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"Alright, Father."
Leonard nodded calmly, ignoring Duke Carrot's helpless expression.
"I've been preparing to choose between two field-type spells: the Exotic Magic of the Spirit Wind Domain, the Ice Wind Dual System's Frostwind Field. And the Exotic Magic of the Light Illusion Domain, the Ice Light Dual System's Illusion Light Ice Domain."
"Is that so?"
The Duke nodded, his expression returning to seriousness.
"I recommend you choose the Frostwind Field. This magic can greatly affect the battlefield environment, combining the control of the Ice System with the acceleration effect of the Wind Element. It can also summon Wind Blade attacks at any point within the force field by expending additional magic power.
Moreover, when your strength advances beyond the Seventh Rank, it can prematurely exhibit some of the mighty power of a Ninth Order Domain.
The book 'Magic and Practical Combat' once said: a Mage is one who changes the world with wisdom.
During combat, a Mage should first construct a battlefield environment advantageous to themselves. Then utilize quick-casting Low Rank magic continuously to control, disrupt, and weaken opponents, gradually accumulating advantage.
It's like continually adding weights to one side of the scale until it's irresistibly tilted toward victory!"
Hearing the Duke's words, Leonard's expression became slightly subtle.
The Frostwind Field is a spell created by Carrot. Though 'Magic and Practical Combat' is unsigned, Leonard knew that the book was also written by Carrot.
Wouldn't this kind of self-praise seem a bit...
"I understand, I'll consider it carefully..."
"You don't need to pay too much attention to your father's advice on this, Leonard, just follow your own heart!"
Elena glanced at Carrot again, as the Illusion Light Ice Domain was a magic she created, yet she never self-praised like Carrot.
Duke Carrot pretended not to hear her words, instead showing a faint smile, his expression utterly natural.
"Moreover, 'Magic and Practical Combat' is a truly excellent book, written by an extraordinarily wise and great Ninth Rank Mage, containing much valuable experience and techniques. In your leisure time, you can read it multiple times."
"..."
Elena, who was about to continue speaking, paused, her amethyst-like eyes full of questions as she blinked, the corner of her mouth twitching instinctively.
Taking a gentle breath, the Duchess restrained herself from using magic to test the Duke's thick-skinnedness. Elegantly turning her head, she slightly pursed her rosy lips, refocusing her gaze on the food before her.
Leonard subtly lowered his head, his gaze drooping, as if he had heard nothing.
"Yes, Father."
Leonard exerted significant effort to restrain his urge to roll his eyes, managing to force a slightly stiff smile, gaining new insight into the Duke's level of "self-confidence".
......
After dinner, Leonard returned to his room.
Before heading to his room, the Duke gave him a ring containing all sorts of consumables needed for advancing to the First Rank.
At this moment, on the brink of formally advancing, he instead felt somewhat dazed.
Alone in the silent, empty room, a long-lost sense of illusion and unreality rose in his heart once more.
Yet the vast spiritual power surging within him reminded him that all of this was not false.
Advancing to the First Rank—
This was a very important node in Leonard's plan,
To maximize the advantage of his future knowledge, he needed to leave Moon Castle as early as possible, gaining the freedom to act outside.
But due to age and strength limitations, Leonard couldn't leave yet. Only after advancing could he embrace a legitimate opportunity to leave the castle.
Leaning against a black velvet chaise next to the ornate arched window, Leonard's mood became incredibly serene.
The bright and hazy two-tone moonlight slanted through the window, enveloping the entire lounge chair.
He didn't turn on the lights, as the physique from his Legendary Bloodline was enough to let him see in low light environments.
Moreover, since his gaming days in his previous life, he had been enamored with the enchanting moonlight of this world.
Tonight was the night of May eighteenth, the Double Moon Full Moon Night—
This was the result of him deliberately controlling the pace of meditation, based on the conclusion from the family's large-scale secret experiments that only by condensing the Spiritual Core on a full moon night could one achieve the most perfect advancement effect.
The process of advancing from Zero Rank to First Rank is an extremely crucial transformation.
Like a deeply laid foundation, how high a building can be constructed in the future completely relies on the depth of the foundation.
At this time, properly matching various resource treasures to solidify the foundation can yield twice the result with half the effort.
And when the foundation is formed, if one wishes to continue strengthening it later, it can only be achieved with some extremely rare treasures, arduously gaining improvement with twice the effort for half the result.
Relying on the experience of being a High Rank Professional in the past, Leonard always maintained a state of not advancing, purposely pushing himself to the limit.
In this life, he intended to build a Professional foundation far surpassing that of his previous life, the most perfect one.
Beside him, a miniature Sky City hovered on the writing desk, slowly rotating in the moonlight, refracting beautiful silver-purple radiance.
It was a gift from his second brother Evan during the Radiant Festival, a scale model of the Sky City.
The shape and parts of the internal structure were completely reproduced, even including a miniature magic defense system.
After reconsidering the advancement plan one last time and confirming it was correct, Leonard took out a dish of Dream Dust, with colors akin to aurora, placing it under the moonlight.
Upon just contacting the bright moonlight, the powder in the crystal dish silently and slowly began to combust as if encountering fire.
Transforming into a continuously shape-shifting gorgeous rainbow light, encircling around him.
This is a rare treasure that can stabilize the Spirit Sea and increase the breakthrough success rate, even the Olivendi Family only collects a limited amount of it annually.
To ensure absolute safety, Leonard used ten times the normal safe amount.
Sitting amidst this rainbow aura, he took out a half-meter diameter miniature Engraving Array Plate placed beside him, and placed ten standard units of Super Magic Crystal into the array.
With the advancement environment set up, Leonard took out a fingertip-sized transparent crystal bottle.
The bottle contained mostly pure water-like potion, but it emitted a faint blue aura resembling moonlight.
Moonlight's Mercy, of perfect grade, is only effective for Professionals below the First Rank, yet its refinement difficulty even surpasses top-tier Third Rank potions.
The most crucial point is only a true Potion Master can refine a potion of perfect grade.
It can stimulate spiritual power growth without side effects and further purify one's spiritual power, making it the best auxiliary potion for Magic Users breaking through to the First Rank.
After a slight glance, he uncorked the bottle and swallowed the potion in one gulp, simultaneously activating the Engraving Array beside him.
In truth, the taste and flavor weren't much different from pure water.
Upon ingesting the potion, Leonard almost immediately felt a faint throbbing pain in his head.
This was caused by spiritual power at its limit forcibly growing due to external forces, yet unable to further expand the area of the Spirit Sea, inducing the Chekaman Effect.
Leonard suppressed his discomfort, silently circulating the meditation technique, and his consciousness submerged into the Spirit Space.
Beside him, once the array was activated, the Super Magic Crystal emitted intense dim light, immensely dense Original Magic quickly permeated out, starting to spread around.
But under the constraint of magic effects, before these energies could disperse, they were bound by an invisible field.
As time passed, the Original Magic concentration within three meters of the array began to rise rapidly.
In the Spirit Space, Leonard strove to suppress the instinct to break through immediately. Instead, he controlled the rapidly growing spiritual power to start condensing faint magic nodes one by one.
He intended to use this extra spiritual power as support, to construct his Initial Spells.
After contemplating for a long time, Leonard still decided to forgo the Frostwind Field and instead construct another spell, the Illusion Light Ice Domain.
This spell can construct a 50-meter diameter spell area, densely filled with composite magical ice crystals capable of refracting light, enhancing illusion effects, and confusing enemies' magical perception.
Moreover, Spellcasters can spend additional Mana to coalesce ice spikes at any point within the field for an attack.
Compared to the Frostwind Field, the Illusion Light Ice Domain's magic model is somewhat more complex, with a different focus.
The Frostwind Field focuses on the slowing effect of extreme cold on enemies and the acceleration effect of the wind force field on oneself.
While the Illusion Light Ice Domain focuses more on the hard-to-distinguish illusion effects and interference with enemy judgments.
For attack and quick field control, the Frostwind Field's effect is superior, but in terms of safety and occultism, the Illusion Light Ice Domain is the unexcelled choice.
Once Leonard fantasized about constructing both, but since these two spells both have highly complex models, his spiritual power won't allow him to have both.
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