To be honest, Alaric was not the type of person who hoarded his knowledge and refused to share it with others.
Otherwise, back in Dalaran, he would not have decisively revealed his polymorph spells.
While establishing his own prestige, he had also elevated Dalaran's mages to a higher level of mastery in transformation magic.
In his view, although his various methods stemmed from magical knowledge, and that knowledge was his greatest weapon, his strength did not originate from the knowledge itself.
The reason he had achieved what he had today ultimately lay in his own intelligence.
Intelligence was the true trump card, not magic. This was a conclusion he had reached after many years.
First, even if his enemies mastered every spell he knew, in this vast ocean of magic, who could possibly predict how he would use magic in battle?
Although a mage's combat strength depended on maintaining mystery, once the number of spells one knew exceeded a certain threshold, secrecy itself ceased to matter.
Second, not everyone possessed the intelligence required to learn his magic.
For example, the spell of soul materialization, until now, only a few within the Mystra Academy had been able to comprehend it.
Thus, Alaric had never hesitated to widely teach his magic to others.
The same was true now in Egypt.
As a result, these apprentices were astonished to discover that beyond the divine power they had understood, there existed so many other powerful supernatural forces.
According to Alaric, although priests were the representatives of the gods on earth and interpreters of divine will, these mages were the ones who truly studied divine power and practiced the gods' will.
This filled the apprentices with an extraordinary enthusiasm for learning magic.
A powerful sense of mission arose within them, as if heaven had entrusted them with a great responsibility.
Yes. Unlike in Greece, Alaric did not shape Egyptian mages into humanists who opposed divine rule and sought humanity's independence from the gods.
On the contrary, under his guidance, these people even showed signs of becoming fanatical believers.
Of course, this did not mean Alaric had changed his attitude toward gods and humans. He had his reasons.
One reason was the difference between Egyptian and Greek gods.
As mentioned before, Egyptian gods were not as terrible as the Greek ones.
Though they had once walked the earth, they did not behave like the Olympian gods, spreading chaos and desire.
Instead, they ruled as Pharaohs, leading the Egyptian people toward civilization generation after generation.
After Ra came Shu and Tefnut. Then Geb and Nut. After them Osiris. Finally Horus.
These gods guided the Egyptians from primitive ignorance to civilization, establishing the Pharaoh system.
Because of such responsible deities, Egypt became one of the earliest ancient civilizations, second only to Babylon.
But to put it kindly, these gods were responsible. To put it bluntly, they were also quite lazy.
After Horus left descendants on earth and departed the mortal world, the gods merely fulfilled their most basic duties while refraining from further interference.
For example, Ra's solar barque still traveled between the sky and the underworld every day. Yet aside from this, he rarely issued oracles to guide mortals.
The same was true for Anubis, Horus, and the others.
They performed their responsibilities like clockwork and interfered in nothing else.
Perhaps it was precisely this sense of duty that had once allowed them to guide humanity.
And perhaps this refusal to interfere eventually led to their replacement by Amun, Alaric even suspected they simply wanted to rest and let someone else take over.
In short, Alaric deeply admired such gods who did not meddle in mortal affairs and simply fulfilled their duties. Naturally, he had no desire to cause trouble for them.
The idea that mages were executors of divine power also had other purposes.
First, it reduced resistance and motivated these apprentices. After all, in Egypt, faith in the gods was far more fervent than in Greece.
The reckless actions of the Olympians had already caused many Greeks to lose reverence.
Judging from the results, Alaric's method was successful.
Second, it supported Nitocris.
After all, Pharaoh was the greatest representative of the gods on earth. No priest could surpass Pharaoh in embodying divine will.
Or rather, in Egypt, Pharaoh was the highest high priest.
So if these mages wished to carry out divine will, what should they do?
Nothing embodied it better than loyalty to the Pharaoh.
However, Alaric's approach also brought some side effects.
These apprentices of Egyptian runic magic were not divided into traditional magical schools. Instead, they were grouped according to faith, forming factions devoted to different gods.
Just as orthodox mage apprentices specialized in certain schools after mastering basic spells, these apprentices also chose a deity to focus on while studying magic.
Other runic spells were merely supplementary.
Those who worshiped the Sun God learned light, life, and purification magic.
These mages could act as healers, blind enemies with solar radiance, and serve as nemeses of evil beings.
Those devoted to Osiris and Anubis learned magic related to death, the undead, and judgment. They fought like necromancers, but instead of skeletons, they commanded mummies.
Followers of Shu and Tefnut studied wind and water elemental magic.
Followers of Geb specialized in earth and elemental magic.
Followers of Horus learned insight, control, and lightning. Thunder had always symbolized the sky, judgment, and justice.
…
Compared to ordinary magic, the greatest advantage of runic sorcery lay in its ease of learning and mastery.
Runes were simplified manifestations of natural laws. Compared to profound magical theory, they were far simpler.
However, the downside was rigidity. A mage like Alaric could wield magic with complete freedom, but runic mages could never reach that level of flexibility.
Yet in the present Egypt, this advantage was magnified to its fullest.
Precisely because runic magic was relatively simple, this first generation of apprentices had grown rapidly within a few years, enough to take the battlefield as a mage corps.