The young apprentices’ eyes began to glow, mixing greed, fear, and a morbid excitement.
As Ron stepped onto the street, the noisy discussions abruptly ceased.
Everyone’s gaze turned to him, but no one dared to look him in the eye.
The apprentices dispersed like frightened little animals, but he could feel countless gazes following him from behind.
"It’s Lecturer Ralph..."
"The temporary deputy of the New Star Plan..."
"I heard Cassandra Tower Master hosted a private dinner for him personally..."
Whenever he looked back, everyone would quickly lower their heads, pretending to be engrossed in watching the display board.
This strange atmosphere reminded Ron of scenes in certain animal documentaries.
When the top predator appears, other animals instinctively keep their distance, neither daring to provoke nor ignore.
A few Official Wizards maintained a veneer of calm, but the complex emotions in their eyes were perfectly clear.
Awe, jealousy, curiosity, and a subtle fear.
Not fear of Ron himself, but of the Conquest Faction and Cassandra behind him.
On the way to the library, Ron observed more disturbing changes.
Wizards who were once focused on pure academic research now lingered by the street’s information boards, inquiring about the conditions and requirements to join the conquest teams.
The once deserted specialty bookstores of "Otherworld Geography" and "War Magic" now had long lines outside.
Ron even saw several normally gentle theoretical researchers fiercely discussing various plundering techniques and enslavement methods.
"I heard the ’Spirit Shackles’ Magic can completely control the minds of alien races..."
"But that kind of magic... might contaminate the controlled person’s personality..."
"It doesn’t matter, who cares about those alien races, as long as it doesn’t rebound on oneself."
These conversations reminded Ron of those colonizers and slave traders in Earth’s history.
Under the temptation of enormous profits, the boundary between civilization and morality became blurred, revealing the darkest sides of humanity.
More worrying was that some young apprentices started organizing small groups to discuss how to participate in the conquest plans.
Although their current strength was far from enough to perform cross-border conquests, this dangerous thought had already begun to sprout.
The atmosphere of the entire Crystal Tower was undergoing a fundamental transformation.
The once rigorous scholarship was yielding to adventurous restlessness, the pure pursuit of knowledge was being replaced by utilitarian plundering desires.
Knowledge was still important, but now it carried a more sinister meaning.
No longer a beacon illuminating civilization’s path, but a tool for conquest and enslavement.
Ron calmly analyzed this change in his mind.
From a sociological perspective, this was a typical trait of a civilization transitioning from inward development to outward expansion.
When internal resources began to dwindle, outward plundering became the only choice to maintain development.
But the problem was that the speed of this transition was too rapid, almost leaving no time for people to adapt.
Cassandra, by displaying massive conquest achievements, artificially created a "conquest frenzy," driving even the originally rational scholars to greed.
This situation provided both opportunities and dangers for Ron.
On one hand, in such an environment, it was easier for someone with great strength like him to gain recognition and resources;
On the other hand, when the entire society was gripped by madness, maintaining rationality might instead become a dangerous "heretical" trait.
......
The entrance of the Crystal Tower’s library stood with a daunting stone door.
It wasn’t ordinary stone but some living mineral that changed color according to the observer’s emotions.
As Ron approached, the sleeping runes on the door began to awaken, gradually shifting from a dull gray to a warning orange, finally stabilizing at a symbol of high authority, gold.
The guard at the door wasn’t a human but a three-meter-tall crystal construct.
Its body was composed of semi-transparent blue crystals, with an Energy Core spinning ceaselessly within its chest cavity.
More unsettling was that the construct’s "face" was actually a sleek mirror, reflecting the deepest fears of the observer in real-time.
As Ron gazed at the mirror, he saw not his own reflection, but a figure entangled by countless tendrils, a manifestation of his concern over the possible loss of control in the future.
"Identity confirmation in process..."
The construct’s voice was as grating as crystal shards scraping: "Detected high-level authority, initiating deep scan."
The subsequent identity verification process was extremely unsettling.
The construct first scanned Ron’s Magic Power signature, then used some invasive mental probe to analyze his thinking patterns.
This scan lasted nearly five minutes, and the sensation of being thoroughly inspected was intensely unpleasant.
He could feel the construct searching for specific "marks."
... marks that might suggest he was linked to danger in some way.
Fortunately, last night’s interaction with the King of Illusions left no obvious traces in his mental structure.
The Witch King-level existence evidently possessed the ability to perfectly cover its influence.
Suddenly, the construct’s mirror-like face turned toward Ron, its voice carrying mechanical bewilderment:
"Your mental structure presents an extremely rare multi-layer protection pattern.
The complexity of this... is exceptional even among Associate Professor level."
Its Energy Core’s rotation speed visibly accelerated, emitting a deep hum: