Super Righteous Player
Chapter 982 - 40 "Old Man" Bernadino

Chapter 982: Chapter 40 "Old Man" Bernadino

The young apprentices surrounding Bernadino clearly held no respect for him.

"After all, mere bad background or desperation in joining the Tower of Black Radiance as a teaching assistant should have been enough. Eventually, they would either become his peers or just strangers passing by.

Indeed, being an ’unnamed apprentice’ was itself considered a job.

If being a teaching assistant could be considered a formal job, then an ’unnamed apprentice’ could be seen as a ’temporary teaching assistant.’ Although they had to undertake some relatively dangerous ’teaching missions,’ they still got paid.

Moreover, because the teaching missions they undertook were dangerous, there were some additional allowances. Eventually, their income would even slightly surpass that of the teaching assistants.

The Tower of Black Radiance did indeed have some apprentices who were truly penniless, yet possessed a strong ’desire to ascend.’

After having lived as ’unnamed apprentices,’ they weren’t excluded by other apprentices when they became formal apprentices.

At that time, the apprentices would even throw a party to celebrate the new apprentices. Their experiences during this period would become their treasured knowledge... After all, not every Soul Reaping Wizard had been subjected to various types of Soul Snatching Spells by others.

Their substantial experience during the release of spells would, in fact, assist them when they learned the Soul Snatching Spell.

But for Bernadino, who had ’tried and failed repeatedly,’ these wizard apprentices didn’t have a good attitude.

This decadent man, always crooked at the waist, who had been in the Tower of Black Radiance for ages, a homeless stray dog... still dreaming of becoming a Wizard as he neared middle age.

For them—especially for those wizard apprentices who gradually felt the differences between people in the learning process, Bernadino’s mere existence was an insult.

Most of them had come to realize deeply that they would never step into silver, let alone become a gold-level Wizard. Even passing the graduation exam was becoming immensely difficult...

The initial excitement and thrill they felt when they first encountered magic... had dimmed a lot after realizing they would ultimately remain mere mortals.

And at this time, a middle-aged man, who had studied hard for over twenty years without becoming a Formal Wizard, said he wanted to become a wizard apprentice.

As everyone knows, being a wizard apprentice is meaningless. If one cannot become a Wizard, they are just a commoner who can’t even stay lucid in their dreams. The significance of being a wizard apprentice lies in the potential to ascend to becoming a Wizard.

So, what did Bernadino want to do?

What was he trying to prove?

Did he think learning spells was easy? Did he want to become a Wizard? Did he think that after doing miscellaneous tasks in the Wizard’s Tower for over twenty years, and listening to nearly the same lessons at the lab bench, he could learn this knowledge more easily and become a Formal Wizard?

It was like the old janitor in a university dormitory bathroom, who would ask mathematics students for help with math problems, hoping to self-study and pass the mathematics department to become a mathematician.

Indeed, his actions could be described as ’eager to learn,’ and his attitude was commendable—but it undoubtedly annoyed and even angered the students.

Especially after they failed their final exams.

At this point, just seeing Bernadino seriously studying spells with his notes was enough to make those apprentices’ blood pressure explode...

Thus, although Bernadino was just over forty, the students still mockingly called him "old man." In the Wizard’s Tower filled with young people, even the instructors seldom resembled those in fairy tales with long white hair and white beards.

Because having an aging body was truly uncomfortable.

As long as conditions allowed, the grand wizards would use various rituals to keep their bodies as healthy as possible, not overly aged; and if they were so old that even rituals could not save them, they would not come to teach at the Wizard’s Tower at all.

Bernadino, who was just over forty but already had white hair and looked like he was in his fifties, was almost the most aged person in the Tower of Black Radiance.

—But that was not the sole reason they called him "old man."

Apprentices in the Tower of Black Radiance, compared to those in other wizard towers, had a better understanding of human nature.

If their enemies were calm like still water, they rarely showed their weaknesses. Rather than attacking forcefully, using verbal means to infuriate the enemy to lose their sanity, creating more emotional upheaval, was naturally more effective.

In other words, wizards of the Tower of Black Radiance had to learn skills of "mockery" and "provocation."

For Bernadino, the most venomous words were not ’idiot,’ ’madman,’ or ’freak’...but "you are old."

The term "old man" incessantly reminded him—he had wasted much of his life in the Tower of Black Radiance and had not even become a wizard apprentice.

And he had already entered his aging phase.

As his brain slowed, his learning capability and physical strength further degraded, the likelihood of him becoming a wizard also grew increasingly slim.

He had wasted his life, endured suffering and torture—and could blame no one else. It wasn’t that he was imprisoned here by someone or had lost his talent due to someone’s sabotage...

From the beginning, it was all his own fault.

He could have been a fine sculptor, but he desired to study natural philosophy; he also could have smoothly entered Dennisiowa Theological College, but he lost the necessary items.

He could even have returned to his hometown—just by apologizing to his foster father and asking for his help, he could still become a sculptor. But he was too proud, too scared to go home... preferring to wander the streets, even becoming a live teaching material at the Tower of Black Radiance.

Over the years, he hadn’t even written a letter to his foster father...because many years had passed, and Father Ludwig surely already knew that Bernadino had not entered the theological college with his money and recommendation letter.

Even Father Ludwig might already be dead.

When Bernadino was thirteen or fourteen, Father Ludwig was already in his mid-forties. Now that he was forty-two, his foster father might have already died from illness or old age.

He became increasingly fearful of returning home—fearing that returning to his hometown would mean seeing only his foster father’s grave. He had wasted his life, learned no real craft, mastered no skill, and the money he had earned was not enough for him to live comfortably until old age...he hadn’t even managed to arrange a funeral for his foster father before his death.

The unremarkable nickname "old man."

Was the most venomous phrase for Bernadino.

At first, only one or two people used it, but later it spread more and more. Eventually, even other instructors and new students came to call him by it...because he had gradually become a true "old man."

—Bernadino lived in a hell of his own volition.

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