The Truth of Magic - Chapter 46

Chapter 46: Cure Spells

Compared to wizards’ arcane magic which was complicated from its contents to its formation, the divine magic that clerics used was basically just an explanation of the spells.

Zhao Xu took a peek at his own spell slots.

Cleric:

Divine magic cantrips slots: 3=3 (Character Class)

Divine magic Level 1 spell slots: 2=1 (Character Class) + 1 (Wisdom)

He had 3 cantrip slots and 2 Level 1 spell slots. He could simply choose from any of those 12+25 divine magic spells.

Earlier this morning, when Zhao Xu went up against Antonya, he realized that 5 spells could be used up in a very short time.

Someone had registered an ID on the forums recently as ‘When do clerics actually become more powerful’ and posted an article to protest on how he had too few spell slots.

Many players who had finally managed to make it to Level 1 Wizard now started to realize that the difficulty of becoming a wizard and the character class’ power didn’t match up at all.

In other, similar online games, if you didn’t throw out more than a dozen spells during a battle, you would be ashamed to call yourself a wizard. On top of that, you would normally be able to drink some blue-colored potion of sorts to restore your magic powers.

But in Arthur, after you cast you four or five spells, you were done.

And, after you finished up all your spells for the day, you couldn’t cast any more until the next day. This problem really infuriated many spellcaster classes who had finished their training, and even those who were still in training griped about it.

Zhao Xu knew that all these people still hadn’t gotten their heads around this whole situation, and they were still stuck believing that Arthur was just a standard game that involved leveling up and killing monsters.

They still hadn’t figured out that studying, carrying out missions, or improving themselves were also things that could help them level up.

In his previous life, it would only take another month or so for everyone to be fully aware that spell slots had to be used carefully and wisely.

But Zhao Xu wasn’t concerned about that anymore. He had additional cleric spell slots, so at least at Level 1, he had twice the number of options compared to other players.

In Arthur, extra spell slots were better than gold.

With the experience he had as a wizard, Zhao Xu looked through all the divine magic spells available and chose accordingly.

In any case, he didn’t need to go to battle now. After preparing these spells, he was just going to finish using them.

Among the cantrips, he had prepared Create Water, Detect Magic, and Mending.

For the Level 1 spell slots, he prepared Divine Favor and Comprehend Languages.

Just after he finished picking those, it felt like a strange sacred energy was pumped straight into Zhao Xu’s body.

It made his entire body feel numb and tingly, and his spirit became brighter and more energetic.

After that, he soon recovered from that dazed feeling.

He looked over at the hourglass in the corner and realized that an hour had already passed.

The spells that he prepared for his Wizard class earlier that day had already been grayed out, which meant that they had been used.

Zhao Xu had just gotten his hands on divine magic, but he wasn’t overly excited about it.

The divine magic that clerics used was similar to the arcane magic that wizards used in that they were also made up of incantations and gestures.

It was just that, compared to wizards, clerics didn’t need to understand why. They just needed to follow the necessary steps and they would be able to cast spells successfully.

Zhao Xu had experience as a wizard, so he definitely didn’t need any training in this part at all.

He immediately looked at his character stats and started emulating the incantations and gestures of the spells that he had already chosen and prepared.

He was like a beginner trying to imitate a dance teacher. Zhao Xu barely managed to read out the incantations and make the correct poses when he went through it for the first time.

Finally, he shouted out in his heart: Create Water!

Zhao Xu’s palms were completely empty when, suddenly, clean, sweet water just gushed forth from them.

He didn’t have any containers to store the water, so the water just continued to flow onto the floor without stopping.

It just kept going until seven or eight liters of water had flowed out, enough to fill several buckets of water, and the entire floor of Zhao Xu’s dorm room was wet.

Thankfully he was staying on the ground floor, and the flooring was made from bricks, otherwise, he would have a lot of trouble cleaning this mess up.

And after he watched how his spell could create so much drinkable water, Zhao Xu fell into deep thought instead.

Compared to the arcane magic of wizards, the divine magic of clerics was weak at controlling a battle but was very strong in assisting.

At the very least, pretty much all the important healing spells were exclusively divine magic.

Zhao Xu was slowly beginning to understand why those spellcasters always seemed so high and mighty.

It was because they had reached a stage of self-sufficiency.

Wizards just had to learn more spells, while Clerics just had to ask their gods for spells.

If they were missing anything at all, they could just create it.

Once he reached a sufficiently high level, Zhao Xu would also eventually be able to create food and even houses.

So, when the real apocalypse hit, these spellcasters were the ones who could just find some corner and then happily make anything they needed for daily living, just like that.

After thinking about how foolish he had been in his previous life, Zhao Xu continued with his original plans.

His main focus was on healing spells.

In his previous life, Zhao Xu had received many healing spells from clerics when he fought in battles. That feeling of his life energy being instantly rejuvenated was simply unforgettable.

That was also the significance of Hit Points to each of these character classes.

The healing spells of the clerics were able to help them restore their Hit Points.

In theory, as long as you didn’t get killed on the spot, if there were enough clerics around to support the situation, and you had fighting character classes that were as good at defending as army tanks, one could fight some really powerful monsters in Arthur by attrition alone, and you might win even if your side was weaker to begin with.

As the people who represented the aspect of healing, good clerics could naturally turn any spell they prepared automatically into a Cure Spell.

Evil clerics, on the contrary, could turn any spell they had prepared into an Inflict Spell.

Even though Zhao Xu’s alignment was neutral, he still decided to obediently choose to convert his spells to Cure Spells.

Within the list of spells meant for wizards, there were already plenty of spells that could do loads of harm.

The ability to convert these spells was something that Zhao Xu had naturally, since he was a cleric, and he didn’t need to train in this aspect.

But now he had spells, and he also had the ability to convert them.

He was just missing a target that was already injured.

After thinking it through, the target had to be himself.

Zhao Xu looked around the entire dormitory room but couldn’t find anything sharp.

Zhao Xu raised his own fists and could only laugh awkwardly.

None of those players risking their lives out there would ever have imagined this scenario. They waited for so long but still couldn’t get any Cure Spells and they could only wail and complain about it online every day.

And now, this precious Cure Spell was going to be used up so easily by this boy who just wanted to test it out.

Zhao Xu slowly breathed out. It was a little embarrassing that he actually had to injure himself, but, since he couldn’t find anyone else to try it on, he had no choice but to do something like this.

He looked back at his own fists. If he punched himself barehanded, the damage to his Hit Points would be 1D3.

He had 6 Hit Points, so he wasn’t afraid of knocking himself out with one punch. That would be such a joke.

So, with a mighty swing, Zhao Xu used all his strength to punch himself in the chest.

The act of getting attacked without putting up a defense made him feel a dull ache in his chest immediately, and he almost couldn’t catch his breath.

Zhongxia has activated ‘Bare fisted attack’, a -4 attack penalty would cause fatal injury, 1D3=2.

His Hit Points immediately fell to 4 points.

After calming down for a bit, Zhao Xu didn’t stop there. In his previous life, he had gone through injuries that broke through his chest and his stomach even.

He continued to follow the incantations and gestures to heal light injuries in order to cast a spell.

Immediately, the Level 1 spell of Divine Favor was pulled out of its slot by his consciousness.

The energy of a spell could be broken apart to become the materials used for Cure Light Wounds.

The moment he finished chanting the incantations, a pure, bright beam of white light appeared in Zhao Xu’s palms. It wasn’t burning hot, but it felt warm and comforting.

The large majority of clerics’ Cure Spells were touch spells, and a simple touch was all it took to be effective.

Zhao Xu placed this beam of light against his own chest.

His message board instantly flashed a new message: Do you want to reject the effects of this spell? No harm (if you reject it, you need a Will saving throw).

Zhao Xu ignored the message completely and let it accept the effects of the spell by default.

A refreshing warmth flowed into his chest, and the dull feeling in his chest that he felt earlier disappeared in an instant.

It was the same sort of feeling he used to get when he last received a healing spell.

In an instant, he could see that his hit point total was back to its maximum.

Zhongxia received divine magic Level 1 spell Cure Light Wounds, restoration of Hit Points is 1D8+1 = 3+1 = 4 HP.

When he saw this message, Zhao Xu exclaimed to himself about how these Cure Spells were indeed powerful. It was enough to restore 1D8+X number of Hit Points, where X was equivalent to his spellcasting class. He was now at Level 1, so he only had 1 point, and the maximum was 5.

So that meant that, at Level 1, he was only able to restore 2 to 9 hit points. It wasn’t a lot, but for most people, it was more than enough.

Since the beginning of the last week, many players who had chosen character classes that were good at melee battles had graduated from their training courses.

And there were already countless players whining and complaining on the forums that after they had been wounded, they were shocked that they couldn’t restore their health automatically.

If they lay in bed for an entire night, they would only get 1 HP back, and if they lay in bed for an entire day, they would only get 2.

So, if a Fighter started off with around 12 HP and was injured to the point where he was left with only 1 HP, then he would need to lie in bed for at least four to five days before he could fully restore his health.

This really decreased their efficiency at leveling up enough to defeat monsters.

Of course, Zhao Xu knew very well that if you were a Level X character, then after one night of rest, you could restore X number of HP, and if you rested the entire day, then you would restore 2X of HP. But this sort of natural healing process was never enough when it came to the players’ hit points.

This was also the reason why the cleric character class had become the most popular topic recently for the first time.

But, at the same time, the number of clerics who could graduate from their apprenticeship and become an actual cleric were few and far in between. They weren’t that much better than wizards.

If Zhao Xu was willing to form a team with others out there, declaring himself a wizard would earn him disdain, but if he declared himself a cleric, then many out there would welcome him with open arms and he would be very well received.

He had heard from Zhang Qi the day before that many classmates had already decided to delete their original character and switch to becoming a cleric, even though everyone said that they had no idea how to level up as a cleric at all.

After Zhao Xu had tested and proven his ability to spontaneously cast a Cure Spell on himself, he wasn’t too concerned with the remaining spells in his spell slots anymore.

He now turned back to look through and study the descriptions of those 12 cantrips and 25 Level 1 spells all over again.

After he had read through all these spells, they would appear in the list of known spells in the cleric section of his own character stats.

Compared to just knowing how to cast the spells, knowing which ones to actually use was a very important thing.

As Zhao Xu was slowly looking through the spells, his eyes suddenly stopped.

The focus of his eyes fell upon the cantrip Inflict Minor Wounds.

A kind-facing cleric like himself wouldn’t be able to naturally transform anything into a harmful spell like this, but that didn’t stop him from being able to prepare it as one of his original spells.

Spell slots for cantrips weren’t very valuable to him. He could have totally prepared an Inflict Minor Wounds spell and caused 1 point of damage to himself first.

Then he could use a Cure Spell to heal himself just to prove it works.

He didn’t actually have to go through the risk of causing himself too much damage by punching himself.

All of a sudden, Zhao Xu felt that he had been able to become a Wizard really only because he had gone back in time.