Chapter 482 – A Lifeline

Chapter 482 – A Lifeline

“The final trial task!” Greta clapped her hands over her mouth, nearly crying out in surprise.

She had thought it would be several more months before Trial Task Three would be fully settled!

{Bread Cards} were hard to sell. When she had set up a stall in Riverside Village, she only sold a few in the first two days before they went completely ignored.

Left with no other choice, she had to materialize the {Bread Cards} into actual black bread and white bread to sell — and only then did she scrape together enough money to travel with a merchant caravan to Lance City.

She had survived on the road by converting her psychic power into {Bread Cards} for sustenance.

There had been no time or opportunity to meet mages along the way. But once she arrived in Lance City, mage apprentices were everywhere.

Ordinary people still showed respect for her mage robes, but they weren’t about to patronize her business just because she was a mage.

Some even cast strange looks at her for peddling bread from a stall.

The Golden Wheat Fields lay just outside the city, and ordinary people in Lance City were hardly lacking for bread. Her bread business suffered an unprecedented blow.

And the cost of living in Lance City was steep.

The money she earned selling bread was barely enough to cover lodging at a cheap inn, and there wasn’t a single mage to be found in such establishments.

The restaurants, inns, and bookstores where mages gathered — those places started at silver coins, with gold coins being the common currency.

Greta simply couldn’t afford to go, let alone make friends with the mages there.

Without making friends, she couldn’t complete the task or claim her rewards.

The noble title examination and the Mage Tower enrollment were also possible avenues, but neither had started yet.

If she hadn’t spotted the Gold Globe Flower Inn’s help-wanted notice, she would have resorted to selling the spell structures from her magic notes to earn money for socializing and completing the trial task.

The Gold Globe Flower Inn provided room and board, plus a salary of one gold coin per week. The owner and coworkers were all mages, and the customers were mages too.

It was here that she had finally made five mage friends.

All of them were poor mage apprentices working at the inn, just like her.

Four of them had only become mage apprentices after the age of ten, which meant they weren’t qualified to study at the Lance Mage Tower.

The fifth had studied at the Mage Tower until the age of twenty but failed to advance to Beginner mage, and had no choice but to leave.

Their predicaments were all the same: poor talent, no connections, and a lack of magical resources.

Through them, Greta came to deeply understand that while the Mage Empire had a more open atmosphere, magical knowledge and resources were still concentrated in the hands of a few. Obtaining them was far from easy.

There were not only talent thresholds to clear, but prices to pay.

Without sufficient talent, one could only gradually descend into becoming a rootless wild mage, wasting away the years.

Greta was already sixteen — too old for mage preparatory schools and still a long way from reaching Beginner mage. The standard Mage Tower enrollment path was closed to her.

If her talent were truly exceptional, she could apply through the special enrollment track.

But when Greta had gone to the Administrative Center to apply for a magic badge, she had already been tested.

According to the examiner, her elemental affinity was mediocre, and her psychic power level was average for her age.

As for her initial psychic power, once someone had already practiced a meditation technique, it could no longer be accurately measured.

Even if she claimed she had only begun practicing her meditation technique this year, that was merely her word alone. Unless she could advance to Beginner mage before the age of twenty, she had virtually no chance of passing the Mage Tower’s entrance examination.

As for the noble title examination, with her current levels of psychic power and magical ability, it would be extremely difficult to claim a Baron’s fief.

In all likelihood, her future would be no different from the other mage-waiters at the restaurant — eking out a hard living in Lance City, saving money and scrambling for every scrap of magical knowledge she could get.

Greta had fled thousands of miles from the Yala Empire, surviving one life-or-death crisis after another, only to arrive in the Mage Empire and find herself just another pitiable little apprentice with a bleak future.

Escaping the Yala Empire, learning powerful magic, taking control of her own destiny — it all seemed like nothing more than the naive fantasy of an ignorant girl.

The true world of magic, hidden beneath the Temple’s lies, was this cruel.

If not for the Dawn Society’s trial cards still in her possession, she might truly have sunk into despair for a while.

It was then that she truly understood how precious the magical resources listed in the 《Dawn Society Resource Catalog》 were — and how extraordinary it was that they could be exchanged for Gem Coins earned simply through magical energy.

Before, the Dawn Society had been her lifeline in the Black Forest. Now, the Dawn Society was the lifeline of her magical journey.

She had assumed it would still be a while before Trial Task Three concluded — the one-year deadline still had months remaining!

She never expected the final trial task to appear early. How could Greta not be excited?

This meant she could join the Dawn Society ahead of schedule!

At this moment, she was immensely grateful that she had always kept Trial Task Three in mind, working hard to build good relationships with mages she could reach within her own social stratum.

She didn’t question the early appearance of the task, simply assuming it had triggered because her progress on Trial Task Three had been fast enough.

In reality, this task had been issued on the spot by Mo Lan. No matter how many mage friends Greta had made, the task would have appeared regardless.

Greta carefully read the requirements of the final trial task.

“The owner of the Oak Inn?”

Thankfully, the mage apprentice Yurian — who worked in the carriage shed feeding guests’ mounts and maintaining carriages — was the gossipy type. Greta had heard quite a bit of news from him.

“That old Elf who’s always talking to the oak tree? ‘Old friend’… could it be the oak tree itself?!”

Greta speculated silently.

The task said she needed to deliver a {Dawn Society Invitation} to him in the most appropriate way.

What counted as an appropriate way?

Secretly place the {Dawn Society Invitation} somewhere he would pass by?

Greta shook her head. She was right at the finish line — she didn’t want to make a mistake.

Besides, if this was how the Dawn Society invited new members, simply leaving it there couldn’t guarantee it would actually help him.

Just like back then, when she was in the Black Forest, certain she was about to die, and that {Dawn Society Invitation} had appeared — hope surging within her in an instant.

Looking back on that moment, Greta suspected that some member of the Dawn Society had discovered her in her darkest hour and deliberately placed that {Dawn Society Invitation} beside her.

But the Elf at the inn across the street wasn’t on the brink of death. He simply had a problem — because his “old friend” was troubled.

In a situation like that, if he knew nothing about what the Dawn Society could offer him, he would probably refuse to accept an invitation of unknown origin.

If the target of the invitation didn’t accept the trial, would the task still count as a success?

Greta didn’t dare gamble on it.

“It seems I’ll need to figure out exactly what his current difficulties are before I make my move. Three-day time limit — I need to hurry!”