The Mage's Beginning

Punk decided to become a Mage, partly because he genuinely liked Mages, and partly because it was the only path available to him at the moment.

Punk was fortunate. As a Half-Primordial Elf, he was born with two Mage Professions and two Ranger Professions. This meant he started life as a Level 2 Mage Apprentice and Level 2 Ranger Apprentice. However, Punk had already decided to specialize in Magecraft.

While two professional levels might seem meager, it helped him overcome the initial hurdle of becoming an Apprentice—a significant barrier that had stumped countless aspiring youths. After all, becoming a Professional was no easy feat; it required aptitude, comprehension, knowledge, and even luck. For ordinary individuals, becoming a Professional was akin to a one-in-a-hundred-thousand chance!

The reason for the seemingly countless Professionals in the multiverse was entirely due to the staggeringly vast base population of ordinary life. Even in Faerun, a plane with an "astonishing" number of Professionals, the sheer size of the landmass meant that despite an immeasurable population, it still presented a scenario akin to the sparsely populated lands of medieval times. In many regions, Professionals existed as "living legends."

Punk discovered he had inherited a considerable amount of knowledge, enough to suffice before reaching the Formal Level. Moreover, with the System's assistance, learning spells and cultivating would be twice as effective with half the effort. He breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that learning a spell or two for self-defense before hatching was feasible. This way, he wouldn't have to worry about being eaten as breakfast by some wild beast the moment he emerged from his shell.

Fueled by pressure and ambition, Punk began to diligently study the knowledge of magic!

Magic in this world relied entirely on the soul:

The soul generated elements and released them into reality, and then the soul manipulated these elements to form magic, producing various wondrous effects. Elements were the fundamental building blocks of this world. Note that these were elements, not atoms. The laws of this world were different; matter was composed of pure energy elements. There were ten types of elements: Water, Fire, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Light, Darkness, Life, Space, and Aether!

The first nine elements were mutually generative and destructive, while Aether was the most special. It could not only transform into any other element but could also be transformed by any element, including non-elemental energy. Most importantly, only Aether energy could be directly converted into various other non-elemental energies like magnetism, gravity, and kinetic energy. Any energy that wished to be converted into these types of non-elemental energies had to first be converted into Aether, and then transformed by Aether.

This established Aether energy's "primordial" status and its unparalleled flexibility and versatility.

Of course, because Aether energy was very gentle and suffered some loss during transformation, its offensive power after conversion was less potent than direct attacks using the more volatile elemental energies of the same energy level.

It was precisely for this reason that Evocation, which directly used elemental energies, was recognized as the school with the greatest destructive power. Speaking of which, this brings us to the eight schools of Magecraft (Note: The term "school" here refers solely to cultivation directions):

Evocation (Directly creating elements with the soul)

Conjuration (Creating Aether with the soul and then utilizing Aether's primal energy)

Enchantment (Imbuing objects with other properties)

Alchemy (Fusing and separating objects)

Divination (Utilizing the soul's perception to acquire information)

Summoning (Creating creatures or other things within the soul and manifesting them in the real world)

Advent (Corroding the real world with "concepts" from the soul)

Mind (Influencing reality through absolute idealism and spirit)

Each of these schools had its own characteristics and advantages. However, regardless of the school, element, or even the distinctions between a Warrior's battle qi and a Mage's magic, they were all immature applications of the soul. Their paths converged towards the ultimate goal of reaching the God Seat. Once at the God Seat level, the soul could directly wield higher-level powers like rules (spells below Legendary were merely clever methods to touch upon rules). At that point, there would be no distinction between schools or professions.

Of course, in the early stages, the advantages and characteristics of these different schools and professions were quite pronounced!

Generally, Mages in the early stages would choose two schools for primary study and two for secondary study to ensure maximum complementarity and minimize weaknesses. This wasn't to say that knowledge from other schools should be ignored. Remember, all magic was an application of the soul. Knowledge from other schools could provide inspiration and insight, as well as increase your adaptability. At the very least, you should ensure you wouldn't be completely ignorant when facing enemies with different cultivation paths.

After careful consideration, Punk decided to focus on Summoning and Conjuration as his primary studies, ensuring he had the safest "ranged output" and "crowd control" capabilities as a Mage.

He chose Alchemy and Divination as his secondary studies. Alchemy could provide him with funds in the early stages, as the God of Knowledge, Oghma, said, "Knowledge is wealth." Furthermore, intelligent beings generally possessed the "bad" habit of "secrecy," making the knowledge of various spells and super-magic techniques outrageously expensive in this world, not to mention rare and precious natural treasures. These cultivation resources were undoubtedly important, and obtaining them, at least in the early stages, required indispensable funds.

As for Divination, it went without saying. Countless wars, both large and small, on Earth had already thoroughly proven the importance of intelligence.

Punk's original parents had left behind many Apprentice Level and Journeyman Level spells, but the number of Formal Level spells was significantly reduced. However, at least before reaching the Formal Level, these spells were sufficient.

For Punk, who possessed the System, Apprentice Level spells presented no difficulty. He quickly grasped the basic theories of one or two spells (though he couldn't practice them in his shell!). However, as his knowledge and power levels increased, the learning and cultivation difficulty would also increase exponentially. Punk estimated that even with the System's help, his learning and cultivation efficiency at the Formal Level would only be three to four tenths stronger than those of the same level. While this alone was enough to make ordinary Mages envious!

Generally, when practicing newly learned spells, Mages require incantations, somatic gestures, and material components as aids. These aids can deepen a Mage's understanding of the spell and reduce the difficulty of controlling unfamiliar spells. In simpler terms, they prevent the spell from exploding in the caster's hand before it's even cast. Once a Mage becomes proficient with a spell, these time-consuming methods can be discarded, and casting can be done solely through the soul. If the super-magic technique "Spell Haste" is mastered, even very familiar spells can be cast instantaneously. However, in combat, if a Mage has the opportunity, they will still try to use secondary methods as much as possible. After all, these auxiliary methods can enhance the spell's effect and power to a certain extent. The higher the level of incantations, gestures, and materials, the greater the bonus to the spell. And in combat, even a small advantage can tip the scales toward victory.

However, Punk's cheap parents only left him one or two common sets of gestures and incantations, and he had no material components on hand. Most importantly, there was no powerful mentor nearby to carefully protect him. Therefore, Punk, as a beginner, very carefully instructed the System to remind him not to experiment with excessively powerful spells. After all, even among Apprentice Level spells, there were considerable differences in their power, characteristics, effects, and learning difficulty.

Even if learning simple, small spells was easy and enjoyable, underestimating profound spells would eventually lead to one's own downfall!

After studying for over a month, learning several Apprentice Level spells, organizing his cheap parents' "knowledge inheritance," and accumulating a substantial foundation of magical theory, Punk finally awaited the day of his "hatching"!