Of course Zuo Si would not refuse Owo's request.
Because he also wants to know how big the gap is between the two most outstanding great arcanists in the Netheril era, so that he can prepare for the return of the City of Shadows.
As an important chess piece of the Goddess of Night, the return of the City of Shadows is definitely the most important landmark historical event in Faerûn after the end of the Year of Turmoil.
It is also the source of a series of conflicts, chaos and wars.
As a conspiracy theorist, Zuo Si has always felt that the return of the Ghost City in DR1372 in the original history must be inextricably linked to the fall of the third-generation magic goddess and the ensuing magic plague.
In other words, it is simply the beginning of a series of conspiracy secretly planned by Shar.
Therefore, as the chosen one of the Goddess of Magic, he has long been prepared for a full-scale war with the City of Shadows. If necessary, he will use his trump cards to directly blow the City of Shadows down from the sky and kill all the Netherese remnants inside who have integrated into the shadow plane.
Leave no one behind.
Whether it is the supreme city lord and great arcanist - Telamant Tanshur, or the ghost princes under him who have considerable strength.
Zuo Si has never been soft-hearted in dealing with enemies.
And he was very sure that the ideas of Shar, the goddess of the night, were irreconcilable with his own, and there was absolutely no possibility of turning enemies into friends.
Therefore, the overt and covert struggle between the two sides will continue for a long time.
After all, from the perspective of a planeswalker, there are usually two different ways to deal with a world.
One is to be like the old dragon Nicol Bolas, or directly carry out a massacre and brainwashing, turning the entire world's people and gods into their own tools.
This is what he did in the plane of Amonkhet.
The beast-headed gods in that world were, without exception, servants and pawns of the old dragon. The hidden insect-headed gods were the executioners prepared to kill the beast-headed gods when the "moment of glory" arrived.
Or just like Alara Spacetime, directly devour the core mana that maintains the existence of the world, even if the cost is that the world will decline, collapse and die.
In the endless multiverse, so many worlds were swallowed up and destroyed by Nicol Bolas.
Therefore, he is qualified to be called the three major natural disasters along with the Eldrazi and Phyrexia.
As for the other one, naturally it is to continuously draw power from the energy-rich world by making and using land cards.
This processing method obviously requires that the space and time remain relatively stable.
Otherwise, once there is a huge change in the general environment, it means that the corresponding land cards will also change accordingly.
In Toril, which has the supreme god Io, using the old dragon's method is obviously seeking death, so naturally it can only adopt the second option.
This also means that Zuo Si's interests are highly bound to the magic goddess Midnight.
Coupled with the investment of a lot of time, energy and magic energy to upgrade the professional level, only if the magic network maintains stability will all this not be in vain.
Of course, the discussion with Owo was also conducted in secret.
Apart from the two parties involved, there was no third party present at all, so the outcome naturally became a mystery.
The only thing people around him could feel was that after the duel, Ovo's enthusiasm for building a magic academy became unprecedentedly high, and he even led his men to build the walls and accommodation first.
As for the subsequent interior decoration and functional areas, you need to wait until the purchased materials are in place before you can continue.
In short, such behavior of investing huge sums of money to build a large number of schools dedicated to teaching magic knowledge within the scope of the rule will undoubtedly make everyone realize that Zuo Si's previous remarks about building a powerful magic empire are not just words, they are true.
must be put into practical action.
The dazzling budget of tens of billions of gold coins directly hung on the plan made the rulers of other surrounding countries and independent city-states exclaim, "I can't understand it, but I'm shocked."
Some people even call Zuo Si a madman in private, but the church of the goddess of magic, the god of mages, and the god of knowledge calls him a "saint."
The Church of the Goddess of Wealth and God of Craftsmen even announced its full support for this policy.
In this way, with the cooperation of Shane VII, magic schools with complete facilities quickly sprung up in the southern region of the west coast.
Every time a building is built, tutors will immediately come in and start recruiting students.
Rich families were very keenly aware of Zuo Si's intentions, so they sent their children to magic schools to take intelligence tests, and those who passed the test were sent to school on the spot.
Suddenly, sending teenagers to learn magic became a popular trend in the West Coast and South.
Whether it is the senior officials of the Sharn Empire or the nobles and businessmen of the Amn Empire who have been suppressed and have lost most of their privileges, if there is no heir in the family who is receiving magic education, they will be embarrassed to say hello to others when they meet.p>
Although before this, the Amn people's attitude towards magic has always been quite repulsive, resistant, and disgusting.
But there is no way.
Who made Zuo Si, who was about to become the King of Amn, vigorously promote the study and research of magic?
This alone shows how shrewd and pragmatic the Amn people are.
Even children of civilians can take an intelligence test, and after passing the test, they can enter the academy for free for four years.
Of course, there is a difference between this "qualification" and the "qualification" of wealthy people.
Generally speaking, rich people can invest more money in their children, so their intelligence level does not need to be too high. With twelve to thirteen points, they can become a mage with a massive investment of money.
But children from poor families simply don’t have that much money to buy materials, do experiments, and conduct research, so they need at least fifteen or even sixteen points of intelligence to be admitted.
If you are a genius who can reach sixteen or above, say seventeen or even eighteen, as long as your study progress is fast enough, you can get a huge scholarship.
For ordinary people and even poor people, this is definitely an opportunity that can instantly change their destiny and social status.
In order for such good luck to fall on themselves, the bottom class of society will inevitably increase their fertility rate significantly, which will indirectly lead to an increase in population.
Although according to the laws of economics, a large number of infants and children who are unable to work will increase the pressure on food supply, causing the prices of many daily necessities to skyrocket.
But the problem is that the areas under Zuo Si's rule have never relied solely on local supplies of grain and other meat and other non-staple food.
In the floating city world, he can harvest enough food to feed more than a billion people every six months, so regulating prices is not a problem at all.
Even if there are profiteers who are not afraid of death and want to play the hoarding trick, they will be swallowed up by the massive supply in an instant, and eventually lose all their money.
Coupled with the centralized power and the authoritarian rule of the country, social stability is more than dozens of other countries and city-states in Faerûn.
Anyway, Zuo Si can be said to have made great efforts in promoting magic education, not only in terms of funds but also policies.
Even Vera, who is well-informed and comes from a big family, feels frightened when she sees the horrific expense bills every month.
The only thing that made her feel lucky was that the money basically didn't have to be spent from taxes, but was paid from Zuo Si's own small treasury.
What's more, the huge consumption of magic is completely separate from people's livelihood.
No matter how much money is invested out of thin air, it will not lead to an increase in basic necessities such as food, cloth, condiments, etc.
In this way, driven by profit, tens of thousands of young magic apprentices entered the magic academies established next to various cities.
In addition to focusing on basic magic education, Zuo Si has also made great efforts to absorb existing arcane spellcasters.
Whether it is the Arcane Society, the Masked Mage Guild, or the spellcaster organizations in Nelanthel Islands and Luskan, they are all actively building mage towers, and then offering favorable conditions to recruit wandering mages, or even directly
Digging into the corner of Sel's red-robed mage.
Due to its self-contained huge knowledge base, spell library and rich resource supply chain, many mages and warlocks are attracted to it.
By the time Zuo Si returned to Askatra to prepare for the coronation ceremony and officially become the monarch of Amn, the number of arcane spellcasters registered and available for mobilization had reached a terrifying thirty-five thousand.
Although most of them are low-level mages below LV5 who cannot even cast third-level spells.
But the war potential represented by this number alone is enough to scare many neighboring countries.
There is no doubt that this is the foundation and prototype of a powerful magic empire.
In Faerûn, there are only a handful of countries that can do this.
It’s nothing more than Cyre, the country of wizards, Halrua, and the theocratic empire of Mulhorand.
In Mulhorand, although divine power is supreme, arcane spellcasters also have a very high social status, so there are also many mages and warlocks.
In addition, the country has adopted a very strange public ownership system of slaves, that is, all slaves are owned by the temple.
Therefore, when other people need slaves, they can only obtain them through leasing. Therefore, the oppression of slaves is far less bloody and cruel than traditional slavery, but they are well protected.
Not only are working hours, entertainment times, rest times and minimum dietary standards strictly stipulated at the legal level.
Moreover, any abuse, insult, beating or even causing illness and death will be regarded as disrespectful to the temple.
When poor people in the Mulhorand Empire cannot survive, they will actively sell themselves to the temple as slaves.
Because the living conditions of slaves are much better than those of the poor. Those who behave well will get free spouses, start families, and reproduce children. If they are sick or injured, they will also be treated by priests.
If you take refuge in the gods enshrined in the temple, you will no longer be able to do heavy physical work when you are older, and you will enter the retirement mode, doing only a little lighter work every day until the end of your life.
To be continued...