Do you know why some people are always singing the praises of mastering both magic and martial arts?
Although many orthodox professionals considered magic-martial dual cultivation a joke, because a person's energy was limited. Whether martial skills or magic, either was enough for someone to spend their entire life researching and learning.
When someone knew a little of everything, it often meant they were good at nothing. Magic-martial dual cultivation sounded wonderful, but in reality, it really was not all that great. Take bards, for example. That class was the standard magic-martial dual cultivator.
In fact, it was one of the most versatile classes of all. They could use divine spells, wield magic, fight while darting about like rogues, use ranged weapons like rangers, and hold melee weapons to brawl with enemies like warriors.
Sounds badass, right?
But in reality, across the continent, any adventuring party was extremely cautious about accepting a bard. The class looked comprehensive and balanced, but compared to clerics, they had fewer divine spells; compared to mages, they lacked mastery of magic; compared to rogues, they were not agile enough; as rangers, their ranged attacks were only useful for half-assing it; and as warriors... forget it. You could not expect people who played music to be particularly strong in a brawl.
So adventuring parties were all very cautious about teammates who could do everything but excelled at nothing.
Of course, that did not mean bards had no place at all. Bards with particular strengths were still quite welcome. For instance, bards focused on spellcasting made good substitutes for mages, while those who specialized in flanking and harassment were also decent choices.
But overall, powerful bards were rare, and those who reached the Legendary level were even rarer.
That was the price of magic-martial dual cultivation.
But