The night passed uneventfully.
The next morning, the sky had just begun to brighten.
Allen appeared in the first-floor hall right on time, where the Elder Wizard was already waiting. A moment later, Vera and Colin also arrived.
"Very good. I like punctual children," the Elder Wizard nodded, leading them out of the tower.
The morning square was vast and silent. The semicircular Teleportation Star Gates shimmered with a soft light in the dawn.
The Elder Wizard gave each of them a black badge and led them toward a rather unremarkable Star Gate. The gate was inscribed with the words "Panorama Corridor Plane."
"Once you step through, you will be directly teleported to the plaza of the Seven Towers Alliance. From there, just head to the new student reception area." He stopped and gave the three of them one last look.
"Life at the academy is more brutal than you imagine, but also more fair. Don't waste your talents, and don't squander the organization's investment in you."
His gaze lingered on Allen for an extra second.
"Especially you, 'Outlander' Allen Wesren. You will either soar to the heavens or... be shattered to pieces. I look forward to seeing how far you can go."
With that, he said no more, simply making a "go ahead" gesture.
Allen took a deep breath and was the first to step forward, walking unhesitatingly into the shimmering curtain of light.
His vision was consumed by pure white light, and a faint feeling of weightlessness washed over him.
When the light and hum of the Teleportation Star Gate—which felt like it was rearranging his internal organs—finally faded, a "pressure" so immense it nearly suffocated him took hold.
It wasn't a physical weight, but the very density of "existence" itself.
The air here... No, it couldn't be called air. Every breath was like swallowing warm gel. A strange energy flooded his lungs through his throat, making him want to cough while instinctively craving more.
He staggered, clutching his forehead. The hum of the teleportation still echoed in his ears, and everything before him was distorted by a luminous halo.
He forced himself to blink, trying to reassemble the chaotic visual information.
The first thing to enter his sight was the Rune-inscribed stone slab beneath his feet, its glowing patterns firmly supporting his body. Only then did he slowly raise his head.
In the next second, he held his breath.
He was standing in an impossibly vast circular plaza. In the distance, seven colossal towers encircled it, standing tall and majestic like pillars holding up the sky.
The tower directly in front of him was made of a material like obsidian, with molten-gold patterns flowing slowly across its surface, as if a living volcano had been forcibly molded into the shape of a tower.
To his right, a pure white tower floated silently hundreds of meters above the ground. Countless thick chains of light descended from its base, plunging into the void as if anchoring it to an unseen world.
Another tower's form constantly shifted between forest, vines, and crystal, brimming with vibrant life.
Each of the seven towers was uniquely wondrous and utterly captivating.
The sky wasn't blue, but a distorted ocean of light.
Enormous Magic Runes floated in the air like islands, slowly rotating and casting down a soft, ethereal radiance from an unknown source.
Countless points of light—Wizards on Magic Carpets, Flying Ships, or transformed into streaks of light themselves—weaved between these "islands," tracing complex yet efficient paths. It was much like the busy flight paths of a spaceport, only far more fantastical, and far more... unscientific.
RUMBLE—
A deep resonance that seemed to pierce the soul came from high above. Allen looked up, his eyes narrowing abruptly.
A colossal, inverted mountain, wrapped in countless chains of crackling lightning, was slowly "plowing" its way through the clouds above.
The mountain's underside was a dense array of metal structures, cannon barrels, and shimmering, Rune-etched crystal formations. It was a massive city, floating in mid-air.
Its shadow swept across the plaza, and across the heart of every newcomer.
"Don't just stand there gawking, you're in the way!"
An impatient, irritated voice sounded from behind him.
A young man in a blue Apprentice Robe on a hoverboard deftly maneuvered around him, darted toward a Teleportation Platform shimmering with blue light at the edge of the plaza, and vanished in an instant.
Allen finally managed to pull a shred of reason back from his state of utter shock. He forced his mind to work, trying to analyze his surroundings.
'DSeek,' he commanded in his mind, 'record environmental parameters, analyze building structures... '
DSeek responded faithfully, and a stream of data began to scroll through his consciousness.
[Structural Analysis: Target 'Tower' exhibits non-classical mechanical support patterns. Unable to compute!]
The result of the analysis was even more disheartening.
The "miracles" here were built upon a completely alien set of rules, making the scientific paradigms he was familiar with seem so pale and insignificant.
This grandeur wasn't meant to display the glory of gods, but was a pure manifestation of power—a cold, arrogant display of knowledge converted into tangible, world-shaping might.
Allen took a deep breath of the air, thick with Magic Power. He felt a sharp pain in his lungs, yet it was accompanied by a strange sense of excitement.
In his mind, the city skylines of Earth clashed and collided wildly with the scene of the seven towers before him.
"This isn't a fairy tale,"
he said to himself, his voice so low only he could hear. "This is... a miracle I can reach out and touch."
He looked down at his own hands—the still-youthful hands of a fifteen-year-old—and couldn't help but recall his days on Earth.
'I, Allen, once lived a life measured with precision.'
'Every day was a perfect replica of the one before.'
'The 7 A.M. alarm, the number seventeen bus that always arrived a few minutes late, the eternally unchanging thickness of the stack of files on my desk—even the familiar ringtone of my colleague in the next cubicle had become an unbreakable law of physics in my world.'
'My fingers had typed countless reports on a cold keyboard. The words were precise, the formatting perfect, but when put together, they amounted to nothing meaningful.'
'I felt like a fly trapped in transparent amber, able to see the vibrant world outside, to sense the passage of time, yet completely unable to move.'
'Everything around me was certain, predictable. I knew where I'd be in thirty years, what chair I'd be sitting in, what kind of problems I'd be handling—assuming I could keep functioning as a machine that never wears out, bored until that very moment.'
'This "ordinariness" wasn't poverty; it was a kind of spiritual suffocation.'
'It was like a thick layer of dust smothering all color and sound. Only by immersing myself in strategy simulation games after work could I find some long-lost joy.'
'Until... I came to this world.'
'Until... I heard the roar of Merlin prying reality apart with his words.'
'The world he spoke of, one where you could "toy with gods" and "write the rules," struck me like a bolt of lightning tearing through a gray sky!'
'It wasn't fear, but a desire so intense it made me tremble, made me nearly faint.'
'Those Wizards seek eternal life?'
'No. What I crave first is the feeling of being alive—a racing heart, an unknown path ahead, a breath that inhales a different possibility every time.'
'They seek power?'
'Yes, I crave power. But not to rule over anyone. I want it to break things!'
'To shatter that damned "certainty" that shackled the first half of my life! I want to see for myself what brilliant sparks will fly when I manipulate Magic Power with my own hands.'
'Become a Wizard?'
'It was never a choice. For someone who has spent too long in a silent Hell, I would plunge headfirst into a fire hot enough to incinerate my soul, without a moment's hesitation.'
'Just to feel the searing heat again. Just to reach out and touch that unconventional... reality... they call a "miracle." '
Fear was still there—fear of the unknown, fear of the powerful. But a far stronger flame, the instinctive fire of curiosity, burned fiercely in his heart.
"Well then," Allen Wesren straightened his back. His gaze swept over the inhuman spectacle one more time before finally landing on the queue for new student registration in the distance—a line leading into the unknown.
"Let's see just how wonderful this world can be."
He took a step, walking toward that fateful queue, toward this new world that both made him feel as insignificant as dust and made his very soul tremble in anticipation.