The Road Ahead

"Equipment is part of one's strength, nothing wrong with that."

"That goes without saying. Anyone else?"

"Then let me spar with you."

"You're quite reckless, volunteering like this... Wait, who are you? You..." Soth felt he hadn't done his research properly; how could a low-end association have a High Elf participating? If he had known, he would have realized that with the wealth of High Elves, their equipment would easily crush him.

"Don't worry. As long as you can hold out for 10 seconds, these are all yours," Karen said, producing a handful of magic crystals.

"You said it—just 10 seconds." Magic crystals had a wide range of uses and were hard currency among mages. Soth didn't even have a single one currently, so his eyes lit up at the sight of so many. He would hold out for 10 seconds even if it killed him.

Both sides began buffing themselves, activating their magic shields. Karen added a high-level Wisdom spell from his staff enchantment, nearly doubling his spell damage. Soth's expression turned grim.

The match began. Karen immediately used a staff skill to cast a high-level Meteor spell, and dense fire elements gathered above the arena.

Seeing this skill, Soth's expression improved. While the damage of Meteor was top-tier among high-level spells, its flaw was that once the spell formed, its trajectory was fixed. It was practical in large-scale legion warfare, but in a personal duel, it was like using a cannon to swat a fly. One only needed to spot the landing point after the spell formed and dodge. Even if one didn't escape far, the peripheral damage wouldn't be too high. Furthermore, with the arena's magic barrier, the spell could only be cast within the enclosure, limiting its height.

He knew that the damage of Meteor was heavily dependent on its height; the conversion of powerful gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy was its primary source of damage. With the height reduced, the damage naturally dropped, and the area of effect was small enough to dodge easily.

Soth immediately felt that holding out for 10 seconds wouldn't be a problem. He didn't intend to interrupt Karen's casting, preparing instead to flee the spell's range at any moment.

In truth, interrupting would have been difficult. Mid-level mages lacked counters or silence effects and could only disrupt casting through damage spells.

This was an enchantment skill; it didn't require Karen to draw magic runes, only to provide mana—oh wait, the mana was provided by the magic crystals—he only needed to channel it. Interruption was impossible.

The distance between them was too great, and the casting time was insufficient for Soth to run close enough to use a Shockwave or Dragon Breath to interrupt with crowd control. Soth's choice to dodge the spell's range was wise and energy-efficient. But was it really that simple?

Three seconds later, the spell formed, and a massive fireball smashed toward Soth from the apex of the magic barrier.

The center of the fireball's impact was roughly at Soth's heels, so he ran forward to escape the range as fast as possible.

Just as Soth was about to escape the maximum damage radius, Karen smiled. A magic barrier appeared in front of Soth, blocking his path. Soth immediately tried to skirt around it, only to find that the barrier was arc-shaped, curving inward toward him on both sides.

To bypass it, he would have to run back, closer to the zone of maximum damage.

In the end, he failed to escape the high-damage zone. The fireball struck the ground, triggering a violent explosion. Soth was caught right in the blast; his magic shield shattered instantly, and the force of the explosion pinned him against the magic barrier.

Previously, Antonidas had only suffered a shattered shield and internal injuries from the impact of Dragon Breath, but Soth had taken the full brunt of the fire element explosion. He looked charred, his only sign of life being the rhythmic heaving of his chest.

"Sigh, you were nowhere near 10 seconds. It seems I overestimated you. Someone, take him to be healed."

"Brother, do you understand battle mages?"

"Why the sudden question?"

"My level hasn't progressed in a long time. I want to see if I can become a battle mage and break through my current bottleneck."

"Where to begin... Well, how do we mages advance our levels?"

"By perfecting the magic runes in our spirit sea."

"Correct. As mage apprentices, we only need to use mental power to trace magic lines to cast spells, but those are level 0 cantrips, quite simple.

After becoming an official mage, the difficulty of spell tracing increases, so we must solidify magic runes within our spirit sea.

Magic runes are universal magic patterns, possessing intricate circuits where the magic lines of all spells can be found.

Orthodox mages advance by constantly acquiring knowledge and refining the lines of their magic runes, moving from quantitative change to qualitative change.

Battle mages simplify this process. Based on the experience of their predecessors, they remove other lines and specialize only in the magic lines of a few spells from a single series.

Because they specialize, they don't know many spells, but they advance more easily.

They pour more energy and resources into a small number of magic lines, allowing them to cast spells faster.

However, because of this specialization, their path is narrow. Very few can reach the Master stage, and the Hero stage is unheard of."

"Why?"

"Masters are rare because of a lack of heritage. Battle mages are a school of thought developed by humans themselves; without guidance from predecessors, they have to explore on their own.

Lacking a foundation, the path for their successors is arduous.

They are now beginning to disseminate knowledge on a large scale and establish academies, hoping to preserve their heritage.

The lack of Heroes is a fatal flaw of this school."

"What flaw?"

"It involves the key to ascending to Hero."

"What is the key to being a Hero?"

"Rules. Depending on the mastery of rules, those above Hero are divided into Hero, Epic Hero, Legendary Hero, Demigod, and God."

"God?"

"Indeed. Those who fully master the rules are Gods. Anyone can become a God."

"Then what is the fatal flaw of the battle mage?"

"They don't fully learn or understand magic. They are like a bucket full of holes and shortcomings; they are fundamentally unable to reach perfection and, naturally, cannot touch the rules.

For humans with their short lives, there is naturally a market for these 'fast-track' battle mages, but for us as a long-lived race, there is absolutely no need."

"Then, could I switch professions?"

"Mages are the best choice. For magic-based classes like priests or acolytes, are you interested in serving a god?

For physical classes like warriors or knights, do you possess the strength? For rogues or rangers, do you have the agility?

Don't be in such a rush; you've only just come of age, and you have plenty of time ahead of you.

Besides, we tested your talent when you were young, and it was decent. There must be a reason for your current situation.

I believe that every problem has a solution. You don't need to worry."

"But I have a premonition that time is running out. If I cannot advance, I won't be able to survive the coming catastrophe." Karen decided to play the prophet for once. "I have a feeling that a disaster will strike soon."

"What kind of disaster? Even if there is one, I'll be here to shoulder it for you.

Even if it were a disaster I couldn't handle, you wouldn't be able to grow strong enough to face it even if you broke through now.

And if a disaster truly exists that I cannot withstand, it would undoubtedly be a world-ending calamity.

In such a case, the World Will would grant access to higher limits, making breakthroughs much easier." So that's how it is. No wonder there was an explosion of heroes after the Black Gate, more than in the tens of thousands of years prior.

It was all because of the World Will, Karen thought. Indeed, without any cheat codes, it would be difficult for me to grow to that stage quickly.

Forget it. For now, I'll just focus on completing quests and enjoy life after transmigrating.