Now, greystone had already become the Mageseekers' signature feature. Every Mageseeker wore a piece of greystone on their chest.
However, in recent years, developments like this had basically stopped appearing.
It was as if they had run into a bottleneck.
In people's impression, the organization known as the Mageseekers really did seem to have gone quite some time without any new changes.
"Is that so?"
After hearing Eldred's answer, Jarvan III's expression did not change. He continued asking, "How many people does the Mageseeker corps currently have?"
Eldred lowered his head slightly and answered without hesitation, "In reply to Your Majesty, the Mageseeker corps currently has 2,486 active members."
The Mageseekers were not an especially large organization to begin with. Their reputation had been built on the methods they used to oppose mages over the years.
They were just like the Dauntless Vanguard. What they wanted was not quantity, but elite quality.
However, upon closer inspection, more than 2,400 people was already not a small number.
They were spread throughout every part of Demacia, carrying out anti-magic operations and leaving mages almost no room to breathe.
Hearing this, Jarvan III said calmly, "Last time, I cut the Mageseekers' funding in half. Naturally, the treatment of these 2,400-plus people was also downgraded. Now that the situation both inside and outside the nation is stable, I see no need for so many people to fight over the remaining half of the funding. Starting today, the Mageseekers will return to their previous standards. Half of their personnel will be removed and reassigned to other corps. This way, the corps funding and treatment will be restored to their previous level, and we will no longer need to waste so many human resources."
His steady words fell, and the council hall immediately burst into an uproar.
Even Eldred could not help raising his head after hearing this, a focused light flashing in his eyes.
The Mageseekers' treatment had indeed been restored, but the price was losing half their people directly.
So the funding that had already been reduced by half would now match exactly.
Anyone with eyes could see that Jarvan III was preparing to cut down the Mageseekers.
During the last cult incident, the Mageseekers had handled matters poorly, so cutting their funding had been deserved.
But this time, there was no reason. He had opened with a direct strike.
And this strike could be called a massive cut.
But as for the reason, quite a few people present thought of it at the same time. It seemed there could only be that one reason.
Looking at the expressions of the many ministers who wanted to speak but hesitated, Jarvan III's dignified eyes released a pressure without anger, suppressing the entire room. He said mildly, "Arrange this as quickly as possible. Swiftly distribute the half of the personnel who will be removed into the other corps. Roy, Giovanni, this matter will be handled by the two of you in cooperation with the leader of the Mageseeker corps."
Roy and Giovanni answered in unison, "Your subjects obey."
Seeing Eldred remain silent, Jarvan III looked at him. "Do you have anything else to say?"
Eldred lowered his head and bowed. "In reply to Your Majesty, no. Your subject will execute the order at once."
Everyone could hear the firm "my mind is made up" tone in Jarvan III's words, and they immediately understood that saying anything else would be useless.
This time was different from the major matter of pardoning mages last time. Jarvan III naturally still had the authority to mobilize the Mageseekers' personnel.
At this moment, Jarvan III swept his gaze around the room, then stood up and said calmly, "Since there is nothing else, this meeting ends here. Dismissed."
That sentence completely cut off the thoughts of some ministers who still wanted to say something.
The meeting ended, and the ministers dispersed outward. Some left together, still quietly discussing what had just happened in the meeting.
Some left alone, like Eldred, departing without saying a word.
Luke also walked outside. After leaving the palace, he saw Eldred mount his horse, then crack his whip and ride away.
That man always gave him the feeling that whatever he had to say was hidden in his stomach and spoken only to himself.
Or perhaps it was better to say that he kept his cards deeply hidden.
This time, the Mageseekers had received an epic-level nerf, enough to show that Jarvan III had never abandoned his original idea of pardoning mages.
Now, he had already begun to take action.
If the ban on mages were to be lifted, the first thing that needed to be arranged would definitely be the Mageseekers.
Of course, the Mageseekers could not simply be cut down in one stroke until they were crippled.
Sitting in the carriage, Luke suddenly thought that when Jarvan III had deducted half of the Mageseekers' funding last time, perhaps he had already had this kind of idea in mind.
It was just that he had never found a suitable reason, and that incident had happened to come at the right time.
The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed.
After so much time, Luke naturally knew that his father was a far-sighted ruler.
So perhaps very early on, he had already seen that the matter of banning magic brought Demacia more harm than good.
Feeling the carriage's bumps, Luke thought for a moment and said, "Stop by the prison on the way."
"Yes."
Yurna's response came from outside.
Half an hour later, the carriage slowly stopped at the prison entrance.
After getting out of the carriage, Luke smoothly entered the prison. From far away, he saw Sylas running steadily on the track.
Now, his stamina seemed to be getting better and better. Running laps was no longer difficult for him.
With the prison's far-from-generous meals, being able to reach this point was enough to show Sylas's extraordinary talent.
This time, Luke did not approach him. He only looked from a distance, then turned and left.
Even if he went over, they probably would not chat for more than a few sentences. Why bother making things awkward?
He would come take a look another day when he was in a better mood.
On the track, Sylas seemed to sense something and suddenly turned his head to glance over, but all he saw was an empty road, without a single figure.
He did not think too much about it and continued running.
He felt as though it had been a while since that prince had come here.
Raising his head slightly and looking at the blue sky, Sylas realized that, without noticing, he had already run from autumn into spring.
This kind of life had already gone on for half a year.
Although he could often look up at this sky, to him, it was nothing more than a larger cage.
He had not even once stepped out of this prison.
He did not know when the day of freedom would arrive.
In the living room of Luke's estate.
"So, Uncle Jarvan directly got rid of half the Mageseekers?"
On the sofa, Lux sat there with her eyes full of pleasant surprise.
"You can't really say he got rid of them. They were only assigned elsewhere."
Luke lightly took a sip of tea.
"What's the difference between that and getting rid of them?" Lux's mood instantly became extremely cheerful, and she was very happy. "Great! I've disliked those Mageseekers for ages."
When she was little, the Mageseekers had practically been a shadow over her heart.
Wearing those stupid masks and standing there like that, who were they trying to scare?
Now that this had happened to them, it was simply so satisfying.
Miss Crownguard, in a very good mood, immediately went wild eating ice cream. The result was that her head hurt terribly from the cold, a classic case of joy turning into misery.
In Demacia, the Mageseekers were actually not liked by many people.
With this cut, many people were probably also delighted to see it happen.
Katarina, listening from the side, could not help saying, "I've always been curious. Why does Demacia ban magic?"
Mages were favored children of Runeterra in themselves.
Why go against the natural order and target them?
In Noxus, a mage's treatment was extremely high, especially a mage with a special talent.
Even if they did nothing, they could take far fewer detours and easily sit in a position others dreamed of.
Yet in Demacia, such mages could only become prisoners.
"Who knows? They say it was to escape the Rune Wars back then, so they established a refuge without magic."
Luke answered casually, "And then it became more and more extreme. Later on, mages became everyone's enemies."
Katarina did not understand. "What's the point of doing that? Back then, Demacia wasn't the only place affected by the disaster of the Rune Wars. Many places suffered calamities too, but they didn't strictly ban magic. Or rather, magic itself might actually be the means to fight against something like the Rune Wars. Besides, could the people back then really guarantee their descendants wouldn't be mages?"
This was Runeterra, a continent of magic.
Two people without magic could still give birth to someone with magical talent.
These people would inevitably include their own descendants.
So what was the point of this endless suppression and prohibition?
In Katarina's view, this was no different from trapping themselves in their own net and inviting trouble.
Lux, who had recovered by now, immediately nodded after hearing this. "I support your view!"
"It's rare for you to say this much."
Luke drank his tea and smiled as he glanced at Katarina. "As for how Demacia ultimately walked down the road of banning magic, things from that long ago are probably no longer known to anyone. Perhaps someone really does know, but they would not easily say it. Maybe somewhere out there, there is a witness to that era."
Demacia had been founded almost seven hundred years ago. Who could know what had happened seven hundred years ago?
Over all that time, history had been edited by countless people, and ultimately, it had been presented before people as this version of history.
As for the history buried and hidden within it, who could know except those silent witnesses?
Hearing this, Katarina also quieted down and drank her hot tea.
She could not help thinking that, actually, banning magic like this was also quite good.
After all, Noxus had always been dealing with this kind of Demacia, and even so, it was already very difficult to handle.
If one day Demacia lifted its ban on magic, what kind of nation would it develop into? It was somewhat difficult to imagine.
At this moment, Lux suddenly had a flash of inspiration. "Why not ask Poppy?"
The reason this girl suddenly thought of Poppy was that Poppy often bragged about things that sounded completely far-fetched, like knowing the previous king, Orlon, fighting monsters alongside Orlon, and knowing many famous historical figures, such as Durand.
However, everyone treated these things as childish nonsense and had never taken them seriously.
At this moment, though, Lux suddenly grew curious about what Poppy would say this time.
Although she did not believe it, she still liked Poppy's wonderful imagination very much.
So she stood up and found Poppy lying with all four limbs spread out on the round table in the garden, sunbathing.
Poppy, who was pushed awake, rubbed her sleepy eyes with a confused expression. "Huh? Banning magic… I don't know. Back then, I think two really incredible people had a really fierce argument, and then it ended up like this."
"Two really incredible people had a fierce argument? How fierce? How did they start arguing? Who won? How incredible were they?"
Lux was like a curious child, throwing out a long string of questions in a row.
She directly gave Poppy's mind a few extra question marks. On top of that, Poppy was still terribly sleepy at the moment, so she answered in a daze, "I don't know… anyway, they were really incredible… they fought… even the sky changed color…"
Seeing that her words were out of order and that she was so sleepy she could barely stay awake, Lux also knew she had come at the wrong time.
"All right, you can keep sleeping." So she helped Poppy lie back down and said apologetically, "Sorry for interrupting your nap."
"It's okay."
Poppy yawned, turned over, and quickly fell asleep again. Her sleeping face looked extremely sweet, clearly returning to the wonderful dream from earlier.
Lux returned to the living room and repeated Poppy's words to the people inside. "Say what you will, Poppy really is pretty good at making up stories."
Kahina tilted her head and thought for a moment. "Two really incredible people fighting? If they were fighting, why would it have anything to do with banning magic?"
Luke drank his tea and said, "Maybe their influence was enormous. Right, Yurna?"
Yurna, who had suddenly been mentioned, froze slightly, then answered without changing her expression, "Perhaps so."
"Oh, come on, it's just one of Poppy's stories." Lux continued eating her ice cream. "You all aren't taking it seriously, are you?"
Kahina nodded. "That's true."
Luke drank his tea without adding anything.
Among the people present, perhaps only he knew that what Poppy said was probably not a lie.
Without a doubt, if anyone could be called a witness to an era, Poppy was definitely one of them.
According to her, back then, two very incredible people had a fight, and after that, the whole series of anti-magic measures began.
As for who those two people were, Luke already had a faint guess in his mind.
However, these were ultimately things from several hundred years ago. No matter how much he thought about them, it would not have much meaning.
When the truth was meant to be revealed, it would be revealed sooner or later.
After finishing the tea in his cup, a notification suddenly flashed through Luke's mind.
[Congratulations, Host. Your aptitude has broken through to 80, Peerless in the World.]
His aptitude had broken through once again, reaching the 80 mark. At the same time, Luke remembered that this seemed to be the highest level of aptitude.
Peerless in the World.
In other words, his current talent was already very strong?
He opened the panel and glanced at it. It was exactly 80.
After thinking about it briefly, Luke felt that 80 aptitude was probably only the threshold for being Peerless in the World. Compared to true geniuses, it was still somewhat lacking.
Like the little blonde sitting off to the side. If one were to speak of talent, hers was probably at least above 90.
As for what talent actually was, Luke understood it like this. Imagine a university-level math problem. Different people looking at it would need different amounts of time and use different methods to solve it.
Those with extremely high talent could see the answer at a glance.
Those with dull talent might not necessarily find the answer even after several hours.
That was the gap between the two, while people with all kinds of talents were caught somewhere in the middle.
Talent was something vague and intangible. Even though he had broken through to his current level, to Luke, it was not some especially great surprise.
After all, no matter how high his talent was, he was still usually too lazy to move.
When noon came, he put down his teacup, sat up, and prepared to make lunch.
//Check out my P@tre0n for 30 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810