Li Wei sat in the Red Level Class all morning.

He read the fundamentals of Magic Theory that Wag had given him.

All morning, he didn’t see a single person go up to ask the teacher a question.

And the teacher just slept in the classroom all morning.

At noon, the man woke up right on time.

"Class is dismissed. This afternoon is the practical course. If you want to study on your own, you can come back here. For class, go to the fifth floor of the Mage Tower."

"Goodbye."

The man dismissed the class and left, right on schedule.

Li Wei put away his book and walked outside.

"Sigh... Things are just getting worse. I don’t know if I’ll even have a chance to get into the Orange Class this year. If not, I’ll probably have to leave next year."

"Staying here is worse than just going back home."

"Stop complaining. Capable people don’t blame their environment."

"If you really wanted to, you could just go and join up with those people, couldn’t you?"

"Forget it. The whole reason I’m still here is because I refuse to be one of them."

Hearing this, Li Wei’s interest was piqued.

He sensed there was more to the story.

’So there’s another reason why the Red Level Class is so crowded?’

’Cliques and factions?’

Li Wei shook his head, deciding not to worry about it.

’It has nothing to do with me.’

All he cared about right now was figuring out how to lift his curse.

During his lunch break, Li Wei headed to the Saint Villia Library.

After showing his Magic Badge, he was allowed into the Saint Villia Library.

"Red Level Class students receive one hour of library access per day. The time is non-cumulative."

Li Wei was surprised.

’So there are restrictions.’

He checked the rules posted by the entrance.

The higher one’s Level, the more time one could spend in the library each day.

Red Level students got one hour, Orange Level got two hours, and so on, with the time increasing for each level. Students in the Purple Level Magic Class had no time limit.

Furthermore, Red Level students were not allowed to check out any books.

Only students at the Yellow Level or higher could take books out of the library.

Also, as a Red Level student, Li Wei was restricted to the library’s first floor.

’These level restrictions are harsh.’

Fortunately, Li Wei found a map on the first floor.

It was a map of the Central Earth Continent.

Li Wei located the Elemental Tower on it. The map, being from the Saint Villia Library’s collection, had the locations of the Elemental Tower and the four other High Level Mage Towers specially marked.

The Elemental Tower was located in the West Desert Wastelands, on the western edge of the Central Earth Continent.

The West Desert Wastelands had once been a rich and fertile land.

Long ago, it was known as the Celestial Green Oasis.

Then a cataclysmic war erupted, turning the entire Celestial Green Oasis into a barren desert.

And so, it was renamed the West Desert Wastelands.

The Elemental Tower was situated on the edge of the West Desert Wastelands, not quite in the most desolate part of the region.

Further in lay an Ancient Battlefield, a relic from thousands of years ago.

Countless ancient souls lingered there, unable to reincarnate or find release.

This gave rise to innumerable Undead Creatures.

It was a veritable Purgatory on earth.

One of the reasons the Elemental Tower was situated in the West Desert Wastelands was to stand guard over the countless souls within the Ancient Battlefield.

It was to prevent the myriad souls that had gathered over a millennium from entering other parts of the Central Earth Continent.

This was to prevent an Undead Calamity.

The other four High Level Mage Towers each stood watch over similar forbidden zones.

The origins of these forbidden zones have long been lost to history.

Even at the height of its power, the Human Empire had been unable to cleanse these forbidden zones.

Li Wei found the city closest to the Elemental Tower on the map.

Storm City.

Beyond Storm City stretched the Great Wall, a massive barrier that spanned thousands of miles and sealed off the entire West Desert Wastelands.

It was also known as the Storm Fortress or the Storm Cliffs.

Storm City was eight hundred kilometers from the Elemental Tower.

The distance wasn’t actually that great.

Flying at his normal speed, Li Wei could make it in under an hour.

The problem was, the area between the Elemental Tower and Storm City was not empty.

The region was infested with a large number of dangerous Magic Beasts.

One moment of carelessness, and you could become a Magic Beast’s next meal.

The safest way, of course, was to use the Teleportation Array inside the Elemental Tower to get to Storm City.

The Elemental Tower served as the Human Empire’s forward outpost for monitoring the Undead of the Ancient Battlefield.

Storm City was the Empire’s main line of defense against those same Undead.

The two were naturally connected, and their relationship was a deep one.

Many Mages who graduated from the Elemental Tower went on to take up positions in Storm City.

By spending some time in Storm City, one could earn a great deal of Merit.

Those who wanted to climb the social ladder could use this as an opportunity to become nobles, then move on to more prosperous regions of the Central Earth Continent to continue ascending the tower of power.

For those with powerful backgrounds, Storm City was the perfect place to build up their credentials.

After all, the post wasn’t very dangerous, but it was considered strategically vital.

The Undead of the Ancient Battlefield had been quiet for several hundred years.

Day-to-day work usually just involved fighting minor creatures; one never had to face a real Undead Calamity.

Li Wei continued to leaf through materials in the library, learning about the Elemental Tower’s rules.

There was indeed a Teleportation Array in the Elemental Tower that led directly to Storm City.

However, he couldn’t use it.

He wasn’t currently eligible to use the Teleportation Array.

There were two conditions for using the Teleportation Array.

The first was to become a Tier Three Mage.

Although the Elemental Tower didn’t forbid students from going outside or leaving the Floating Island, students below Tier Three were, barring special circumstances, forbidden from using any of the Teleportation Arrays that led to the outside world.

You could leave, but you had to find your own way to do it.

Whether you flew or walked, it was all up to you.

Your legs were your own, so the Elemental Tower wouldn’t stop you from going wherever you wanted.

The second condition was to accumulate one hundred Credit Points.

Credit Points were the currency within the Elemental Tower.

There were many ways to obtain them, but the most common was by completing the Elemental Tower’s academic courses.

Upon completing courses and passing the exams, students would be awarded Credit Points.

Credit Points could be used as currency within the Elemental Tower.

Additionally, completing course-related tasks could also earn Credit Points.

The Elemental Tower did not permit students to trade Credit Points privately.

Once a student had a hundred Credit Points, they could spend one hundred gold coins to use the Teleportation Array to Storm City.

Spending more Gold Coins allowed travel to even more distant locations.

Alternatively, the fee could be paid with Credit Points, costing just one Credit Point per trip.

The official exchange rate was one Credit Point to one hundred gold coins.

In private trades, however, their value was far greater than one hundred gold coins.

Credit Points were also tied to one’s ability to graduate from the Elemental Tower.

If a Mage started at Tier One and completed every academic course to Perfection, earning all possible Credit Points, they would have accumulated exactly one hundred Credit Points by the time they became a Tier Three Mage.

The rules of the Elemental Tower were quite cleverly designed.

One hour later, Li Wei walked out of the library.

His time for the day was used up.

He had also found the information he wanted.

’How can I earn a lot of Credit Points quickly?’

’I can’t possibly go through every single academic course from Tier One Mage to Tier Three Mage all over again.’

’Even with my eight-times time acceleration cheat, that would take several months at a minimum.’

’In that case, my only option is... the practical combat course missions.’

Practical combat missions offered the chance to earn a large number of Credit Points.

Unlike theoretical studies, where each course had a cap on the number of Credit Points you could earn, the Credit Point rewards for practical combat missions were situational and could far exceed what was possible through coursework.

But they were also much more dangerous.