Chapter 129: Promotion Requirements (3/3)

The next day, when Zhao Xu logged back into the game, he discovered that he was actually in his own dormitory.

It was only after he returned to the seventh floor and found Antinoya that he learned the truth: the method he had assumed was logging out was completely ineffective within the artifact space. His body had remained there the entire time.

Zhao Xu had originally intended to politely thank Antinoya. After all, it could not have been easy for a woman to carry him all the way back to the dormitory.

Antinoya, however, declared that she was too lazy even to walk, so how could she possibly have gone out of her way to carry him?

In the end, Zhao Xu never figured out who had moved his body to the dormitory inside the obelisk.

When Antinoya heard that Zhao Xu had finally finished copying all the first-circle spells, she was at last somewhat satisfied with him.

At this point, the only task left to Zhao Xu was to master Dark Knowledge (Tactics).

After that, once he completed his awakening, he would become an Archivist.

The entire process sounded almost unbelievable to Zhao Xu, as though he were simply stacking building blocks.

Yet when he thought about it carefully, he did possess a certain foundation in the principles of magic. At the very least, he did not need to start learning spell gestures from scratch.

That was also why people in his previous life had been able to level so quickly. Even when creating a new character, they could rapidly pick up many things again.

Otherwise, there would never have been warriors who reached level ten in a single year.

And Zhao Xu possessed foundations in both arcane and divine magic.

However, after hearing the description of Dark Knowledge (Tactics), Zhao Xu was somewhat puzzled.

Dark Knowledge was a series of abilities designed to deal with monsters. The first of them—Tactics—could be used three times per day.

The ability required him to do nothing more than make a Knowledge check.

After successfully connecting to the source of knowledge and passing the check, he would gain an advantage against the corresponding type of monster.

No wonder people said that knowledge was power. In Arthur, Knowledge skills could actually be used to fight monsters.

Activating the ability was rather complicated, however. When facing magical beasts, for instance, he had to use Knowledge (Arcana) to activate it.

Against undead, he had to use Knowledge (Religion).

Yet after reading through the entire description, Zhao Xu realized that it contained no method of awakening at all.

In the end, after pondering for nearly half an hour, Zhao Xu could not help asking Antinoya for guidance.

Antinoya was a dual-elite. It was entirely possible that her other class path was that of a level-thirty Archivist.

Given how few Archivists there were, Antinoya might even be the highest-level Archivist in existence.

“Do you know?” Antinoya asked him in return. “Actually, no one knows who the first Archivist in the world was. Just as no one knows who the first warrior was.”

As for the first wizard, there was no need to ask. It had been the first Goddess of Magic.

But what did that have to do with awakening the abilities of an Archivist?

Suddenly, Zhao Xu caught a thread of thought.

When he had first gone to the floating city, the black-robed wizard had said that another girl was also an Archivist, and that she had taken a different teleportation gate.

Did that not mean that there were still places where Archivists could be trained?

It was only because he had Antinoya that he did not need to attend those small-group classes.

And Antinoya had never concealed anything from him.

There could only be one reason.

“Mentor, do you mean that every Archivist learns Dark Knowledge (Tactics) by comprehending it independently from the ability’s description?”

“Your interpretation is not wrong.” Antinoya was seated at her desk, leafing through a tome. It seemed that reading was her only hobby.

No, wasting spells probably counted as one of her hobbies too.

Thinking of this, Zhao Xu felt a headache coming on. He had originally thought that the difficulty of becoming an Archivist was the same as that of becoming a wizard—that one became stuck at the step of copying spells.

From Li Tiange, to the countless frustrated wizards online, to the owners of usernames like “Is Being a Wizard Easy Today?”—everyone failed to copy spells imbued with that elusive spirit.

The Archivist, however, was exactly the opposite. One became stuck at the step of mastering the abilities.

That was certainly strange.

Especially when he considered that the Archivist’s greatest strength was access to the complete spell list. His confusion only deepened.

Suddenly, Zhao Xu stood up.

“Mentor, I’m going to the Library of Lore.”

Within an Archivist’s Dark Knowledge (Tactics), Knowledge (Arcana) corresponded to magical beasts, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) to aberrations, Knowledge (Religion) to undead, and Knowledge (The Planes) to elementals and outsiders.

Perhaps his answer lay within these fields of knowledge.

When one did not understand something, one looked through books. That saying had never deceived anyone.

Watching Zhao Xu’s back disappear, the hooded Antinoya began to hum softly.

The melody sounded strangely familiar.

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For three days in a row, Zhao Xu relied on his Knowledge skills and nearly exhausted all the skill points he had gained from leveling up.

He had also raised several of his Knowledge skills, yet he still received no prompt concerning Dark Knowledge.

That was only reasonable.

If awakening a special ability were so easy, people with such abilities would be found everywhere.

That was why feats and class abilities required all sorts of complicated procedures and rituals.

Even wizards, who placed great importance on learning, had to undergo an awakening ritual. The process for acquiring certain feats was even more complicated.

After letting out a long sigh, Zhao Xu silently closed the book in his hands, A Farewell to Aberrations.

That morning, he had even gone to Antinoya to borrow the Monster Manual again. He had specifically selected those five types of monsters and read about them carefully, but it had been completely useless.

So that afternoon, he had come to Arthur’s Monster Archives to supplement his knowledge of those five categories of monsters.

Yet he still found nothing.

Zhao Xu believed that there had to be a profound connection between the Archivist’s abilities and the fact that they were restricted to those particular types of monsters.

The Monster Archives was a place that battle-oriented adventuring wizards loved to visit in search of relevant information. Spellcasters studying the four core transformations also came here frequently.

Zhao Xu read until he was nearly dazed, but he still could not find the key to awakening as an Archivist.

“Little Brother Midsummer, it has indeed been a long time.”

A familiar voice suddenly came from behind him.

Zhao Xu turned around and saw the plump wizard Lin Qi, whom he had met at the Transmutation Lecture.

Lin Qi was also holding a tome. His chubby hands covered most of the front cover, but Zhao Xu still recognized the hoofed creature depicted on it as a succubus.

At the thought of this, Zhao Xu unconsciously moved his chair toward the corner, putting a little more distance between them.

“Haha, Little Brother, have you started studying transmutation too?”

Lin Qi sat down right beside Zhao Xu. Only after the flesh on his belly had settled did he continue.

“Having some trouble?”

Zhao Xu glanced at the fat wizard and wondered whether Lin Qi might have some insight.

So he asked, “Do you know how to perceive a monster’s weaknesses?”

“Weaknesses?”

“I think I’ve heard something about that.” Lin Qi suddenly fell into deep thought.

“Oh, I remember now.”

He then sprang to his feet and hurried toward the end of an entire row of bookshelves.

Five full minutes passed. Zhao Xu was just about to find another book to read when Lin Qi suddenly reappeared and placed a thick volume on the desk before him.

The book was covered in dust, and Lin Qi’s broad handprints were clearly visible across it.

Zhao Xu felt somewhat moved. He had no idea how many shelves Lin Qi had searched through to find it for him.

Lowering his head, Zhao Xu said, “Thank you for spending so much time helping me find this book.”

“Time? Not at all. It was on the shelf three or four meters behind you. I only went to the washroom because I ate too much at lunch.”

As he spoke, the fat wizard patted his belly.

“...”

After speaking with him for a while, Zhao Xu felt a little exhausted. He decided that he would be better off quietly reading the book.

When he opened the volume Lin Qi had given him, he discovered that it was a religious text titled Knowledge and Divine Power: The Path of Devotion.

The ability described in the book was rather similar to an Archivist’s Dark Knowledge (Tactics), though its scope was more limited.

It described an ability that involved abandoning a domain and converting it into a feat.

There were many books in this series. This particular one taught the reader to abandon the Knowledge domain in exchange for the Knowledge Devotion feat.

With it, he could likewise gain insight bonuses to attack and damage when dealing with monsters.

It allowed him to perceive an opponent’s weaknesses more keenly.

It was very similar to Dark Knowledge, yet also different.

With this in mind, Zhao Xu could only thank the fat wizard Lin Qi for his kindness before gently closing the book.

“Wasn’t this the ability you wanted?” Lin Qi asked.

“It’s a good ability, but I’ll study it if I get the chance later.” Zhao Xu spoke sincerely this time. In truth, he did think the ability was quite useful.

“Of course. The reason this book is here for everyone to read is that you can’t get past the divine threshold.”

Hearing this, Zhao Xu merely smiled. He had been blocked by all sorts of thresholds before, but never by the requirements of a cleric.

“Heh, don’t disbelieve me. With feats from the Devotion series, you can’t master them unless you’re devout to a certain degree. My aunt, for instance, really wants this ability, but—”

Lin Qi suddenly felt that Zhao Xu seemed to have become a little brighter.

Yet every spell on his body told him that it was merely an illusion and that nothing had actually happened.

With that thought, Lin Qi turned away and shifted his attention back to the female wizards who rarely appeared in the archives.

Zhao Xu, meanwhile, stared at his prompt in astonishment.

[Adventurer Midsummer, you are about to awaken the Knowledge Devotion ability. Do you wish to sacrifice the Knowledge domain as the price?]

He truly was favored beyond all reason.

When had Dark Knowledge ever been able to lie quietly in his status bar?

Zhao Xu sighed. Too lazy even to make a choice, he simply turned and walked away.

He had originally intended to return to his own room, but for some reason, he found himself walking toward Antinoya’s office.

Antinoya looked at Zhao Xu, who had been troubled for several days, and understood that he had begun to doubt himself.

“If you can’t awaken it, then change classes and continue advancing as a cleric. Haven’t you always been favored by the goddess?”

Since the transformation of his body, however, Zhao Xu had lost much of his former tendency to simply go with the flow.

He looked at Antinoya and said, “I am indeed somewhat desperate.”

It had only been three days, but Zhao Xu had endured longer periods before. He knew clearly that during these three days, he had gained absolutely no insight.

It was not the passage of time that drove a person to despair.

It was the lack of results.

“But life itself is a climb along the road of despair,” Zhao Xu added quietly, expressing the state of mind he had carried in his previous life.

“Then remember this state of mind,” Antinoya suddenly said with a faint laugh.

“Wh—”

Before Zhao Xu could finish his question, a stone tablet appeared before him.

At the same time, a prompt emerged.

[Adventurer Midsummer has read an ancient stone tablet and officially become an Archivist.]