Versatile Mage

Translated by XephiZ

Edited by Aelryinth

—

The Aorus Sacred Institute was located in a remote place. The closest city was around a hundred and fifty kilometers away.

However, despite being located in a remote place, many people had come to study magic at the Institute. Lately, it had overtaken the Sacred Hall of Liberty in terms of popularity. It was slowly becoming the most well-known university in the Americas.

A dozen kilometers to the west of Aorus Sacred Institute was the Pacific Ocean. There were no mountains or cliffs between them, just a sandy white beach.

The area between the shore and the Aorus Sacred Institute was covered in white sand, like a sacred desert, a place that every South American enjoyed visiting to cleanse their minds.

To the east of the Aorus Sacred Institute were the Andes.

The Andes Mountains were similar to China’s Qinling Mountains in some ways. The mountain range served as a boundary line, with the warm weather of the Pacific Ocean on one side while the other side had plenty of rain and obvious temperature differences between seasons.

The unique weather made the place a suitable ground to plant the Frenzy Poppies. The Andes Range was about five times longer than the Qinling Mountains, part of the longest mountain range in the world. Even though the area that was suitable for planting the Frenzy Poppies was only a few hundred kilometers long, finding the Frenzy Poppies was like trying to retrieve a needle from the sea due to the Andes’ complicated terrain.

To the left was the sea, a long shore, and a sandy white beach. To the right were the mountains and their complicated terrain.

The Aorus Sacred Institute was located in this unique environment. Its influence in the Americas was quite shocking. Even the Sacred Hall of Liberty, which was under North America’s Magic Association, had to act humbly before it.

Mo Fan was very bad at geography. Mu Bai and Zhao Manyan had heard of the Aorus Sacred Institute before, but Mo Fan thought it was just a random university when he first heard its name.

“The Aorus Sacred Institute is just like the European University Institute, but the latter is too competitive and has a lot of students from the ancient families from across Europe. The European University Institute might be powerful, but it doesn’t stand out too much. The Aorus Sacred Institute, on the other hand, is located in the Americas. It’s the first choice for many bright students, followed by MIT, Harvard, California…” Zhao Manyan gave Mo Fan a quick lesson.

“Why didn’t such a famous institute take part in the World College Tournament?” Mo Fan asked curiously.

“The teams in the World College Tournament represent their countries, but the Aorus Sacred Institute takes students from across the Americas. They are like an independent kingdom that doesn’t belong to any country,” Zhao Manyan answered promptly.

“That’s impressive. It sounds like a place outside the law that many students are fond of,” Mo Fan noticed.

“More or less. Apparently the student IDs of the Aorus Sacred Institute are more useful than permanent residency in any nearby country. The students of the Aorus Sacred Institute are judged according to their own rules, even if they have committed serious offenses,” Zhao Manyan said.

“That’s true! I remember once a student of the Aorus Sacred Institute went back to the United States to visit his family. He ended up having a fight and blasted a building into pieces by accident, resulting in quite a few casualties. The government and local Magic Association arrested the student and were going to sentence him to life imprisonment, but the Aorus Sacred Institute’s Head of Discipline asked them to let their student go. The Sacred Hall of Liberty was going to use the incident to teach the Aorus Sacred Institute a lesson. To everyone’s surprise, the president of the local Magic Association and the government employees were alumni of the Aorus Sacred Institute. They had no choice but to hand the student back after the Head of Discipline scolded the crap out of them,” Mu Bai said.

He had seen it on the news a few years ago. It had gotten a lot of attention back then. Since then, many alumni had treated their passports as useless junk. They believed the student IDs of the Aorus Sacred Institute were far more superior to any citizenship!

“Doesn’t that count as harboring a criminal?” Mo Fan had to ask.

“It definitely is, but the Aorus Sacred Institute is like an independent country. Students need to get a visa just to study at the school. They used international laws to extradite the student. There was no problem with it at all. That being said, it doesn’t mean they will tolerate the crimes their students committed. They did punish the student, but no one knows what the punishment was…” Zhao Manyan shrugged.

“Even I am interested in getting a student ID from the Aorus Sacred Institute for myself now!” Mo Fan exclaimed. Being a student of the Aorus Sacred Institute was like having a death-exemption plate!

Most of laws existed to restrict ordinary people.

Even a murderer could be transferred from a prison to a psychiatry ward if they were proven to suffer from a mental disorder, but there were different kinds of psychiatry wards!

Some were scarier than a prison, but some were as luxurious as a resort, like sending the criminals off to a vacation. They could live an enjoyable life at the cost of not being able to engage with the outside world freely.

It was a common way for the criminals to escape punishment. Legal tomes were so thick, with so many laws and terms written in black and white. There had to be a lot of unknown ways that criminals could abuse to escape their punishment. It was most likely the reason why so many people were so hungry for power.

A lot of people might be fond of living a carefree life, but life always had its struggles. Most people could bear with the minor ones, but when they found themselves in difficult situations, it was meaningless to complain about unfair treatment to the world.

The Aorus Sacred Institute was able to extradite criminals from any country as long as they were students there. It was not against international law. As for the innocent people who died when the building was destroyed, making the student pay for what he had done was solely dependent on how selfish the Aorus Sacred Institute was!

——

Mo Fan and company finally arrived at the Aorus Sacred Institute after a long journey.

The area in front of the Aorus Sacred Institute was undeveloped. Most importantly, the Aorus Sacred Institute did not even have roads connected to it, as if the magic institute had no need for modern transportation.

Mo Fan felt like he had come to a different world when he arrived at the Aorus Sacred Institute.

The green lawns were perfectly tended. Buildings with characteristics of different countries stood among the trees. Mo Fan could see four magnificent statues with fountains just looking around himself, not to mention the delicate corridors, bridges, cafes, and sight-seeing towers that were decorated so elegantly!

“Damn it, our Pearl Institute is like the countryside compared to this place!” Mo Fan exclaimed as soon as he set foot into the Aorus Sacred Institute.

Zhao Manyan had been to many places, but he was shocked by the Aorus Sacred Institute’s appearance too!

Was this really an institute?