The Truth of Magic - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Upper Limit of Intelligence
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

“The training to become a Wizard has got to be a joke right? They want me to memorize spells without telling me anything else? And if I refuse to memorize them, they tell me to get lost?”
“Same here. And we still have to pass the training to reach Level 1. Hello, we’re here to play a game and not to let the game play us.” 3
“After listening to the lecture for 10 minutes, I gave up. What a waste of my 18 point character. I’ve deleted it and restarted to become a Fighter instead.” 2
“My Druid is still lost in the forest but I’m not a Ranger. Does anybody have a good strategy for me?”
“Dude, you’re already listening to them talk about spells but pitiful me can’t even find the Wizard Association. None of the NPCs in the village know anything and they can’t even seem to be bothered about me.”
“Dude, did the game allocate you to the wrong place? I suggest you look at the map on the back. As far as I know, a village wouldn’t have a Wizard Association. You have to find the nearest town. But I wouldn’t suggest you do that.”
“Why?”
“That’s because the minute I went out of the village, I got stabbed by a bunch of goblins on the way to the town and ended up back at the Palace of Character Creation. How painful. The system even told me that it’s deducted one Revival Stone and I only have 4 more left. Does this mean what I think it does?”
“Yup. Congrats, dude. You have 4 more chances to revive before your character completely disappears.”
“This game seems too inflexible. It’s been 2 hours since the servers went live but not a single person has finished their training and come out to fight any monsters.”
“From what I heard, one of the major gaming leagues tested out the game and decided not to put in any more resources to continue playing the game. They think that a game with such harsh requirements isn’t suitable to become one of the top games and doesn’t have that much potential.” 2
“Can I check with you guys about something? All I did was whine about how one of their god’s teachings was a bit backward and those clerics chased me out, saying I was a heretic. Then which Character Class should I take on?”
“I would advise all players who aren’t masochistic or something to just go ahead and dump all your points into choosing a Barbarian. If you choose anything else, you’re going to get stuck for days without being able to run around.” 1
“Run around? Dude, you must be a Rogue, right? We Wizards are still quietly sitting in lectures. I can’t believe I paid 300 bucks just to sit here and listen to a game talk to me about magic. I’ll just take it that I’ve increased my religious score. Goodbye.”
The majority of the players were still within the game and were unable to log onto any discussion forums to post anything.
But that didn’t stop some of the players who had already decided to switch to a different Character Class or those whose characters died in an accident to log out of the game and go to the forums to complain.
The forum discussion reached its peak for the first time after the game servers opened at 8 PM.
Everyone was completely confused. When would they finally be able to fight some monsters? 2
Or at least send them on some mission to deliver some items or retrieve equipment or something along those lines.
They didn’t ask to save the world, but wasn’t there something they could do with their initial Character Class features?
Even the lousiest MMORPG would offer a weapon of sorts in the beginning.
But Zhao Xu was still working hard at his studies.
He quietly glanced at the female wizard walking up and down in front of his desk. But her robe was a little oversized and he couldn’t see her figure clearly. 1
Antonya’s observation skill was certainly not low. Before Zhao Xu had glanced at her for even three seconds, she turned around and stared straight at him.
Zhao Xu was finally able to make out the color of her eyes. They were black like his.
“Do you have a question for me?”
Zhao Xu didn’t dare to say that he had been distracted by wondering about her figure, so he quickly changed the topic and said, “Mentor, I’m not sure if my 16 point Intelligence is enough?”
The Ability Scores in the world of Arthur went by a point system, and it was no secret to the characters native to Arthur. So of course someone like Antonya, who was probably at least a Level 10 Wizard, would definitely know about it.
Every point on one’s Ability Scores made a difference. Each time a player’s Ability Score increased, the player could feel an obvious increase in power.
But after Antonya heard Zhao Xu’s question, she just nodded quietly and replied, “It’s enough if you just have 11 points of Intelligence.”
“Mentor, are you joking with me?” asked Zhao Xu.
For most of the Character Classes that could cast spells in Arthur, if you wanted to cast a Level X spell, you needed to have 10+X number of points in the relevant Ability Score.
If Zhao Xu remained at 16 points of Intelligence without increasing it, this would only be enough for him to cast a Level 6 Arcane Spell.
If he wanted to cast a Level 9 Arcane Spell, he needed to increase his Intelligence to 19 points.
Because without this Intelligence score, you wouldn’t be able to comprehend those spells at all.
11 points of Intelligence was just enough to meet the requirements to cast a Level 1 Arcane Spell.
Zhao Xu was no genius, but he knew that what Antonya meant was that he could always increase his Intelligence levels later on.
Each player could increase his Ability Scores once every four levels, so Zhao Xu wasn’t worried that his 16 point Intelligence would never hit 19.
But Wizards wouldn’t turn down having more Intelligence.
Intelligence brought along additional spell slots, and this was extremely vital since wizards didn’t get a lot of spell slots to start with.
Many wizard players found it very tough to play in the beginning because they would finish using all their spell slots very quickly.
Unless you only fought one or two monsters a day, the number of spell slots wasn’t enough.
In general, everyone just watched as new wizards finished all their spell slots, then just stood in one corner and shot at enemies with a crossbow. 1
But, because Wizards didn’t have high Hit Points, their arrows didn’t do much damage to monsters and merely scratched the surface.
If they stood too far in front, their teammates would end up worrying that they might accidentally suffer damage from the monster and just collapse on the spot.
“Guess how many points of Intelligence I have now? If your answer is no more than 5 points away from the actual score, then I’ll give you a present. It’s a really valuable present too.”
Zhao Xu looked calmly at Antonya.
He had placed a lot of importance on the allocation of his Ability Scores in the beginning because it was so hard to get points for them.
In his previous life, he managed to get a +2 Strength belt. But unless he could get another +4 Strength item, using items to increase his Ability Scores wasn’t possible anymore. 1
That was because items provided additional scores, and items with the same additional scores could not be used together.
There were apparently some +6 Magic Items in the market and these were supposedly the maximum additional scores you could get. He had only seen those on powerful Fighters who had passed Level 10.
So he could more or less calculate what Antonya’s Ability Scores were.
This part of Arthur was very transparent. Once he knew Antonya’s Ability Scores and Character Level, then he would also be able to calculate how many spell slots she had.
Zhao Xu started to think to himself, “Out of respect, I’ll take it that you started with the maximum of 18 points of Intelligence.”
“Since you’re so young, I’ll take it that you’re a Level 12 Wizard, and that’s already very impressive. That’s enough for 3 additional points, so 18+3 would be 21 points.”
“Then if I add on a Magic Item that all wizards wish they could get their hands on, a +6 headband, then 27 points would really be the maximum.”
The methods to increase your Ability Scores in Arthur were very straightforward and there were no tricks you could pull.
“That’s enough to affect the number of spell slots you have, right?” Zhao Xu asked carefully.
In order for Intelligence to be able to affect the number of spell slots one had, then it had to remain at the same score for at least 24 hours to take effect.
If the score could remain the same for 24 hours, then it would become as good as permanent.
He was just afraid that there was some spell he didn’t know about that could somehow increase the Intelligence score in some other way temporarily.
“But of course.”
“25 points?”
Antonya allowed him a variance of 5 points, so he would win as long as it was within 20 to 30 points. 1
So Zhao Xu deducted two points from his original calculation of 27 points, since that was based on the best-case scenario.
“Seriously? You’re really underestimating me by too much. You could double that number.”
“How could you have 50 points?!” 1
Zhao Xu found it a little hard to believe.