6 Preparation

The Diven Mage Council granted me the tile of Arch Mage when I was 47 for the first time. I was the third youngest person in their history to attain the title of Arch Mage and held that spot for over a hundred years.

"Like teacher, like student," they congratulated me.

It was three years before I released all of Aira's research projects on golem which she had never had the chance to release.

The Council also gave me an alias as well, Saint Inesta. That alias was granted upon me due to the nature of my research theme.

Just like my master Aira Gospel and many other Arch Mage, I had chosen a theme to conduct and pursue for my magic research. Aira's theme was golem, mine was healing and restoration.

My magic research theme was unnatural by nature at that time. Aside from the most basic healing spells, all the known healing and restoration magic at the time were faith magic. Faith magic required the casters to be a disciple of a certain god and goddess to be able to cast the spell.

Healing and restoration magic was the specialty of the priests and priestesses who served Raine, the goddess of purity and water. The fact that I who was not a disciple of Raine was able to cast high level restoration magic sparked a huge controversy at the time.

The disciples of Raine were furious, calling me a heretic and pressuring the council to have me hanged on the gallows. Well, I could understand why they were furious. I just created a competitor to a field that they have been monopolized for millenniums. And the word "Saint" in my alias only rubbed salt to the injury.

Some of those fanatics tried to take the matter into their own hands and attacked me.

I had no idea what those fools were thinking. They should have made a complete research on me before attacking me. My magic teacher had the word "Calamity" attached to her alias for a damn good reason. She was a rouge hunter, a person who would be called to apprehend those rouged insane arch mages.

Would I, her only student, and an arch mage myself be an easy target? Perhaps, those fools had never really thought of such a question.

They attacked me while I took a stroll outside of the Academy's campus. Thus, I decided to teach them a few things.

I painted the cobbled street of capital city of Nevermore red with the blood of those fools.

However, I did not kill or hurt any of those fools at the end of that confrontation. I broke and separated a few arms and legs, maybe sending a torso or two or three flying and rolling on the streets.

I remembered making a few people fainted from the red fest I created and a few people running to call the guards. However, it was not a problem because I fixed them back to normal before the guards arrived.

The guards tried to apprehend me as well as those fools for the charge of murder, which made me really surprise.

"Who murder who?" I asked. "Do you see any injured people around here? Do you see any dead body around here?"

The guards turned around and looked. There was no corpse. There were a few people lying on the street, looking like corpses. However, they were shaking and crying and begging for mercy; so they were not dead. Some of them were either top naked or bottom naked, however they were hurt either.

The guards asked me what happened to those people. I replied that they asked me to show off my painting skill, so I did and all of the sudden they decided to lie on the ground and acted like that. "Such a strange bunch!" I told them.

The guards then told me that people reported of a murder was happening on this street. I told them that those people must have mistaken my paintjob for blood and imagined the stuff.

The guards agreed that my red paint looked and smelled a lot like blood then went away, apprehending only those naked people among the bunch.

After that I decided to make a special visit to the HQ of Aqua temple located inside the capital city.

When I arrived at the Aqua Temple, I showed off my painting skill to Raine's disciples in the most non-violent manner. Since I had only red colored ingredient with me at the time, therefore, the white stature of Raine and the granite floor inside the temple turned red.

However, nobody was hurt or killed at the end of the day. I even offered to return to the temple to repaint the interior since none of Raine's disciples seemed to appreciate the red color scheme I gave to the temple, yet, my offer was turned down.

I was sad that they refused my offer. Thus, I decided to gift them with ten of the most awesome looking golems I had with me at the time to show them my goodwill. Those golems were not nearly as gargantuan as the fifteen golems of Aira's mobile witch tower. They were only a twice the size of the tallest man of our kingdom and were equipped with awesome looking armors and weapons that were meant for decoration purpose. Raine's disciples did not accept my gifts. I did not think they appreciate the beauty of those golems.

However, they immediately allowed me to display my painting skill inside the temple again. This time, I was smart enough to bring white paint.

The very evening they received my gifts, His Holiness the Supreme Pontiff of the Aqua Temple graced the Diven Mage Council with his presence. He told the council that he was extremely apologetic for the way his disciples behave. He withdrew any defamatory remark tossing at me and the Council and apologized for how the situation turned out. He requested the Council to call me back and lifted the siege at the Aqua temple as soon as possible.

That was the funniest thing I have heard. He called my gifts "an army" and my goodwill of returning the temple to its original color "a siege." That man really knew how to make a good joke. I felt like he could become a good friend of mine and asked him to hang out with me after that. Though, he always found an excuse to decline my invitation.

The Council learned of my deed and gave me a summon. I only received a light warning since nobody got hurt.

Somehow, the entire capital knew of my deed, or rather the exaggerations that the Supreme Pontiff of the Aqua temple made.

It was only then that I remembered of the painting job I made on the streets. However, when I arrived at the scene, there were already professional painters working. They turned the red and white canvas that I created into a giant bouquet of roses.

That street has since named Rose Street.

Such a disaster of an event ended peacefully and beautifully. Nobody got hurt or killed. I even received a new alias three months after receiving my first alias.

The Immortal Rose of Calamity, that was my second alias. My teacher had the word "Rose" and "Calamity" attached to her alias, so was I.

Like teacher, like student indeed.

The word "Rose" in her alias described the red of her eyes and hair. It was used to describe her beauty. The "Rose" in mine was used to describe the paintjob I left in the street of the capital city.

I liked that alias so much better than the previous alias. No kidding, I was no Saint.

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One of the problems that a mage always faces in life is the constant lack of mana to support his magic.

I, too, experienced the same problem. When I was young, inexperience and low level, I thought that when I grew old and gained more level, that problem would stop. However, it never did.

When I was young, I barely have enough mana to cast those magic that allowed me to be lazy. When I grew older, I did not have enough mana to cast those grand scale magic that I really wanted to cast.

Every mage experienced this same problem. I certainly did and so did Aira. We never have enough mana to cast every spell we wanted.

That's why Manadite was a very important discovery to magi. Manadite is a rare type of crystal that could be found and mined in dungeons. It's harder than ruby and sapphire but not as hard as diamond.

Manadite has many colors, ranging from colorless to black. The darker the color of the Manadite, the more valuable it is.

A tiny crystal of black Manadite is more valuable to a mage than a bag of diamonds. Manadite allowed a mage to store his mana inside and saved his mana for rainy days.

I have seen a Manadite mine inside the Wandering Forest of Death once. The crystals were pure black, pitch black as a moonless night. That mine is one of the many reasons I decided to enter the Wandering Forest of Death.

After Aira has turned up for the night, I borrowed one of her laboratory fat suits, revamping it. This thing, even Aira would probably have no idea how amazing it was. She originally designed it to protect herself from potential hazard of her experiments. She probably had never expected people would use it as armor suit and wear it into battle.

This thing is a remote type of golem. It required orders from a mage to move and execute a variety of actions. Depended on the equipment attached to it, this golem allows a mage to explore the depth of the ocean, fly in the sky or explore unforgiving dungeons. It could allow a weakest mage to overpower the strongest paladins or run faster than a horse. The only backdrop of this golem is the requirement of a constant supply of mana to control it, otherwise, it would be no more than just a suit of armor.

Aira was the person who came up with the design of this golem and the one who developed it. However, I was the person who completed it.

I rigged its arms and legs then strengthened the joints. After that, I crammed up all sorts of equipment and functions that I probably needed into that fat suit.

As I worked on the fat suit, I was filled with nostalgia. I started to remember the days I lived in this mobile witch tower all alone. My research and Aira's research was the only purpose I had left in life. I ignored mails from my family and cut all contacts with them. Eating, drinking, and even sleeping felt like a chore. I had to design golems to help me with that. I remembered that I used to stay inside this lab for weeks and never left it once.

I remembered that when I completed my research and Aira's for the first time, I did not feel any joy or a sense of achievement. It was empty and hollow. I did not know if it was worth spending forty seven years inside this witch tower for my research and shunned myself from the world. I only followed it through, contacting the Diven Mage Council and publishing mine and Aira's research.

The Council asked me if I wanted to take the Arch Mage qualification exam, I nodded my head because I had nothing better to do at that point. After that, they asked me if I would like to be a lecturer at the Academy. I nodded my head again, because why not? I had no other purpose in life and the council required me to explain to them about mine and Aira's research all the time. The technology that we created was ahead of our time. Why not? I thought.

I was in fact very glad that Raine's disciples picked a fight with me. I had nothing and nobody to play with at the time. 47 years of being a reclusive had a tone on my personality. It was a miracle that I could actually stand in front of a class and give a lesson to the students at the Academy.

Those memories and nostalgia soured my mood. I clicked my tongue, shook my head and tried to focus on the job. "I blame Aira for everything,"

Yes, I blame Aira for how my life has turned out. I could have lived a normal man and died a normal man. However, thanks to Aira, my life is such a mess.