Introduction to Wizardry

Introduction to Wizardry

Zhao Xu's dormitory in the game was several times larger than a four-person university dormitory in reality.

After everyone crossed over, the first problem Earth's population faced was housing. Many people had never imagined that after struggling so hard to buy a home on Earth, they would have to start all over again in another world.

In the beginning, many people slept rough and lived out in the open, no different from homeless vagrants.

Zhao Xu, on the other hand, had directly settled his housing needs.

At the center of the dormitory stood a heavy nanmu table, its waist-high surface holding a set of simple Alchemical Tools.

His bed was to the left of the table, neat and square, with the mattress and blankets already folded.

On the other side stood floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining three walls.

With a single glance, Zhao Xu spotted A Simple Introduction to Spells, The Wizard's Path: Beginnings, A Study of the Origins of the Eight Schools of Magic, Shapechange in Transmutation Magic...

They were all books related to wizards, but Zhao Xu knew that if he opened any one of them, he would find its contents detailed and reliable.

At first, many people had marveled at Arthur's astonishing level of detail. Once magical texts began circulating widely later on, though, some started wondering whether modern AI had truly become so terrifyingly advanced that it could construct an entire system of knowledge like this.

Though they looked like nonsensical theories from magical tomes, they possessed astonishing internal consistency.

They definitely had not just copied and pasted a few medieval magic books.

But that alone was not enough to leave Zhao Xu so shocked that his jaw nearly dropped.

Directly in front of the desk stood a female wizard in robes and a cloak. She gazed at him as though she were gazing upon the passage of time.

Zhao Xu thought to himself, Arthur's wizards couldn't possibly be so cheap that they gave every rookie player one-on-one tutoring, could they?

"Hello, Mr. Midsummer." The woman did not lower her hood. Her face remained hidden behind a deep veil, and her entire body radiated an air of mystery.

"I am Antinoa, your instructor for the wizard tutorial. For the next while, I will assist you in completing your wizard training." The mysterious woman's voice was crisp and melodious.

"Have Mystra's wizards really become this wealthy?"

Zhao Xu asked in surprise.

He knew that even at the headquarters of Mystra's Mage Association, the most powerful of its kind, wizard instruction still followed a small-class elective system.

Unless the instructor was a Legendary Mage standing at the pinnacle of the world, the traditional one-on-one master-apprentice model generally could not match the quality of modern professional group instruction.

One-on-one apprenticeship was now mostly seen only among wandering rural wizards taking in disciples.

So upon hearing of this method of instruction, his first reaction was not delight, but suspicion.

If he were merely playing a game, then it would not matter.

But now, he had to study seriously. Even if everyone else reached level two while he had yet to leave training, it would still be fine.

His time at the academy was the only period in his life when he could acquire knowledge for free.

"You needn't worry. I am only here to assist you and answer your early questions. For your actual instruction, you can refer to the recent lecture schedule on the desk and attend whichever lectures suit your needs."

As she spoke, she casually handed it over without ever turning around, as if she knew every document on the desk by heart.

Zhao Xu accepted it without examining it closely and casually stuffed it into his backpack, though his gaze kept drifting back to her cloak.

The cloak glimmered as though made from gathered streams of starlight, and it could not stop a certain guess from rising in his heart.

Seeing that Zhao Xu was more interested in her cloak than in her, the mysterious woman Antinoa said, "If you are interested in this cloak, I can give you a matching set after you complete your training."

"Really?" Zhao Xu could not help raising his voice. Could the legendary graduation gift package for outstanding students actually fall into his lap?

"Of course. This cloak isn't worth much. It's purely decorative," Antinoa said.

Zhao Xu nearly choked when he heard that. He had almost let his imagination run wild.

A legendary wonder that could not be bought even with money had just appeared in his mind.

The Starfall Cloak—said to grant immunity to attacks from nonmagical weapons. Even against Magic Weapons, if one passed a check, half the damage could be negated. It sold for 130,000 gold coins, but it was always unavailable no matter the price. Even offering a premium would not get one anywhere.

Still, that made sense. On the forums in his Previous Life, the most extravagant graduation gift anyone had received was a greatsword worth fifty gold coins.

Most others had been dismissed with a weapon worth no more than ten gold coins.

For the next stretch of time, Zhao Xu sat quietly at the desk and read the introductory book Antinoa had given him: The Arcane Path.

The cover bore a strange illustration, like a mysterious vast web connecting countless nodes.

Yet its material clearly did not belong to this era, and it carried an immediate sense of history.

By the traditional principle that the older something was, the more powerful it was, it would be worth quite a bit if sold.

Only the author's name, Antinoa, ruined its value. Zhao Xu could not help sighing inwardly that people were not what they used to be. Wizards who developed this kind of artificial aging spell for no reason definitely had bad intentions.

As he flipped through the contents, he asked Antinoa questions about what he read.

This was why Arthur had blocked countless players from choosing wizard.

People came to play games, not to study.

So before they learned how powerful wizards were, many people were scared off by this incredibly bizarre training and switched directly to other classes.

What was even more frustrating was that level-one wizards were weaklings too.

Their Hit Dice were D4, the lowest among all classes. Even clerics had D8.

With Resurrection Stones being limited, for wizards to level up by Grinding Monsters without anyone to guide them was truly a hell-difficulty route.

Thus, in the early days, aside from those interested in mysticism or chuunibyou types, few people could settle down and study the magical knowledge recorded in a game.

Players only truly came to understand the power of wizards after the first level-five wizard appeared, followed by level-seven, level-nine, and level-eleven wizards.

Step by step, this changed the players' perceptions and slowly placed the wizard class upon a pedestal.

It was not as though players had never encountered what they considered NPC wizards. But in other online games, NPCs and players did not even use the same stat systems, so it was hardly worth dwelling on the fact that NPC wizards could destroy the world.

That was why, in the beginning, players did not think much when they saw powerful NPC wizards.

Little did they know that these NPCs leveled up just like players did, gradually building themselves up through race, class, Feats, skills, spells, saves, HP, items, and everything else.

Zhao Xu knew all this, but it did not stop him from being troubled by the tutorial before him, which read like a heavenly tome.

Logically speaking, shouldn't academy-style teaching have players attend classes in groups before gradually guiding them along?

Starting out with a private tutor watching him teach himself was rather bizarre.

The only thing that comforted him somewhat was that although The Arcane Path read like a heavenly tome to him, he could still tell that it was well written.

In particular, the entire book exuded the profound depth of Arthur's countless eras.

After quite a while, Zhao Xu asked questions here and there, and the female wizard answered every one of them in detail.

Still, the process felt a little awkward to him, like a purposeless road through a desert.

After flipping through quite a few pages, Zhao Xu finally brought it up. "Shouldn't you teach me cantrips or something first?"

Cantrips were a wizard's Zero-level Spells. Basically, every wizard mastered all cantrips.

Only later spells required wizards to rely on their own abilities to learn.

In truth, she had not even taught him basic wizarding knowledge. She had started straight from the origins of arcane magic, and he was already feeling conflicted.

No matter how difficult wizard courses were, there had to be some foundation. They would explain spell models, how to Prepare Spell, and how to cast spells.

Whether players found it tedious was one matter, but at least the goal was clear.

Antinoa remained perfectly graceful. "What is there to explain about preparing spells? Isn't it simply a natural progression?"

Zhao Xu was astonished. "How is it a natural progression?"

According to the records from the game's launch, the first player to complete wizard training did so only a week later.

That was the fastest, not the average.

One could imagine the overall progress of the players. Even when Zhao Xu entered the game eight months later, there were still people who had not completed wizard tutorial training.

For every class, being recognized by the system as level one required being able to use all class abilities.

For wizards, that meant being able to transcribe all zero-level spells and three First-level Spells, successfully cast a First-level Spell, learn Scroll Scribe, successfully Summon Familiar, and learn Draconic.

And now someone was telling him this was a natural progression?

Could these big shots spare a thought for weak players like them? Players did not possess those real levels of Intelligence right now and could not truly understand that knowledge so quickly. Only after everyone received bodies corresponding to their attributes a year later would it become a natural progression.