Chapter 1321: Promotions in Succession, Introducing the Hometown

After the promotion was completed, Donald would possess all the permissions and treatment of an Official Mage within the Tower of Time. Given his relationship with Xia Duo, he could fully establish his own Private Research Lab just like Tilake, and receive strong support from the Tower of Time.

However, it was clear that Donald preferred to stay in the Tilake Research Lab, and in his subsequent conversations with Xia Duo and Depake, he did not express any desire to establish a private laboratory.

……

After Donald was an Apprentice named "Maxi". Xia Duo also had an impression of him; he was someone he had known since his time as an Apprentice, though their relationship was not as close as it was with Dien, Sami, or even Donald.

Like Donald, this Apprentice Maxi also chose to demonstrate his Spellcasting Level in the form of an 【Ascension Trial】, and successfully obtained his promotion.

Afterwards, several people in a row were Apprentices Xia Duo had known before. There was no need to guess; Depake had definitely prioritized selecting that batch of Apprentices who were from the same period as Xia Duo or close to it.

Regarding this, Xia Duo had no complaints. In fact, he also wanted to see how those once-familiar faces were developing now.

What comforted Xia Duo was that the philosophy of the Progress Society had already been accepted by most people. This batch of Apprentices applying for promotion, perhaps due to the sudden nature of the event, still overwhelmingly chose the 【Ascension Trial】 as the way to demonstrate their Spellcasting Level.

Only a very small number of individuals were unable to complete the 【Ascension Trial】 and just got by with a simple 1st Circle Spell.

Of course, because Xia Duo had given a heads-up beforehand, Depake still completed the promotion procedures for those few people according to the previous promotion standards of the Tower of Time.

Yet Xia Duo, who had originally wanted to offer some persuasion, instead remained silent. Previously, he had only intended to persuade them because he thought most of the people applying for this batch of promotions were taking shortcuts.

It was as if "the law does not punish the masses"; when everyone was uniformly wanting to take a shortcut, even Xia Duo had to make a compromise.

But fortunately, the current situation was not as he had anticipated; only a minority chose to take shortcuts, so there was no need for him to persuade anyone. Some things, once done, must have their consequences borne by oneself.

Just as he had said to Mage He Sai, for those who promoted just for the sake of promoting, there was still some possibility that after completing the promotion, they would return to finish their Apprentice Course. The foundations missing now would definitely require great effort to make up for in the future.

Since there were good examples, there should naturally be bad examples as well.

Xia Duo was looking forward to the future performance of those few people. If they really had the ability, then let them use reality to slap his face!

……

Xia Duo watched the promotion of 46 people in total with great interest, but Niya was a bit impatient. It was only because Xia Duo was there that she did not leave on the spot.

But after the two left the Personnel Department, she still couldn't help but complain, "What's so interesting about Apprentice promotions? Isn't it just that more people are being promoted at once? Hadn't you anticipated this before?"

"Of course I had anticipated it, but this promotion is different from the past. I wanted to know whether the promotion assessment was accepted by the majority, as well as the development status of the Progress Society's philosophy among the Apprentices in the past. Now it seems that perhaps not everyone is willing to accept the brand-new promotion assessment, but at least the vast majority have identified with the philosophy of the Progress Society."

"Ascension Trial? Is it really that important?" Niya asked doubtfully.

"Of course it's important. And it's not just the Ascension Trial, but also a more relaxed, open, and inclusive academic atmosphere. This will provide fertile soil for Magic to grow vigorously. Although it's not very obvious right now, the future will benefit greatly from it."

After thinking for a moment, Xia Duo excluded some sensitive information and selectively introduced some situations of the Projected Plane Arcane Empire to Niya.

Niya was greatly shocked after hearing this, especially when she heard that the Arcane Empire might be another developmental state of Netheril; she was stunned for nearly ten seconds.

"Are you saying that if we go to war with the Elves, the future could potentially develop into that?" Niya asked blankly.

After asking, she seemed to still be immersed in the scene of the Arcane Empire described by Xia Duo, and muttered to herself: "That is too cruel."

"Not necessarily."

Xia Duo shook his head, "The Main Plane has the influence of gods; I cannot predict exactly what situation will arise, but I can be certain that—"

"Although the development of the Arcane Empire is somewhat deformed, in many aspects, it can already be regarded as the development direction, or template, of the future magical civilization, and it has very important reference value."

"Is it because of your hometown?" Niya's bright eyes suddenly flashed, and she stared intently at Xia Duo.

Although she had heard descriptions of his hometown from Xia Duo many times, her understanding of Xia Duo's hometown remained very limited; she only knew it was a highly developed magical civilization.

This was also an important reason why she had always gone along with Xia Duo on many things.

"Can you tell me more about your hometown in detail?"

"Of course I can."

In fact, Xia Duo didn't really mind revealing more information about his hometown now. After all, many things he did, when scrutinized, had no apparent reason—at least in the eyes of the locals of Netheril.

As long as it didn't involve specific technical details, translating science into Magic was perfectly fine. Instead, it could increase his own mysterious aura and gain intangible prestige.

This time, Xia Duo described every aspect of his hometown more thoroughly than usual, such as the economy, culture, politics, and military. Most importantly, he revealed a key piece of information he had never provided before—

His hometown had a population of 1.4 billion!

Hearing this number, Niya revealed an even more exaggerated expression of shock than when she heard Xia Duo introduce the Arcane Empire, "1.4 billion?!"

What kind of population was that!

Calculated based on the current population of the Savile Territory of about 50,000, it was roughly equivalent to 28,000 Savile Territories; and calculated based on the current population of Netheril of nearly 4 million, it was roughly equivalent to 350 Netherils.

Such a massive and inevitably complex society had far exceeded Niya's imagination. She stared blankly at Xia Duo, unable to speak for a long time.

After a long while, she suddenly blurted out, "No wonder you are so obsessed with the population of the Territory; so your hometown has so many people!"

She then immediately asked: "Then how many Great Arcanists does your hometown have?"

How should he answer this?

Xia Duo scratched his head. To say zero would be a lie, but if it were a comparison, then there were plenty, "I'm not very clear on the specific data, but at the very least, it would be counted in the millions!"

"Millions? Great Arcanists?"

Fortunately, there had already been the foreshadowing of the 1.4 billion population, plus having heard Xia Duo talk about the magic education of his hometown long ago, Niya was surprisingly calm when she heard this data now.

She did not doubt that Xia Duo was deliberately exaggerating. After all, no matter how much one exaggerated, it was difficult for an ordinary person to describe the many details of a massive society with a population of 1.4 billion.

But she still found it hard to imagine what kind of prosperous world that was!