Lina and Thane's newly chosen home was located in the second-to-last building of the apprentice dormitory complex. The environment here was more secluded, making it better suited for meditation and magical experiments. The rooms in this dormitory were also significantly larger than the one they had previously occupied. Besides a brand-new, spacious experiment table, the room even had a private bathroom.
Resource distribution among the apprentices of the Black Magic Academy was highly unequal. Most entry-level apprentices were crammed into narrow dormitories shared by three or four people—rooms even smaller than Thane's former residence, lacking experiment tables entirely, with barely enough space for two bunk beds and a few clothing racks.
In contrast, the dormitory building Thane and Lina had chosen was a six-story structure where most floors remained sparsely occupied. It wasn't uncommon for a single apprentice to claim multiple rooms for themselves. Their new home was on the fourth floor, which originally housed only four other apprentices. Three of them lived alone, while the fourth pair, like Thane and Lina, shared a room.
The second-to-last dormitory building was home to a mix of intermediate and advanced apprentices. The advanced apprentices dominated the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, while the more capable intermediate apprentices mostly resided on the lower three levels. Thane and Lina had chosen their new location after careful consideration of their abilities and needs.
On their second day in the building, one of the intermediate apprentices on their floor voluntarily moved down to the third level. The other three households remained undisturbed, but as days passed, Thane made a startling discovery.
"I noticed today that those two roommates are both men!" Thane whispered to Lina as he prepared dinner, his voice low. She sat at the table, flipping through a magic tome without looking up.
"What's so strange about that? In the ten years you've been at the Black Magic Academy, haven't you seen similar cases before?" Lina replied calmly, showing no surprise whatsoever.
Thane chuckled awkwardly as he chopped the blackscale fish. "I thought only those idle low-level apprentices indulged in such things. I never expected even advanced apprentices to..."
Low-level apprentices rarely lived past thirty—a well-known fact among the academy's long-standing members. Those with abysmal talent, still stuck at the entry-level even in their late twenties, often gave up on their futures and resorted to depravity, using their limited power for malicious deeds.
The academy's toxic atmosphere was undoubtedly fostered by the indifference—or even deliberate encouragement—of the official black mages. Yet, it couldn't be denied that these morally bankrupt low-level apprentices exacerbated the situation.
As for intermediate and advanced apprentices, though their personalities were just as cold and ruthless, they at least held the potential to explore the truths of magic and the mysteries of the elements. With most of their time devoted to magical research and academy missions, they had little energy left to bully weaker apprentices.
Thane's remark made Lina close her book. She walked over and began assisting him with dinner—something she had never done before his return from his last mission, injured.
Her clumsy handling left fish scales sticking to her arms. It was baffling how a woman who couldn't even manage basic chores had mastered such profound magical knowledge.
Together, they prepared a hearty and warm dinner. Seated at the spacious table, their conversation bore little resemblance to mundane daily life, instead brimming with the discussions typical of mages.
After briefly discussing their neighbors, Thane and Lina turned to recent challenges in their experiments and magical studies. Thane shared his recent insights and progress in alchemy. Though Lina hadn't specialized in the field, her status as an advanced apprentice allowed her to engage in the discussion.
When Thane finished, Lina—who rarely spoke at length—mentioned the magic tome she had been studying: The Annotations of Angadar, one of the books given to Thane by his mentor, Mosido.
The tome was a collection of casual notes by a formal mage named Angadar, including the spell model and knowledge for an intermediate spell—Telekinesis. Thane had assumed the book's primary value lay in this spell, which was likely why Mosido had handed it to him.
But Lina had uncovered something more.
"According to the information in this book, Mage Angadar's true profession was that of a sorcerer," she explained. "It also mentions that mages in the wizarding world are further divided into specialized professions—sorcerers, summoners, necromancers, elementalists, bloodline warlocks, and more."
"Each magical profession has numerous branches. For example, we could currently be classified as fire elementalists among elementalists."
Her explanation left Thane both enlightened and intrigued. Having nearly mastered his two intermediate spells—Fire Wall and Flame Hand—he was ready to delve into Telekinesis. Inspired by Lina's suggestion, he decided to thoroughly study The Annotations of Angadar beyond just the spell.
The warm, fulfilling dinner passed in the quiet hum of their magical discussions. It was an ordinary day—just another page in Thane's life at the Black Magic Academy.