As soon as Fraser opened his eyes he walked towards the Academy market. This was the only place in the Academy where he could buy Spell Models.
Though there also was the possibility of buying Spell Models from Masters or Mentors in the case of Fraser, they were rare as the Spell Models from rank Magus would be way better than the basic one as most Spells were modified.
'I need to consider my first spell model as I will soon reach Apprentice Level 2. As Elise used one of her families artifacts to gauge our Apprentice Level. Surprisingly they are all still at Apprentice Level 3. I thought they were at Level 4 or even 5.'
The artifact worked like a measure stick, the more spirit you had, the higher the light would go and show your Apprentice Level.
Hiding his leather bag which contained his entire fortune, 300 magic crystals, under his robe Fraser arrived at the Academy market.
It wasn't really a market, a huge hall with many counters yet only one receptionist was sitting in a counter, an old woman who probably did a small nap.
There were a couple of students in the hall but most just flicked through a thick book which was on every small desk.
As Fraser arrived nobody looked at him, instead they continued to read the book.
The flipping of paper could be heard as Fraser moved towards one of the small desk and chose to flip through it as well.
Each book page contained a detailed description of the product, book or service the Academy provided and listed their magic crystal cost.
Fraser flipped through the book and even saw the available basic potion recipes and their prices. However Fraser shoved that information back into his mind before looking through the spell models.
Each spell model had an entire book page dedicated for the description, the power, the drawbacks, the weaknesses, a little bit of history and the magic crystal price at the bottom.
As each spell model corresponded to an element Fraser searched for a suited Darkness spell model.
The Element which got tested at the Encampment where Fraser joined the Howling Abyss Academy seemed a little bit irritating, yet Fraser learned from a free lesson that the Element you got to know on that day would be the element your body would be most suited for.
Most people would only have one element, but there were a couple who had more than one, two or maybe even three, four or even more. Yet more didn't always meant stronger, only more versatile. Also it allowed People to combine elements like water and earth into wood or plant.
However as versatile mostly allowed you to be ready for more battlefields, people with more elements were deemed stronger than the others.
As Fraser looked through the spell models he frowned.
'What do I want? This Darkness spear is excellent for offensive yet I don't know how that should help me increase my defensive abilities. Besides Dark Shield isn't much of a help either, pure defensive.'
Looking through the spell models there were a few common spell Models like the spear, shield or bomb. The different elements just added the element in front of those spells like ice spear, fire spear, stone spear, darkness spear etc., naturally some varied with names but meant the same like stone wall, stone shatter, water arrow etc.
The description were solid and really basic yet Fraser knew that these spell models were really the basic of the basic. They gave the solution for one answer and that's it. A pure offensive spell, a pure defensive spell and an AOE offensive spell.
Simple and practical.
Yet Fraser didn't wanted such a spell model for his first spell model, ideally he wanted to have something that could evolve in various ways. After all the stronger version of Darkness Spear is only a huge Darkness Spear.
Maybe even something that could help him in the future where he will get stronger.
The ideal spell would be something that is average but can be used in many different ways.
Though most spell models only varied in the names like Dark Scythe or Dark Net. There was one that caught his eyes which probably could be really variable. It was the Dark Rope.
To be honest it sounded dumb, but a controllable Rope enabled a lot of options. Strangling enemies, binding foes, whipping prisoners were only a few possibilities.
Reading the entire page for the spell model "Dark Rope" caused Fraser to think about this particular spell model.
The description on the page described "Dark Rope" as a flexible and variable Spell Model which can be used to control a rope formed with darkness particles. It also needed less runes to form the spell model than the other spell models so it could be easily used even by an Apprentice Level 1. It also costed way less than most other Darkness Spells, it belonged to the cheapest spell models in the element of darkness.
Which were priced around 10 magic crystals. Fraser heard that spell models would cost 10 magic crystals yet only the cheapest spell models had a price of 10 magic crystals.
Better ones like the "Dark Spear" cost around 20 to 30 magic crystals.
Even with all these benefits of "Dark Rope" Fraser still hesitated.
After all there were obvious reasons it why it wasn't a popular spell model. It had the option of being used for different situations yet it exceeded in almost nothing. It didn't had the penetrating power of the "Dark Spear" it also had little to none strong offensive power except binding and maybe strangling the target.
The Defensive power was almost zero and so the "Dark Rope" pushed you into support class which controlled the enemies and is really useless without the offensive power of a team.
Even the lesser amount of runes couldn't help it. You probably could create two spell models of "Dark Rope" at Apprentice Level 2, yet the spell "Dark Spear" could do way more damage.
After all if one spell model is able to do a better job, then why even bother with the inferior spell model.
There wasn't even the reason of being too poor. Fraser still hadn't visited any advanced lessons which costed magic crystals. He even stopped his experiment towards the basic explosion potion even if the AI could probably analyze the different fusion times and extracting times in order to create a colorless basic explosion potion which had more than triple the explosion power and range than that of the white one.
Now Fraser could be considered to be wealthy, though the wealth will quickly melt away when Fraser actually starts investing into knowledge and date.
'I could just go and buy the spell model for "Dark Spear", yet it seems so common for Apprentices to choose the most expensive spell model. After all it was proven countless times that the spell "Dark Spear" is really effective. Or else it wouldn't be so expensive compared to the "Dark Rope".'
Fraser didn't wanted to be common, a voice deep inside him wanted him to be special. Even if that meant to choose a cheap spell model.