NEC Chapter 29: Chen Mo’s Career Plan  

Chen Mo couldn’t even get close to the fortress’s imposing silhouette. Over a kilometer out, a neatly built wall, faintly glowing with magic

Chen Mo couldn’t even get close to the fortress’s imposing silhouette. Over a kilometer out, a neatly built wall, faintly glowing with magical light, blocked his path. 

This was the Radiant Mage Tower’s first gatehouse. 

Respectfully stating his purpose, Chen Mo was sized up by a middle-aged gatekeeper. The man’s gaze lingered briefly on Little White, then he let out a barely audible scoff, his expression tinged with condescending pity. 

“Young man, didn’t your mentor teach you? Mage towers take apprentices in spring, when life awakens and magical energies resonate most clearly. You can’t just show up anytime.” 

“This year’s intake is done. Come back next year, and check the dates!” 

Before Chen Mo could ask or explain, the heavy gate creaked shut in his face with merciless finality. 

“Is that really a rule?” Chen Mo asked. 

Josie scratched his messy hair, looking confused. “I don’t know! Never went to school. Learned my skills from Dad and my uncles. Mage stuff? No clue.” 

Little John, sharper than Josie, craned his neck to peer at the gate and offered a guess. “Maybe he didn’t like your skeleton, milord?” 

“Like me, I carry a bow before officially becoming an archer, so bowman mentors give me some leeway. But a high-tier warrior? They’d give me the cold shoulder.” 

His eyes glinted as he leaned in, a mischievous edge to his voice. “How about… we wait till dark, and Josie sneaks over the wall to scope things out? He’s quick on his feet.” 

Chen Mo’s face darkened, shooting Little John a withering glare before turning away. 

“Climb a mage tower’s wall? You want to get us killed?” 

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Despite Little John’s terrible idea, Chen Mo thought there might be some truth to it. 

The “Radiant Mage Tower” clearly belonged to a master of the Holy Light arcane school. 

Low-tier mages, up to the third tier, trained in general fundamentals without strict specialization. 

Career paths were typically chosen at the fourth-tier transition. 

But with a Holy Light master, it made sense that a gatekeeper might frown on a candidate like Chen Mo, openly accompanied by an undead skeleton. 

If this place wouldn’t have him, he’d try another. 

On the way to the next mage tower, Chen Mo played it smart, leaving Little White in the carriage. 

Unfortunately, the second and third towers rejected him just as swiftly, citing the same excuse: come back next spring. 

Chen Mo tried a silver-coin approach. 

The moment he hinted at it, before he could even reach for his coin pouch, the gatekeeper’s face twisted. With a thunderous bang, the door slammed shut, practically blasting the “preapprentice” out. 

Chen Mo was stunned. 

Wait half a year for spring recruitment? That was unthinkable. Wasting six months meant what, exactly? 

Back at Black Crow Castle, under the tutelage of the grand necromancer, Chen Mo had accessed a robust foundation in necromancy. After successfully activating his bloodline Sacrificial Altar, he’d set his career path early. 

He would become an unconventional necromancer. 

A necromancer’s strength hinged on the tier of undead they could summon, limited by two factors: what the otherworldly lord had and was willing to lend, and the summoner’s mental strength to handle the overload. 

It was like getting in trouble and calling on connections to bail you out. Enlisting a neighborhood watch, a village chief, a county official, or a provincial governor required wildly different costs. 

Connections, ability, and resources were all essential. 

In necromancy, connections meant true name chants and marker spells: who could you reach? 

Ability meant mage rank and mental strength: how much authority could you withstand? Resources meant the value of your offerings: what could you afford to pay? 

Without the right setup, you couldn’t summon anything, and forcing it would bring consequences you couldn’t bear. 

During altar transmissions, the summoner bore the overload of the transported items, a strict “you summon, you’re responsible” rule. 

Why couldn’t low-tier Stardust or Moonring Mages, even if they scraped together costly offerings, summon high-tier undead like Black Armor Riders or Black Knights? The mental strain of cross-dimensional summoning would shatter their minds like a watermelon. 

On Blue Star, it was simple: the faster a vehicle accelerated, the greater the strain on its passengers. Regular cars? Anyone could handle it. Racecars? Only the fit. Supersonic jets? Only elite, rigorously trained pilots. Rockets escaping the atmosphere? Astronauts, one in a hundred thousand, in specialized suits. 

Cross-dimensional summoning was like traversing countless star systems instantly. Even with the altar’s protections, the strain far exceeded mortal limits. 

Why was necromancy the easiest summoning discipline, making necromancers so common? Undead had no vital signs. Protect their soul fire, and you were set. 

Strap a skeleton to a rocket; no matter the speed, it wouldn’t suffer heart failure or organ rupture. 

But as undead soul energy grew, so did the burden of protecting their soul fire. Summoning a skeleton was like a tap on the skull; summoning a bone dragon was a hundred-ton hammer to the face. 

Chen Mo’s summoning was an exception. 

First, the entity on the other side of his altar was, in essence, his motherland—a doting one, like a parent spoiling an only child visiting a foreign plane. Consent wasn’t an issue; whatever he needed, she’d provide. 

Second, East Xia was a technological empire, relying not on individual might but on cold, hard machinery. 

Tech creations largely ignored the crushing overload of spatial transit. 

Thus, Chen Mo’s edge over other struggling necromancers was unique. His only bottleneck was the efficiency of his bloodline Sacrificial Altar: 

How many times could he activate it in a given period? How much material could each activation transfer? 

These determined how fast he could snowball his power. 

At his current pre-apprentice mental strength, he could activate the altar once a month, transferring a meager amount. Gathering enough for a heavy machine gun would take half a year. 

But with six months of proper guidance and training, he could be summoning far more. 

The gap was astronomical. 

So, Chen Mo meticulously planned two critical goals for this stage, to be achieved at all costs: 

First, find a mage tower. Secure a training environment, magical materials, and meditation techniques to boost his mental strength quickly. 

Second, learn a crucial spell: Psychic Shunting. 

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