Leon suddenly shuddered, emerging from his deep meditative state.
Leon sat up in bed, gasping for breath. He could still vividly remember what he experienced in his dream. He could even feel a bit of the burning pain he had received from the white particle.
Was it an illusion? A dream? Perhaps it was something else?
Leon began to feel a certain sense of bewilderment and confusion.
He had meditated countless times before, and each time had been a vague experience. He rarely felt anything, and even then, it was only slightly spiritual. As for the last dream… it was as if he was in control of himself while dreaming!
"Chip, perform a self-scan." Leon suddenly thought of something and gave an order to the chip.
"Beep"
"Starting host body scan…"
"Scanning complete."
"Saving self-test report…"
Following the Chip's messages, a new self-scan report projected in his mind.
"Leon"
Race: Human
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Condition: Healthy
HP: 11/11
Apprentice Mage [Beginner]
Experience: 566/1000
"Attributes:"
Strength: 4
Agility: 4
Physical: 3
Spirit: 8.03
"Skills:"
1. Copy Document
2. Reading Spell
"Personal Skills:"
1. Burning Hand
As expected, some abnormal changes had occurred in his body.
Otherwise, because the Chip could perform accurate detection down to the cellular level, Leon would never have known that the deep meditation had now increased his Spirit by 0.03 and his Experience by 2 (Note: For those who don't remember, he had 614 Experience, lost 50 with the solidification, and now gained 2).
This meant that the dream state he experienced was not an illusion but had actually happened.
So what were those colorful light particles?
The moment the question arose in his mind, the answer came to him.
Elementium!
Every person who had the talent to become a Mage would have a different elemental affinity. Those colorful light particles he saw during meditation were actually pieces of Elementium flowing through the world around him. As his elemental affinity was fire, those red particles, which were drawn to him like insects to a bright light, were, in fact, Fire Elementium.
According to the classifications of Elementium made by Mages, his affinity for the red Fire Elementium was the highest. After that, it was the green Plant Elementium and the yellow Earth Elementium. As for the others, he had no affinity for them because they were repelled by the Elementium he was attuned to.
As for the white point that Leon had captured during his meditation, it should be Dark Elementium. Since it did not match Leon's affinity, it would be at least ten times, or even a hundred times, more difficult for him to grasp compared to the Elementium for which he had affinity. Furthermore, although this Dark Elementium could still slightly increase his spirit, it would also harm his body at the same time.
In his memory, the few Apprentice Mages he knew who had Dark Elementium as their main elemental affinity did not have very healthy bodies and always seemed as if a gust of wind could knock them over. Perhaps the corrosiveness of Dark Elementium was the cause of their fragility?
It seems that the innate elemental affinity of an Apprentice could affect the efficiency of their meditation, and this efficiency, in turn, could increase the rate of growth of the Apprentice's Spirit.
Leon tried to remember what he experienced while meditating, and what he recalled made him frown. According to his memory, the number of white Dark Elementium particles was clearly much greater than the number of red Fire Elementium particles. This meant that, in this environment, the meditation efficiency for Apprentices who had an affinity for Dark Elementium was much greater than his.
How was this possible? The distribution of basic Elementium in this world shouldn't be relatively balanced?
Could it... could it be that the Tower Mage was doing this intentionally?
Suddenly, Leon's face turned a horrific shade of pale.
He had just remembered that the master of the Tower, Mage Eclivel, had affinities for Dark Elementium and Wind.
No wonder many of the other Apprentice Mages who joined the Tower at the same time as Leon mastered two or three spells and managed to rank up to Intermediate Apprentice, while he was still struggling on the path of a Beginner Apprentice. It wasn't just his own innate talent holding him back. It was that damned "harsh" environment.
Leon thought for a second, then abandoned the idea of meditating again. For a Beginner Apprentice Mage like him, although meditation could increase his Spirit, it could not replace sleep. Therefore, to restore his Spirit quickly and efficiently, calming his mind and sleeping was the best course of action.
Looking at his own Spirit, which had been reduced by half (Note: consumption rate, not actual reduction), Leon shook his head and smiled bitterly. Then he threw himself back onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep.
...
The next day, Leon, who was sleeping soundly, was suddenly awakened by an alarm from the Chip.
To his surprise, the spiritual model of Burning Hand had been solidified by the chip.
Over the next few seconds, all the data related to this spiritual model flowed into Leon's mind.
Burning Hand was a low-grade fire spell capable of engaging enemies offensively and defensively, but it was not considered a powerful spell. However, the spiritual model showed that it was formed by many magical words; 28, in fact. Each of these 28 magical words was nearly impossible to pronounce and had its own unique independent use. Although it might seem that each of them was unrelated, when gathered in a specific formation, they would become a complete magical model, capable of unleashing magical forces into the physical world.
If this task were given to an ordinary man, asking him to memorize 28 independent yet closely connected magical syllables to recite without forgetting any… Most mortals would not be able to achieve this, as merely saying a single magical word required great control and energy.
When he arrived in this world, he did not believe he could do this. But in this bizarre world, where Elemental Energy was everywhere, he actually managed it with considerable ease.
Of course, this had something to do with his 8 points of Spiritual Energy.
In the past, reciting the Burning Hand spell, which consisted of 28 magical syllables, took Leon about 5 to 7 seconds. But now that it had been solidified, Leon no longer needed to waste time reciting the spell. All he needed to do was inject his Elemental Energy into the Burning Hand model in his mind.
This meant it only took him 2 to 3 seconds to unleash a complete version of Burning Hand. Moreover, in the future, as he improved his mastery of fire elementals, the casting time would be even shorter.
But that wasn't the only good news.
Since this was a spiritual model that had been pre-solidified in his mind, it no longer required as much Spiritual Energy to construct it. The result of this was that the Burning Hand spell, which used to drain his Spirit by 2 when cast, now only drained it by 1.
Didn't this mean that the number of times he could cast spells in the future doubled?
This discovery brought a big smile to his face as his mind fantastically conjured many possible uses for this particular ability.
But then the Chip resonated in his mind once more.
"Beep!"
"Space for improving this spell model has been discovered."
"Please confirm if the host wishes to optimize?"
"Attention, this optimization will cost 1 Spirit per day and 100 Experience points."
"The estimated time for the task is 34 hours and 25 minutes."
Let me know if you need any further assistance!
Huh? Optimize the Burning Hand?
It sounded like something really good. But why did it consume so much experience? If any operation related to Spiritual models cost him so many Experience points, perhaps all the Experience points he had accumulated over the past six years would be exhausted in the coming days.
Leon calmed himself and took a moment to reflect on this optimization. After some time, he decided to decline.
First, the Burning Hand was just a closed combat spell. It didn't hold much value in terms of combat potential in Leon's mind. Sooner or later, it would be replaced by other offensive or defensive long-range spells that were more valuable, making it not worth investing in at this point.
Secondly, considering his current Spirit energy, he couldn't have more than 3 solidified models in his spiritual domain. Under this situation, where only limited slots were available, giving the Burning Hand a slot in his spiritual domain clearly did not align with his optimized path.
In fact, Leon himself would prefer to prioritize solidifying a long-range attack spell, and he had a specific spell in mind for that purpose.
It was a fire spell he had studied and researched for nearly half a year—Fire Arrow.
Fire Arrow, a low-grade elemental fire spell. The spell allowed him to form a magical arrow of Fire and shoot it at his target, dealing 7 points of physical damage and 18 points of fire and explosive damage.
With Leon's gratifying 3 Physical Points and 11 Health Points, a Fire Arrow was more than enough to kill him instantly. Therefore, throughout this time, Leon had been dreaming of learning this long-range attack spell.
But the downside was that, although Fire Arrow was a low-quality spell, it consisted of 34 magical words. This was the reason why, despite having studied tirelessly for half a year, he still hadn't mastered the method to construct its spiritual model.
Leon had invested over 20 knowledge points and a significant amount of time to learn this spell. He even postponed his research on magical knowledge. However, he was still far from the threshold of success and far from becoming an elite among Beginner Apprentice Mages, mastering more than two spells.
But now, with the help of the Chip, presumably this "threshold" was much closer!
Ignoring the fact that it was time to make breakfast, Leon quickly washed his face, sat down at his writing desk, and eagerly opened his magical notebook. Everything related to the magical model of the Fire Arrow, its magical words, the frequency of Spiritual Energy, and the material for constructing the spell; Leon copied all of it into this notebook.
Real magic was not as simple as ordinary people thought.
34 syllables of magic could not be recited at once as if they were written down. A spell could not be cast exactly like that. The entire process was extremely complicated and required the perfect combination of hand, mouth, heart, and mind. It was the result of them working together.
When reciting each syllable, Leon needed to adjust his Spirit to a corresponding vibrational frequency, and both hands had to perform a specific gesture.
Any mistake or delay in the casting process would result in… a backfire of the spell.
Although this type of casting explosion wouldn't kill an Apprentice, it would damage their Spirit and take a long time to recover. Moreover, if someone's Spirit was frequently damaged, there was a possibility they could suffer permanent reduction in their Spirit!
...
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