Chapter 372 — A New Life at the Research Institute
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
The mage Cohen walked down the broad, bright corridor of the Arcane Technology Research Institute. Researchers in white short robes of arcane craft hurried past him, and now and then someone would stop to exchange greetings with another before falling in step together and heading off to the laboratory where they worked.
Cohen wore the same white robe.
From the institute's front gate to the foyer took seventy-two steps; from the foyer to the First Practical Technology Laboratory took one hundred and two, passing through three doors and one corridor along the way. Cohen walked this route, which he had already begun to know well, at an unhurried pace, each step landing with absolute precision.
He glanced down at himself. The white short robe was in fact almost entirely devoid of ornament, save for a stamped metal card pinned over the chest, bearing his own name and a string of numbers. Nor was it any kind of enchanted robe with magical properties—it was merely a cloth robe, plain and simple. If there was anything special about it at all, it was that nearly everyone in this institute wore similar garb, and that this garb carried a most uncommon significance upon this land.
The identity this clothing represented was "arcane technician"—a title he had never heard before, one unique to this land.
Since coming to this land, Cohen had worked at the Arcane Technology Research Institute for over four weeks—more than forty days. To this third-rank arcanist from the royal capital, life in Cecil Territory was not entirely what he had first imagined. Here he had, as he wished, met that powerful ancient arcanist; he had met that legendary pioneering hero as well; he had also seen the arcane network, the arcane engine, and other wondrous creations said to be relics of some lost technology. Yet setting all that aside, the environment he found himself in was vastly different from what he had pictured.
This was no harsh, barren frontier settlement—the Cecilians had already sunk their roots deep here, and prospered beyond belief. Yet at the same time, this was no land that observed the classical rites and order. Though the one who founded it was a true ancient hero, the customs of Cecil, to Cohen's royal-capital mage eyes, could only be described as bordering on heresy.
The vast freedoms the common folk enjoyed, the noble system relegated to the back seat, the highly efficient administration of the Government Hall... Cecil Territory stood in the southern reaches of Anzu, yet everything that happened here seemed to belong to some distant, alien land that existed only in tales. Cohen had assumed he was brought here as a mage, to bury himself in ancient relics and moldering tomes and study in seclusion; he had never imagined that upon arriving he would become an "arcane technician apprentice," learning a body of knowledge wholly unheard of from the ground up—and learning it alongside a crowd of mage apprentices, craftsmen, and scholars.
In this field, everyone started from the same line. Even the extraordinary had no privileges.
To be honest, it had been hard to adjust at first, but by now Cohen had gradually grown used to it. He was no scion of some noble house, nor any mage of extraordinary talent; he was merely the son of a fortunate merchant. In the mage circles of the royal capital he had never enjoyed the privileges of the extraordinary either, so adapting here came all the easier. And he had been wise enough to realize one thing: no matter how heretical the goings-on in this land might be, he had no standing to question them—for the order of this land had been laid down by Gawain Cecil, and the one who laid down that order had also laid down the order of Anzu seven hundred years ago.