Chapter 390 – The Duchy of Lance

Chapter 390 – The Duchy of Lance

Mo Lan organized the information about the Duchy of Lance in her mind and quickly formed a plan.

She went to retrieve a set of documents and flipped to a particular page. “Look at this.”

Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph all gathered around.

“This document is about the mage schools within the Duchy of Lance, isn’t it?” Lilith recognized it at a glance.

Mo Lan nodded. “According to this, the Duchy of Lance has placed great emphasis on cultivating mages ever since its founding.

Every viscount town has an introductory mage school.

Children who have turned seven can go to the school at the end of August each year to have their psychic power levels and elemental affinity tested.

If the test results meet the requirements, they can enroll in the introductory mage school.

If they can become a mage apprentice before the age of ten, they can go study at the Lance Mage Tower outside the capital.

If they can advance to Beginner mage before the age of twenty, they receive Beginner-level training resources from the Mage Tower.

If they can advance to Intermediate mage before the age of thirty, they receive Intermediate-level training resources from the Mage Tower.

If they can advance to Advanced mage before the age of fifty, they receive Advanced-level training resources from the Mage Tower.

Those with exceptional talent may even have the opportunity to study at the Imperial Magic Academy on a public scholarship.

However, judging by the number of apprentices, Beginner, and Intermediate mages currently studying at the Mage Tower, those who successfully advance and remain are practically one in a thousand.

Far more people are filtered out and leave the Mage Tower.

But even after leaving, most of them don’t stray far from the nearby capital.

In the Mage Empire, noble titles are determined by magical rank, which means a nation’s most powerful Mage Tower is always located near the capital.

The capital isn’t just the political center of the country—it’s also the magical center.

Staying in the capital, where the magical atmosphere is richest, gives mages the best prospects.

The Duchy of Lance should be no exception.

Add to that the Duchy’s preferential treatment of mages.

Even the lowest mage apprentice can receive at least one gold coin per month, which, given the cost of living in the Duchy’s capital, is enough to cover food and drink without worry.

With the status of a mage, it’s also easy to find a well-paying job in the capital and live a truly noble lifestyle.

So when the time comes, we should head straight for the capital.

Outside of it, apart from the village-stationed and town-stationed Governing Mages and mage lords, we’re unlikely to find many mages at all.”

Lilith agreed. “That’s true. Nine out of ten documents mentioning mages are about the capital and its surroundings. But how can we promote our Magic without exposing our identities?”

“Hmm… have you ever heard of ‘pyramid schemes’?” Mo Lan asked.

All three Sorceresses looked bewildered. “What do you mean?”

Mo Lan thought for a moment and rephrased. “You know about how Angels and Demons impersonated gods to deceive humans during the Age of Divine Descent, right?”

This time the Sorceresses all knew. “We’ve been tested on that several times.”

“The reason why the God of Light fabricated by the Angels and the God of Darkness fabricated by the Demons were so unquestioningly believed by humans during that era ultimately comes down to humanity’s worship of supernatural power.

Although humans today have already forged their own path of Magic, their pursuit of power will never change. We can learn from the Angels and Demons—package ourselves, then target those who have an obsessive pursuit of power but can’t find a path or opportunity for advancement due to their own limitations and practical circumstances.

We lure them into joining us with the promise of great rewards, then have them voluntarily promote our Magic and recruit new members for us.

That way, we can just sit back and count our Mana!” Mo Lan said.

“It sounds really impressive, but… I still don’t understand,” Vasida said.

Lilith nodded as well. “How exactly would we do it?”

Sylph watched her with curiosity.

“Simply put, we first come up with a new magical concept and package ourselves and our Magic.

Similar to how the Angels had the God of Light and divine light arts, and the Demons had the God of Darkness and dark divine arts.

Then we find someone who is currently in a difficult situation and has been unsuccessfully seeking a breakthrough.

For example, those mages with insufficient talent who have just been expelled from the Mage Tower.

We tell them that we can teach them a new kind of Magic that can solve their current predicament.

To prevent them from being skeptical, we can give them some initial benefits—like a Green Phantom Fruit card.

Surely no mage with insufficient talent would refuse a Green Phantom Fruit.

Then we can set up a series of trials and rewards to gradually build their loyalty.

When the time is right, we formally sign a contract with them.

At that point, we have this contracted mage act as our spokesperson, repeating this same process to recruit new members and find new contractors.

This way, one spreads it to ten, ten to a hundred—far more efficient than us going out to find people one by one.

Imagine: a classmate who entered the Mage Tower at the same time as you suddenly experiences a dramatic surge in power, and then secretly tells you it’s because he learned some new kind of Magic.

Wouldn’t that be far more convincing than a few strangers suddenly approaching him and telling him how great some Magic is?

Those who don’t pass our trials will only have access to some products of Sorceress Magic—they won’t be able to truly sign a contract with us or learn our identities.

Once someone has signed a contract with us, with the penalty for breach hanging over them and having already tasted the benefits we offer, they would never willingly expose our identities.

This way, it’s foolproof.

We gather a batch of human contractors in the Duchy of Lance, establish clear recruitment procedures and internal advancement channels within the organization, and then we can have these people gradually expand into other nations of the Mage Empire to recruit more contractors.

As for us, we only need to pioneer the areas that are inconvenient for human mages to access.

Even if our operation is exposed later, we ourselves won’t be at the center of the storm. Whether we need to retreat to the Wilds or take some other course of action, we won’t be caught in a passive position.

And as for the ‘seeds’ we’ve sown beyond the Wilds—even if some are discovered, the rest can grow into an entire sea of grass.”

Mo Lan spoke with eloquence, and as she did, the way Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph looked at her shifted from confusion to surprise, and finally to admiration and reverence.

They had still been mulling over how to promote Magic in the Duchy of Lance, yet Mo Lan had already prepared to use the Duchy as a starting point to build an entire promotional network.

And what a method it was… one that truly sounded impossible to refuse.

If they were those mages, wouldn’t they be tempted too?

From that moment on, the entire Magic promotion strategy began to be led by Mo Lan, with Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph serving as her support.

They had no choice—even racking their brains, the three of them couldn’t have come up with such a brilliant idea.