At the center of the hall, natural light refracted through the dome gently swayed. Though not bright, it was enough to illuminate the tranquil space.
Struggling to calm the turmoil in his heart, Loren walked swiftly toward where Lanqi and Karen stood.
"Dean Loren."
Both Lanqi and Karen greeted Loren upon his arrival.
They were quite grateful that Dean Loren had taken time out of his packed schedule to grant them this opportunity to observe the Original Slate.
"Lanqi..."
Loren kept most of his attention on Lanqi. After studying Lanqi's expression for a moment, he said, "How about I arrange another session for you instead?"
The moment Loren saw Lanqi standing here, an ominous premonition seized him.
Lanqi, however, looked innocent and slightly bewildered, as though he couldn't fathom why Dean Loren was hesitating so much.
The dean's schedule was going to be packed for the coming days; how could they waste any more of his time?
Just as Lanqi lapsed into brief silence, before he could voice his concern about Loren's workload, Karen spoke first from the side.
"Dean Loren, Lanqi is strong and reliable. Observing the domain of the [Original Slate - Wind] with him makes me feel completely at ease."
Karen curtsied to Loren with a remarkably sensible demeanor. "I'm sure Lanqi only wants to lighten your workload as well."
"Is that so?"
Loren sensed a subtle distance between Lanqi and Karen beneath their harmonious interaction.
It didn't look like Lanqi had coerced or tricked Karen into anything.
Suspecting Lanqi without reason made it seem as though he harbored undue prejudice against him...
"Lanqi, Karen is the student the Aloran delegation values most in this academic visit. I need to ensure she returns to the Aloran Kingdom healthy, safe, and happy according to schedule. But I've been far too busy lately to look after everything myself. Could you help me out?"
Loren looked directly at Lanqi as he asked.
This was effectively his very roundabout way of asking Lanqi to promise not to do anything that would cause Karen physical or mental distress.
Loren was simply too terrified that something might happen to Karen.
All he could do was entrust the matter directly to Lanqi as a favor.
"No problem at all, please rest assured. I promise to keep Karen happy and make sure she doesn't suffer the slightest grievance at our school."
Lanqi smiled and nodded with a profound sense of responsibility.
"Then go ahead and observe it together."
Loren thought it over; perhaps he really had misjudged Lanqi this time.
Lanqi always followed through on his word. Questionable conduct aside, his promises were genuinely trustworthy.
"By the way, Lanqi, even though your card crafting is formidable, still..."
Loren hesitated, pausing mid-sentence.
"Never mind. Just get along well with Karen."
In truth, he was a bit worried Lanqi might demoralize Karen, but certain things were awkward to put into words.
Then again, Lanqi wasn't the arrogant or domineering type.
From what Loren knew of Lanqi, the boy wouldn't use his talents to bully Karen either.
"Wait a moment. I'll open the gate to the slate's internal barrier domain for you."
Having briefly finished speaking with them, Loren headed toward the council seating surrounding the edge of the central hall to shake hands and converse with the scholars dispatched from the Magic Tower.
There was only one routine recorder from the Magic Tower, along with several staff members from various magic artificer associations, all respectfully greeting Dean Loren.
Evidently, though Loren carried no airs at the academy and showed zero distance even toward School of Sages students, outside he was an immensely revered figure—not only a high priest of the Church of the Goddess of Fate, but also a wielder of an Original Slate renowned across the entire Southern Continent.
As for the School of Magic Engineering, faculty members usually came to gather data on the observation results, but since today was Saturday, they refused to work overtime and simply didn't show up.
No one knew what wind had blown a reporter from the Hutton Times here today.
From earlier on, a lively young reporter sitting in the audience had been waving repeatedly at Lanqi, trying to catch his eye. Lanqi had merely given a polite nod in return, not interacting with her further.
Luvishir, both a reporter for the Hutton Times and the student council secretary, sat in the front row, already itching to interview Lanqi and Karen.
Although Lanqi didn't know her—having never met her in the student council room—she had long known about Lanqi and Hyperion, the two newest additions to the student council.
During this brief wait, Dean Loren's earlier remarks piqued Karen's interest.
She looked up at Lanqi beside her.
"Lanqi, are you actually very skilled at card crafting?" Karen asked curiously in a soft voice.
Magic artificers came in many varieties. Among those at the School of Sages skilled in magic engineering, scrollmakers and appraisers were far more common.
Professional magic artificers typically enrolled in the School of Magic Engineering rather than the School of Sages, which primarily cultivated combat classes.
For Loren to let Lanqi observe the Original Slate, Lanqi undoubtedly possessed talent in magic engineering and held some sort of magic artificer specialty.
Who would have thought Lanqi's specialty was card crafting?
"I dabble a bit," Lanqi replied.
He could tell Dean Loren's words earlier were meant to urge humility, so he naturally acted even more modest and composed than usual.
"Even Dean Loren said your card crafting was formidable—do you realize just how much weight that praise carries?"
Karen gave a sly smile. Lanqi and his peers had spent so much time around Loren that they often failed to appreciate what a colossal figure Loren was in the eyes of other kingdoms.
"Dean Loren simply hasn't seen me blow up cards," Lanqi sighed.
Tata, for instance, spent all day calling him nothing more than a rubbish card-exploder.
While they chatted in hushed voices, the standard procedures were finalized, and Loren walked back over to Lanqi and Karen.
The two ceased their conversation.
"Let us begin."
With Loren's words, without a moment's hesitation, he summoned an ancient floating stone tablet. Its thin, compact, and lustrous texture had acquired a deep, rich hue from the wash of time. The faint magical patterns pulsed between brightness and shadow, its blue-gray ripples swaying in the breeze as if recounting a tale steeped in millennia of history.
The instant this slate appeared, a gentle breeze seemed to stir throughout the entire Ancient Tower Library. Each subtle draft rustled a few book pages, making them dance in the sunlight like nimble spirits of the hall, light and ethereal.
Sensing the emergence of this terrifying magic power, many students on the upper floors were drawn over, gathering along the terraces to watch the spectacle and looking down at Dean Loren at the dead center of the ground-floor plaza.
As Loren channeled magic power into this uniquely crafted epic magic card, more and more cracks spread across the stone carving's surface.
Until the entire slate fractured apart, revealing its truest form beneath.
It was a crystal-clear, semi-translucent magic card.
Yet what truly captivated everyone's gaze—
was the bizarre glow it radiated, not pure orange, but tinged with a streak of crimson!
The next second, having swallowed a portion of Loren's magic power, the floating card underwent an instant fission, forming a miniature Void Gate that manifested in the center of the Ancient Tower Library.
"You may begin."
Maintaining the expanded state of an Original Slate drained Loren's magic power.
Yet he trusted that even without detailed instructions, Lanqi and Karen knew what to do next, as the process was virtually identical to entering a Shadow World.
The two acknowledged Loren and stepped through the Void Gate one after the other.
Unlike a real Shadow World, this slate domain resembled an artificial Shadow World, requiring no matchmaking process or waiting time.
Within the chaotic darkness, in merely a matter of seconds, the entire world lit up once again.
Chapter 214