Chapter 10

Time passed in the blink of an eye, and when Lu Yuan looked up, a year had already gone by.

During this year, many things happened.

After becoming Habbas Dren's assistant, Lu Yuan began to display his talent in forging. With the high attribute bonus, his achievements in this field were truly remarkable. After making a name for himself in the fields of potions, arrow enchantments, and weapon making, he successfully created his first enchanted chainmail, becoming an expert in four domains. This achievement made him the first non-mage assistant of Master Habbas Dren.

Becoming an assistant meant that he had his own independent laboratory to conduct his own research, he could access Master Habbas Dren's private library instead of the library of the Magic Emporium, and he received a 5% commission on each product produced! Yes, before this, no matter how long he worked, it was always unpaid labor.

In the following six months, he stayed in the laboratory except for a few visits to the Thieves' Guild. After six months, Lu Yuan announced two things. First, he successfully analyzed the formula for the "King of Thieves" potion, making it possible for the Magic Emporium to produce this potion. Moreover, he would enjoy a 20% share of the potion's profits for ten years! Of course, the reason for such a high profit was more due to the second piece of news—he successfully analyzed the first-level spell "Mage Armor" and became a formal mage!

He was sixteen that year.

In terms of age, he was quite ordinary, as many geniuses could cast first-level spells at the age of five or six. To be frank, those sorcerers who relied on their looks were even more so.

Only Habbas Dren knew of his genius, as only Habbas Dren knew the environment in which he broke through to become a first-level mage. Therefore, his gift was a five-year lenient contract, a "Junior Bag of Holding" with a 16-cubic-foot (about 5 cubic meters) space, and a message: "Don't think you like me, and don't give up the drive to move forward!"

The system then issued a task called "Habbas Dren's Love," which Lu Yuan planned to let it rot in the task list forever.

Remember when playing Baldur's Gate, the protagonist could never obtain a bag of holding in the Baldur's Gate region. This was probably because the world he traveled in had little connection with the upper echelons, and he was just a ranger outside the circle.

For a commercial giant and master of magic like Habbas Dren, a Junior Bag of Holding, though rare, was worth less than 10,000 gold coins and was a suitable gift for a newly minted mage.

He had privately practiced a while with a rapier. However, after a duel with a mercenary, oh, a mercenary he secretly hired, he temporarily abandoned the idea of dual cultivation in magic and martial arts.

It can only be said that a first-level "Rogue Swordsman" was still too weak. Leveling up was a distant prospect. In the three tasks he completed in a year, he only completed the "Officially Become a Mage" task, earning 600 experience points. Other times, whether killing chickens, dogs, or secretly a goblin, brought no experience points at all.

Completing "Habbas Dren's Love"? He would rather die!

During this year, due to Habbas Dren's evident importance and protection, others' attitudes toward him changed continuously.

William straightforwardly put aside his airs and discussed with him several times the possibility of forming an alliance. As both were formal mages, this would be a significant force in the future. To improve his relationship with Lu Yuan, he even paid out of his own pocket to buy back the house in Nashike that his uncle had sold, which belonged to Lu Yuan's parents.

Later, the two agreed that William would expand his influence in the Mages' Guild and form his own group, while Lu Yuan would join the Alchemists' Guild and strive to become a significant figure. In the future, the two would support each other.

Nikolas and the Black Lily siblings' attitude toward Lu Yuan changed from condescension to admiration, a 180-degree shift that took only a year. Of course, it was a mutually beneficial year. The rare potions Lu Yuan made were sold at high prices in the black market, and he bought rare stolen goods through them, and both sides made a lot of money.

The most enviable thing was his contract: six hours of work per day, half a year of work, and half a year of vacation for five years. This was considered top-tier treatment in the Magic Emporium.

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Flowing like the Milky Way, shining like the sun.

Lu Yuan sat comfortably, cleared his mind, and slowly submerged his consciousness into the darkness.

To describe, to read, to perceive.

Gradually, a silver glow appeared around him, a myriad of tiny light points, like fireflies, filling the entire world. They were invisible to the naked eye but could only be seen with the soul during meditation.

The light points gradually grew into patches, the patches into a glow, the glow into a galaxy, and the galaxy into a star system.

When each light point grew to fill the sky,

In the darkness, the silver-threaded, boundless "web" revealed itself.

His consciousness touched the web, and streams of arcane power surged into his mental space. Lu Yuan used his mind to tremble and sketch a few symbols.

When the model was fully formed, Lu Yuan's consciousness continued to sink. He saw the second layer of the web, a flowing glow, and could faintly sense the power of the "source" from a distant place. However, the fatigue from his consciousness forced him to retreat.

When he opened his eyes, four models were floating in his mental space: a question mark shape, which was "Identify"; an eye shape, which was "Sleep"; a burning flame, which was "Burning Hands"; and a translucent armor symbol, which was "Mage Armor."

Yes, he could now prepare four first-level spells at once. Apart from the two spell slots provided by his high intelligence bonus, he had two first-level spell slots of his own, making Lu Yuan essentially a second-level mage.

(For the relationship between spell levels and character levels, please refer to other books, as I won't go into detail. Basically, a mage character gains a new spell level every two levels. They learn second-level spells at level three and third-level spells at level five, and so on.)

Lu Yuan's method of preparing spells, at first glance, seemed no different from that of ordinary mages, except he didn't use a spellbook. Fundamentally, it was vastly different! A mage's learning is typically divided into three parts: meditation to exercise the mind, studying to analyze spells, and using a spellbook to prepare magic.

By meditating continuously to connect with the Weave, familiarizing and absorbing magic, and strengthening the connection with the Weave, this is the basic skill of a mage.

Then, by studying spell materials to analyze the essential structure of spells, conducting experiments until mastery, this is the basic process of learning a new spell.

Finally, using expensive materials to transcribe the thoroughly studied spell into a portable spellbook. When mentally refreshed, one opens the spellbook and connects to the Weave. Based on the information in the spellbook, one constructs models in the corresponding part of the Weave, then guides the infusion of one's mental energy and the Weave's magic to complete the preparation of the spell. When needed, one only needs to guide the spell to cast it.

Lu Yuan practiced the meditation method left by his father from a young age, simply exercising his mental energy without needing to connect with the Weave. His first spell, "Mage Hand," was cast by using mental energy to mobilize the stray magic in the air. A small number of mages with naturally strong mental energy cast their first spell in this way during their启蒙 stage, and they could cast it directly without preparation.

After all, zero-level spells require very little magic, which can be satisfied by the stray magic in the air, without the need to prepare through the Weave. Once they practiced the mage's meditation method, their mental energy's affinity with magic greatly increased, and they could easily obtain the required magic through the Weave, thus embarking on the path of a proper mage.

Lu Yuan, without a mage's guidance and even without a proper textbook, always used his mental energy to mobilize magic, both from the air and the Weave, and then constructed models in the Weave to cast spells. His meditation gained mental energy with low affinity to magic, making it very difficult to learn magic. Initially, when he prepared spells, he couldn't even "bind" the spell, and it would disappear in the Weave...

After becoming a formal mage and understanding the drawbacks of his meditation method, he had thought many times about giving up this method and practicing the formal mage's meditation. However, a vague notion always stopped him, telling him that this was the best choice now, so he persisted. Now, his mental energy was almost on par with a seventh-level mage like William, but he could still only cast first-level spells smoothly.

Of course, there were benefits. He could cast spells without preparation, using only mental energy to mobilize magic. Zero-level spells, due to the small amount of magic required, consumed little mental energy, and he could cast them nearly a hundred times, as quickly as an ordinary mage. However, for first-level spells, simultaneously mobilizing stray magic and Weave magic, distorting and constructing models, filling with magic, and releasing, he had to spend three times the time and mental energy of a normal mage. This method of casting was very dangerous, and any disturbance could cause severe backlash, so he had to ensure a safe environment to attempt it.

This method of casting was somewhat similar to the casting method of the Nether era, when there was no Weave, and the arcane power in the world was wild and unpredictable. Arcane masters used powerful mental energy to shape arcane energy into spells and cast them directly.

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Putting nearly 10,000 gold coins, some clothes, some bread from a bakery downstairs, some roasted meat, a crossbow, a spellbook, some magical materials, and two magic rings into the Junior Bag of Holding, he found that he was still almost penniless. Shaking his head, he opened the attic window. The window had a rain canopy extending forward, and below the canopy, besides the window, there was a stone basin for feeding pigeons.

Baldur's Gate had many pigeons, and every morning, flocks of pigeons with whistles circled the city. Many people woke up from their dreams this way, opened the windows to breathe fresh air, watched the pigeons flying, and started their day.

Therefore, out of love for pigeons, many families placed such feeding basins on their roofs.

Lu Yuan stirred slightly in the grains, and a few thumb-sized bottles appeared among the scattered grains. This was where he had always hidden things, right in plain sight. Every time Nikolas came, he would grab the edge of the basin to help him flip down, but he never looked...

After tidying everything up, Lu Yuan planned to go on a journey.

From the system's perspective, Baldur's Gate was too safe and too peaceful, not suitable for his leveling. He also wanted to go on a journey like new mages to find opportunities to improve his mage level.

Those extended hands of goodwill, that incredibly lenient contract, Lu Yuan, who had experienced countless lives, knew clearly that he was not worth that much. Those people were investing in his future. If his future did not meet expectations, he would have to repay them with his flesh and bones!

Alchemy was a skill closely related to mage levels, and it was not something Lu Yuan could become all-powerful by simply leveling up with skill points.

The production of a magic potion involved many steps. Cultivating, collecting, refining, purifying, extracting, and synthesizing materials, and the most important step, casting a spell. Only then would a potion have magical effects and be called a magic potion.

Different levels of mages casting the same spell, higher-level mages would achieve far better results than lower-level casters. This was the difference in casting level. Casting level generally matched the mage level. For Lu Yuan, his apparent casting level was first-level. In reality, he had learned a secret method recorded in Habbas Dren's library, which allowed him to add his multiclass level to his casting level, up to a maximum of 4 levels. Thus, his second-level mage plus first-level rogue made his casting level 3.

What can a level 3 caster do? They can make basic magic potions, like a minor healing potion. Or simple magic items, like a crystal ball, which cost a few dozen gold coins each.

Despite his alchemy skill being over ten levels, despite spending a whole day to complete 90% of a potion, he could only take 5% of the profit. A fourth-level, seventh-level mage would spend a minute casting the spell to complete the potion and easily take 15% of the profit.

This was the difference.

The threshold for making magic weapons, armor, or shields is a casting level of 5; for making wands, it is also 5; for making staves and magic jewelry, it is 12! Almost a patent for middle-aged and elderly mages.

You see a +1 ring priced at 5000 gold coins, and you don't need to be surprised. Behind it lies a middle-level mage's countless years of hard research and exploration!

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