Punk decided to become a mage. On one hand, he genuinely liked mages; on the other, it was the only path available to him right now.
Punk was fortunate. As a Half-Primordial Elf, he was born with two mage class levels and two Ranger class levels. In other words, he had been a level-two Mage Apprentice and a level-two ranger apprentice from birth. However, Punk had already decided to specialize in magecraft.
Two class levels might not have seemed like much, but they helped him overcome the enormous threshold of becoming an apprentice—a barrier that had trapped countless dream-filled boys and girls. Becoming a professional was no easy task. Talent, comprehension, knowledge, and even luck were all indispensable. Among ordinary people, saying that only one in a hundred thousand became a professional would not have been an exaggeration!
The reason the Multiverse seemed to have countless professionals was entirely due to its absurdly enormous population of ordinary lifeforms. Precisely because of this, even on the Faerun plane, where the number of professionals could be called astonishing, the vast land and uncountable population still created a situation resembling the sparsely populated Middle Ages. In many places, professionals existed as "legends that were real."
Punk discovered that he had inherited quite a bit of knowledge—enough to last until the Formal Level. Moreover, with the system, learning spells and cultivating would yield twice the result for half the effort. He sighed inwardly in relief. It seemed that learning one or two spells for self-defense before being born was still possible. That way, he would not have to worry about being eaten for breakfast by some wild beast the moment he hatched.
With pressure and ideals driving him, Punk began to immerse himself in the study of magic!
Magic in this world relied entirely on the soul:
The soul created elements and released them into reality, then manipulated them with the soul to turn those elements into magic and produce all manner of miraculous effects. Elements were the fundamental components of this world. Note that they were elements, not atoms. The laws of this world were different; matter was composed of elements made of pure energy. There were ten elements: water, fire, earth, wind, lightning, light, darkness, life, space, and aether!
The first nine of the ten elements countered and generated one another, while the Aether element was the most special. Not only could it transform into any other element, but any element—including non-elemental energy—could transform into it. Most importantly, only Aether Energy could be directly converted into various non-elemental energies such as magnetism, gravity, and kinetic energy. Any energy that wished to transform into those types of non-elemental energy first had to become aether, then be converted by aether.
This established Aether Energy's status as the "primordial" energy, along with its incomparable flexibility and diversity.
Of course, because Aether Energy was extremely gentle and suffered varying degrees of loss during conversion, attacks made by converting Aether Energy of the same energy level were less powerful than attacks that directly used violent elemental energy.
For this very reason, among the various cultivation paths, the Evocation school, which directly used elemental energy, was universally acknowledged as the school with the greatest destructive power. Since this had been mentioned, the eight schools of mages had to be introduced. Note: the schools here referred only to cultivation paths:
Evocation (directly creating elements with the soul)
Conjuration (creating aether with the soul, then using its primordial power)
Enchantment (granting objects additional properties)
Alchemy (fusing and separating objects)
Divination (using the soul's perception to obtain information)
Summoning (creating creatures or other things within the soul, then manifesting them in the real world)
Descent (using the "concepts" within the soul to erode reality)
Psychic (using absolute idealistic thought and spirit to influence reality)
Each school had its own characteristics and advantages. Yet whether schools, elements, or distinctions such as warriors' battle aura and mages' mana, they were all immature applications of the soul. Their paths led to the same destination: the lofty goal of ascending to the divine throne. Once one reached the level of the divine throne, when the soul could directly grasp the higher power known as laws—spells below Legend merely touched laws indirectly through tricks—there would no longer be any distinction between schools or professions.
Of course, during the early stages, the various advantages and characteristics of different schools and professions were still extremely apparent!
Generally, mages chose two schools as their primary focus and two as secondary focuses in the early stages, ensuring as much complementarity as possible while reducing weaknesses. Of course, that did not mean knowledge from other schools could be ignored. Every spell was an application of the soul. Knowledge from other schools could not only provide insight and inspiration, but also increase one's means of adapting to situations. No matter what, when facing enemies from different cultivation paths, one had to ensure that one was not completely ignorant of them.
After careful consideration, Punk decided to choose Summoning and Conjuration as his primary focuses, ensuring the safest abilities for a mage: "ranged damage" and "battlefield control."
He chose Alchemy and Divination as his secondary focuses. Alchemy could provide him with funds in the early stages. After all, Oghma, the god of knowledge, had said, "Knowledge is wealth." In addition, intelligent beings generally had the bad habit of "keeping secrets," so knowledge of all kinds of spells and metamagic techniques was outrageously expensive in this world, not to mention rare natural treasures. These cultivation resources were undoubtedly important. To obtain them, funds were indispensable, at least in the early stages.
As for the Divination school, there was no need to explain. Countless wars of every scale on Earth had already fully demonstrated the importance of intelligence.
The apprentice-level spells and Journeyman-level spells left behind by his birth parents were numerous, but their number dropped drastically at the Formal Level. Still, those spells were more than enough before he reached the Formal Level.
For Punk, who possessed the system, Apprentice Level spells could practically be called effortless. He quickly gained a preliminary grasp of the theory behind one or two spells—he could not practice inside an eggshell! However, as the level of knowledge and power rose, the difficulty of learning and cultivation would increase geometrically. Punk estimated that after reaching the Formal Level, even with the system's help, his learning and cultivation efficiency would only be thirty or forty percent better than that of others at the same level. Even so, that alone would be enough to make ordinary mages envious!
Generally speaking, newly learned spells required incantations, casting gestures, and casting materials during practice. These auxiliary methods could deepen a mage's understanding of a spell and reduce the difficulty of controlling unfamiliar spells. Put plainly, they prevented a spell from exploding in one's hand before it could be cast. Once a mage became sufficiently proficient with a spell, he could discard those time-consuming methods and cast using only his soul. If he mastered the metamagic technique known as Spell Haste, he could even instantly cast spells he was already extremely familiar with. However, if mages had the opportunity during battle, they would still use auxiliary methods whenever possible. After all, these methods could enhance a spell's effects and power to a certain extent. The more advanced the incantations, gestures, and materials, the greater their bonus to a spell—and even the slightest advantage in battle could tip the scales of victory.
However, Punk's bargain-bin parents had only left behind one or two very common sets of gestures and incantations. He also had no casting materials on hand. Most importantly, there was no powerful mentor nearby to protect him carefully. Therefore, this novice Punk had the system remind him not to experiment with overly powerful magic. After all, even among Apprentice Level spells, there were considerable differences in power, characteristics, effects, and learning difficulty.
Even if learning simple little spells was easy and enjoyable, if he looked down on profound spells because of that, someday he would get himself killed!
After more than a month of study, Punk had learned several Apprentice Level spells, sorted through the "knowledge inheritance" left by his bargain-bin parents, and accumulated a substantial foundation of magical theory. At last, he finally awaited the day he would "hatch"!
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