That morning, Jess returned to the Mage Quarter. After several days of rest, he considered himself fit to be seen again.

His face still bore bluish bruises, and his gait remained a little awkward, but at least the bandages had come off his arms. On the surface, he looked normal again—ready to get on with his life.

When Jess reached the Mage Quarter and knocked on Eden Malin's door, Master Malin was not inside. A young woman in her twenties was cleaning the room.

She glanced over. Her square face was strong and angular, and her short, dark brown hair was swept neatly back. Jess saw the resemblance to Malin at once.

"Hello. You are Mr. Jess Seso, correct? Father has gone to the Redridge Mountains and may not return for a week. He mentioned that you might visit soon, though he did not say you were so young..."

"Are you Master Malin's daughter?"

"Yes. I am Amy Malin, a trainee mage at the Wizard's Sanctum. I hear you encountered gnolls near Westbrook Garrison a few days ago, at night. Is that true?"

"Yes. Without Master Malin, I might already be dead."

"I never expected the gnolls to return at a time like this," Amy said, concern in her voice. "The orcs devastated their tribes when they invaded this land, so the gnolls also benefited when we drove the orcs back. To turn around and attack us now is despicable."

"Perhaps they simply aren't intelligent enough to understand gratitude or cooperation," Jess said.

"I would prefer to think of them as mere beasts, but gnolls have warlocks too. Dark magic may accept anyone willing to accept it, but understanding incantations still requires a certain degree of intelligence. Forgive me, I've gone off topic. What happened that night must have shaken me. Now I keep worrying that Father will be hurt. He told me to familiarize you with the work when you arrived, so let us begin here..."

As Amy put down what she was holding and washed her hands in a wooden basin nearby, Jess said, "Actually, I came today to discuss the compensation."

Amy dried her hands. "You do not know the standard terms for a mage's assistant at the Wizard's Sanctum? Ah, you are from the north, correct? Your accent sounds as though you come from the Kingdom of Lordaeron."

Jess grunted in agreement. When he first arrived in this world, he had learned Common while retaining his memories of Chinese and English. He had worked hard to avoid developing a strange accent. Back then, he had never expected that once he grew up, everyone would still recognize him as a Lordaeron native at once.

"Then I will give you a brief explanation, and you can tell me what you think," Amy said. "Six silver a month. For meals, you may enter the Wizard's Sanctum and eat with the mages in the dining hall. As for lodging, the Mage Quarter has free dormitories for apprentices and assistants. They used to be full, but some apprentices followed their mentors to Nethergarde Keep with the expedition, so a room may have opened up. I will keep watch for one. You may be able to move in as early as next month."

"Thank you. I truly appreciate the trouble."

"It is no trouble. I should be thanking you for helping my father."

"Is the food free too?"

"It is, though it may be extremely monotonous—only a few pastries and breads. If you want something better, you can visit the taverns outside. I would avoid the Slaughtered Lamb. I do not recommend it. The atmosphere always feels strange."

Amy's description was almost exactly what Jess had hoped for. He only needed to keep his rented room for one more month, and he could afford the extra rent. After that, he would live in a free dormitory.

He had expected a slightly higher monthly wage, especially for work in the Mage Quarter, but six silver was still better than what many places in the city offered.

Most importantly, he had gained an opportunity to become a mage.

"Now for the work." Amy picked up the mop. "Every morning, before my father arrives—around this time—you must clean his study. That includes mopping the floor and dusting. There has been much more dust here since the ogres came through than when I was a child. You generally need not arrange the books. Father puts them away himself. Compared with organizing the library, which falls to me... it will be much easier."

Cleaning a study and dusting were no problem for Jess. He had served as his class's sanitation monitor for several years in middle school.

"Father will explain the specific duties in detail when he returns. For today, you can clean this room first." Amy wiped the sweat from her forehead and sighed with relief. "At last I have someone to help me. Ever since Father sent his apprentice to the Redridge Mountains, he has left all this work to me."

"None of that will be a problem, my lady." Jess could not resist asking, "What I actually wanted to know is, when can I become an apprentice?"

"An apprentice?" Amy paused. "Do you mean an apprentice mage of the Wizard's Sanctum? My father's apprentice?"

"Yes."

"An assistant and an apprentice are not the same thing... An assistant merely helps a mage with daily work. An apprentice studies magic."

Amy spoke as though it were self-evident, but Jess felt as if lightning had struck him. How could becoming a mage's assistant not lead to becoming his apprentice? What kind of logic was that?

So that was it. That was why Malin was willing to hire him. He merely wanted someone to perform physical labor, not a student.

Then why had the man asked all those cryptic questions? Jess felt as though Malin had toyed with his feelings, though feeling that way about an old man was strange enough in itself.

Seeing the boy's shock, Amy asked, "How old are you?"

"Seventeen. Nearly eighteen."

Amy shook her head. "Magical apprentices usually begin training when they are very young. They enter school at eleven or twelve. At your age, unless you possess exceptional talent, it may already be too late for you to train as a qualified mage. At Father's direction, I entered the Wizard's Sanctum at twelve. I am twenty-six now and still have not become a full mage. If I fail to advance by thirty, Father may be disappointed."

She sighed and continued, "Still, the Wizard's Sanctum has quite a few trainee mages in their thirties. Almost all of them became apprentices before they were fifteen."

"What if..." Jess said. "I mean, what if I have great talent? Exceptional talent?"

"Have you never attempted to cast a spell?" Amy asked. "Master Medivh could already use magic from several schools proficiently when he was ten..."

He had cheats, didn't he?

Was it so impressive to be possessed by the demon lord, the Dark Titan Sargeras?

Was it so impressive to have an eight-hundred-year-old Guardian of Tirisfal for a mother?

Jess clenched his fist, bitterly aware of what it meant to have no special advantage while brainless native prodigies blessed with mighty bloodlines left him in the dust.

He drew a deep breath and calmed himself. "Someone like me... naturally cannot compare with the greatest mage in human history. But I still want to try. Is there any way to test my talent?"

"Of course," Amy said. "The foundation beneath every arcane ability is establishing a connection to the ley network."

She pulled a book on arcane runes from the shelf and opened it to a page displaying a rune Jess recognized as arcane.

Using the rune as a reference, Amy skillfully drew on a blank paper scroll. Before Jess's eyes, a complicated new rune rapidly took shape.

Jess's confidence faltered. Even ten years of practice might not make his hand that steady.

As she worked, Jess even glanced above her head to see whether she had secretly cast a buff like Arcane Intellect on herself. Otherwise, this trainee mage was absurd.

When she finished, Amy spread out the scroll and passed it to Jess. "Please make it glow."

"What?" Jess stared at the runic scroll in his hand. "Aren't there any instructions?"

"A talented child naturally discovers the ability to resonate with the ley network while growing up and practices that resonance out of habit. It is like biting one's nails—not painful, but addictive... Few children deliberately restrain themselves. High elves could be called the extreme manifestation of this habit. If you do not know what to do, it may mean that you truly are not suited to become a mage."

"Is that so?"

Jess was irritated. He gripped the scroll, closed his eyes, and tried to sense the supposed ley network.

The ley network could be understood as Azeroth's veins.

Azeroth was, in truth, an unborn infant titan. What flowed through a titan's veins was not blood, but arcane energy of extraordinary purity.

The Well of Eternity guarded by the ancient elves had been a wound accidentally inflicted in antiquity by Aman'Thul, leader of the titans, lord of the Pantheon, and Highfather, while he tried to remove an evil aberration parasitizing Azeroth.

Every living thing born on Azeroth was influenced by the ley network to some degree. In turn, creatures capable of using it affected the network and even Azeroth itself.

Jess absolutely refused to believe that he could not resonate with the ley network.

Perhaps his special advantage lay here. Awaken, supreme magical talent!

He concentrated with all his might, ignoring even the faint pain in his lower abdomen where Hogger had kicked him.

Yet after a long period of concentration, the scroll did not change in the slightest.

Maybe you drew the rune wrong, trainee mage?

He wanted to ask directly but could not bring himself to say it.

Amy took back the scroll and glanced at the rune. A faint, whitish magical light immediately appeared across it, covering the walls and every object in the room with a pale purple glow.

"Like this." Amy raised her eyebrows. "I am sorry, Mr. Jess Seso."

Jess's mind buzzed. He did not want to believe this was the result.

What kind of transmigration was this?

Not only did he possess no special talent, he could not even compare with an ordinary apprentice?

But the resentment passed quickly. Over the previous seventeen years, Jess had grown accustomed to this kind of disappointment.

He had taken similar little arcane tests as a child. None had been as reliable as this one, but they had suggested the same thing. Deep down, he had simply hoped something might have changed this time.

In the end, nothing had changed at all.

He realized that the path of a mage might truly be closed to him.

"Thank you, Lady Amy," Jess said. "Actually, I didn't necessarily want to become an apprentice solely to learn magic. I also hoped to broaden my horizons and study things I don't understand."

Amy narrowed her eyes and smiled. "I am glad to hear that. The library is open to everyone who works in the Mage Quarter. Come back this afternoon, and I will give you a badge that proves your identity. With it, you may freely enter and leave the Wizard's Sanctum."

"Wonderful. That's exactly what I hoped for."

As Jess spoke, an idea had already formed in his mind. He had to return to the Slaughtered Lamb... No, more than once.

He would go again and again—not merely to earn money, but for something far more important.

Dark magic was not arcane magic. Just as Amy had said, "Dark magic accepts anyone willing to accept it."