Chapter 533 – The Magic Lift

Chapter 533 – The Magic Lift

Mo Lan walked into the enormous Mage Tower.

A map of the Psychic Branch main tower’s internal layout unfolded in her mind. Following the map’s directions, she headed straight for Magic Lift No. 7.

As one of the Mage Empire’s renowned large-scale alchemical creations, Magic Lifts were widely used across all Mage Towers.

In the travel journals of witches, Mo Lan had read countless expressions of amazement at the mages’ Magic Lifts.

She had always been curious why so many books mentioned that the lower floors of Mage Towers were dedicated to housing the Magic Lift mechanisms.

Even today, in the new student handbook she’d read, the internal layout maps for every Mage Tower in the Psychic Branch indicated that the first floor served as the Magic Lift entrance, while the second and third floors—or in some cases, the second through fifth floors—were spaces reserved for the Magic Lift mechanisms, closed off to visitors.

Mo Lan couldn’t figure it out. Without the use of Spatial Magic, how could mechanisms housed on just a few lower floors transport people throughout towers that stood at least several dozen stories tall, sometimes over a hundred?

But the alchemical blueprints and manufacturing knowledge for Magic Lifts were tightly guarded secrets of the Mage Empire, and Mo Lan had never been able to find the answer.

Fortunately, today she had the chance to see for herself.

Each Magic Lift operated as a single dedicated unit going to a fixed floor. Lift No. 7 went to the seventh floor—easy to remember.

The second through fifth floors of the main tower were closed to visitors, so Magic Lifts No. 2 through No. 5 were all sealed off.

Magic Lift No. 6 led to the sixth floor, where the common lounge was located.

Magic Lift No. 7 led to the seventh floor, which housed the most comprehensive collection of Apprentice-level Psychic Magic books in the entire Mage Empire.

Beginner-level Psychic Magic books were on the main tower’s seventeenth floor.

Intermediate-level books were on the twenty-seventh and thirty-seventh floors.

Advanced-level books were on the forty-seventh and fifty-seventh floors.

Peak-level books were on the sixty-seventh and seventy-seventh floors.

Books of Beyond Peak level and above were kept outside the areas of the main tower accessible to students.

Mo Lan hadn’t learned a single Psychic Magic spell yet. Her understanding of this type of magic was limited to a few introductory theory books, so naturally she had to start from the very basics.

Of course, even if she went to the sixty-seventh or seventy-seventh floor right now, she wouldn’t be able to read any Peak-level Psychic Magic books.

Academy rules stated that Elite Students could read all magic books in the Academy’s collection for free, but they could only read the next one after mastering the current one.

The ancient mage training program also required that for each type—Elemental Magic, Alchemy Magic, and Psychic Magic—a student must learn at least three spells at each level before advancing to the next.

In other words, she currently couldn’t even access the Advanced-level magic books in the various elemental branch main towers, or the Advanced-level alchemy blueprints in the Alchemy Branch main tower. She had to start from the Apprentice level in Psychic Magic and learn at least three Apprentice-level, three Beginner-level, and three Intermediate-level Psychic Magic spells before she could read any Advanced-level magic books from any branch.

And she had to learn them one at a time—no studying multiple spells simultaneously.

While mulling over all of this, she finally found Magic Lift No. 7.

She had already taken the shortest route shown on the map. The thing was, the higher-floor lifts were positioned closest to the tower entrance, while the lower-floor lifts were deeper inside. Magic Lift No. 7 was tucked away in the deepest recesses.

Human lifespans were far too short, and mages refused to waste even a moment. So the high-floor lifts frequented by higher-ranked mages were all placed near the exit.

The low-floor lifts used by lower-ranked students could only be located in the deepest part of the tower—it took several minutes just to walk there.

When Mo Lan spotted the entrance to Magic Lift No. 7, a mage happened to be stepping inside.

She ran over but still didn’t make it in time. She had no choice but to press the up button on the Magic Lift again.

In a way, it felt quite similar to the elevators on Earth.

But the very next second after she pressed the up button, the door in front of her opened. Inside was a fully enclosed, compartment-style room.

The elevator resemblance grew even stronger.

Where did the person just now go?

Mo Lan stepped inside with that question in mind and pressed the start button.

Before long, she had no room left in her thoughts for anything else.

The Magic Lift had activated.

The door that had closed was merely the door at the Magic Lift’s entrance, and the walls had only been the walls of the entrance compartment.

All that was actually moving upward with her was the metal platform beneath her feet, a wall with a single magic wall lamp mounted on it opposite where the door had been, and waist-high openwork railings on the other three sides.

They quickly left the first-floor Magic Lift compartment and entered the second floor. A pale blue magic barrier rose up, enclosing the entire space above the metal platform.

Well, that counted as a safe “elevator” compartment, she supposed!

Mo Lan reassured herself.

But what was the deal with this enormous space, and all those thin metal rails?

Since Magic Lift No. 7’s entrance was deep inside the first floor, her view was quite expansive at this point.

She could see everything ahead of her, above her, and to her left and right. Only what was below and behind her remained hidden.

But once she walked to the railing’s edge, she could see below as well.

The first floor’s ceiling was riddled with rectangular openings, dense and innumerable. Hundreds of Magic Lift platforms rose up from those openings, ascending along thin metal rails. As soon as one platform rose, another immediately descended behind it, carrying passengers upward.

Looking up, there was another Magic Lift platform above her head.

Now she knew where that person had gone—they must be on the platform above her.

On every thin metal rail, there was a continuous chain of Magic Lift platforms.

Descending lifts, upon reaching the first floor’s ceiling, would begin to queue. Only when someone boarded would a platform activate, traveling upward along the ascending metal rail.

Several stories above her head, she could see another floor slab. Like the first floor’s ceiling, it was full of rectangular openings, though arranged in a slightly different pattern. At first glance it looked chaotic, but there was actually order within the chaos.

Now Mo Lan understood why floors two through five appeared blank on the Mage Tower map—they were simply open space used by the Magic Lifts to adjust their positions.

Because these thin metal rails were almost never perfectly vertical.

Mo Lan had an excellent memory. Cross-referencing the distribution of Magic Lifts on the first floor, she quickly noticed that the straightest metal rail belonged to the platform heading to the very top floor—essentially a single diagonal line cutting across the space. All the other rails twisted and curved.

The lower the floor a rail serviced, the more it curved, and the more complex its path.

Sometimes they even had to yield to the platforms of higher-floor Magic Lifts.

It was precisely because of this that Mo Lan had time to study the space in greater detail.

Why had the mages designed it this way?

Not only did it consume more space, but the construction difficulty was also far greater.

Why not make it like Earth’s elevators—straight up and down, with each one serving multiple floors?

Mo Lan didn’t believe for a second that the mages simply hadn’t thought of it.

If they could build such a complex Magic Lift system, there was no way they hadn’t considered the straight-up-and-down, multi-stop model.

After thinking it over again and again, Mo Lan could only come up with one reason—time.