male mage wearing a brown mage robe in the square.
"Hi, Forrest Gump," she said, "Have you seen Mira?"
"Don't call me Forrest Gump!" The male mage was instantly furious: "My name is Anel Gump!"
"Okay, Forrest." The girl continued: "I want to find Mira."
"Oh, wait, are you—" Anel Gan looked the Nord girl up and down: "Have you made any progress in the transformation spells?"
"It's okay, I'm probably going to be promoted to a legend soon," the girl gestured in Faraudah's direction: "At least I've deceived one."
"Haha, legend," Anel Gan's eyes twitched: "Mirabelle is in the Palace of Faces and is being pestered by that 'advisor'. You, a 'new apprentice', don't go and cause trouble."
"Tsk, when the two of them meet, they can probably argue with each other for a whole time. I really don't know what Thalmor has to send him for." The girl smacked her lips: "Then I'll go find my father."
"Me, you don't even have the confidence to deceive me, so you dare to go to Tovdir? Master of change?" Anelgan's hand flashed with light, and his face turned into an old, kind but stern look. The old man's face: "Nonsense!"
"It's not like it at all." The girl spread her hands and walked straight to the Temple of Elements. "Besides, my father will not expose me in front of the new apprentice. I will definitely win this bet."
"Who did she bet with?" Anel looked at the girl's back, shook his head and turned to leave.
————
"I think we are fully aware of the dangers of magic, and we wouldn't be here if we didn't know anything about it."
A slightly shrill female voice echoed in the empty hall.
The Temple of Elements is a vaulted hall with a huge magic well. The circular area in the middle is a place for teaching and practicing magic because the magic well can be used to quickly restore mana. The tables, chairs and bookshelves around the hall are for learning and recording. As well as the place where scrolls were copied, in its heyday, this hall, which could accommodate five tutors teaching at the same time, required queuing to enter.
But now, there are only three apprentices standing in the middle of the hall. The one who teaches them is Master Tovdir who would not take on this task under normal circumstances. When training new apprentices, they usually have just graduated from apprenticeships like Anel Gan. , a mage who has qualified as a tutor - but since there are only three students currently, there is nothing to complain about.
And since the operating funds of the Mage Academy are not mainly based on the tuition fees of apprentices - this amount is actually quite low, except for a few tutors who miss the bustling scene of the past, the masters are basically happy to relax, using the enchantment master Sergis Tu Rianus's words: "If they want to enchant weapons or spell scrolls, they still have to come to us."
"Of course, dear, of course, you all have special talents, I am very sure of this," the master, who was surrounded by three apprentices, said in an old but powerful voice. The dark blue robe on his body looked very old. But his overall temperament does not look sloppy: "But mine is precise control of magic so that it will not escape my control. To achieve this requires years or even decades of research and learning."
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's start now!" The words with a strange hiss came from an apprentice with a tail, and the face under his hood looked like a leopard.
"We have just arrived here. You don't know what we are capable of yet. Why don't you let us show you?" The remaining male apprentice had red skin and seemed to be a Red Guard who had a hard time becoming a mage.
The Khajiit Zag, the dark elf Brelina Mayo, and the redguard Onmond, these are the only three apprentices accepted by Farauda today, and they all seem to be bad-tempered and destructive type. .
"Oh, your last classmate has arrived," Tovdir thought as he turned his attention to the Nord girl who sneaked in: "What do you think of this? Should we put it into practice immediately?"
"I think safety comes first." The girl looked away.
"Don't listen to her, we know our own strength!" The tiger man bared his teeth at the girl.
"Oh, okay, we can conduct a temporary test. I will use a shield spell. You use your own spells to attack. I will know your approximate level. Of course, you don't have to worry about hurting me, old man. I still have this little bit of confidence." Tovdil said, taking two steps back and unfolding a semicircular barrier.
"Ha!" "Scout!"
The Khajiits and Redguards shouted and threw fireballs and lightning, while the Dark Elves flew out several ice blades, their shields motionless.
"Boom!"
Huge flames exploded, the barrier flickered and almost went out, while the other three apprentices were stunned.
"I...learned how to control it because the spell was too powerful." The Nord girl shrugged and extinguished the flames gathering in her other hand.
"Oh, okay, you should practice the spell I just used. After you are all proficient in it, I will take you to explore other ways of using magic in history." Tovdir put away the shield, and then Turning to the Nord girl: "I think we need to talk about how to 'control' your 'power' through some 'means', Zero Patient."
Through the camouflage of the illusion, he shuddered when he saw the "Nord girl" with black hair and eyes wearing an academy uniform.
