"Lord Colin."
Seeing him approach, the knights on either side simultaneously greeted him respectfully, causing Colin to be slightly taken aback.
If one of the knights had greeted him, he might not have thought much of it... after all, the Great Knight had conveyed a message that morning and recognizing his face was quite normal.
But now it seemed that both knights recognized him...
And rather than saying they were twins, they looked more like copies pasted from the same mold! They bore a striking resemblance to each other.
From the color of their pupils to the height of their noses, even the length of their hair, the two knights were exactly alike!
"Please, this way, Lord Colin," the tall knight on the left continued, "follow this path, and in the innermost private room is where the Official Wizards gather, Lord Eugene is waiting there."
'The gathering place for Official Wizards… it seems that Wizard Apprentices do not meet with them in the same place.' Colin mused to himself, then asked another question.
"Besides Lord Eugene, have any other Official Wizards arrived?"
"Many Official Wizards have already arrived," answered the tall knight.
"Hmm," Colin nodded, now reassured, and walked inside.
Having other wizards there was good, otherwise, if it ended up being just him and Eugene in the room... it would also be a bit of a troublesome matter.
He pushed the door open.
The size of the room exceeded Colin's expectations, a huge brown long table that could accommodate over forty people was placed in the center, yet it did not appear cramped.
At the head of the table sat a black-haired wizard, handsome but with a pallid and ominous complexion, his face marked by strange patterns...
Clearly, this was Wizard Eugene.
This appearance, oddly enough, reminded Colin of an "old acquaintance"—Nidham.
That very Advanced Apprentice who had bought Charlie, who had attacked him, and later transformed him into a hound...
But Nidham did not have the presence of this black-haired wizard.
Flanking Eugene closely sat two wizards, one with a youthful face and handsome features, the other of middle-aged appearance.
The other dozen or so First Rank Wizards were sparsely seated along both sides of the long table.
However, what surprised Colin the most were the two familiar tall knights standing in the corner of the room...
Quadruplets?
Colin shook his head... this must certainly be a creation of witchcraft.
Suppressing his curiosity, he silently approached Eugene, placed his hand on his chest in a gesture of respect, and after carefully scanning around, he directly took his place at the middle of the left side of the long table.
There, sat a petite witch with a slightly furrowed brow.
"Good afternoon, Senior Lillian."
Colin paused, sitting down while greeting her.
With just a brief search, he had noticed Lillian's petite figure alone... but he didn't know what was bothering her, as she hadn't even noticed his arrival.
"...Good afternoon, Junior Colin."
Lillian turned her head, slightly startled, and responded instinctively.
Colin nodded slightly... he had too many questions he wanted to ask, such as about Wizard Eugene, or about academic points, but perhaps for that very reason, he was momentarily unsure of where to start.
"Junior Colin, which room are you in?" Lillian suddenly asked again,
"You've advanced to Official Wizard, and your mentor has a piece of witchcraft to pass on to you, but because you are to accompany the Alus Association to the Southern Sea Domain, your mentor has asked me to teach it to you."
"Second floor, Section B, Room 108," replied Colin briefly, about to ask what kind of witchcraft Atbolde was going to impart, when suddenly a magnetic voice intervened from the side.
"Lillian, so you were here, why didn't you say a word before you came early?" A mature male wizard with an elaborate hairstyle approached them slowly, "I knocked on your door for quite a while...only to find out that you had already left."
As Colin observed the male wizard's appearance, he felt a flicker of recognition, as if he had seen him somewhere before.
A moment later, with the help of the Superbrain, the scene of his first trip to find Lillian slowly emerged in his mind.
Back in the classroom, this mature male wizard had come to talk to Lillian just like he was doing now.
As for the name, it seemed to be...
"Silear, we aren't that familiar," Lillian answered coldly, her eyebrows furrowing even more deeply.
Silear didn't mind, he just gave a slight smile, then turned his head to Colin and asked:
"Who is this?"
Lillian didn't answer, and Colin remained silent as well... The last time Silear came to talk to Lillian, it was because of him, and it now seemed he had no recollection of him.
Seeing that Lillian did not answer, Silear did not feel awkward. He elegantly frowned and thought for a moment, then as if realizing something, said:
"The Official Wizard, blonde and handsome... is this not the genius student recently Advanced to First Rank Wizard under the tutelage of Lord Atbolde?"
Silear maintained a perfectly surprised expression, and although his words were complimentary, they did not seem intentionally flattering.
Others might have appreciated the compliment, but Colin only felt a bit awkward.
Fortunately, it seemed the wizards were all gathered for the meeting as a soft voice came from the main seat.
"The gathering begins."
Despite the softness of the voice, not a single person dared to disregard it. Silear, who had intended to continue speaking, immediately halted and turned to sit up straight, respectfully gazing at the main seat.
Colin turned his head too.
At the main seat, Eugene was casually leaning against a broader black backrest different from the other chairs, toying with a pale white bead resembling a lychee in his hand.
As his words finished, the servants outside began serving food.
Eugene continued:
"There are mainly two things for which I've gathered you all. The first is to distribute the magic stones subsidized by the School. The second is to let you familiarize yourselves with each other, form companions if possible, so as not to end up alone on the battlefield. And the third... well, there's no third; that's all I have to say."
"Alright, let's distribute the magic stones."
Eugene put down the lychee-like bead, removed the Storage Ring from his left thumb, and tossed it to the young wizard on his left.
Colin was momentarily taken aback. The young wizard looked up, and only then did Colin notice the peculiar scars on his face...they were scattered across, numerous, extending from his face to his neck, even the exposed arms were covered with residual scars.
Though now only faint traces remained, their fierce appearance was enough to imagine the terrible scene at the time.
The scars that split open...as if countless odd things had burrowed out of the skin.
The young wizard began distributing the magic stones...these were top-grade magic stones Colin had never seen before, with one equivalent to ten thousand common magic stones.
In fact, the common magic stones...were the ones he used during his Apprentice period, which, strictly speaking, were more akin to shards of magic stones.
A hundred of them would only equal one inferior magic stone, one-tenth of a middle-grade magic stone...
Despite the large table, it definitely accommodated fewer than forty people, so it wasn't long before the young wizard reached Colin's seat.
"Lillian Apprentice, don't pay him any mind later," Lillian suddenly warned.
Colin was puzzled, but before he could ask, the young wizard had already arrived in front of him.
Unlike the brisk distribution to the previous wizards, this young wizard stopped in front of him.
Colin frowned and watched as a rigid smile formed on the sinister face of the young wizard, who then coldly asked him:
"Colin Leonard, the good student of Atbolde, huh?"
Herard's pace of speech was unhurried, but his tone seemed to explode from clenched teeth, as if holding back roiling anger.