Far Ahead

Medivh had no time to study the Orc Skeleton Prophet; he was currently immersed in the spiritual transcendence brought by the Spring of Time.

His accumulation was already substantial enough, and this Spring of Time was the flint that triggered the leap from quantity to quality.

"So this is what it means to advance to a full mage!"

After the state of spiritual transcendence persisted for a while, Medivh's mental power surged upward by a significant margin. He had advanced from Senior Mage Apprentice to Tier 1 Low-level Mage.

Having advanced to a full mage, Medivh opened his eyes, unable to hide the joy and pride in his voice.

Before entering Loran Mage Academy to pursue his studies, he had looked into quite a bit of information regarding mage apprentices.

For normal mage apprentices, advancing to a full mage was measured in decades.

Compared to those academy-style mage apprentices, Medivh was far ahead.

Mage cultivation required both talent and cultivation resources in equal measure.

With talent alone but no potions to aid cultivation, merely meditating to improve was extremely slow. One could train bitterly for decades and still not necessarily touch the spiritual threshold of a full mage.

With resources alone but no talent, the effects of cultivation-assisting potions would be greatly diminished, and mental power would increase slowly.

For that kind of mage apprentice, reaching Senior Mage Apprentice was achievable as long as they had enough auxiliary potions. The real bottleneck was the step of advancing to a full mage.

Advancing from Senior Mage Apprentice to a full mage wasn't something that could be done just by meeting the mental power requirement.

In fact, this step was extremely difficult. Most Senior Mage Apprentices were stuck outside that threshold for their entire lives.

To increase the success rate of advancement, the mage sages of old had invented the Ascension Potion, a concoction that could stimulate mental power, putting it into a highly active state of transcendence.

But this only improved the success rate somewhat; it didn't guarantee a one-hundred-percent success.

This step heavily depended on personal talent, on the mage apprentice's degree of control over their own mental power and mana.

Take Medivh, for example. He had met the mental power requirement for a while now.

The catalyst for his advancement to a full mage was the special Spring of Time, which was equivalent to an Ascension Potion.

During his previous refining processes, he had long discovered that every time he refined a new type of skeleton, a special Spring of Time would be returned, which had a stimulating effect on his mental power.

In terms of the stimulating effect on mental power, Transcendental Skeletons were stronger than ordinary skeletons, and caster-type skeletons were stronger than physical-type skeletons.

Therefore, Medivh chose to use his first resurrection of the Orc Skeleton Prophet to trigger the advancement opportunity.

A mage's rank advancement was a spiritual trial. If one failed, their mental power would be damaged, requiring a long period of recuperation to recover.

Even with potions that treated spiritual trauma, they could only shorten the recovery time to a certain extent, not heal it instantly.

Thus, there was no possibility of continuous trial and error. Every mage rank advancement needed to be treated with utmost seriousness.

For this advancement, Medivh was fully prepared. He wasn't struck by bad luck and succeeded on his first try.

In the joy of his advancement, Medivh tested the abilities of the Orc Skeleton Prophet.

The Orc Skeleton Prophet was a spellcaster. Like other skeleton spellcasters, he wore Bone Armor and possessed a foundational Bone Staff.

Besides the foundational Bone Staff, different skeleton spellcasters also had another unique foundational bone artifact.

The Spirit Cat Skeleton Warlock's second foundational bone artifact was the Spirit Cat Warlock Blade, a pair of magical claw daggers.

The Human Skeleton Mage's second foundational bone artifact was a Bone Book, which could store spells in advance, enabling rapid spellcasting.

The Minotaur Skeleton Shaman's second foundational bone artifact was a giant Totem Pillar, serving as their melee weapon.

The Orc Skeleton Prophet specialized in various curse spells. His second foundational bone artifact was the Cursed Sword.

It was a bone sword enchanted with curses. When the Orc Skeleton Prophet struck enemies with this bone sword, it could also inflict curses.

Time Skeletons only retained a portion of their knowledge from life. This Orc Skeleton Prophet had mastered three curse spells: Curse of Weakness, Curse of Bleeding, and Curse of Pain.

Curse of Weakness would reduce the target's strength and constitution. Curse of Bleeding would cause the target's wounds to bleed uncontrollably. Curse of Pain would plague the target with agony, wearing down their will.

After advancing to Tier 1 Low-level Mage, the age of bones Medivh could smelt increased. He could now smelt Blue Bones with a history of three hundred to five hundred years.

The bones excavated from this ancient battlefield were all fixed-year Green Bones, with no Blue Bones.

If he wanted to smelt Blue Bones, he would have to return to Kurd City.

Suppressing the urge to smelt Blue Bones, Medivh led the skeletons in excavating the ancient battlefield while smelting the Transcendental bones they unearthed.

The Blue Bones at home wouldn't run away. But if he didn't excavate this ancient battlefield, which was being eroded by the floodwaters, as quickly as possible, he would lose a batch of high-quality, high-year Green Bones.

Soon, he had gathered a complete set of Human Knight parts and began assembling and resurrecting them.

After advancing to a Tier 1 mage, resurrecting Transcendental Green Bone Skeletons was a simple task for him.

The initial level of Green Bone Skeletons was fixed and did not increase due to Medivh's advancement.

The newly resurrected Skeleton Knight, like those previous high-year Green Bone Knights, was a Senior Squire, just one step away from Tier 1.

He was a Flame Skeleton Knight, and the sound of his battle qi stirring the air was difficult to hear clearly.

Medivh called over his dedicated translator to help replicate the historical knowledge inherited by this Skeleton Knight.

Like those previous Flame Skeleton Knights, he had inherited the upper volume of the Flame Battle Qi Breathing Technique.

The only difference was the combat skills he had mastered. Among the three Flame combat skills he inherited, one was new and hadn't appeared before.

The Flame Battle Qi inheritance in Kurd City was richer. Medivh had the Flame Skeleton Mage record that combat skill.

After resurrecting the Flame Skeleton Knight, Medivh continued smelting the Transcendental bones that the Logistics Skeletons delivered in an endless stream.

Some time later, the skeleton parts of the Orc Transcendental Warrior were gathered, and he began assembling and resurrecting them.

The skeleton parts of the Orc Transcendental Warrior resurrected into an Orc Skeleton Berserker.

The Orc Skeleton Berserker stood three meters tall, with Bone Armor as thick as that of a human Skeleton Knight.

Their innate bone weapons were a pair of Hand Axes and a ring of Throwing Axes hanging from their belt.

The Skeleton Berserker had no complex combat techniques—it boiled down to one thing: chop, I chop, I chop wildly!

Their Transcendental ability was Blood Rage Berserk. The longer they fought, the fiercer they became; the longer the battle, the faster their attack speed; the more enemies they killed, the stronger their attack power.

When Blood Rage Berserk stacked to a certain level, they would absorb the enemy's blood to generate a Berserk Blood Shield on the surface of their body.

The Berserk Blood Shield helped the Skeleton Berserker absorb damage and heal damaged bone structures.

Blood Rage Berserk was not without cost. A real orc burning blood and qi to activate Blood Rage Berserk, while the Skeleton Berserker consumed Bone Spirit Power.

Only when Blood Rage Berserk stacked to the Berserk Blood Shield state was it costless—then it burned the enemy's blood and qi, sustaining itself as long as the blood shield remained unbroken.

The first resurrection of an Orc Skeleton Berserker brought a very intense feedback from the Spring of Time.

After absorbing that surge from the Spring of Time, Medivh's consumed mental energy and mana fully recovered, and his mental energy cap increased considerably.

The more he worked, the more energized he became. After absorbing the Spring of Time, Medivh continued smelting bone parts and resurrecting Transcendental Skeletons.