The World of Geniuses

When Du Pont saw this, he could not help clenching his fists in excitement.

His guess had indeed been correct.

In Faerûn, classed individuals gained an opportunity to improve their attributes every four levels. The locals believed this came from grueling training or pushing their potential to the limit between life and death. However, Du Pont still had doubts about whether his multiclassing could truly grant him attribute points.

The new system and the old system improved attributes differently. For example, fighters could gain six attribute increases from levels 1 to 16, two points each time. Other classes gained four attribute increases from levels 1 to 16, once every four levels. The greatest restriction was that attributes could not exceed 20, reaching the realm of the extraordinary.

The old system did not have such a drawback. Even if an attribute was already at 30, it could still be increased. From levels 1 to 20, one could gain five attribute increases. The problem was that the old system only granted one attribute point each time, leaving it four points behind by level 16.

Although 20 could still be supplemented by one more point and had a higher upper limit, how many legendary powerhouses were there in this world? Even among mages with all sorts of life-extending methods, reaching level 15 was enough to earn the title of Archmage and become a powerhouse guarding one region. Legendary mages above level 20 were figures of myth.

He could gain extra Experience Points through killing, but advancing from level 1 to level 2 required 1,000 Experience Points, while level 2 to level 3 required 2,000. If level 3 required 3,000, that would be fine, but if it doubled to 4,000, that would be downright infuriating. If level 4 required 8,000, it would probably take years.

But now, he could learn classes on his own and raise their levels with relatively little Experience Points. That would both add more ways to save his life and let him gain attribute increases cheaply. It was an absolute bargain, and he could rise rapidly.

Although most classed individuals generally only cared about three attributes—for mages, Intelligence, Dexterity, and Constitution—as long as someone was born with sufficiently high Intelligence, say 20, then even if their Dexterity and Constitution were only 9, below even an ordinary person, they would still be a mage prodigy.

A score of 9 was indeed troublesome, but an Agility Belt that added 2 Dexterity only cost 500 gold coins. A Amulet of Health worth 5,000 gold coins could directly raise Constitution to 19. Such magical items could make up for those shortcomings, but inborn Intelligence of 20 was one in ten thousand. A mage like that could become an Archmage's personal apprentice through potential alone. Obtaining those magical items would merely be a matter of time.

But were those remaining attributes really unimportant?

Dexterity affected reflexes. It could help one evade enemy attacks and speed up a mage's gestures and chanting while casting spells.

Constitution affected endurance. It could also improve one's tolerance for injuries and recovery speed, reduce the effects of poison and curses, and even let one last longer as a gigolo.

Raising Charisma could increase popularity and prestige. Whether building a faction or finding a wealthy older woman, it could be considered a way forward, and it also brought supernatural affinity.

High Wisdom allowed one to perceive unknown dangers. In a dungeon, one could even hear the heartbeats of hidden enemies and avoid ambushes.

Even Strength, the attribute mages cared about least, could let one carry more things. During a retreat, it provided enough explosive power to flee instead of being caught by goblins and kobolds and having one's ass stabbed to pieces.

However, true all-rounders were exceedingly rare. Du Pont was already fairly well-rounded, yet his Dexterity and Wisdom were still not much better than an ordinary person's. But if he could gain them through attribute increases, then at best he could create prodigies, and at worst he could take the all-rounder route and become a warrior. Even if his multiclass levels were not high, he would not be much weaker than those pure warrior-class individuals.

These 1,000 Experience Points had been well spent!

A Barbarian's abilities could be said to be completely useless to a mage, but getting attribute points for free was pure profit. Du Pont tested himself against his mirror image and found that his melee threat had greatly increased. His technique had improved tremendously as well, nothing like the two flashy tricks mages had.

With this solid strength, he did not believe that any other third-year student could threaten him in that afternoon's combat class.

Especially not after several days of special training with his mirror image.

However, Du Pont still hesitated over where to allocate those two attribute points.

If he put them all into Intelligence, then his talent should reach a first-rate level within the academy. Being assigned to a proper mage school would present no problem whatsoever, and only genuine prodigies would surpass him.

But adding them to Constitution was not bad either. In particular, he had learned from the explanations of the church priests that since his body had not yet reached adulthood, sufficiently high Constitution might give him even greater potential as he grew older.

Even setting aside his future potential, with only one life to lose, increasing Constitution could not possibly be a wrong choice.

Moreover, he had just acquired the Barbarian's Unarmored Defense. If he put everything into Constitution, his Natural Defense would rise by another point to 14.

That was even slightly higher than when he had cast Mage Armor while fighting that gray wolf.

After struggling with it for a while, Du Pont decided to add 1 point to Intelligence first and see.

Honestly, he could not feel any difference from his Intelligence of 14. His thinking was almost no different from when he had been on Earth. The greatest difference was probably that he reacted faster to sudden events and was more inclined to think during ordinary times.

Forget it. No more overthinking. Let's see what changes this extra point of Intelligence brings me.

Your inborn Intelligence is currently 15.

Your inborn Intelligence has exceeded 15. Your memory has improved.

Your learning ability has improved. Experience Points gained from books, classes, or self-study have increased by an additional 40%, and your efficiency in learning new spells has increased by 10%.

Your current learning speed is 240%.

Your Scribe Scroll success rate has increased by 5%, your ability to learn spells from spell scrolls has increased by 5%, your Scribe Scroll speed has increased by 5%, and your chance of successfully scribing a 1st-circle spell scroll has increased by 10%.

Your chance of successfully crafting magical items has increased by 5%, and your alchemy success rate has increased by 5%.

All Intelligence-related knowledge skills have increased by 2 points.

Your spellcasting failure rate has decreased by 3%.

Du Pont stared at the data in astonishment.

Was this... the world of geniuses?

Without any hesitation, Du Pont added the remaining attribute point to Intelligence as well.

Your inborn Intelligence is 16.

Your learning ability has improved. Experience Points gained from books, classes, or self-study have increased by 50%, and your efficiency in learning new spells has increased by 20%.

Your current learning speed is 290%.

Your Scribe Scroll success rate has increased by 10%, your learning speed has increased by 10%, your scribing speed has increased by 10%, and your chance of successfully scribing a 1st-circle spell scroll has increased by 20%.

Your chance of successfully crafting magical items has increased by 10%, and your alchemy success rate has increased by 10%.

Your spellcasting failure rate has decreased by 6%, your chanting speed has increased by 10%, and your chance of countering spells has increased by 5%.

All Intelligence-related knowledge skills have increased by 4 points.

Du Pont suddenly laughed. He laughed for a long time, stopping only when he laughed so hard that he lost his breath, then lay there without moving.

Leaving aside everything else, inborn Intelligence of 16 compared to Intelligence of 14 increased the Experience Points he gained from textbooks by 90%. In other words, he now gained around 45 Experience Points from each class instead of 30. With three classes a day, his expected daily Experience Points income would reach 125. With thirteen spell classes a week, he could directly gain 585. Even after deducting 100 points for scribing scrolls, he would still net 485. In one month, he could gain 1,940 Experience Points!

The actual amount would be somewhat lower, but he also got up every morning to slaughter pigs, so the Experience Points he actually gained would only be higher.

That was nearly double his original study plan!

No wonder there were rumors that some prodigies from mage families could become High-level Mages just after coming of age. There were even rumors that, in ancient times, there had been legendary mages younger than eighteen. As long as one's inborn Intelligence was high enough and one had sufficient teachers and money, becoming a High-level Mage without ever leaving home was indeed no problem.

And now, he could finally see the backs of those geniuses.