From Wizard Apprentice to Conqueror of Myriad Worlds

Roy read it over carefully, struck by the feeling that not a single word was wasted.

In his fifteen years with the society, he had read at least two thousand papers.

Even the abstracts from Second and Third Level Apprentices rarely gave him such an impression.

The negative impression in Roy’s mind lessened slightly. ’It’s not entirely useless, I suppose.’

He continued reading.

He was only halfway through the first page when his brow furrowed again, this time even more deeply.

Roy shook his head once more, the motion more vigorous than before.

"The data on Spiritual Flow Transformation is notoriously complex and volatile, especially during the unstable period of Spiritual Strength growth.

"Using the ’Kado Flow Change Set Calculation Formula’ to preprocess the data only amplifies the data’s ’acuity,’ which in turn increases the margin of error.

"Anyone who had read even a few of the classic texts on the first Spirit Ring would know that the ’Beixi Flow Disturbance Processing Technique’ is the most recommended Divination tool for handling Spiritual Flow Transformation data."

At this point, Roy decided not to waste any more time.

He closed the paper and let out a light snort. ’Papers from First Level Apprentices really are unreliable. The author even got the most basic data processing tool wrong. The rest of the derivations are meaningless.’

He casually placed the paper on the bottom shelf of the wooden cabinet beside him.

The cabinet was divided into three shelves.

According to his habit, the top shelf was mainly for recommended papers—manuscripts he felt were promising after reading and worth presenting to the Senior Reviewers.

The middle shelf was for alternate papers—those of average quality that could be selected if the journal was short on articles.

The bottom shelf was for worthless papers—problematic manuscripts. To put it bluntly, it was a pile of scrap paper.

Three hours slipped by while Roy was in a state of deep concentration.

The Junior Reviewer put down the paper in his hand and murmured softly, ’This one is passable, I guess.’

As he placed the paper on the middle shelf of the cabinet with his left hand, he reached to the side with his right.

But his right hand found only the bare surface of the desk.

It took Roy a moment to realize what had happened. He paused. ’Are all the papers reviewed?’

He wearily pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to dispel the fatigue weighing down on his eyelids.

He sat for a few seconds, then picked up a paper in each hand and rose to walk toward the office of Lord Terry, the Reviewing Editor-in-Chief.

Every Reviewing Editor-in-Chief in the society was an Official Wizard.

And Lord Terry was always happy to answer the reviewers’ questions, never putting on a high and mighty attitude, which was why he was so respected by the Apprentices.

Roy had a question about the paper in his left hand—an intermediate step in a certain Divination derivation. He vaguely felt something was wrong but couldn’t put his finger on it.

So he planned to ask Lord Terry for guidance.

For him, every consultation was an opportunity to clear up his intellectual blind spots.

The paper in Roy’s right hand was, in essence, a stack of "scratch paper."

The paper written by that clueless "The River Flows Eastward" had been temporarily "requisitioned" by him as scratch paper.

Although the society gave reviewers a monthly stipend, which included an allowance for buying scratch paper.

But like many others, the lean days of being a First Level Apprentice had left a deep impression on Roy’s soul, leaving him with a habit of pinching pennies.

And this paper still had so much blank space that could be put to good use.

After all, waste was a shameful thing.

Soon, Roy pushed open the door to the Lord Wizard’s office and said respectfully, "Lord Terry, I have a few questions about this paper..."

As usual, Terry very amiably answered all of his questions.

While explaining, the Wizard cast the Magic Pen Technique, creating an illusory pen.

This Magic Pen hovered in mid-air, its tip gliding automatically across the paper, neatly transcribing his every word, every formula, and every key point.

This was one of the reasons the Apprentices were so fond of Lord Terry—the Wizard knew they might not remember everything he said, so he wrote his explanations down on paper for them to take back and digest slowly.

「One minute later.」

Roy left the Lord Wizard’s office, his face full of gratitude.

He failed to notice that he had left the stack of "scratch paper" on the Lord Wizard’s desk.

「Back in the office behind him.」

The First Level Wizard, Terry, soon noticed the paper that had been left behind.

The Lord Wizard picked up the stack of scale pattern paper, glanced at the cover scrawled with Divination Formulas, and shook his head ever so slightly.

He knew, of course, that this was another rejected paper being used as scratch paper.

But the Wizard said nothing.

’After all, who hadn’t started out as an Apprentice?’

Terry casually flipped open the paper, wanting to see why it had been rejected and, at the same time, gauge the current standard of the Apprentices.

Even the author of a rejected paper was, among the Apprentice population, at least at an upper-middle level.

This was because most Apprentices didn’t even have the courage to submit a paper to the journal.

That was simply the reality of it.

Terry only intended to glance at the paper’s abstract.

After all, it was just a low-level Apprentice’s paper. For a Wizard, looking at the abstract was more than enough; there was no need to waste too much time on it.