The carriage stopped in front of the guards. One of the followers that Darnel had assigned to Feng Chou got off the horse and handed over a stack of documents to the guard post.
The mage apprentice in the guard post took the documents, flipped through them, and handed them back to the follower. He then waved at the guards at the gate.
Seeing the apprentice's gesture, the guards pushed open the iron gate.
Leo had been trapped in the underground city for half a year, and his status as a student had long been revoked by the mage school. This was also why he had to rely on the El Chamber of Commerce to return to the school. Besides, not just any apprentice could bring guards and followers into the school. This required special privileges.
The gate of the school slowly opened, and a carriage with four guards on horseback slowly stepped through the gate.
Looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar scenery outside the carriage window, Feng Chou took a deep breath. His future depended on whether he could get what he wanted here.
The carriage followed the straight road behind the gate for about two hundred meters, and then turned into a circular road. This road divided the entire school into two areas. The inner part of the circular road was the functional area of the school, and the outer part of the circular road was the living area of the school.
In the living area, there were mansions of various sizes with individual courtyards. Some of these mansions were occupied by teachers, while others were occupied by students.
In this mage school, there were not many people, whether it was teachers or students.
In this world, those with an intelligence of 15 were one in a hundred. In the entire Antalya County, there were only about three to four hundred people of the right age who met this requirement. Among these people, only a very small portion, perhaps less than three percent, had families that were willing to send them to the mage school to study. Feng Chou was one of them.
Among these three to four hundred people, less than a third, which was less than a hundred people, had an intelligence of 20 and above. Those with an intelligence of 20 and above had a high chance of becoming an official mage if they were given the opportunity to study. Therefore, some of the wealthier nobles would sponsor a few youths with an intelligence of 20 and above to enroll in the mage school.
Therefore, the number of students in this school, including the old apprentices who served the school and the teachers, was only about a hundred people.
As for teachers, there were even fewer of them.
The core of the entire Antalya Academy was a high-order mage. This high-order mage was the headmaster of the school, and also the actual user of the Mage Tower. Only, the user, this Mage Tower actually belonged to the Antalya County Family. It was precisely because of this Mage Tower that the Antalya Family was able to keep this high-order mage who was rumored to have reached level 14 in this remote city.
There were six intermediate mages under this advanced mage. It was said that these six intermediate mages were given partial access to the Mage Tower. Every month, they could conduct experiments in the Mage Tower's laboratory. This was a very rare opportunity for intermediate mages.
Below them were more than thirty beginner mages. Most of these mages graduated from the Antalya Mage Academy and were hired by the academy after graduation.
Antalya's school was divided into four areas: the workshop area, the business area, the teaching area, and the laboratory area. These four areas surrounded the Mage Tower.
There were two alchemy factories in the workshop area. The larger one belonged to the Antalya family, while the smaller one belonged to the principal of the school, the advanced mage.
The teaching area was where the apprentices were taught.
The Mage Academy's teaching system was two-pronged. One pronged was the public class. The school stipulated that every teacher had to give a public class. The apprentices could choose which class they wanted to attend based on their own needs. Of course, they weren't free. The price of each teacher's public class was different. Each class cost from a dozen to a few dozen crowns. It was not cheap.
There weren't many public classes. At most, there were three a day. Sometimes, there weren't even any. After all, every teacher's time was precious. It was already considered professional of them to teach one class a week. The time of each class was staggered so that the apprentices could choose freely.
Apart from the public classes, all beginner mages were required to take in apprentices. Every beginner mage was required to take in at least four apprentices. The tuition fees varied as well, ranging from a few hundred crowns to a few thousand crowns per year.
There were more than thirty independent laboratories in the experimental area. Sometimes, a mage's experiments could be very dangerous. This danger didn't only apply to outsiders. It was even more dangerous for the mage himself. Thus, when a mage was conducting an experiment, they often needed strong protection.
Thus, a mage's laboratory usually had two functions. First, it had to have a protective function, so that it would not be destroyed by the experiments, nor would it leak any poisonous or harmful substances from the experiments. Second, it had to have the function of protecting the experimenters. Otherwise, some dangerous experiments could not be carried out. Mages were not lunatics, risking their lives to do experiments all day long.
Most of these independent laboratories were elementary laboratories with complete functions. They were enough for anyone from an apprentice to a beginner mage. Closer to the mage tower, there were a few larger laboratories that could be used by intermediate mages.
Of course, these laboratories weren't free. They were rather expensive. A beginner's laboratory cost twelve crowns per hour. Leo didn't know how much an intermediate laboratory cost. It was too far away from him.
The business district was a place for mages and apprentices to shop and spend. There were high-end taverns, restaurants, and call girls who provided special services. However, these weren't the most important things. The most important shop in the business district was the arcane shop.
This business district was very likely the one with the most complete collection of arcane goods in Antalya County.
There was a complete variety of scrolls here, including blank scrolls of various grades. There was a complete variety of basic potions and functional potions. There was also a wide variety of experimental and alchemical materials, alchemical products …
The customers of these arcane shops were only a few dozen official mages and a hundred or so apprentices.
In fact, the mages of this school were probably the ones with the most purchasing power in the entire city of Antalya.
The purchasing power of some of the older apprentices wasn't low either. Most of the older apprentices in the school worked in the school's alchemical factories. They operated the alchemical equipment to produce some basic alchemical products. Their salaries were quite generous. Some lords of knight domains couldn't even compare to them.
As for the official mages, even the lowest rank one, they only needed to take care of a few apprentices to earn a few thousand crowns per year. These few thousand crowns were only their most basic income.
A rank one mage only needed to put in some effort to learn how to copy universal scrolls or concoct basic potions. It wouldn't be difficult for them to earn tens of thousands of crowns per year.
These tens of thousands of crowns belonged to the mages' personal wealth. They weren't like nobles. A knight could earn tens of thousands of crowns per year, but to maintain the prosperity of his domain and the dignity of his family, he needed money. In the end, a knight who earned tens of thousands of crowns per year would only have one or two thousand crowns at his disposal.