A university in fact, called Marvels and Mirth - School of Wizardry and Witchcraft - a magic-filled learning center for anyone who qualifies as a potential future witch or wizard. "So how did a forty-plus outsider qualify to become a wizard?" you ask. It's in the blood. Albert Pintergrass has a bloodline tie to magic. He doesn't know it and doesn't want to know it. So distantly removed is that connection that even his parents probably wouldn't have known about it. Isn't that how it always happens? The important part is that he is related. So he is qualified to "try out." He is needed to continue as the last in a line of rulers called guardians. When the last ruler of Is dies of natural causes - she was a hundred years older that Moses you know - an heir must be produced to take her place.