Chapter 2651: New Mages Emerging in an Endless Stream

Tower of Time, Public Level conference room.

The Mages who received the notification had excitement revealed in their eyes one by one, arriving in groups of three or five at Conference Room 044 where the notification was conveyed; here, Xia Duo was already waiting in advance.

"First, congratulations to you all for successfully being selected for the Tower of Time Directed Cultivation Plan. I presume you have all already understood the content of the plan, and now the moment has arrived for you to choose your direction."

Xia Duo looked at everyone and stated his arrangements, "The broad direction is the Plane Domain, but there are significant differences in the subdivided fields; for now, you can only choose one—"

"The first is Semi-plane Genesis Modulation. The main work in the future will be to assist me in conducting a series of semi-plane genesis experiments, responsible for the specific genesis modulation work."

"The second is Plane Exploration Array Operation. The main work in the future will be to join the Plane Exploration Center and participate in the exploration of the Ether Interlayer or the Astral Plane."

"The third is more special. I will not tell you specifically what it entails for now. What I can say is that I will select the most outstanding individuals from those who pass the assessment in the first two directions to engage in research in this third direction."

"Furthermore, if you choose to engage in research in the third direction, you will need to remain at the Tower of Time or the Floating City for a considerably long time in the future, though you may also choose to bring your families over."

The third direction is actually the Moon Exploration Project. The risks of engaging in research in this area are very high, and for the time being, only the Tower of Time or the Floating City can barely support such research.

But in the later stages, one must still be mentally prepared to face a True God directly; after all, no one knows whether Divine Punishment will appear again when exploring the actual stages of regression.

Xia Duo sincerely hoped that those people would choose the field they were passionate about, so that even if progress in that field was difficult in the future, they would still find joy in it.

When land was granted, official residents of Xia Ling could basically be allocated less than one thousand Gold Coins, which, measured by the highest wages, was roughly equivalent to a little over two years of salary.

The previous batch was not as rushed as this time; notifications should be given with some advance notice, and new Mages who were already working would also be allowed to sign up. If screened this way, the quality should be even higher.

However, in his heart, he actually thought highly of these young people. If there were no accidents, it was highly probable that all one hundred people in this first batch would pass.

The plan formulated at the time was to cultivate them into Official Mages within three years. Later, the Tower of Time's teaching materials were updated many times; on one hand, it did indeed extend the duration of study, but on the other hand, it greatly increased the graduation rate.

In the current Tower of Time, the only relatively complete teaching system was the Apprentice stage; becoming an Official Mage meant working directly after passing the Rank Examination.

The learning in the new Mage stage afterward would also follow this model. If one could keep leveling up, it would be completely free; if one could not, then tuition would only be charged for the stage being studied.

This was actually quite normal. The Tower of Time's reform began three years ago, and several batches of New Apprentices were recruited successively that year, totaling several hundred people.

Besides this, the conventional cultivation mechanism for new Mages should also be perfected.

One group was more numerous, with about eighty or so, while the other group was smaller, looking like there were only ten or twenty people.

Although they had received a relatively complete basic Magic Education, it was difficult for them to participate in very complex research for a time. Like Xia Duo needing assistants now, wasn't that why he had to launch a Directed Cultivation Plan?

Not all of the earliest batches of Apprentices from three years ago could pass the Job Rank Assessment. Those who did not pass would, of course, have their three-year Apprentice stage cultivation fees calculated, and they would honestly work for the Tower of Time to pay off the debt.

……

"Have you all chosen? Tell me your choices!" Xia Duo looked at the smaller group first and asked.

Currently, the number of new Mages registered in the Tower of Time who had passed the Level 1 Mage assessment already exceeded seven hundred, and it was still constantly increasing by dozens every month.

But this price, looking at it now, was somewhat low.

As for whether they could pass the Official Mage Job Rank Assessment, that depended on each individual.

"We chose the second direction, Plane Exploration Array Operation."

From a long-term perspective, the Tower of Time's tuition would still increase. If one did not want to pay this tuition, then one should study hard; passing the Job Rank Assessment was all it took.

Previously, when he told Laidun that the Territory supported new Mages returning to their hometowns to start businesses, the purpose was also to divert those new Mages.

Those twenty-plus people answered in unison, so the remaining ones all chose the first direction, which was Semi-plane Genesis Modulation.

However, the tuition set at the time was one thousand Gold Coins for three years. That price was relatively high at the time, but for a Mage, even an Apprentice, it was not an astronomical figure that was completely out of reach.

If it were elsewhere, spending several thousand Gold Coins might not necessarily result in learning anything.

The one hundred people in the conference room were the first batch of Quasi-high-level Mages cultivated by the Tower of Time, but they were definitely not the last. Xia Duo planned to decide when to select the next batch, how to select them, and how many to select based on the final assessment results of this batch.

"Now I will give you ten minutes to make your choices."

Xia Duo did not feel surprised by everyone's choices. He had already stated clearly just now that choosing the semi-plane direction meant becoming his assistant in the future, while those who chose the plane exploration direction would enter the Plane Exploration Center in the future.

After speaking, Xia Duo walked out of the conference room and brought the door shut behind him. He did not go to peek at the discussion inside, but leaned against the wall of the corridor outside the conference room, silently sorting through the data of the Tower of Time's new Mages in his heart.

Now that the three-year period had passed, Official Mages were emerging in batch after batch, and as long as the Tower of Time's relevant policies remained unchanged, there would be a batch of people graduating from the Apprentice stage every year in the future.

The Plane Exploration Center was a directly affiliated institution newly established by the Tower of Time, but how could working in that institution compare to being his assistant? Although Xia Duo did not think so, many people thought that way.

In other words, if an Apprentice failed to pass the Job Rank Assessment after the three-year period expired, staying at the Tower of Time as a Magic Technician would take at most a little over two years to pay off the tuition.

Xia Duo pondered, and ten minutes passed very quickly. He returned to the conference room; at this time, the original one hundred people in the conference room were clearly divided into two blocks.

Of course, Xia Duo did not want to use tuition to block anyone, but hoped to use this method to give Apprentices a sense of urgency; this was only possible at the Tower of Time.

However, Xia Duo respected these people's choices and would not look down on or favor them because of it. The choices were made by themselves, so they would need to bear all the results in the future.

But as the number of new Mages grew, there were not enough job positions to arrange for them for a time. The recruitment of various Independent Research Labs was ultimately limited, and most of them were only Level 1 Mages.