Adrian walked out of his mansion and went straight to the military training area.
He immediately saw Burke standing there with Thorne. It hadn’t even been ten minutes since the meeting had ended and these two were already back down here overseeing the drills.
Adrian walked up to them.
"Go and bring me all of the five hundred mages that Serena hired. I would like to finalize their contracts."
Burke turned to look at Thorne.
Thorne nodded once and immediately walked out of the estate to round them up.
Adrian just stood there and looked at the soldiers. He watched them train, listening to the sounds of wooden swords clashing against shields and the grunts of exhaustion. He stood there for almost thirty minutes and only stopped watching when he heard his own name being called from behind.
He turned to look to the side.
He saw Thorne standing there and right behind him were the massive group of five hundred mages that Adrian wanted.
Adrian looked at all of them. They looked slightly confused as to why they were standing in a military training ground.
"So you’re all here," Adrian said, his voice smooth as he spoke to them. "I heard that you all agreed to work for me for a weekly wage of one gold coin per week."
He started pacing slowly in front of the massive group.
"And you do realize that this is a much higher price that I am paying you in comparison to other territories. Firstly, other territories pay you a monthly wage. I am paying you weekly. And based on what I’ve seen, they only pay tens of silver coins. Not gold."
He stopped and crossed his arms.
"And most of you are 1st Circle mages. And 2nd Circle mages? I heard that there were less than ten of you in this entire group."
He looked directly into the crowd.
"So let me ask you. Do you think this is a fair price for your level? Why do you think I agreed to pay so much more?"
A few of the mages muttered among themselves. Finally, one of them near the front lifted his hand.
Adrian looked at him.
"Tell me."
The guy cleared his throat nervously.
"You might have some secrets that you don’t want others to know. And maybe you plan on giving us some secret work. You’re paying us extra so that we don’t talk about this to others."
Adrian just looked at him with a deadpan expression.
"And what’s stopping you from telling them?"
The guy blinked. "What?"
"A little bit of extra money doesn’t stop anyone," Adrian said, shaking his head. "If any of you wants to tell someone about these so-called secrets that you’re claiming, you can just go and tell them, can’t you? A little bit of extra money isn’t going to stop anyone from talking, is it?"
The guy just looked at Adrian and didn’t really have an answer for that. He lowered his hand and didn’t say another word.
Adrian glanced at everyone there.
"The real reason why I am ready to pay so much is because I do not like having to deal with uncertainties."
He snapped his fingers.
From his Dungeon, a scroll instantly materialized in his hand. To everyone else watching, it looked almost like he took it out from a storage ring instead.
Adrian held the paper up.
"This is a Soul Contract."
A collective gasp went through the crowd of mages. They all knew how insanely rare and expensive a real Soul Contract was.
Adrian looked at everyone with cold eyes.
"It binds your very soul. The clauses basically state that you will be absolutely loyal to me and to my cause. And you will never tell anyone about any of the things that are going on in Oresfall, or any of the things that are related to me or my family."
He lowered the scroll slightly.
"In return, I will give you the method and the resources to reach your highest potential. I will pay you extra, and I will give you a status where you will be of high importance in society. A lot of people will look up to you. And a lot of people’s lives will be resting in your hands."
He pointed a finger at the crowd.
"That is how strong you will be in comparison to others. You being mages, you having actual mana veins, has given you an unfair advantage in this world. And you do not know how to utilize this advantage at all. You’re just a basic mage to everyone else. But to me? You are going to be an asset that will be irreplaceable."
He stepped closer to the front line of mages.
"And I have the ways to give you that purpose and meaning. To give you that strength. To give you that goal."
He held the contract out.
"Now, the rest lies in your hands. You sign this contract, and you get everything I promised in return for absolute loyalty. If you don’t sign the contract? You can leave Oresfall right now. You can go work for a much lower price while being the exact same old boring mage that does one single thing over and over again until you die."
He let out a short, dry laugh.
"Low circle mages. 1st Circle and 2nd Circle are considered useless by everyone. They’re not really useful in active fights. They just sit in the back and cast light spells or maybe a small fireball before they’re out of mana."
Adrian tapped his own chest.
"And I have been there. I graduated the Royal Magic Academy as a 1st Circle mage. So I know exactly how people see people like us."
He lowered his hand.
"But I have found a method to prove them all wrong."
He looked across the group, his voice dropping into a serious tone.
"And I wish to make you the ones who will be showing the world how efficient and how useful this method actually is. I want you guys to be the ones to show the entire continent that 1st and 2nd Circle mages aren’t useless in wars."
Adrian held his hand out toward the group.
"So tell me. Which one of you is willing to stand with me and achieve this goal? Which one of you is willing to show the world how truly capable you are? It doesn’t matter if your mana veins rank is F or E. You will still have a much higher impact than you currently are having on this world."
He turned and pointed a finger directly at the thousands of soldiers who were sweating and training right beside them.
"Oresfall is the future. Look over there. Every other territory has a handful of knights leading their armies. The people you are seeing here? They aren’t just regular soldiers."
Adrian looked back at the mages with a smirk.
"Five thousand of them are fully awakened knights."
The mages all snapped their heads to look at the training grounds. Their eyes widened in sheer disbelief as they immediately extended their mana sense outwards and felt the mana radiating off a lot of the soldiers there.
They could tell that these were clearly not normal soldiers. Regular people couldn’t have this much mana.
Adrian held the Soul Contract up one last time.
"Step forward. The ones who wish to stand by me, step forward right now and inject your mana into this contract. And I will make sure that I fulfill all of my promises."
[A/N: Broke my phone today... meh.]