Nocturne wondered to himself how at the time an ordinary soulless person could give life to someone like Kyle. The fact that Kyle had above average talent can be considered a miracle. If not for his unique elemental affinity, his chances of becoming a True Mage would be extremely low. Perhaps if Kyle had remained in his care, only death would have awaited him.

Although Nocturne regretted that he had lost this student, at the same time he was glad that the Mage of the 2nd rank personally took up his promotion. If Kyle succeeds in the future, Nocturne will still be one of the first to benefit from it. It cost him nothing to look after Kyle's father at the academy, so it was a good deal.

I left the office, and soon the building with Nissa in my arms. The soulless puppet took me first to get the room keys, robe and special pass, then I followed the puppet to my room.

The situation in the residential part of the corps of acolytes was more like an educational institution. My room was quite spacious, about 30 square meters. After putting Nissa to bed, I was finally able to take off the trunk containing my belongings.

Although the armor gave a sense of security, it was not very pleasant to wear it all the time. I myself was not opposed to abandoning its constant wearing. But so far I have not begun to remove dark gold armor since there was no point in visiting the training ground without it.

Throwing on the cloak of acolyte, I left the room with my pass hanging around my neck for all to see. In the lobby I found a description of the layout of the building. The training ground was not here, so I went to another corps of acolytes. Soon I already paid one magic crystal for 10 minutes of training room usage and began to test the strength of my attacks and spells.

In front of me was a round punching bag firmly fixed from the ceiling and floor.

I used my favorite sonic blast spell. I loved it because it was even difficult to call it a spell. The essence was in simple collection of a sound element in one point and the subsequent detonation. That's what I did the first time I became an acolyte.

A small bright sonic ball gathered in front of the target and a sonic explosion sounded. The damage numbers were displayed on the wall. - 2.2 sonic 6 physical.

So here's the thing. The elemental damage of my sound spells was extremely low, with the shockwave dealing most damage.

Then I decided to try a modified attack that I use in formations to speed up so as not to destroy everything around. The principle of operation is the same, just the explosion radius is limited to one area.

The elements gathered in the shape of a semicircle and the force of the blast wave covered the punching bag. - 2.5 sonic, 7 physical.

Of course, only the damage from the sound element and the shock wave was taken into account, but the sound itself was not fixed in any way.

Kyle said that the strongest combat spells of acolytes can deal up to 15 damage, in this regard, my spells were far behind. Even if I figured out a way to compress the blast even more, I'm unlikely to be able to deal more than 10 damage.

Now I decided to use fireball and ice spear. The numbers showed 10 and 8 damage respectively. But not only did my spells of these elements inflict less than the declared damage, but I also had to collect the elements for a long and tedious time in order to finally use them, while spending almost all of my mental energy.

It's a pity that the formations responsible for the impact force check mechanism were hidden, so I couldn't inspect them. Will have to look for information about them in the future.

From my blow with a two-handed sword, only a scratch appeared on the pear and disappeared again. The damage numbers were displayed on the wall. - 4.1 physical.

Now, I used the Knight's secret technique and struck again. - 5 physical.

My Knight Technique involved all-round buffing of the body for a short time, so the damage increase wasn't that much.

Together with the sonic Sword spell - 5 physical, 2 sonic.

With each moment of continued contact between the sword and the target, the sound damage increased. However, I was disappointed with such low contact damage.

Finally, I used the formation on my the back of my armor and launched forward hitting the target like a bullet. The sword pierced the pear, and then my armor crashed into it aswell. Spitting blood I settled on the ground and lay on the floor for some time getting back to my senses.

7 physical, 2 sonic. 12 physical.

This result surprised me a bit. Apparently using my body as a weapon, I dealt more damage than with a sword or spells. Obviously, all the damage inflicted over the entire area of ​​​​the pear was taken into account.

It was logical when considering attacking an opponent who uses a protection spell, or when attacking a True Mage's barrier. It doesn't matter if you strike or hit a large area, the main thing is the total damage dealt to the barrier to deplete it. But I'm afraid that if my armor was weaker, I would literally kill myself.

In any case, the conclusion is simple. My sound spells couldn't compare to other acolytes spells in terms of elemental damage. The main benefits of my spells were stun and shockwave.

Naturally, I will have to focus on improving those aspects in which I was quite good. I didn't have too much time to try and come up with something new through endless research and testing.

Finally, having satisfied my curiosity, I returned to the room and took off my armor. Having treated the bruises and injuries,  changed into the standard uniform of acolytes.

Splashing some water on the child woke her up.

- Stop wallowing, take up meditation and then sit down to study. If you don't become an acolyte you will die.

- Ah! Yes I...

Frightened, the little girl began to ask for forgiveness and promised to work hard. I decided to remind her of a few things, although I had already started giving children tasks and explaining the details of meditation a long time ago, but I made allowances for the fact that she was still a child.

Then I went to look at the list of spells sold by the academy, but there were no sound spells.

After going to the trading area, I found a counter with spells. However, there was only the ill-fated Sonic Sword, and the prices for spells were starting from 10 magic crystals.

Soon I was amazed when I saw that here they were selling mortal things for magic crystals. For example, an alchemist's set, which in the city would cost no more than 20 gold, here cost a magic crystal.

Then I looked at the counter with crossbows and armor. Behind the counter was a rather friendly and well-groomed woman, 2nd rank acolyte. She praised the weapon with a smile, asking for only two magic crystals for it.

Nevertheless, after examining the crossbow, I was convinced that it was an ordinary crossbow, albeit from high-quality materials. I immediately wanted to inform my people to bring here a bunch of crossbows, armor and much more. In such a simple way, I would have earned a bunch of magic crystals. However, it was too good to be true.

- What if I bring my own crossbows here, will I be able to put them up for sale? - I clarified.

- Actually no. To trade here you need the permission of the academy - she replied with a wry smile.

Although I already understood everything, I decided to apply for a trade permit for show. After listening to my request, the acolyte specified what exactly I was going to sell. Naturally polite smile immediately disappeared from her face as soon as she heard my answer.

Everything became clear. Apparently, this so-called market is just a screen for ripping off the acolytes. Front sellers sell goods for magic crystals, although the academy can certainly buy such for gold indefinitely. Of course, they will not allow anyone else to engage in such a profitable business.

Acolytes who already do not have enough time for training will not spend a lot of time trying to purchase these goods somewhere outside the academy. They simply don't have a choice here.

Of course not all sellers are fake and there are those who really sell their own goods. Nevertheless, it became clear that the academy did not care deeply about the acolytes. Rather they were simply used here and only the most outstanding had some chance to really progress.

In peacetime, such acolytes brought considerable income both in the form of crystals and resources. In times of conflict or war they could serve as excellent cannon fodder by filling up a couple of True Mages with quantity.

Apparently there were only 7 True Mages in the academy, and not all of them accepted at least one student. They won't waste their time doing something like this without a good reason.

For example, if an acolyte had an extremely high magical talent or talent in some of the professions, then some Mages might be interested in such acolyte. An individual Magician, family or organization could enter into a contract with such an acolyte, helping him in his development and hoping that he will be able to repay them many times over in the future.

Kyle's case was another example. Any Mage could use blood spells and conduct bloodline research. However, either no one has made significant progress yet, or no one has dared to even try to trade such information with other Mages. In any case, Nocturne was clearly already doing bloodline research once he became interested in Kyle. Well, given that he has competitors, he is far from alone.

In any case, there were only a few students of True Magicians. All other acolytes were students of the academy only formally. Most talented enough signed a contract with the academy when trying to break through. Otherwise, it was simply impossible for them to get the potion of Ascension. Considering the number of True Magicians in the academy, it is not difficult to imagine how low the success rate is even if the acolyte meets all the requirements.

After leaving the market, I went to the library. Even here there were strict restrictions, fortunately my pass allowed me to freely explore all the departments in the library. I was glad that Kyle agreed on this, otherwise I would have been robbed to the skin in this stash.

I did not even consider personal lessons, having already understood the essence of what was happening around here. Once every half a year, one of the Mages gave a free lecture. It was worth visiting only that, but given what I saw, I did not expect too much.

If this happens in the academy then I was really interested what was happening in an organization called Convict.

Obviously, the Mages here were fixated only on themselves and their needs. Apparently, the True Magicians were not at all interested in new True Magicians appearing, rather the opposite.

I myself was an extremely selfish person and I was not particularly worried about the fate of other people. I killed tons of people crawling this far and never had mercy for those who stands in my way. But at the same time I always thought that it does not make sense to just kill everyone taking their stuff. Such method was good as a temporary measure but it had no future. Therefore I was always appreciated if someone like Rashford or Murphy was interested to take part and increase the quality and size of the pie. Even though I had to give up on the part of this pie it was still much better than being the only owner of pie made from shit.

I was also still convinced that even mortals could be extremely useful in large numbers. If not for the lack of time, I would already be trying to take control of some kingdom for my own purposes.

Although Kyle scattered my people with ease, however things could be completely different if they were given more powerful weapons and better protection in their hands. But during the half year I spent on my way here, I did not notice anything worthwhile in the hands of mortals. The local Mages did not see mortals as a potentially useful combat unit.

I also didn't quite understand why Mages don't try to raise as many other Mages as possible, thereby advancing the study of magic in all areas. Perhaps they could even come up with better ways to promote.

The simplest explanation could be a lack of resources. Still, Magicians or not, humans were still humans. I wouldn't be surprised if rank 2 Mages were a bunch of brainless people who are afraid of losing the power they have in their hands. This was a fairly common occurrence. Even if it does not benefit them themselves, they will diligently suppress all those who can compete with them on the throne. This could at least partly explain the low number of True Mages in the Southern Continent.