As soon as Lin Yu returned to his room at the inn, he took off the long silver dress he was wearing. After changing into his newly purchased robe, he took out five robes and left them in the room. That way, the next time he died in the wild and respawned in his room at the inn, he wouldn't have to worry about having nothing to wear.
After changing, Lin Yu prepared to head to the library.
Taking the boss down with him this time had reduced his experience from level 10 (1900/1900) back to level 10 (0/1900). King's Soul was a material that could only be obtained by killing a boss while in the state of awaiting a breakthrough, so Lin Yu now needed to grind his experience back up to that state.
He arrived at the library, went inside, and paid 50 copper coins to borrow books for an hour.
In half an hour, Lin Yu filled his experience bar again and reached the state of awaiting a breakthrough.
He checked his current status. The Weakness status inflicted after respawning still had over an hour remaining. After glancing at the sky, Lin Yu decided to review the battle.
Taking the boss down with him had given Lin Yu a certain understanding of how strong bosses were.
Without ritual casting, his attacks couldn't penetrate the boss's armor. Even without the armor, the spells he cast without ritual casting still couldn't inflict fatal damage on the boss.
Ritual casting was different. As long as he could hit weak points such as the head, he had every chance of severely wounding the boss with two spells and killing it with three.
For the first time, Lin Yu saw just how enormous the gap between ritual and non-ritual casting was. Before the boss fight, he had known that non-ritual casting was only one hundredth, one thousandth, or even one ten-thousandth as effective as ritual casting. But at the time, he had thought that even if non-ritual casting was only one hundredth as effective, he could keep casting spells and slowly chip away until the damage caught up with ritual casting.
After this boss fight, however, Lin Yu knew he had been wrong—absurdly wrong. The bosses in Era were nothing like the bosses in the online games he had played before.
The boss he had encountered was less a boss than a player with a boss's health. Sykes could drink potions to buff himself, restore his health and recover his status, and even talk trash during battle. Against a boss like that, the damage from non-ritual casting could easily be recovered, making it impossible to slowly grind the boss to death through accumulated damage.
After this battle, Lin Yu also understood why magic scrolls were said to be an important part of a mage's combat power. Without magic scrolls, a mage like Lin Yu, who had nothing but the ability to cast spells, would be doomed when facing a fully equipped boss like Sykes, with rune weapons, rune armor, and all kinds of buff and recovery potions.
Of course, Lin Yu's prepared magic scrolls weren't the only reason he had won. His exceptionally high spell power had also played a part. If his spell power stat had been any lower, the three Explosive Flame Bombs he had cast at the end wouldn't have been able to kill Sykes.
After this, Lin Yu renewed his attention to the various pieces of equipment and items that could improve a mage's practical combat ability.
A mage's combat power depended not only on their mana manipulation precision, Magic Aperture strength, and mastery of magic. The boosts provided by external items were just as important.
A mage equipped with various magic items and gear could become several times as strong at the very least. With sufficient preparation, it was no problem for a mage to become tens or even hundreds of times stronger than they were without it.
There were only a few things that could improve a mage's combat power: magic accessories, magic scrolls, staves, magic robes, alchemy items, and potions.
Magic scrolls had already been covered, so there was no need to say more about them.
Magic accessories were a type of alchemical equipment. They came in many forms, including rings, necklaces, bracelets, headpieces, and various other accessories that were easy to carry.
Broadly speaking, magic accessories fell into two main categories: amplification and storage.
Amplification could be further divided into several types: magic amplification, mana amplification, and attribute amplification.
Magic amplification could be divided further. One kind increased the power of a particular spell the wearer cast, while amplification could apply either to a single spell or to a particular category of elemental magic.
Amplifying a single spell was usually much more effective than amplifying a category of elemental magic. Magic accessories that amplified a category of elemental magic generally topped out at around two or three times the original power.
Magic accessories that amplified a single spell, on the other hand, could increase its power more than tenfold.
Mana amplification also had several subdivisions. One kind enhanced mana manipulation, while another enhanced mana quality, which meant spell power.
Magic accessories that enhanced mana manipulation could improve the wearer's mana control precision.
Those that enhanced mana quality could temporarily increase the wearer's spell power.
Finally, attribute amplification was the simplest. A magic accessory that enhanced defense increased the wearer's physical defense. One that enhanced speed increased the wearer's leg strength and running speed. There were also accessories that enhanced strength, reaction speed, and so on. Attribute-amplifying magic accessories could improve the wearer's physical attributes most directly.
After the broad category of amplification came storage. As the name suggested, its function was to store things.
Some storage-type magic accessories could hold a prepared ritual array and its materials, allowing the user to activate them directly by injecting mana when needed.
Such accessories could store three to five ritual spells. After each spell was cast, the ritual array had to be set up and the ritual materials prepared again. Once that was done, the prepared array and casting materials could be stored directly in the magic accessory.
Others could have magic rituals inscribed in them beforehand and automatically absorb ambient magic power to recharge themselves.
With such an accessory, the magic inscribed within could be activated with a thought, directly casting the spell using the magic power stored inside. The power of a spell released by this kind of accessory could approach that of a spell cast through a complete ritual. Once its magic power was depleted, the wearer could wait for the accessory to slowly absorb ambient magic power and replenish itself, or inject mana directly to replenish it quickly.
Besides being activated by thought, this kind of magic accessory could also be designed to automatically cast its inscribed spell when a certain condition was triggered. Such accessories were generally inscribed with protective magic, which would activate just before an attack arrived and block it.
Accessories inscribed with protective magic were generally larger pieces, such as necklaces, bracelets, and headpieces.
The reason was simple: protective magic generally consumed a lot of power. Ring-type magic accessories were relatively small and could store relatively little magic power. If an accessory inscribed with protective magic were made into a ring, the magic power stored inside would be exhausted after blocking even a little of an attack with any real force. That was why magic accessories inscribed with protective magic were all relatively large.