Chapter 773: Browsing Books, Advancing Once More

The Library of Giles Tower is divided into two levels, which in reality just separates the internal library from the public library. The reading permission Xia Duo obtained refers to the permission for the public library and the permission to read certain books in the internal library.

Aside from members of other Mage Towers under the Seven Towers, ordinary Mages within the Seven Towers Council also have the opportunity to obtain permission for the public library; this is not difficult, as long as one has the Gold Coin.

It is very difficult for ordinary people to obtain reading permission for the internal library; for those outside the Seven Towers, it is basically impossible, and the Arcane Union is their best choice.

After registering and confirming his permissions at the management office, Xia Duo dove straight into the public library. He didn't care at all how many books were there, simply flipping through them one by one.

Every time he flipped through one, he couldn't help but mutter to himself—10 Gold Coins, 10 Gold Coins!

The Protection measures here are similar to the Tower of Time. If it is within the scope of one's reading permission, as long as the book is taken off the shelf, the Tower Spirit will begin to charge a fee; returning it within a day will not incur extra costs.

Of course, Xia Duo does not need to spend a day reading; he only needs to pick up the book and flip through it once. He can slowly organize it in his consciousness later. What he needs to do now is to flip through all the books within his permission as quickly as possible.

Most books in the public library only cost 10 Gold Coins per use, but there are many exceptions. For example, the book *Star Dew Epic* he is holding now is written entirely in Elvish, and it costs 100 Gold Coins to borrow once.

Since there are books higher than 10 Gold Coins, there are naturally those lower than 10 Gold Coins, but compared to the high ones, books under 10 Gold Coins are few and far between.

Halfway through, Xia Duo only discovered one book titled *Dwarf Cookbook*, which only costs 3 Gold Coins to borrow. Judging by the author's name, the author of this book should be a human.

The content is less of a cookbook and more of a travel diary, recounting the author's experience traveling to the Dwarf kingdom via the Lowland Trade Route.

During this time, besides introducing a few simple ways to make Dwarf food, the author crazily ranted about the Dwarf race, covering everything from height, appearance, and behavior to racial habits, architectural styles, food and drink, and even forging techniques.

The sharpness of the rhetoric, if placed on Earth, would not be an exaggeration to call the author a keyboard warrior.

After finishing this book, what left the deepest impression on Xia Duo was not the customs and traditions of the Dwarf kingdom recorded inside, but the vulgar, judgmental short sentences that permeated almost the entire text.

This made him lose almost all interest in recalling it a second time. There are plenty of books introducing the Dwarf kingdom, so why endure this one!

However, this author is truly willful. Writing it down so casually, is the author not afraid of being seen by Dwarves and triggering a diplomatic dispute?

After this small interlude, Xia Duo continued to flip through books. As he flipped, he discovered a pattern in the borrowing fees of these books, which is—

Whenever it involves content related to Magic, even just a little bit, the borrowing fee starts directly at 10 Gold Coins and goes up to 100 Gold Coins.

Of course, having this discovery was of no help; after all, there were really too few books under 10 Gold Coins here. In fact, because there were so few, Xia Duo was even more expectant.

He wanted to see if there were any other oddities like *Dwarf Cookbook*.

……

Not knowing how much time had passed, Xia Duo, who was flipping through books quickly in front of a bookshelf, felt someone approaching behind him. He temporarily closed the book, turned around to look, and only then breathed a sigh of relief.

It turned out to be Niya. He had thought the library had discovered an abnormality and was going to kick him out!

After Niya walked closer, Xia Duo asked in a low voice, "How is it? Have you made the arrangements?"

"Mm, everything is arranged!"

"So fast?!"

Xia Duo was somewhat surprised. One must know that everyone they invited was at least an Advanced Rank Mage, and there was no lack of Arcanists among them, yet the first exchange meeting was scheduled for tomorrow!

Those Advanced Rank Mages could not possibly be waiting to be invited at any time. Being able to contact people with such a tight schedule made Xia Duo feel that he still underestimated Niya's influence in Giles Tower.

Regarding this, Niya's explanation was—

"Not long ago, Beilaila failed her advancement to Advanced Arcanist and has recently been preparing to re-apply for an Advanced Laboratory. One of the application conditions is to organize at least five exchange meetings for Advanced Rank Mages with at least ten people each."

"When I was contacting Beilaila, she happened to mention this matter. Considering she still has collaborations with us, I agreed to hand the title of organizer over to her."

Hearing Niya's explanation, Xia Duo couldn't help but feel a sense of realization. During the Snow Melting Competition previously, the exchange meeting he and Niya attended was organized by Beilaila, also because she needed to apply for an Advanced Laboratory.

He didn't expect that half a year had passed, and she had already failed once and had to re-apply.

Although Xia Duo does not understand what conditions are required to apply for an Advanced Laboratory at Giles Tower, it certainly cannot be obtained just by organizing a few exchange meetings.

Judging from the situation of the Advanced Laboratory in the Tower of Time, every time it is used, besides the fixed maintenance costs, there is the most important Magic Net repair work, which only an Arcanist can do.

Even without counting the labor of an Arcanist, the fixed maintenance costs alone are at least in the tens of thousands of Gold Coins.

As a Mage Tower, of course, it does not necessarily require the person advancing to pay this money, but the wool comes from the sheep, so it certainly won't be a loss.

For an Advanced Rank Mage, even 10,000 Gold Coins is a significant expense; how could they repeatedly attempt it over and over?

Not to mention, there is also the labor of the Arcanist.

An advancement attempt cannot be done without tens of thousands, and this is just the fixed cost. Normally, a Mage Tower is unlikely to let one person attempt it repeatedly, especially Giles Tower.

Last time, Xia Duo also heard Beilaila mention that even for an application, one still has to wait in line.

If it were an ordinary person, perhaps they would choose to give up after failing once. As expected, to play as a Mage, one still needs a good background!

Actually, if Beilaila didn't temporarily not want to go home to inherit her Territory, she could have advanced at her own Mage Tower.

Thinking about it, it really is enviable!

……

Thinking and thinking, Xia Duo's thoughts couldn't help but expand. Clearly, the existence of an Advanced Laboratory is conducive to the person advancing tearing the Magic Net, but it is also because of its existence that Arcanists are almost entirely monopolized by Mage Towers.

So-called Wild Mages, if they do not join a Mage Tower, it is almost impossible to become an Arcanist.

In fact, the vast majority of Wild Mages are Low-level Mages; they are not even Advanced Rank Mages, let alone talking about advancing to Arcanist.

What Xia Duo is thinking about is not researching a method to advance in a normal environment, but rather that if the number of Spellcasters expands rapidly in the future, the number of Advanced Laboratories might not be enough.

He must now consider how to lower the threshold and cost of building an Advanced Laboratory.

As for advancing in a normal environment, Xia Duo is not optimistic. Since there are many auxiliary facilities, why not use them? This is like a handmade iron pot on Earth; is it really better than one produced by industrial manufacturing?

That is not necessarily the case.

The upper limit of handmade manufacturing is right there, but the progress of industrial technology is endless; which one is the right path is almost self-evident.

While promoting universal Magic Education, related infrastructure must also keep up in a timely manner, otherwise, it is very likely to cause trouble.

This also served as a reminder to Xia Duo: one cannot blindly promote universal education. It is best to link it with the development of industries and infrastructure and promote them together, which conforms to the general laws of development.

Otherwise, forcibly educating a large number of Mages but having nowhere to place them would be too much of a headache.