The Talent Tree

Without wasting a single card, Aige collected seven portions of Crystal Kelp. He decided to give the extra portion to Keduote, since the fellow had asked him for it. The extra portion was no use anyway, because Aige didn't have enough of the other ingredients. He could only make six bottles of invisibility potion at most...

After accepting the ingredients from the apprentice mage, Keduote Beech immediately went into workaholic mode. He pushed Aige out the door and began sorting through his jars and bottles... On the continent, no alchemist was obliged to let others watch them work, just as no mage was obliged to teach other mages the magic they specialized in.

To keep the inept fellow from pulling anything, Aige stayed on guard at the door, in case the scene from their first meeting played out again... Aige had no qualms whatsoever about letting some third-rate alchemist get blown black as soot, but if the invisibility potion quest he had worked so hard on was ruined, it would affect him considerably. That was absolutely intolerable.

Fortunately, Keduote proved reliable this time. Before long, he came out carrying several small bottles. Aige casually picked one up and examined it for a while. The little glass bottle held barely enough for an adult to swallow in one mouthful, and the liquid inside glimmered with a faint blue light...

Minor Invisibility Potion: Puts the user in an invisible state, preventing wild creatures from detecting them.

Notification: Crystal Kelp quest completed. Obtained some experience and two Minor Invisibility Potions.

The remaining three bottles were quest items, so Aige couldn't pocket them. Of course, he could if he really wanted to, but that would severely damage his reputation and bring all sorts of penalties. Three Minor Invisibility Potions weren't worth it!

"Here, hurry and deliver them to my niece so she can have a secret meeting with her sweetheart! I haven't stretched my legs in ages, so I'm off to visit a nice place..."

With that, the fool swallowed a potion and immediately vanished... It went without saying that he was definitely off to sneak into the women's bathhouse again.

Aige made no comment on Keduote's particular interest. He decided to set off immediately and turn in the quest, then make a trip to Stormwind City. At the very least, he had to get that combat class identity card, or everything would be inconvenient!

The journey back to Beech Farm wasn't difficult. Aige had already traveled the route several times, and his level was far higher than before. How could monsters averaging level four or five stop him? He was currently level nine with 92% experience. Once he turned in Sally's quest chain, reaching level ten was a sure thing...

It was a familiar scene. A guard dog stopped Aige and barked for the farm's owner, a man who looked rather old and was presumably Sally's father...

"Who's there?" The man's voice was hoarse, and he held his usual hoe in one hand as a weapon to bolster his courage. By the light of the oil lamp, he couldn't easily make out who had come.

"Hello, owner of Beech Farm. I'm a friend of Sally and Kate. Your younger brother Keduote asked me to come from Goldshire to see Sally about something. Sorry to disturb you so abruptly."

"Lord Mage Aige? It really is you!" Sally, who came out afterward, cried in surprise. She hurriedly explained to her father, and the honest old farmer gave his daughter a few instructions before going back inside on his own...

"Please come in, Lord Aige! You haven't had dinner yet, have you? It's so late, and you still had to make a special trip. Thank you for going to the trouble. Did everything go smoothly?"

The girl kept urging him inside, while also remembering to ask about the quest's progress. It was vital to her plan...

"Your uncle was very agreeable. I've brought what you asked for," he replied with a smile.

"Thank you! Thank you so much! You really are a dependable man, my lord!" The girl beamed. "Please stay tonight. I want to show you proper hospitality..."

All you people imagining a happy-ending massage scene, go die for getting the wrong idea!

In fact, Sally had no reward worth mentioning. For a farm girl like her, having her benefactor stay for a meal she cooked herself was enough to satisfy her. In truth, Beech Farm didn't have much money either, and Aige was embarrassed to accept anything more. He took only a scarf the girl had woven herself... May Shate and Sally, these young lovers, end up together.

Notification: Invisibility Potion quest completed. Obtained some experience and one 1-star common neutral card, "Worgen Infiltrator."

Perhaps because the quest involved invisibility, the card minion he received also had an invisibility ability.

Though it was only a common neutral card, Worgen Infiltrator was still very good. In the game, its standard stats of two attack and one health for one mana were respectable enough. Its distinctive Stealth ability made it worthy of the name Infiltrator. Some decks included him, and if you came across him in Arena, taking one was strongly recommended. This was a good card with tremendous staying power on the board.

He could be played for one mana. Although he couldn't attack on the turn he was played, he had Stealth, and neither minions nor hero powers could attack him while he was stealthed. So despite having only one health, opponents could only look and not touch. His two attack let him selectively trade on the next turn with enemy minions that had low health and high attack, such as Knife Juggler, or five-attack, two-health minions like Stormpike Commando...

If there was no particularly valuable target to trade with on the board, you could simply keep him in Stealth, maintaining a threat against low-health creatures with special abilities. In any case, the enemy certainly couldn't hit him. But take special care: he was vulnerable to AoE, or area attacks. That kind of area-of-effect magic was disastrous for a one-health Worgen Infiltrator. Still, aside from a mage's Arcane Explosion, which few people included, the earliest AoE cost four mana. By then, he would already have been on the board for three turns, and the threat he posed would have more than justified his cost... It was recommended that you reveal him and attack of your own accord at four mana. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth letting the opponent clear him for free.

If you ran an aggro deck, you could also include him and attack directly the next turn, without worrying about using Stealth to threaten big, low-health minions. Two attack and one health were perfectly standard stats, so you wouldn't lose out!

On the Azeroth Continent, this card minion's characteristic was also invisibility, but unlike in Hearthstone, the Worgen Infiltrator's Stealth here worked differently. You could think of him as a rogue minion, able to disguise himself to a limited degree and approach an opponent without a sound. Moreover, his sudden strike from Stealth was the rogue's Ambush skill, which had a considerable damage bonus, though only for that revealing strike. Afterward, he was just like an ordinary minion. With his two-star attack, the revealing strike was almost certain to kill an enemy below level ten, and even against enemies above level ten, he posed a great threat... He was a minion of tremendous strategic value.

As expected, Aige reached level ten and unlocked two-star Hearthstone cards... What he hadn't expected was that he also unlocked the Talent Tree, with eight talents right off the bat!

There were three in the Arcane branch, using the level-70 World of Warcraft Talent Tree as a template:

Arcane Subtlety (Max 2): All hostile targets' resistance to your spells -10, Arcane threat -40%.

In the World of Warcraft Talent Tree, this Arcane talent could take a maximum of two points. Of course, only after investing both points did it grant the above effects of -10 spell resistance and -40% Arcane threat. But on Aige's current status panel, there were no talent points for him to spend, and Arcane Subtlety was already at Max 2 and shown as active. Max 2 meant that two points had already been invested in the talent, maxing it out. From this, it could be inferred that the system had already made all his talents in every branch active by default... Aige hid under his covers, clamping his hands tightly over his mouth as he cheered silently in wild delight.

Arcane Focus (Max 5): Reduces enemies' chance to resist your Arcane spells by 10%.

Improved Arcane Missiles (Max 5): Gives you a 100% chance to avoid interruption from damage while casting Arcane Missiles.

Two talents in the fire branch had been unlocked:

Improved Fireball (Max 5): Fireball casting time -0.5 seconds.

Impact (Max 5): All fire magic has a 10% chance to stun the opponent for 2 seconds.

The frost branch also had three talents unlocked:

Frost Warding (Max 2): Frost Armor and Ice Armor effects +30%; Frost Ward has a 20% chance to reflect attacks.

Improved Frostbolt (Max 5): Frostbolt casting time -0.5 seconds.

Elemental Precision (Max 3): Fire and frost spell costs -3%; targets' chance to resist -3%.

"Almighty system, could you be any more awesome..."

Aige was now caught in a state of such extreme joy that he couldn't pull himself out of it. If he hadn't been alone in the room Sally had prepared for him, anyone who saw him acting like a madman would probably have hauled him straight to an asylum...

He now had a rough idea of how the fused system worked. It had clearly made adjustments that were very favorable to him. Unlike in the game, where the Talent Tree unlocked at level nine, he hadn't unlocked it until level ten. He had complained about that before, but now all he felt was gratitude.

This was evidently a compromise with the continent's class rankings. The continent's divisions of strength could roughly be matched to World of Warcraft mage levels: apprentice mage corresponded to levels 0-9, junior mage to 10-19, intermediate mage to 20-29, senior mage to 30-39, magister to 40-49, Archmage to 50-59, grand Archmage to 60-69, magic saint to 70-79, magic god to 80-89, and demigod to 90-99. As for anything higher, those were probably godlike existences, weren't they?

And Aige had sufficient capital. On the mage's path, his potential was unmatched. One only had to look at how he had unlocked eight whole talents upon reaching level ten and entering the junior mage stage, corresponding to a total of 32 talent points... In the game, a mage gained only one talent point per level. Even at the maximum level, that wasn't enough to max out all the talents in even one branch.

But clearly, what the system meant here was: "Fine! You can have them all. I'll max them all out for you, even if it takes a little longer and I only give them to you once every ten levels!"