Chapter 320 — Master and Disciple
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Mary, a young low-ranking female mage, walked with heavy steps up the staircase leading to the magic laboratory. The mana-crystal lamps set into both sides of the corridor cast a steady, brilliant radiance, yet that light could not dispel the unease in her heart in the slightest.
For some time now, every apprentice in the tower had been bearing the same unease—the old mage's mental affliction seemed to be deteriorating in a new direction. The dour, withdrawn old man appeared to have been provoked by something during the last "connection." First he had the apprentices work day and night without rest to tear down the tower's mental-protection arrays; then, without hesitation, he had one of the three magic laboratories gutted and filled with a great many incomprehensible new experimental apparatus. Day after day he shut himself inside the new laboratory, studying things the apprentices could not understand and dared not inquire about. He had begun muttering and mumbling to himself with ever greater frequency, and sometimes would suddenly burst into wild laughter and caper about the laboratory...
He seemed to have gone completely mad.
The only thing the apprentices felt thankful for now was that the old mage's new madness seemed to leave him no time to punish anyone else. In all these days, not a single apprentice had been whipped or scolded. The old mage seemed wholly immersed in his deranged inner world—he had even forgotten that a pack of apprentices still existed.
So Mary at this moment felt she was probably the unluckiest of all the apprentices—because in the midst of his madness, the old mage Daniel had actually remembered her, and sent a servant to inform her that she was to come find him in the new laboratory...
Was it a new mad experiment? A punishment descending from nowhere? Or merely a casual summons from the old mage in a state of clouded mind?
The staircase ended, and a corridor with somewhat dim lighting appeared before her. At the end of the corridor was the magic laboratory. A servant clad in a short black robe came along the corridor, bowed slightly before Mary, and said in a stiff, low voice: "The master is waiting for you."
"I understand," Mary nodded, and walked past the servant.
The servants in the mage's tower were all slaves the old mage had purchased. Apart from the old steward—whose age no one knew and who was always sinister and glowering—every servant had undergone neuron remodeling surgery and spell-induced brainwashing. These stiff, emotionless "living dead" attended to the daily lives of the old mage and all the apprentices, and when necessary also served as the old mage's experimental material.
Mary had once feared them, and once pitied them, but now all that remained in her toward the living-dead servants was numbness—she regarded them no differently from magic puppets.
In any case, everyone in this tower was much the same.
She walked down the corridor, pushed open the door of the new laboratory, and saw that the old mage was already inside waiting for her. His back was to the door; he seemed to be staring blankly at something on the experiment table.
Mary drew a breath and stepped into the laboratory: "Master, you wished to see me?"
Several artificial nerve cords on the old mage's back twitched, and then he turned around, fixing his brownish-yellow eyes on the female apprentice: "Mary, you've come at just the right time. Come here and shut the door."
Mary walked over with a heavy heart, and took the measure of this newly renovated laboratory.