Chapter Twelve: Spell Slots

The novice mages at the Mage Association branch merely learn how to cast spells, much like elementary students practicing the application of the commutative and associative laws. But for someone like him, starting from scratch with theory was akin to being presented with the Peano axioms and asked to derive the entire system of arithmetic. It wasn’t useless, simply unnecessary at this stage.

Zhao Xu was ambitious, but no matter how solidly he laid his foundations, he couldn’t spend years to decades becoming a level 1 mage like Arthur’s native spellcasters. Players usually favored the fast-track approach, learning spellcasting techniques directly—much like skipping calculus in high school and memorizing a slew of differentiation formulas instead. Merely knowing how, without understanding why, suffices; otherwise, the first player mage would graduate in a year, not a week.

This accelerated path was a privilege granted to Earth’s players by Arthur. A year later, when players arrived in Arthur’s world, their intelligence would rise to match their character sheets and they’d be infused with corresponding spell knowledge. Their boasts would withstand scrutiny from native mages of equal rank. That was when everything would fall naturally into place.

Knowing he could cheat a year later, Zhao Xu naturally didn’t want to gnaw on this hard bone now. In his previous life, player mages who crossed over spent half a year to a full year digesting the knowledge given by the system; before that, few mages could smoothly advance.

“The teaching at Arcane Gate is different from ordinary branch instruction,” Antinoia said. “If we wanted to mass-produce low- to mid-level mages, we have the means—or rather, the local branches are already doing this work. Our training target from the outset is aimed at legendary mages. There’s no need to rush you into becoming a level 1 mage.”

Zhao Xu was a little stunned by Antinoia’s words. He felt like someone receiving a letter of admission to a transfer undergraduate program, only to find out on arrival that it was an eight-year straight-through doctoral program. Even his current undergraduate experience echoed this feeling; for actual work, technical schools sufficed, while their undergraduate courses mostly prepared them for graduate research. Most people were just statistics.

Zhao Xu understood and even approved of this approach. Having arrived at the highest institution for mages, not aiming higher would be a waste. The issue was, right now, he just wanted to play it safe.

He was willing to spend more time training, even if it meant several times longer than other players, as long as—

That was on the premise that he could learn more spells, access more hidden and powerful specialties, paving the way for advanced careers. He could exchange time for greater future power, not merely for a more robust knowledge system than other players.

The dream of becoming a legendary mage was simply too distant; he couldn’t swallow it in a year. A solid knowledge base—a capacity to sketch spell models, deduce how prophecy spells shift structures, know the release thresholds for evocation spells—wouldn’t add the slightest power to his fireball. Spell power was enhanced either by caster level or by specialties and abilities.

If Zhao Xu followed the path of deepening his spell knowledge to raise his level, it would be sharpening the axe before chopping the wood. Unfortunately, he had no such option—unless he waited twenty years on Earth before crossing to Arthur.

All this, Zhao Xu couldn’t argue with Antinoia. Realizing this, he could only frown and continue poring over the book.

No wonder he’d never heard of player mages from Mystra in his previous life; it seemed they were all stuck at school before crossing over.

Faced with this situation, Zhao Xu could only stare blankly, as if returned to his third year of high school, suddenly feeling the cashmere cushion beneath him had hardened, jabbing at his backside.

If “The Arcane Path” were simply a history of magic, he would have no trouble chewing through it; Zhao Xu delighted in everything from the history of physics and mathematics to the chronicles of certain games and anime. Yet this book, though it began with the era of ancient outer gods, used the evolution of spells as its thread, constantly referencing mysterious concepts.

When players completed their vocational training, they would confirm their skill systems and decide whether to allocate points. But even then, allocation required meeting prerequisite conditions first, just like leveling up wasn’t automatic; you needed enough experience to challenge the gate and see if you could advance.

Among skill systems were knowledge categories, divided into many branches, each needing points for advancement. If Zhao Xu had a thirty-plus modifier in Knowledge (Mystery), he could attempt a knowledge check and try to automatically search for some terms. As it was, he could only treat Antinoia across from him as a walking dictionary, constantly querying her, though this was highly inefficient.

At this moment, Zhao Xu didn’t realize that simply being able to open the book and not have his mind bewildered was already a form of protection.

As his reading deepened, Zhao Xu, without delving too much, could generally follow along, though he grew increasingly confused, until he reached the passage stating—

Spell slots were a concept explicitly defined by the goddess of magic. In Arthur’s spell system, everyone, regardless of profession, used spell slots rather than traditional mana points. Every person, each day, could cast a certain number of spells, determined by their class level and supplemented by bonus slots from attribute scores.

Every mage needed eight hours of rest, then an hour of meditation to determine their spells before they could access their slots. Yes, both mages and clerics had to spend an hour deciding what spells they would cast that day; they couldn’t wait until the last moment to choose what to use their third-level slot for.

Used slots were gone, not restored by a short rest, but only after another full eight-hour rest, ready for preparation the next day.

Mages had to copy spells into their own spellbooks to prepare them. As spell level increased, so did the number of pages required for copying. Unless they used the goddess-blessed book for copying, mages had to lug around thick spellbooks. If a mage lost their spellbook, it was like a chef without cooking utensils; no matter how many recipes, nothing could materialize.

Many mages were dragged into poverty by the cost of spell copying. Unlike clerics, whose divine spells were granted by their god and merely needed to be chosen—no such hassle.

Despite these harsh conditions, mages were still formidable due to their spell lists, specialties, advanced options, and items.

But Zhao Xu was more concerned about what he should choose. According to Arthur’s tradition, novice mages were granted a basic free spellbook, and apprentices could freely copy all zero-level spells into it.

A zero-level spell took up half a page, while a first-level spell occupied a full page. Additionally, they could choose three free spells for copying from the local Mage Association’s stock.

In an era where everyone was penniless, these three starting spells often determined the initial power of new mages.

Gazing at the book, Zhao Xu couldn’t help but fantasize about which first-level spells he should choose.