Chapter 027ArrivalMarcus sat in the new lecture hall, tapping his finger against the table and pretending to read a book while he waited for the last few students to make their way inside.He chose a good moment to build the lecture hall. He had returned to the lands of the Silver League at the start of summer, but it had been six months since then. It felt like less to Marcus, but passage of time didn’t care about how Marcus felt. A few days ago snow had started falling, and it had yet to stop. Winter was upon them, and having a nice spacious building with good insulation for everyone to meet in was nice. Without it… well, they would have managed somehow, but this was better.Most of the students were already inside, with a book of their own in front of them, and unlike Marcus, they seemed actually absorbed in their reading material. That was probably because they were actual spellbooks, and not boring theory, but it was still impressive to see most of his students enthusiastic about reading anything.Marcus wasn’t surprised by this burst of enthusiasm, though. They may be his first students ever, but he too had been in their position once, and had observed other students since then as well. In Marcus’s experience, new mages tended to be very motivated when they reached this stage. The initial steps involving learning a foundational technique required a lot of work for no immediate gain, so even if the student was driven, it usually took a fair bit of prodding to keep them working hard. Though in truth, Marcus was pleasantly surprised by their diligence, even in this early period – not that he would ever praise them much for that, of course.In any case, once students became actual apprentices and could cast their first spells, they finally had magical powers within their grasp, and were almost invariably eager to seek out every spell in their vicinity so they could (...)