Log

It was another peaceful and bountiful year. People spent the day reveling in joy, celebrating Shieldmeet, the grand annual festival of Silverymoon. As the night deepened, the crowds that had enjoyed the day began to disperse, returning home to soothe the fatigue and excitement of their indulgence. This most beautiful city in the North slowly returned to its customary tranquility.

The bright moonlight shone upon the Jewel of the North, as if the Lady of Silver herself were bestowing blessings upon this city she cherished from her divine realm. At this moment, on the balcony of a high tower on the south bank of Silverymoon, a handsome youth with long, golden hair stood facing the scattered lights of the city, gazing longingly at the silver moon in the sky.

The youth's handsome face was filled with sorrow. In a tone only he could hear, he murmured, "May we live long and share the beauty of the moon, even if we are thousands of miles apart. The moonlight is different, yet the feeling remains the same. When, oh when, will I ever be able to return to that distant home of mine!"

For a wanderer drifting at the ends of the earth, no matter how beautiful and cold the moonlight might be, it could not soothe the melancholy and longing of a traveler far from home.

After staring blankly at the beautiful, quiet night view of Silverymoon for a while longer, the youth returned to his room.

He flopped backward onto his bed with its velvet quilt and whispered "System." Immediately, a light screen visible only to him appeared before his eyes. What greeted him was the Windows desktop familiar to netizens everywhere. He navigated with practiced ease to a folder named "My Logs" and began to operate the screen.

"1382 DR, Month of Nightal, Day of Frostfall.

Another Shieldmeet has passed. This is my sixth year studying in Silverymoon, and my sixteenth year since I officially arrived in this world of swords and magic.

In Faerûn, one can hold an adulthood ceremony at sixteen. According to my past life, I suppose I am now an adult who needs to be reliable and learn to bear the hardships of life without showing it.

Yet, every festive season, my longing for my kin intensifies, and I often dream of my past life, missing that ordinary but comfortable home.

Sigh, my family in this life is somewhat incompatible with the education I received in my previous one; I still cannot find common ground with them, and this year, I still want to roam outside.

Regarding the choice of my third-level spell, perhaps influenced by the deep-seated 'insufficient firepower phobia' from my home country, I ultimately chose Fireball. I must say, as a mage, being unable to cast Fireball is simply a disgrace. Truly, it is a classic for a reason.

However, I still have to consider the issue of survival. I'll leave the other spell slot for Fly; after all, a strategic retreat is sometimes the best choice. Only by staying alive can you deal damage; let others fight for the kills.

Although I recently succeeded in advancing to a mid-level mage and gained deeper contact with the third layer of the Weave, the goal of returning home remains a distant prospect. There is a series of ideas from my past life that I need to realize, but my current strength is completely insufficient. I must continue to redouble my efforts."

The youth was named Ryan Chris, the youngest son of the contemporary House Chris, a noble family in Waterdeep. House Chris was a respectable noble family in Waterdeep, and the head of the house, Count Chris, held considerable influence in the City Council. By all accounts, as a noble scion, Ryan should have been throwing his weight around in the family territory, carousing with his peers, and taking time to learn noble traditions.

However, Ryan had shown great maturity and indifference from a young age, displaying a keen interest in magical knowledge. By the age of eight or nine, he had strongly insisted on going to the magic academy in Silverymoon to study magic.

Lady Chris was initially unwilling to let her youngest son travel such a long distance to study alone in a foreign land.

But Ryan declared, "As a child, I have the right to be willful. If you don't let me go to Silverymoon to study, I won't eat or drink until you agree."

After several rounds of stern discipline, and seeing that little Ryan remained persistent, Lady Chris finally relented and let him have his way, though she did arrange for a personal attendant to accompany him.

There was a reason for Ryan's lifelong interest in magic; after all, inside Ryan's young body was the soul of an adult. In other words, Ryan was a transmigrator.

Before he transmigrated, Ryan was an unremarkable graduate student and a standard engineering nerd. After struggling to get into a top-tier university and surviving three years of being a corporate slave, he finally found a satisfying job. Unfortunately, just as he was out celebrating with classmates, he rushed into the street to save a little girl about to be struck by a large truck.

The little girl was saved, but Ryan died on the spot. In the second before he died, he was still complaining in his mind, "Damn it, I was just about to graduate, end my single life, and reach the pinnacle of life. This is too miserable."

Perhaps Heaven felt his life shouldn't end there. His soul was swept into a spatial rift, traveled through the dark currents of time and space, passed through countless worlds, and finally was born into the Faerûn World, landing in a good family.

Due to his experience in the dark currents of time and space, Ryan's soul underwent a mutation. His logical thinking ability improved significantly, he remembered his past life clearly, and he awakened an ability he named the "System." Most importantly, he obtained a fortuitous encounter during his journey through time and space, which was exactly what gave him the confidence to return home.

Though called a System, its main function was essentially a portable, large-capacity memo pad, equipped with a simple, dim-witted AI that could only recognize basic commands. It could record Ryan's inspirations and spell notes at any time and occasionally act as a diary. The Chinese characters on the screen, which did not exist in the Faerûn continent, were likely the repository of Ryan's nostalgia for his past life in this foreign world.

As an old bookworm who had devoured web novels in his past life, Ryan's acceptance of transmigration was quite high. The only thing he felt bitter about was why his cheat was so useless. He had wanted a system that could issue tasks and rewards, or a "Deep Blue" style point-adder that could increase his intelligence attribute with a single command. Unfortunately, the Creator played a joke on him and gave him a portable notebook.

However, after all these years, Ryan had slowly come to terms with it; having something was better than nothing. Moreover, as a mage, only one's own wisdom is truly trustworthy. Benefiting from the comprehensive education of his past life, combined with the scientific literacy cultivated as an excellent engineering researcher, Ryan had a significant advantage in learning spells.

He considered his success in advancing from a mage apprentice to a mid-level mage—who could be called a "Mage"—within six years to be quite decent. Furthermore, he had gained the favor of his mentor and was taken on as an official student, which was why he had his own room in the mage tower.

Yet, Ryan still felt his mastery of spells was insufficient. The path of magic was infinite, and he was still too green. Of course, if his peers, who were still struggling to promote to junior mages, heard his inner thoughts, they would likely want to kill him.

As a loyal mage enthusiast, Ryan had always had a soft spot for mage characters, whether playing role-playing games like WoW or competitive games like LoL in his past life. He often fantasized about casting fireballs with one hand and ice magic with the other, opening portals to travel the world at will. He had always been a deep-seated, middle-school-syndrome fantasy addict. Now that he had truly arrived in a world of swords and magic and could experience the wonders of magic firsthand, how could he not be obsessed with its profound mysteries?

"System, pull up my personal panel."

[Ryan's Personal Panel

Constitution: 13

Strength: 12

Agility: 13

Intelligence: 18

Perception: 14

Charisma: 18

(The Faerûn calculation method is that each additional point increases the base by 5 times.)

Spell Specialties:

Spell Power—Spell effects are increased by one intensity.

Still Spell—After performing a spell action, you can cast spells without consuming spell materials.

Rapid Memorization—Can quickly memorize spell slots.

Persistent Spell—The effects of cast spells will last five times longer than expected.

Ryan's spellbook list for today:

0-level (Cantrips)

Light—An extra-large flashlight, essential for walking at night, excellent for luring monsters in the dark.

Read Magic—Knowledge is power!

Mage Hand—Although it only has 5 pounds of force, it is truly super convenient; a divine skill essential for the lazy.]

Prestidigitation—Mom, I can do magic now, I could perform on the Spring Festival Gala!

1st Circle

Sleep—Whether against monsters or humans, it's top-tier utility. Who wouldn't want the ability to hypnotize?

Magic Missile—Low damage, but maximum insult.

Grease—Crowd control is the true path to victory. You talk about damage? Are the brutes in the party just for show?

Alarm—Safety first, life above all. Master the art of staying low-profile, and you can travel all of Faerûn without fear.

2nd Circle

Rope Trick—A divine skill for team survival. Only the living can deal damage.

Stone Bullet—Who said my slingshot was weak? If you've got the guts, come try my Stone Bullet attack.

Darkvision—Surely no one is unaware of the importance of vision? If you don't ward, you're just a useless support.

3rd Circle

Fireball—Fireball, the eternal god!

Fly—Stunned, aren't you? I can fly.

Ryan's Analytical Magic (Casting spells without the Weave)

Simplified Magic Missile—A simplified, simplified version of Magic Missile. It reduces power while greatly lowering the difficulty of casting.

Identify—Information is a vital asset, and identifying magical items is a major source of income.

Comprehend Languages—To be in another world and unable to understand the language—what a despair that would be.

Summon Undead I—Actually, skeletons are quite good-looking, right?

Ray of Enfeeblement—Necromancy is actually quite useful, it's just that the professors don't like it. Sigh.

Feather Fall—Mom, I won't be afraid of heights anymore!

See Invisibility—I hate rogues, whether they are pirates or thieves.

Fly—Flight is one of humanity's greatest wishes.

Fireball—Explosions are art.

Looking at the notes he had added, Ryan seemed to recall the happy times in college when he would team up with roommates and classmates to play games, or watch anime and trade memes with other otaku. After chuckling foolishly for a while and reminiscing about the shows and games of his past life, he closed the panel.

"Time to get down to business." Ryan quietly calmed his mood and opened the file in the system titled "The Third Optimization of Magic Nodes for Roland's Lesser Fireball." "Thanks to the genius of Archmage Roland, who invented Roland's Lesser Fireball, it maintains the difficulty of a 3rd-circle spell while adding Empower Spell and Spell Penetration effects. The annoying part is that the academy is so stingy; they only sell the original version, and the subsequent simplified versions actually cost extra money. Damn it, with that kind of money, I might as well simplify it myself!"

Ryan muttered curses in his heart, wishing that the greedy misers at the academy would encounter spatial turbulence during every teleportation and suffer spell explosions during every experiment, all while fluently using Riemann integrals from advanced mathematics to model and analyze the magic nodes.

"Phew, thank goodness magic is miraculous enough, otherwise I might have entered the ranks of the powerful prematurely. I never expected that even in another world, I'd still have to worry about my hairline. This is just too much, boo-hoo."