The Defector, Martinst

There was no helping it. Ye Fengxing had never played a mage before and wasn't particularly familiar with operating a magic device, so a few small mistakes on his first attempt were inevitable. No matter how badass his skills were, he was still only human, not a GM.

Of course, that wasn't to say GMs weren't human...

"I still need more practice." Ye Fengxing deliberately ran with his back to his target while controlling his magic device to fire Magic Missiles. This kind of basic practice was dull, boring, and a royal pain in the ass, but it was absolutely necessary. Because it targeted a specific weakness, it also produced results the fastest. Few people had the patience to keep doing it over and over, though.

After practicing for a while, Ye Fengxing discovered that this was no easy task... He was more accustomed to using his body to control the things he launched, after all. That was why he could turn an otherwise unremarkable skill like Mighty Throw into something spectacular.

Ask Ye Fengxing to pluck flowers and leaves and hit a target a hundred paces away? Sure! No problem! Piece of cake! But spells... They really had him tearing his hair out.

"Like hell I can't do this!" Plenty of people knew his temperament: he was as stubborn as a mule! The more "difficult," "complicated," or "impossible" something was, the more fired up he got about doing it!

Spells released by a magic device didn't require players to activate Soul Lock to aim. The device would automatically target and fire, with its accuracy determined by the player's own attributes.

Generally speaking, a magic device's spells were more accurate when the player faced the target, and less likely to hit when they faced away. The exact figures depended on how high the player's Spirit attribute was. However, elite players like Lan Xi, who could divide their attention to control their magic devices, weren't particularly affected by this mechanic. Facing you or facing away made no difference-they would hit you either way!

Since Ye Fengxing had chosen to play a mage, he naturally intended to play one well. If Lan Xi could do it, then he, Ye Fengxing, had to be able to do it too!

For several hours straight, he focused entirely on killing Fuckyou, barely bothering to loot their bodies unless one happened to be close enough to grab something in passing. Naturally, this left the ground covered in Fuckyou corpses. (Normally, if a monster's drops weren't collected after it was killed, its corpse would remain for a long time.)

Even so, Ye Fengxing had long since collected more than a hundred Magic Core Shards. The few low-level mages nearby stared in amazement, and some even called their friends over to watch. After all, such a fluid, seamless way of grinding monsters was quite a pleasure to behold.

After killing a few more Fuckyou, Ye Fengxing snapped his fingers and began running around looting the corpses. His practice had given him some insight into making spells curve. After all, he had exceptionally strong natural advantages in this area. So long as he put in the effort, he would get twice the results for half the work.

It was like playing basketball. If you were built like Yao Ming, ordinary people couldn't stop you no matter what they tried!

Just look at Sakuragi Hanamichi. He might have started out as a complete basketball idiot, but he had the body of a beast. Someone who could jump high enough to smack his head against the backboard was rare even in the NBA. With physical gifts like those, how could he possibly learn basketball slowly?

In the practice of ancient martial arts, training essence, energy, and spirit was often a three-in-one process. Moreover, once a practitioner reached a certain level, cultivating the spirit became especially important! Throughout history, countless martial artists had stumbled at the threshold of a higher realm, all because they had neglected this aspect.

Ye Fengxing had always taken that lesson to heart. Ever since he began practicing martial arts, he had placed great importance on training in this area. He truly was extraordinarily gifted, too. By now, his mental power had reached a level far beyond anything ordinary people could imagine.

Magic was essentially "using one's own will to control the Elemental Power of nature." What one actually used that power for was another matter. In any case, with his level of mental power, learning spells really was as easy as reaching into his pocket.

Ignoring the spectators' various looks, he returned straight to his mentor Aston's residence and handed him a hundred Magic Core Shards.

The old Dragonkin looked him up and down, then suddenly remarked, "Your clothes are rather clean."

Ye Fengxing froze, baffled by the comment. He simply kept quiet and chuckled twice.

Was that old fellow praising me? Saying I killed monsters without losing any health? After some private consideration, he arrived at that conclusion. And on second thought, it was true. He had spent all that time farming Magic Core Shards without letting a single monster touch him. Of course his clothes were clean.

The old Dragonkin spoke again. "Young man, you've made me see you in a new light. Well? Would you like to take the next test? If you complete it, I can consider letting you leave your apprentice status behind."

System notification: Accept the quest [Mentor's Trial II]?

"Accept."

Ye Fengxing read through the quest carefully and discovered that it was no simple task. It required him to find a criminal wanted by the Mage Guild, a fellow named "Traitor Martinst."

During his lifetime, this fellow had been a Dragonkin mage who deeply admired a human Saint-Rank Archmage on the Cloudsoar continent. Unfortunately, his natural gifts were poor, and he had little aptitude for magic. Although his racial advantages as a Dragonkin had allowed him to become a mage, his mentor had never liked him, and he had fared quite badly.

Martinst had been born broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, with a powerful build. Close-quarters combat had always been his specialty. Precisely because of this, his mentor often mocked him as the "Apprentice Mage with Muscles for Brains."

Indeed, Martinst had studied magic for five whole years, yet remained a mere apprentice mage... All because his mentor had refused to issue his apprentice graduation certificate. Without a mentor's approval, even an apprentice with sufficient magical proficiency couldn't gain recognition from the Mage Guild.

Martinst was frequently mocked by his fellow apprentices, senior and junior alike. Though he had always worked hard, everyone seized on just how long those efforts had continued and turned him into a laughingstock over their meals and drinks.

Gradually, Martinst grew quiet and withdrawn, shutting himself in a little dark room all day to continue practicing alone. Since he had few friends to begin with, nobody paid much attention to his behavior. If he wanted to shut himself away, then let him. They weren't his parents; it wasn't their responsibility to worry about whether he might go mad someday.

At one routine teaching session, Martinst timidly asked his mentor for guidance on one of his spells-a "combo" that combined a combat technique with magic. It had to be said that the lad had quite an inventive mind. Though this combo was still immature, his innovative thinking deserved encouragement.

Reality was always cruel. Martinst never imagined that what awaited him would be an utterly scathing reprimand. "Idiot! You absolute idiot! Do you think you're one of those great heroes of old? You actually dream of training in both combat and magic? Why don't you piss on the ground and take a good look at your reflection? You're nothing but a crude, ugly, dim-witted Dragonkin! Your father despises you and won't even acknowledge you. Your mother... Oh, my apologies. You Dragonkin usually don't know who your mothers are. Martin, you need to see yourself for what you are. I've never recommended that you study magic, but you've stubbornly insisted on it all this time. And now you actually dream of learning the combat methods of epic heroes... Your stubbornness and stupidity have exhausted my patience. Martin, I've decided to strip you of your apprenticeship. From now on, you're a Free Apprentice. Never again tell anyone you're an apprentice of mine."

Young Martinst was expelled from his mentor's tutelage. Unwilling to accept defeat, he sought instruction at the Mage Guild, only to be thrown out again in less than three months. And so, the young Dragonkin fell into despair... With nowhere left to turn, he lost his way and strayed down the wrong path.

The quest description was quite detailed, and Ye Fengxing read it carefully. However, the account was incomplete. In the end, it only said that Martinst had become a Necromancer, without providing any genuinely useful information.

"What a tragic life," he sighed. He was just about to set off when the old Dragonkin spoke behind him. "Tragic? Perhaps death was merely another beginning for him. Perhaps magic itself wasn't what he sought. Hmph. This world is full of shortsighted fools. What do they know of magic? Young man, if luck favors you, be sure to keep an eye out for what that lad Martin stole. I will destroy it myself. Remember, your opponent is powerful. Never attempt to confront him head-on. I'll teach you a couple of ways to escape."

A golden light flashed, and Ye Fengxing learned two more skills.

Blink: Teleports the caster to any location within 20 meters. Removes any stun, immobilization, or slowing effects currently affecting the caster. Instant cast. Mana cost: 40. Cooldown: 15 seconds.

Wind Veil: Wind elements surround the caster, concealing them in the air. Enemy targets cannot see the caster. The spell automatically ends if the caster attacks or takes damage. Cannot be activated in combat. Instant cast. Mana cost: 50. Cooldown: 8 seconds.

Holy shit! Mages in Cloudsoar are this badass? Ye Fengxing nearly shouted aloud. The moment he read the descriptions of those two skills, he could no longer keep his cool!

Based on his experience in Light of Freedom, a mage's most iconic skill was undoubtedly Blink. It was the skill melee classes hated most. A mage's power had a great deal to do with Blink, because... it could remove stuns!

As everyone knew, stun effects were ridiculously powerful in PvP! Once a character was stunned, they could only stand helplessly in place, unable to move or use any skills. Only certain special crowd-control-breaking skills could remove the effect.

When it came to killing people, stun was unquestionably the strongest hard crowd-control effect!

As for Blink, put it this way... Across all classes, there were only a handful of skills that could remove stuns, and Blink happened to have the shortest cooldown of them all!

Anyone who had played PvP knew that the hardest characters to kill generally came in two varieties: Shield Warriors with high defense and massive health pools, and mages with a ridiculous number of crowd-control-breaking skills.

Logically, mages ought to have been the most fragile of all classes, since their defensive attributes were the lowest. Yet the system had given them powerful crowd-control and crowd-control-breaking abilities to compensate for their lack of defense.