Super Righteous Player
Chapter 1010 - 68 The War of Fools

Chapter 1010: Chapter 68 The War of Fools

"...but if you say there are many white-robed women, I’ve hardly seen them now."

Annan raised his own doubt, "At least not around Royal Capital Noah. There are some in Winter, but not many."

"How can there not be?"

Isaac smiled, "Those hospitals that display sheep horn ornaments at their doors, those are actually run by white-robed women. Because ’The Apothecary’ before becoming a god was a sheep, it is a divine symbol. Another name that white-robed women usually go by is ’The Apothecary’s Faithful - The Ewe’.

"You’re unaware of the white-robed women’s existence, not because they don’t seek fame... but because Noah and Winter generally reject wizards and Transcendents.

"Under such circumstances, they would become ’The Apothecary’s Clerics.’ Even so, they wouldn’t make their presence too known. And after all, they are quiet girls, many heavy tasks still need hiring people to do. Under these conditions, they usually control the overall situation as ’deputy deans’ or ’consultants’.

"And in places like the Federation and the Underground City that are more resistant to clerics, they would take on the guise of ’Wizards from the White Jade Tower.’ These are all expedients to heal and save people without getting entangled in many troubles.

"It can even be said that all hospitals have some inheritance from the white-robed women. Either the chief physician was a student of the white-robed women, or a follower of The Apothecary, or their lineage’s founder, or ancestors had learned from the white-robed women. Because the medical skills of the white-robed women can be traced back to the Desert Era of the Second Age... that’s an inheritance older than the civilization of Aesirland."

"...Of course, another reason why you can’t find the Ewes is because today’s white-robed women are expressly forbidden from participating in any form of adventures and wars. And you guys are more... noisy."

"Why is that?"

Annan really didn’t understand.

Logically, if there were battlefield medics, the casualties should be much less.

The Mist Continent itself was sparsely populated and confined in territory. Preserving more of the population would mean less loss of strength.

"Because that would prolong the war."

Isaac showed a helpless expression, "Speaking of which, your era probably doesn’t know what happened during the Wizard Wars, right? I suppose you wouldn’t know... why the White Jade Tower is so weak, yet wasn’t swallowed by other Wizard’s Towers?"

"Indeed, I don’t know."

Annan nodded, "The Wizard Wars... the records remaining from the Great Unification Era are fewer than the bloodshed after the Great Barrier collapsed. It’s not just me; Salvatore doesn’t have much of an idea either."

"This is actually somewhat related to the white-robed women. White-robed women don’t necessarily have to study at the White Jade Tower—that is a career change exclusive to white-robed women. They only need to master enough medical knowledge and ultimately advance within the White Jade Tower; they can automatically turn into white-robed women... This is a new profession optimized by several generations of Tower Masters lowering the requirements for changing careers.

"And this led to a consequence... once the Unification War began, wizards from various places, schools, and professions could find white-robed women to assist in combat.

"The healing abilities of the white-robed women were quite strong, but that greatly lengthened the duration of the war. The Unification War eventually had to end... and so, the civil war quickly intensified.

"At first, the different schools began to develop techniques that were ’not so easy to heal.’ The Heath Tower of Black’s black fire was developed during this time... Once attached by the black fire, the skin all over the body would continually and fiercely burn. To heal a patient injured by the black fire, it requires five times or even more magic power than healing a regular wizard."

Isaac sighed, "Unexpected, isn’t it? What now serves as the fuel for internal combustion engines, bringing technological development, was in the past an alchemy weapon created just to make people suffer more. This was even a technique developed by the Heath Tower of Black—back then, the Heath Tower of Black was also known for being great benefactors.

"Think about it, if Heath Tower of Black went to such extremes, imagine what the other Wizard’s Towers turned into."

"...What exactly was the civil war about?"

Annan asked, puzzled, "I only know that in the end, practitioners from the past era ultimately unified the magical schools. All spells were categorized into the eight major schools."

Before that, each Wizard’s Tower could only have one core career to pass on. In addition to that... there were also a great many new careers from the common folk.

For example, the basic abilities of the Hands of Winter came from the bloodline of Frost Mages and Silent Mages. Which is also almost the origin of the Disabling School.

"That was a... very foolish war,"

Isaac pursed his lips, "I don’t know how the wizards of your era view this war. But in my time, the wizard’s civil war actually had another name...

"It was called ’The Fool’s War’."

He was silent for a moment before he continued, "You might simply think of it as a war fought for the ’struggle over Wizard’s Towers’ and the ’protection of their special status.’ Many spellcasting guilds vanished into thin air, because they lacked the ’knowledge recording’ ability inherently possessed by the Wizard’s Towers.

"In that era, spellcasters from ’high towers’ were considered much more noble than ’plain spellcasters.’ People trusted these tower spellcasters more, believing them to be of higher caliber — and indeed, they were, at least in terms of baseline competence.

"Many folk spellcasting professions at the time were, rather than being wizards, more like charlatans and magicians. The Wizard’s Towers generally had connections with the local rulers and would mandate that the spellcasters in the area register in a timely manner.

"Those spellcasters, of course, were not willing to comply... This was even a contradiction that had arisen since the age of curse energy. The two sides had brewed a deep-seated enmity until a spark eventually ignited the war.

"Tower wizards wanted to eliminate those ’tricksters tarnishing the reputation of wizards,’ while many folk spellcasters saw it as the tower wizards beginning to eliminate dissidents. It evolved into a war over the ’seizure of Wizard’s Towers.’"

"Because the Wizard’s Towers are absolutely fair and indifferent. Each Wizard’s Tower has its own way of succession... Anyone who meets the criteria for succession and enters a Wizard’s Tower will be chosen as the Tower’s Child. And the Tower’s Child is allowed to kill the Tower Master.

"Once they become the Tower Master, they can directly seize control of the Wizard’s Tower. It is easy to kill or expel the original tower wizards.

"But the folk inheritances were naturally weak and incomplete. In order to take down a Wizard’s Tower, many schools began to make contact and merge. They tried to create experts with a mixture of the strengths from various guilds.

"And naturally, the Wizard’s Towers would not sit by and wait for their demise — they also began to annex a large number of schools. Objectively speaking, this indeed propelled a great unification of knowledge.

"However... if only it had remained harmonious. Soon enough, those who couldn’t keep up began to assassinate the ’leaders of the siege.’

"Thus it turned into quite a ludicrous game of ’tower defense and assassination.’ It then evolved into a real war.

"It was such an extreme war that even the local authorities did not dare to speak up, pretending they knew nothing... A war of Transcendents eradication, fought to the death. The number of participants might have been fewer than in a small-scale conflict, but it was a war of Transcendents fought to the bitter end."

"...A battle both for superiority and survival, then?"

Husky muttered.

Isaac nodded gravely.

"In a way, the healers from the White Jade Tower only added to the chaos... Powerful healing methods forced the wizards to invent spells that caused pain and were hard to heal, which was just a part of the early stages.

"Later on, even the White Robes themselves became targets of assassination. There would be those who specifically bombed, assassinated, or looted the White Robes affiliated with their enemies.

"As time went on, it was no longer a matter of targeted assassinations or tower assaults. Entire towns could be destroyed just by being touched by a spell, and crazed wizards would hold cities hostage... There was endless slaughter, assimilation, and destruction.

"It was not just a matter of destroying the physical bodies, but even obliterating the heritage of others — simply because their inherited spells might interfere with or counter one’s own.

"Tens of thousands of spellcasters blinded by rage, hundreds of heritages completely severed... After the Great Unification War, only one-twentieth of the spellcasters from the past remained in the world. The true era of spellcasters, the time when various schools blossomed, also came to an irrevocable end."

It was a war that could have been quickly ended if everyone had exercised restraint and trusted each other.

But because of mutual vigilance, hatred, and distrust, it led to rivers of blood in the end.

"The Fool’s War..."

Annan muttered, "Indeed."

This was indeed a war of fools.

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