94 Chapter 94

The mage association at Tulip city was one of their largest branch if not the largest branch. He had welcomed with open arms when he went to report. A green level mage at his age was considered fairly good and being a space mage was something rare in the first place.

He had thought his talents would come to good use. When he went to see the mission section, his dreams came down crashing. Most of the missions were too high leveled for him to attempt. And the ones which he could attempt would again take too much time. He thought about using his status as a space mage to may be get some exclusive missions.

He did get them. But they were not what he was looking for. The missions he was offered was to be a taxi service for the rich or high leveled mages. He was offered fair bit of money, but he didn't want a job where he would be a personal driver to drive the floating vehicles or the one to open gates for the rich to travel.

Although he didn't look at that kind of job favourably, but the money offered was really good. He was nearly tempted to do it for a while. Other benifit of doing it would have been to increase his proximity with mages of higher level.

After a lot of suggestions he got from the reception of the mage association, he decided to work at the artifact making section. He knew it was probably the best job he could do right now which wouldnt hurt his dignity.

He didn't consider the other job to be a low level one, it was just that he was used to having a high level treatment on the other side. He couldnt make himself do such a job now.

He didn't have much experience in artifact making. He did some work in this field on the other side, but he couldn't tell that. He appeared as inexperienced on this side. Plus the techniques and standard were indeed much better than he was used to.

As a result, he could only gain a small post at the artifact making division of the mage association. If he was a regular elementalist, he might not have even got that post. It was just that true mages were rare that he got that post in the first place.

The post was small, but the money was actually good. He was offered a salary of 100 mage stones per month. Which was much larger than he expected. He didn't even make an artifact all by himself. He did make the lighters, but they were a very basic thing. Things such as space rings were made by a higher level mage. He just made the keys for it and checked it for performance.

And things like a floating vehicle, he wasn't even allowed near it.

Another reason he agreed for the work was because he needed some time to adjust in the new city. Having a small job gave him ample opportunity. He talked to people in the association and came to know about the general know how of the city and the politics surrounding it.

The mage families and the mage association were indeed competitive to an extreme level. Infact competitive wouldnt define their situation. They just stopped short of outright violence. The only reason being that they needed each other. They needed to use the space gates of each other often enough and another reason was they needed some of the artifacts produced exclusively by a faction. Like the mage system of the Jhonson family. If they started an outright war, how would they even ask for the other's help.

How silly would it sound if they said "hey, let me use your gate to attack a city you command. "

Another fact he came to know in his journey and which was confirmed here was that the central cities were a part of only few places where the five powers were in balance. At most places, one power dominated the other.

The best and the worst part about the mage Association here was the library. The library was huge. With several thousand volume of books. The part he hated was how the books were restricted level wise. He was told green level mages had free access to the library. It was right they indeed had free access. But only for the 1st level.

Rest of the library had access restricted to each of the succeeding level of power. Although Aaron hated the system, it did make sense. Power level also usually represented the level of understanding of a mage. Unless you had your basics right, how could you even read those high level books. It would only confuse you.

A good example would be maths. Without knowing numbers how would you learn to add and subtract? Without knowing addition and subtraction how would you learn algebra? And without knowing basic algebra, how could you start learning calculus? Everything required some basic understanding first.

If someone read something too high level which they could not comprehend properly, they might even deviate from their original path and completely stop their growth as a mage.

The level system in the library was made to infact protect the mages, not restrict them.

Although his life looked pathetic from the outside for now, but it wouldn't last long.

The artifact division of the mage association had a fair every six months. Everyone who belonged to the mage association was allowed to have a stall their and present their own artifact which they might have created or have improved. The artifacts which would catch the eyes of the judges would get a contract and the mage would be awarded as well. The reward of course depended on the value of the artifact and whether it could be kept exclusive or not. Not every artifact was exclusive. Most artifacts were easy to copy by the mages because of the simple nature of the spells used to create them.

The only difference was the performance of the artifact because it depended upon the power level of the mage and his understanding of the spell.

Aaron knew such a fair would be the first step for him to make a name for himself.