Magic Capital

Chapter 7: Magic Capital

"Player, please select 0–2 flaws. These flaws cannot be removed. Please choose carefully, or forgo selection."

For some reason, the system prompt sounded unusually urgent, as if none of this should have existed.

A full screen of flaw options appeared before Zhao Xu.

Fortunately, the area around the Heavenly Ladder had long been shrouded in white light. Otherwise, people afraid of heights would not even have been able to make their selections.

Zhao Xu's attention was drawn to the number in the lower-right corner.

10.

9.

8.

7.

Even Zhao Xu was not foolish enough to miss that this was the countdown for selecting flaws. The Flaw System had opened discreetly, and the time given for selection was extremely limited.

Not to mention that it had not even explained the exact benefits.

Combined with the system prompt's rather ambiguous wording, it sounded as though he would not lose anything by choosing nothing.

"Vulnerable."

"Clerical Personnel."

Zhao Xu did not have the energy to browse through the entire list again. He could only find two flaws related to melee combat.

Vulnerable: You are not skilled at protecting yourself.

Effect: Your defense -1 level.

Clerical Personnel: You are completely unskilled in melee combat.

Effect: All your melee attacks -2 levels.

Once the countdown officially ended, the entire Flaw System list vanished.

On Zhao Xu's personal panel, only the descriptions of the two flaws he had just selected remained, placed squarely within the feat list—

Feat (Human racial bonus): Pending

Feat (Level 1): Pending

Feat (Flaw 1): Pending

Feat (Flaw 2): Pending

In Arthurian World, a person's feats were generally obtained through vocational training. If someone had not chosen the human race and lacked both the perseverance and luck to activate the Flaw System—

Then in terms of feats alone, they would already be three behind Zhao Xu.

As the experts had once put it, feats were freely chosen abilities.

He simply had three more abilities than everyone else.

As for the consequences brought by the flaws, Zhao Xu thought about it and felt that he could still accept them.

AC was essentially defense. Everyone was born with a fixed 10 points of defense, then various bonuses were added on top, such as Dexterity adjustments.

A player's attack power, meanwhile, was their base attack bonus combined with a series of bonuses, such as their Strength modifier.

In his Previous Life, Zhao Xu had been a level 5 Fighter. His attack had reached the fifth tier, and with a 4-point Strength modifier adding another four tiers, his attack bonus had been nine tiers.

Arthurian World used the d20 System. A d20 was a twenty-sided die rolled to produce a result from 1 to 20.

Likewise, a d6 was a six-sided die rolled for a value.

3d6 meant the sum of three six-sided dice.

By choosing flaws now, Zhao Xu was sacrificing attack and defense, clearly intending to hold out for the late game.

Gradually, as Zhao Xu continued pondering the gains and losses from earlier, he noticed that the scene before him was beginning to blur.

The entire world slowly darkened, as though he were falling into a dream.

In a daze—

Zhao Xu suddenly woke up. He found himself dressed in linen clothes and standing on a bluestone stairway. It was clearly noon, yet he was covered by a patch of shadow, as if enormous clouds hung overhead.

Zhao Xu carefully observed his surroundings. Most of the people were native residents of Arthurian World. A few looked at him curiously, while players dressed like him were comparatively rare.

The streets were quite clean, though they were covered in all kinds of mysterious symbols he could not understand.

At the same time, the information panel beneath his Character Card kept refreshing.

The Character Card and information panel were auxiliary prompt tools available to every Arthurian World player.

They recorded each person's real-time Character Card and all manner of changing information.

"Prompt 1: Please use the letter of introduction in your pack to attend the Mage Apprentice course at the local magic academy and complete formal vocational training."

"Prompt 2: Please use the letter of introduction in your pack to receive Cleric apprenticeship training at the temple of a Neutral deity in this town and complete formal vocational training. (The temple of Goddess of Magic Sislvina is recommended.)"

At that moment, Zhao Xu also noticed that there really were some items in his backpack.

At this time, many large towns throughout Arthurian World were filled with players who had climbed the Heavenly Ladder and chosen their classes.

Arthurian World had no such thing as beginner villages. There were only towns and villages. Players were generally arranged to appear in major towns, because only those places had complete guilds for every profession and were qualified to provide training.

Everyone still had system arrangements now, but a year later, entering these training guilds would require paying a price.

If they truly had no money, they would have to sign contracts and serve the guilds for a certain period after completing their training.

What was even more real was that the towns where they had been born truly existed. Even the figures everyone regarded as game NPCs would become living, breathing people just like them after the mass transmigration.

However, although Zhao Xu knew what he needed to do, he had to face one fact.

These towns truly existed in Arthurian World. They were not identical beginner villages copied and pasted over and over. So while he knew the layout of Winter City from before, he had no idea where he was now.

Much less where the training locations were.

Still, judging from the towering, majestic city walls in the distance, this was surely no small place.

With that thought, he directly took the two letters from his pack.

The recommendation letters would always explain where this was.

Zhao Xu had a 3-point Intelligence modifier, so he was naturally able to master three additional languages. He did not actually need to study them; he merely had to go through the motions. He did not understand them himself, but the system would automatically translate them for him.

Only after the transmigration would the memories of those languages truly be instilled in everyone's minds.

Among them, Common Tongue, shared by countless realms and billions of races in Arthurian World, was basically locked in by the system as a language everyone had to know and did not take up a slot. He would decide what the other three slots would automatically teach him later.

Most people only had one recommendation letter. Zhao Xu had two because he possessed the special Dual Elite class.

Smiling, he spread open the parchment to see exactly where he was.

"Mystra." The words entered his sight, and Zhao Xu's hands could not help trembling.

Mystra, the Land of Becoming a God for the Goddess of Magic.

Here, magic ruled all.

Zhao Xu immediately understood where the shadow beneath his feet came from, and he raised his head.

Above him floated one magical Floating City after another.