The Truth of Magic - Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Enlightened Spellcaster
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

As Zhao Xu sawt the incantations of those cantrips floating about in his mind, he finally understood the feeling martial artists must have gone through when they trained hard for ten years and were finally ready to come out of the mountains. 1
He was no longer a fragile ordinary person, but someone with supernatural powers.
He didn’t need weapons; a simple Ray of Frost was all he needed to severely injure an ordinary person with an average constitution.
Even though this was only in the game, it didn’t matter because, after a year, this would become a real power he had.
Zhao Xu looked at the various descriptions of the spells and felt like he was a superhuman.
Anything lighter than two kilograms, he could lift using Mage Hand.
One Touch of Fatigue could make an opponent with no saving throws enter a state of exhaustion.
One Prestidigitation was enough to make him seem like a super magical being already.
Technology could sort of recreate some of the things that cantrips were capable of, but the spells at a higher level were completely beyond what human technology could do.
But everything that Zhao Xu would eventually be able to do didn’t require him to rely on any external forces.
That meant that even if you put him into an apocalyptic era where resources were scarce, as long as he knew the relevant spells, he could create his own resources and live well.
Other character classes had to forage for food and look for water sources if they were thrown into a forest, but wizards could use spells to create actual food and have a good meal before moving on.
And that’s why wizards were so highly revered and treated as legends.
Zhao Xu finally, truly relaxed. He had been able to copy spells and he had gotten over the part where countless wizards got stuck. He wasn’t worried about the remaining Level 1 spells because he would just do the same thing as before. 1
No, but wait.
He had copied all these spells, but what about his spell slots?
Level 1 Wizards had to rest for 8 hours to cast three cantrips and one Level 1 spell. 1
And because of his Intelligence modifier, he had one more slot for a Level 1 spell. He had to level up in order to expend his spell slots for Level 2 and 3 spells.
So now he was like someone who had finally managed to master shooting, only to find that he didn’t really have a lot of bullets.
“Mentor, what about my spell slots?” Zhao Xu didn’t want to make any mistakes here, so he quickly asked for help.
“What spell slots?”
“My Level 1 Wizard spell slots.”
“Are you a Level 1 Wizard?” Antonya shot back.
Zhao Xu was at a loss for words. That made sense. He was the one who had been too distracted with the joy of being able to learn cantrips.
“Don’t worry, once you have completed all the requirements to become a Level 1 Wizard and you go through a ceremony, you will get your spell slots.”
Zhao Xu just nodded awkwardly after hearing this.
The good part was that, even though he didn’t actually have 16 points of intelligence, the system would still go according to these points and allocate the correct number of spell slots to him.
But after Zhao Xu calmed down and his thoughts sharpened again, he immediately realized that something was not quite right.
Over the past week, countless wizard apprentices had been stuck at copying cantrips.
There were even players who had successfully copied one but got stuck for a long time at the second one because he didn’t know how he managed to do the first one in the first place.
Getting lucky once didn’t mean anything. You could only prove that a player had truly grasped the spells after he had managed to copy all 19 cantrips in succession.
And that was why Zhao Xu’s little heart couldn’t help feeling smug after he had actually copied all the cantrips in one shot.
He was clearly much more amazing than almost all the other wizard players.
So here was the problem.
After so many centuries, countless wizards had spent so much time and effort researching and studying spells, so why hadn’t anyone thought of doing it this way?
Antonya had just said two seemingly simple sentences to him, but it was like someone who could point out where to place your next pawn on the Go board, and that came from great experience and knowledge in this area. 1
But the next step was just one step and not how to win the entire game.
After so many centuries, surely someone would have stumbled upon this and end up doing the same thing in the same situation.
They might not have realized why, but they would achieve their aim.
So why hadn’t anyone just used this method directly?
Antonya just walked over with light footsteps as she looked at how Zhao Xu seemed to be very confused. “Are you wondering why others have not been able to do this?”
Zhao Xu felt his heart shudder. He didn’t think someone would be able to read his thoughts so clearly. 1
But then again, Antonya’s Intelligence score was more than 50 points, so if she couldn’t catch this, he would get suspicious too. 3
“That’s why it’s really troublesome to teach you players, because after you log off and compare notes, all of you would notice several areas that don’t match up. Sometimes it takes so much effort just to fool you guys.”
“Forget it, I’ll just explain it to you. Copying spells by going with the flow is a special ability that only those with Enlightened Spellcaster can do.”
After Zhao Xu heard this, he immediately made a few guesses in his heart.
So he wasn’t the amazing one. It was his Enlightened Spellcaster ability that was amazing.
Antonya saw that Zhao Xu had begun to understand her, so she continued explaining.
“Any apprentice who has gone through some years of study would definitely grasp cantrips easily. So you players get stuck because you’re on this super express route.” 1
“The special fact that Enlightened Spellcaster enables one to copy spells without truly grasping them was something that many wizards only noticed when they reached higher levels and ran into spells that they couldn’t understand easily.”
Zhao Xu found this strange. “Mentor, so does that mean that everything you said doesn’t work on copying spells into spellbooks?”
“For copying into a spellbook, if you just go with the flow, it won’t flow anymore because you keep pausing to copy. Once the flow is broken, you wouldn’t be able to keep copying. But because those with Enlightened Spellcaster copy the spells onto the depths of their hearts, there wouldn’t be a problem of broken flow anymore.”
Zhao Xu was finally enlightened. For those who had to copy into a spellbook, the flow would be broken the moment they lifted their pen off the paper.
So they had to fully grasp the spell and write on without pausing at all.
But what happened to him earlier was that he copied one section after taking it apart, then took apart another section before copying, and his Enlightened Spellcaster ability joined them together. So the difficulty in making everything flow was different for him.
“So why doesn’t anyone publicize this ability?” asked Zhao Xu puzzledly.
This method was so amazing, it could create miracles on the spot.
And within Arthur, as long as their Intelligence was high enough, you could produce countless wizards.
And if he recommended this method to other players, he was sure that even his influence on earth would suddenly surge.
“Hoho, those who use this method will lead to the death of wizards,” said Antonya.
Zhao Xu’s face nearly drained of all color. “You’re exaggerating, right?”
“If you could just copy spells without grasping them, then you wouldn’t be motivated to study anymore. Any study and development of spells would come to a stop as well. Besides, even if you could cast a Level 9 spell, you would never be able to reach Legendary stage.”
“One day, all spells would disappear because nobody would bother to understand them anymore.”
So that was why.
Zhao Xu felt like his heart had been dealt a great blow.
What he just did was like a student copying answers and getting the question right without knowing how or why.
If every student made it through school by just copying answers, eventually nobody would know anything in that area and it would completely vanish. 3
For students, copying answers just helped them to complete their homework. For wizards, copying answers was like striking the lottery.
To put it in today’s terms, this was like a chance to cheat at college entrance exams without the risk of getting caught at all.
So only a few people must know about this cheat and it couldn’t be publicized widely.
Even if there were wizards who loved doing research, they would be less powerful than those who cheated, so all the resources would end up with those people who cheated and eventually drive out all the honest people. 1
Zhao Xu suddenly felt that the words Enlightened Spellcaster on his character stats were a little dangerous.