Chapter 40

Lina and Sain's newly chosen home is located in the second-to-last building of the apprentice dormitory complex.

The environment here is more secluded, making it more suitable for Sain and Lina to meditate or conduct magic experiments.

The rooms in this dormitory building are also much larger than the one Sain and Lina previously lived in.

In addition to having a brand new and spacious laboratory bench, the room even has a private bathroom.

Resource distribution among the apprentices at the Black Magic Academy is extremely uneven.

Most entry-level apprentices live in cramped dormitories with three or four people sharing a room.

These rooms are even smaller than the one Sain previously lived in, and they don't even have a laboratory bench. The internal space is only enough to accommodate two bunk beds and a few coat racks.

The building where Sain and Lina chose to live is six stories tall, and almost every floor is not fully occupied.

It's common for one apprentice to occupy several rooms here.

Sain and Lina's chosen room is on the fourth floor, which originally had only four households of apprentices.

Three of them lived alone, while the other one, like Sain and Lina, was a couple.

In the second-to-last apprentice dormitory building, half of the residents are intermediate apprentices, and the other half are advanced apprentices.

The advanced apprentices dominate the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, while the more capable intermediate apprentices mostly live on the lower three floors.

Sain and Lina chose their new home location after considering their strength and specific needs.

On the second day after they moved into this building, one of the intermediate apprentices on their floor voluntarily moved to the third floor.

The other three households of apprentices didn't make much of a fuss, but after a few days, Sain noticed something that left him speechless.

"I noticed today that the two apprentices living together are both men!" Sain said in a low voice while preparing dinner, to Lina who was sitting at the table, flipping through a magic book.

"What's so surprising about that? In the ten years I've been at the Black Magic Academy, haven't you seen similar situations?" Lina continued to flip through the magic book, showing no sign of surprise.

Sain lightly chopped the black shark scales and said with an awkward smile, "I thought only those boring low-level apprentices liked to do these things. I didn't expect that even advanced apprentices would..."

Very few low-level apprentices at the Black Magic Academy live past the age of 30, and many long-time apprentices are aware of this situation.

Some apprentices with extremely poor talent fail to reach the intermediate level even in their late twenties, and knowing their future is bleak, they start to give up and use their strength to do despicable things.

The poor atmosphere at the Black Magic Academy is indeed a result of the formal black mages' laissez-faire attitude, and even their active promotion.

However, it must be said that these low-level apprentices with poor character also exacerbate the situation.

While the intermediate and above apprentices, despite their extremely cold and ruthless nature, are at least capable of exploring the path of truth and the mysteries of the elements. After dedicating most of their energy to magic research and academy tasks, they indeed have little time to bully weaker apprentices.

Sain's response made Lina close her magic book.

She walked over to Sain's side, helping him prepare dinner as best she could, and said casually, "There are also unconventional advanced apprentices. The two living next door are not simple either."

"That intermediate apprentice, Mari, has won the academy award twice in a row and is a strong candidate for promotion to advanced apprentice."

"As for the other advanced apprentice, Stanson, don't be fooled by his burly and foolish appearance. He actually masters several extremely rare and special bloodline magics."

"If it weren't for his somewhat poor mind, he could have a place among the top advanced apprentices." Lina said while helping Sain prepare the black shark scales.

Since Sain returned injured from his last academy mission, Lina has indeed changed a lot.

At least before this, Lina had never helped Sain with tasks like preparing dinner.

It's not that she didn't want to, but that she didn't know how.

Lina's clumsy handling caused many fish scales to stick to her arms.

It's really hard to imagine how a woman who can't even handle household chores could master so much profound magical knowledge.

A sumptuous and warm dinner was completed with their joint efforts.

Sitting at the spacious dining table, the conversation between Sain and Lina lacked the traces of ordinary daily life and was filled with the atmosphere of magicians.

For example, after a brief discussion about their neighbors, Sain and Lina talked about the problems they encountered in their recent experiments and magic studies while eating fish.

Sain mentioned his recent insights and gains in the field of alchemy.

Although Lina did not focus on alchemy, as an advanced apprentice, she still had some common ground with Sain in this area.

After Sain finished talking about his recent situation, Lina, who rarely spoke, mentioned the magic book she had been reading recently.

The magic book Lina was reading is called "Ankoda's Annotations," one of the few books her mentor, Moses, gave her.

This is a magic notebook written casually by a formal magician named Ankoda, which also records the spell model and related knowledge of an intermediate-level magic, "Object Control."

Sain originally thought that the greatest value of "Ankoda's Annotations" was the intermediate-level magic it contained, which he believed was the reason his mentor, Moses, gave him this magic notebook.

However, what Sain didn't expect was that while Lina was reading this magic book, she not only learned the intermediate-level magic "Object Control" but also discovered something else.

"According to the information revealed in this magic book, the formal magician Master Ankoda's true profession is a wizard."

"The book also mentions that in the world of wizards, magicians are actually divided into many professions, including wizards, summoners, necromancers, elementalists, blood mages, and more."

"Each magic profession has many branches."

"For example, we can now be called fire elementalists within the elementalist profession." Lina said.

Lina's introduction indeed made Sain feel a sense of enlightenment and curiosity.

He had almost mastered his two intermediate-level magics, Fire Wall and Flame Hand, and it was time to delve into Object Control.

In addition to learning Object Control, inspired and advised by Lina, he would also carefully study the magic book "Ankoda's Annotations."

The sumptuous and warm dinner passed with the conversation between the two magic apprentices.

It was an ordinary day, a common day in Sain's life at the Black Magic Academy.