The Azeroth Continent's technological industry had practically ground to a halt. That sort of thing just wasn't popular across the continent. Perhaps short folks like Gnome and Goblin engineers had some interest in it, but overall, technological industry was extremely backward... At most, there were steam engines, and even those were only installed one or two at a time on occasion. As for the more advanced internal combustion engine, did such a thing even exist?
Here, swords and magic were the mainstream. Lighting and the like were no problem at all. There was magic, and it was no worse than electric lights! In the magical kingdoms of old, during the age of the ancient High Elves, the application of magic had reached an inconceivable level. Never mind electric lighting-even sweeping the floor could be handled with magic...
They had long sold the "Three Thousand Ways to Kill You" to outsiders! Oh, no, the "Two Thousand Magic Broom"! This wasn't the kind witches rode through the sky, cackling "Ehehehe" wherever they went. It was a magic broom designed specifically for cleaning cities. You deserved to own one!
But... could ordinary people afford one?
Paul had inadvertently given Lin Tian an important piece of information earlier: even a place with a population the size of Goldshire's didn't have a single true mage... Of course, there were a few apprentices, but not many.
In the human world, the requirements for becoming a mage were too high. With the three factors of elemental affinity, mental strength, and magical control holding them back, the chances of a mage emerging among the common people were vanishingly small. Most ordinary people with good physiques could only choose to become combat professionals, such as Warriors, or adventurers... The two were actually the same concept, except that adventurers were mostly independent mercenaries and the like, while combat professionals might serve the state.
Come to think of it, did the candles dropped by Kobolds contain gold or something? At a buying price of one copper coin apiece, anyone who could count knew it was an absolute bargain! Aige didn't believe for a second that there wasn't something else going on. But if the other party simply wouldn't say, what could he do?
Forget it. If he couldn't figure it out, he wouldn't dwell on it! Everyone had their secrets, didn't they? There was no need to cost himself this source of income out of curiosity...
Along the way, Aige had no interest in slaughtering the wild animals he passed. Experience had shown that, although they might occasionally drop a piece of equipment (why? Could it be because they had eaten the equipment's original owner?), they never dropped any silver or copper coins, leaving only a corpse behind. He could toss those into the Hero Space and find time to sell them, but Lord Aige was no longer in those hard times when he had to make a killing off a few wild dogs. The meager income was completely out of proportion to the labor he would have to put in...
If he were willing to learn skinning and leatherworking, killing some animals to level up might not be such a bad idea. But the esteemed Lord Mage had absolutely no intention of becoming a skinner and a stinking leatherworker!
What did Elwynn Forest produce?
If herbs were especially plentiful in elven lands, then Elwynn Forest, the backyard of Stormwind City's humans, produced copper ore above all else!
Besides detouring around numerous wild wolves and grizzlies along the way, Aige sometimes had no choice but to attack another kind of wild animal: forest spiders. Why the hell could these things even be called spiders? It made no scientific sense! Had anyone ever seen a spider almost as big as a person? They were everywhere here, and they loved hiding in trees and suddenly attacking passing prey!
This wasn't a game where he had a map and radar to rely on. He could only avoid danger by being careful. The great gentleman had actually been very careful already. With his flashy footwork, he had no trouble dodging those stupid boars and bears, but he would often fall into the forest spiders' ambushes without realizing it...
Once again, Aige avoided a grizzly cub patrolling its territory. It wasn't that he couldn't beat it; he just couldn't be bothered and wanted to spare himself the trouble. Under the cover of a few bushes, he advanced south...
"Sizzle, sizzle~" Aige was startled. That sound was a little familiar, wasn't it? The next moment, a forest spider leaped down from a tree, suspended by its silk like a marionette, and lunged straight at Aige...
"Fire Blast!"
"Frost Armor!"
He instantly cast Fire Blast, striking the enormous forest spider head-on. The blow interrupted the momentum of its attack and sent it swinging backward under the powerful force. It then snapped the strand of silk holding it and scuttled across the ground toward Aige.
He had learned Fire Blast at level six. This guy had it pretty good: unlike other mages in Azeroth, he didn't have to pay a steep price to learn skills. Whenever Young Master Aige reached the required level, he automatically unlocked and comprehended the corresponding spells through the system. Fire, frost, Arcane-none were missing. They unlocked as soon as he reached the level, without fail!
An even greater benefit was that the mage skills from World of Warcraft were the cream of the Azeroth Continent's various schools of magic. The three major schools already had no shortage of spells, and every one was excellent. Ordinary Azeroth mages, by contrast, could expend vast amounts of effort and money without comprehending any high-quality magic... Though that might not be entirely accurate, because, to put it pretentiously, there was no trash magic, only trash players!
All right! Of course there was no trash magic, but there were plenty of highly impractical spells. It wasn't that comprehending such a spell was a bad thing; it was just genuinely impractical... In a sense, that was trash magic!
The World of Warcraft mage spell list, on the other hand, truly didn't contain a single trash spell. Every spell had its time and place, as long as you truly understood the essence of magic...
In the Troll starting village, there was a mage trainer. When a Warlock player clicked on him to talk, he would say this...
"I pity you, Warlock! For you will never understand the essence of magic!"
It sounded a little like class discrimination, but if you immersed yourself in the history of the Azeroth Continent, you would understand what those words meant! To a mage who had devoted his life to seeking the essence of magic, the act of making a pact with a demon to quickly gain power, as Warlocks did, was unacceptable...
Just as that old mage said, I pity you! (Warlock fans, please go easy on me for this passage! I, Kushou, only wrote it because I once heard those words and they struck a chord with me. I actually played a Warlock for a while too. It's a very distinctive class!)
Fire Blast could be unlocked at level six, and its power increased each time the mage leveled up. (In the game, you could learn rank nine at level seventy, but this is a real world, so of course it can't be restricted by the game's rigid numbers. Therefore, in this book, once a spell is unlocked, its power will gradually increase with the mage's level and proficiency, eventually reaching its maximum. There's no such thing as unlocking rank two Fire Blast at level twelve. I won't explain this again later!)
Its greatest feature was that it was an instant-cast, single-target spell! In Hearthstone, it was Archmage Jaina's hero power. It cost two mana and could deal one point of damage to any target, and it could be used at most once per turn. It looked unremarkable, but in fact it was the most versatile hero power.
The key was that it could target anything. It could hit the opposing hero for direct damage, or hit an enemy minion with low health, clearing it away without costing the Archmage any health-for example, a Core Hound with nine attack and only one health left. This was very important. The Rogue also had a way to deal one damage, but hers was a weapon, so she had to send her hero into the damaged minion. While killing it, she also lost a large amount of her own health. Sometimes, when I was at a huge disadvantage on the board, I would fearlessly send my low-health Rogue hero into the opponent's big monster, achieving a glorious suicide... What a rush!
Take the previous example: Jaina could kill the Core Hound with nine attack and one health using a two-mana Fire Blast without taking any damage, but if Valeera took up her dagger and charged in, she would have to pay nine health for it... A hero had thirty health in total. Of course, this example was a little extreme; I only wanted to make it more memorable. The Archmage's Fire Blast was a ranged spell that caused no damage to herself.
If those were its only two features, Fire Blast couldn't be called Hearthstone's most versatile hero power, because it had a third feature... It could attack your own minions! Damn, wasn't that a rip-off?
A lot of people were probably cursing like that, but I had to say, I reckoned anyone saying so hadn't played the excellent card game Hearthstone. Being able to attack your own minions was precisely what made Fire Blast an advanced play.
For example, among the three-mana minions was a Raging Worgen. Its three attack and three health made its stats look a little scrawny, but this guy had Enrage: as long as it wasn't at full health, it gained one extra attack, and then... he got to attack twice. With an ability that awesome, there was no need for me to explain, was there?
Because its stats weren't great and its ability was so powerful, it was basically hard for it to survive until the next turn, when he could attack. (By default, minions couldn't attack immediately on the turn they were played, unless they had Charge.) And with three health, it was also hard for him to trigger the ability. He might die after just one clash with an enemy.
But when Archmage Jaina played this card, you could think of it as having built-in Taunt. The opponent had to clear him away that turn, or on the next turn, one Fire Blast on the Raging Worgen would produce a guy with four attack and two health who could attack twice, making the enemy suffer terribly! Similar minions with Enrage abilities included the Amani Berserker, the Gurubashi Berserker, and others...
What? The Angry Chicken?
All right! One Fire Blast would make this little life Enrage and reach six attack, and then... there was no then, because with only one health, it had already been sent on its way by that "gentle" Fire Blast!