I was an apprentice in Ferren

Chapter 2: Should I drop out of school?
DuPont watched in a daze as his body was lifted onto a stretcher. He didn't even have the strength to say thank you. But when he saw the kind person who had helped him, he suddenly felt a chill in his groin.

They were two pale white skeletons, without any cracks on their bodies, with a faint red light flickering in their dry eye sockets, which sent chills down one's spine.

Fortunately, these skeletons were not the undead creatures that roamed dangerous areas. They simply obeyed the mage's orders and carried DuPont to the school infirmary. There wasn't even a sound of bones rubbing together when they walked, a silence that chilled DuPont to the bone.

It seems that the mage academy he attended was not only very advanced in its academic disciplines, but also unconventional in its application of magic, completely unlike the stereotypical image of necromancy being feared in online novels.

As the door to the infirmary opened, DuPont was carried into a spacious and bright room, filled with the scent of unknown flowers. The skeleton carried him to a comfortable and soft bed, and on the wall hung a realistic oil painting of a huge tree.

DuPont faintly heard a tense gasp, but then heard a calm female voice: "Don't worry, there are only patients here, so there's nothing to worry about."

"What you are experiencing is not terrible. Physiologically, it is called menarche, which is something every woman will experience after her body matures. It will happen every month after that. In the next few days, you just need to pay attention to keeping warm and drinking more hot soup and eating less cold food to help reduce abdominal pain. It is not that you have a strange disease."

"Have a cup of hot sugar water, then go back to class."

In a daze, DuPont seemed to see a girl with silver-white hair walking away quickly, and then his name was mentioned.

"DuPont, right? Is he still conscious?"

"Yes," DuPont's voice was somewhat weak.

"Never mind, just stay there and don't move. I'll be right there."

The crisp sound of footsteps reached his ears, evoking a strange sense of nostalgia in DuPont.

That sounds like the sound of high heels.

Before he could think any further, a beautiful woman with pointed ears wearing a white robe appeared before him.

Her delicate face was expressionless, and her slender figure made her appear quite beautiful despite her short stature. Her light makeup made her completely different from the girl she had met before. The silver name tag on her head was dazzling, with the name Sophie Morning Star engraved on it.

The only drawback is that she seems to have very dark circles under her eyes, which are still quite noticeable even with makeup.

Is this a half-elf?
Before he could take a closer look, a slightly cool hand cupped his face.

"Unconscious...blood in the nasal cavity...weak body, looks like heatstroke and hit head." The doctor's voice was somewhat cold: "Can you hear me?"

"Okay," DuPont replied honestly, then remembered another important matter.

perhaps
"Teacher, I keep having a buzzing sound in my head." DuPont looked weakly into the other person's eyes, his gaze filled with confusion and fear. "Could I be under some kind of powerful curse, and not have much time left?"

"What are you thinking? Who would use such a powerful curse on an apprentice like you?" the doctor replied calmly. She untied DuPont's robe and began a detailed examination. A moment later, a hint of surprise flashed in her eyes, but it disappeared in the blink of an eye. Two minutes later, she replied, "You may have hit your head and it has affected your brain a bit. Rest well for the next few days and take care of your body. It should be fine in a few weeks."

DuPont breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this, but then seemed to remember something and said in a flustered manner, "But I haven't collected the scrolls I need to hand in this week."

“I will write a letter to explain the situation for you.” With that, the doctor snapped her fingers, and a tray floated slowly beside her. She picked up the silver pot on the tray and filled the glass with water. She gave DuPont a meaningful look: “However, the academy has a rule that sick leave can only be applied for for one week without special circumstances. Your illness can be cured with a divine spell. It is impossible to take sick leave for a long period of time.”

Upon hearing the female doctor's words, DuPont knew that his little thoughts had been guessed. However, being able to take a week of sick leave was still good. He obediently nodded and drank the hot sugarcane juice in his cup, as if he had not understood the female doctor's implied meaning.

"Alright, drink this sugar water and go back to the classroom. Missing a class is a big loss for a third-year apprentice like you. However, you are a bit too weak. You can come to me tomorrow for a detailed full-body check-up. If there is nothing wrong, you will have to see the priest."

"A priest?" DuPont was a little unsure. In both of his memories, anything associated with charlatans was never a good thing.

"Don't worry, the price of divine spells in the academy is quite favorable. The envoy of the Magic Lady naturally won't make any demands on her subjects." The female doctor said, holding up a finger: "From what I've observed, you'll only need a minor restoration spell at most. This divine spell only costs fifty gold coins in the academy. If you don't have it now, you can delay paying it off until you graduate. However, there will be interest if it's been too long."

Upon hearing the figure of fifty gold coins, DuPont, whose entire fortune consisted of only six silver coins, stopped listening to what followed.

At that moment, only one sentence echoed in his mind.

How did this penniless wretch end up here learning magic?
The monk's course was somewhat dry and boring. The monk giving the lecture clearly didn't understand the concept of service, and his face was so sour that everyone seemed to owe him a lot of money.

Throughout the lesson, he talked to himself about how to quickly construct the spell model of the second-circle spell Fox Wisdom, and how to use the constructed spell model to connect to the magic network.

The blackboard had been rewritten three times in an hour and a half. The teacher didn't care what the students had actually learned. He picked up his spellbook and turned to leave, leaving the students either deep in thought or bewildered.

DuPont belongs to the latter category.

Although he could already read the elven script on the blackboard fluently, he had no idea how to assemble spell models. The only thing he knew was that the system had displayed two messages: "[You have gained 5% understanding of the spells of the wisdom of the fox]" and "[Experience points increased by 24]".

However, he did have a concept of how to connect to the magic network.

You can think of it as treating the magic network as the internet, using your mental energy to create electromagnetic waves similar to Wi-Fi, and then using the correct password (spell model) to download the spell into your brain. After that, you can cast the spell using the corresponding gestures and incantations.

However, converting his mental energy into electromagnetic waves and connecting it to the magic network was still a difficult task for DuPont. According to his previous memory, this seemed to require meditation.

Just as he was thinking, a chubby boy with short hair sneaked up to him and asked mysteriously, "Hey DuPont, did Annie go looking for you at noon?"

"Yes." DuPont recognized the man; the name on his nameplate was Charles. "What's wrong?"

“Be careful, I saw her with Connor from next door the other day.” Charles’s lips moved slightly, but his voice went straight to DuPont’s mind. It was a telepathic message: “That guy Connor is the vice president of the apprenticeship now. He talks like he has a priest in his house. Last night when I went to the dorm to get water, he insisted on talking to me about the school rules. If there hadn’t been more of them, I would have beaten him up.”

"We just shouldn't associate with them. He can't just come looking for trouble on his own." Although she wasn't sure how close she was to this chubby boy before, they were probably fairly well acquainted. Annie was even willing to lend her the scroll, so their relationship must be pretty good, right?

DuPont replied, "By the way, I haven't been feeling well lately, so making the scroll might be a bit difficult."

Upon hearing this, Charlie looked distressed and said, "You can't ask me for help with this. It takes me an hour to concentrate on making a scroll, and I'm exhausted afterward. My success rate is only about 50%. It's almost the weekend, and I can only manage to put together one for you at most."

DuPont chuckled, "What are you thinking? Borrowing or taking it back won't solve the problem. I'd like to ask if you know any ways to make some money..."

"Make money? By copying scrolls."

"If I understood the scroll perfectly, would I be asking you?"

“There’s nothing we can do about it. You only get 30 copper coins an hour working in the academy’s kitchen. After class, you can only earn a little over one silver coin for four hours of work. It takes a month to earn enough for one scroll.” Charles patted DuPont on the shoulder and encouraged him, “Don’t think about those things. If we work hard this year, we’ll be around level 3 by the end of the year. Copying scrolls will be much easier then. Even if we don’t get rich, we can still make a living.”

DuPont pondered for a moment. The money ratio in this world should be 1 gold = 10 silver = 1000 copper. Based on this calculation, the value of an extra scroll is about 3 gold coins.

If one copper coin is considered one unit in my previous life, then I would have to pay the academy 30 gold coins a week, which is nearly 30000 units of goods, just to avoid being kicked out of this mage academy.

This number is giving DuPont a headache.

Putting aside the fact that his father had already paid the tuition when he enrolled, the price for these paid courses is outrageous!

With this in mind, a bold idea began to emerge in DuPont's mind.

Should I drop out of school?
Although he was only a level 2 apprentice, he should be able to make one scroll a day if he worked hard. Judging from the helper's salary mentioned earlier, the average person in this world doesn't earn much. With a daily income of 3000, he should be considered a person above others.

With the ability to make money, he could easily find a quiet and peaceful town to retire in. It seems that there is no monogamy in this world. He could easily buy a big house, marry several wives of different races, have many children and teach them to be mages. When they achieve success, they can come back and take care of him. Isn't that much better than him working himself to the bone and burning his brain cells here?

Wait a minute, could that be what the headmaster of this magic academy is thinking? That would be a bit too far off.
Thinking about this, DuPont's desire to become a servant grew stronger, but suddenly a memory surged into his mind.

To enroll in school, his family paid a total of 3000 gold coins for six years of tuition, much of which was borrowed at high interest rates, all so that he could become a mage and one day transcend social class to restore the family's glory.

Even if his cheapskate father were to cover the cost, putting aside the question of whether he could teach someone to be a mage now that he'd dropped out of school, he still owed this damn system 1000 gold coins.
In other words, he transmigrated here and did nothing, yet he was burdened with millions of dollars in high-interest loans that could compound with interest.

And the kind where you can't renege on your debt?

Thinking of this, DuPont gritted his teeth in hatred.

As a seasoned veteran in the underworld, he knew perfectly well that he should never sign a contract he didn't understand. However, the allure of the system was too great, which made him gamble. He never expected that this thing would be even more despicable than the security guard, and he went from being in jail to being on the verge of death.

Seeing DuPont looking constipated, Charles assumed he was under too much pressure and comforted him, "Don't look so gloomy. If you can't handle it, just buy a few more and work overtime on Sunday."

After saying that, he looked furtive and whispered, "By the way, I recently found a nice aromatherapy massage parlor. A group of beautiful half-elf ladies have recently joined them. They're lovely, have sweet voices, and delicate hands. An hour's massage only costs 5 silver coins, plus fruit and honey wine. We can go there to relax after our classes, and then copying the papers will definitely be much easier."

Ah, you can get a massage from a half-elf lady for just 5 silver coins?
DuPont had already seen what a half-elf looked like in the infirmary. Her face would definitely be considered a minor celebrity level on Earth, and her figure was comparable to a Victoria's Secret Angel. The only drawback was that she was rather slender, so she might not have enough breast milk if she had children.

Although I don't know what kind of looks the half-elf in the massage parlor has, the boss wouldn't hire someone who's too ugly to work in such a place. She should at least meet the general public's aesthetic standards.

In the past, he would collect photos of beautiful women, whether they were from ethnic minorities or other countries. Even as he got older and his physical attributes declined, he would grit his teeth, take drugs, and persevere.

"It's just one hobby, so what's the difference between playing something else?"

Now that we're in another world, will the details of these other races be very different from those of humans?

DuPont's heart rate quickened slightly, but he was quickly overwhelmed by the harsh reality.

He only had six silver coins in his pocket. If he spent them all, he would have trouble even getting food. How could he possibly have the mind to experience the customs and culture of this other world?

Poor!

(End of this chapter)