Chapter 258 : Chapter 258
Chapter 258. Advancement Plans
After Fulan finished reading that paper, several prompts immediately popped up on the panel in her mind.
Among them was the condition for a School Mage to advance to the Second Tier, namely possessing a First-Tier Mage profession of that School. Besides that, there was also what could be considered a new profession.
【You have discovered the normal path by which an ordinary mage advances, but at the same time, you realize that there is another path for mage professions that can be taken.
Profession: Arcane Mage (One and a Half Stars)
Description: A profession that relies on self-created spells for combat power. The more exquisite the spells one creates, the greater their effects. Furthermore, the more spell knowledge one learns, the higher the profession’s Tier will rise.
Formation Conditions:
1. Possess any First-Tier Mage profession.
2. Create at least one First-Tier spell.
3. Reach the Mastered level of proficiency in ten spells other than the one you created yourself.】
Fulan did not know exactly why this profession had been triggered on her panel. Perhaps it was because she had come into contact with information related to advancement, and this Arcane Mage profession happened to overlap somewhat with the subject of Mage advancement.
No matter what, though, it was still a good thing. After all, so long as the profession existed, it could still raise her attributes.
Of the formation conditions for 【Arcane Mage】, Fulan had already met the first and third. Only the second remained unmet.
After all, although Fulan had plenty of ideas in her mind, ever since arriving at the Northern Society, she had simply had too many things to do. She had not had the time to create a First-Tier spell of her own.
“I’ll deal with that after some time.”
Having made that decision, Fulan pushed the profession lower in her priorities and began thinking about her current advancement plans.
In truth, she could already begin preparing for advancement right now. She had more or less already satisfied the advancement conditions for one School Mage profession, namely advancement in the Elemental School.
She already had Earth Uplift, Howling Gale, and Great Fireball. All three of those spells had reached the Mastered level, so she had already met the advancement requirements.
This was the path closest to advancement for her.
There was also the advancement method of the Forge Furnace School, the one she had used when advancing to a formal Tier.
At this point, although she had also mastered the two First-Tier spells Equipment Augmentation and Equipment Overload, Habos’s note had contained no third First-Tier spell.
In other words, if she wanted to advance through the Forge Furnace School route, then she would first need to create a First-Tier spell of her own, which just so happened to overlap neatly with the requirements of 【Arcane Mage】.
Creating a spell was not something that could be done overnight. She could only push that matter to the back for now.
She then turned her attention to the mage professions listed on her panel. There was no need to consider the Sword Chant School. The paper had explicitly stated that the Sword Chant School was excluded.
Beyond that, there was the Modification School. Fulan estimated that she probably could not even satisfy the third condition there, namely possessing an understanding of the spells of that School.
A normal First-Tier mage of the Modification School would, by now, already have altered their body until it scarcely resembled a human being. As for her, everything on her body was still original stock.
No matter how she looked at it, there was no way that would satisfy the advancement requirements.
Then there was Spirit Realm Mage. That one would require her to consider advancement from within the Spirit Realm itself.
The paper had not mentioned the advancement method of Spirit Realm Mages at all, and the reason was simple: in the eyes of ordinary mages, Spirit Realm Mages did not count as normal mages, so naturally they were not included in an article about Mage advancement.
Then there was the Alchemist profession she was just about to obtain. Thinking about it now, she suddenly realized just how strange that profession was.
Because the profession listed on her panel was explicitly written as 【Alchemist】, whereas under normal circumstances, it should have been a Mage profession bearing the name of a School.
But when that profession had formed, she really had not used the standard method common to mages. Even her Mage profession of the Sword Chant School had advanced according to that universal method.
So then, should she abandon the 【Alchemist】 profession and instead turn toward one of the Mage professions of the Alchemy School?
Fulan considered it carefully, but in the end decided to try it first. To be honest, if she stacked an Alchemy School Mage profession onto herself now, the greatest benefits would only be twofold.
One would be an increase in her Mental attribute. In general, Mage professions granted the greatest boosts to Mental, and the other would be obtaining a specialization in Alchemy School spells, which would allow her to cast Forced Fusion with even greater power.
But honestly, she did not really need either of those things anymore.
As for the former, the increase in her Mental attribute had basically already reached its peak. It would be hard to gain any especially large improvement from it now. And since 【Alchemist】 would also provide a certain amount of Mental, Fulan did not need a massive increase in Mental points.
If, in the future, Fulan wanted to maintain a proper balance between profession-based attribute gains and the diminishing returns on attribute growth, then piling more and more points into Mental would not be the best choice.
As for the latter, it was somewhat underwhelming. Although Forced Fusion was indeed very powerful, the battle-mage versions of other Schools would be just as strong and no worse than Forced Fusion.
In fact, if Fulan hurried to learn Elemental School spells now, advanced to the Second Tier as quickly as possible, then went to the Battle Mage Corps to exchange for a Second-Tier spell, that would probably be stronger than stubbornly focusing on Alchemy School spells.
There was no need for her to stuff herself full of Mage professions from head to toe, and she could not see what benefit that would really bring.
At the same time, she also believed that this Alchemist profession might perhaps grant her abilities in other areas.
“Right, I also need to look into those School Mage professions I don’t yet have at the First Tier.”
Fulan suddenly thought of that as well.
The reason she still did not possess First-Tier Mage professions from every School was the result of several factors combined.
First, back in the City of Apprentices, she had lacked channels through which to obtain the unique knowledge of those Schools, making it difficult for her to satisfy the conditions.
So although she could get her hands on some spells, she still could not meet the advancement requirements.
For example, she had only been able to satisfy the advancement conditions of the Elemental School after exchanging a large number of books from the Points Exchange Hall.
As for the Necromancy School, she had not gathered nearly enough knowledge. She had only found a handful of books, which was why she did not possess the Mage profession of the Necromancy School.
Second, there were some Schools whose spells she had never managed to obtain even while helping others inscribe Spell Rings. Such Schools might simply not have recruited in the City of Apprentices at all, or appeared only very rarely...
The Law School of her good friend Elan was one such example. That School had long since stopped recruiting in the City of Apprentices.
At the time, she had only been able to inscribe apprentice-level spells into Spell Rings, so naturally she could not obtain materials related to it.
But in the Northern Society, none of those problems existed anymore. All the knowledge Fulan needed in the above cases could be browsed freely through the Mana Communication System, so long as she had the Points.
Still, those materials were not like the ones a School had specially compiled into a neat progression, where reading a designated set of books would count as fulfilling the conditions for advancing to become a Mage.
The materials here were extremely scattered, hidden throughout various papers, and she would need to spend Points and search through them slowly...
“I’ll take it step by step.”
Fulan closed the Mana Communication System and rose from her chair.
These First-Tier Mage professions of the various Schools could also become Second-Tier professions.
If Fulan had enough time, she could slowly pick up some of those Mage professions as well and raise her attributes even further.
She called up the panel and checked her current attributes.
【Name: Fulan
Professions: Gale Swordsman, Mage (Forge Furnace, Modification, Elemental, Sword Chant, Spirit Realm), Radiant Priest, Demon Hunter, Ancient Rune Warrior (One Star),
Apothecary, Craftsman (Half Star)
Attributes: Physique 10.1, Mental 15.2
Skills: Forced Fusion (Mastered) (Proficiency: 370/1000)
Earth Uplift (Mastered) (Proficiency: 893/1000)
Howling Gale (Mastered) (Proficiency: 938/1000)
Great Fireball (Mastered) (Proficiency: 271/1000): Can produce a larger fireball.
Hard Scaled Rock (Extraordinary) (Proficiency: 6483/100000)
Fireball (Extraordinary) (Proficiency: 14731/100000)
Wind Blade (Extraordinary) (Proficiency: 4843/100000)
Runology (Extraordinary) (Proficiency: 21976/100000)
Pharmacology (Extraordinary) (Proficiency: 3784/100000)
Sunflame Arts (Proficient) (Proficiency: 124/1000) (Consolidated from the earlier Sunflame-related ones)
Alchemy (Beginner) (Proficiency: 23/100): A field of study that makes use of materials.
... (omitted)
Traits: Windwalker, Earth Dragon’s Breath, Dragon Flame, Aether Manipulation, Dragon’s Remnant Engraving, Solar Body, Demon Hunt Medal... (omitted)】
Fulan’s panel could now truly be called extravagant. Aside from lacking any high-tier Skills, the current state of her panel was likely something many Second- or even Third-Tier Professionals would never reach even by the time they died.
Although Fulan’s attribute growth had slowed somewhat by now, the growth of her various Skills and Traits had still made her far stronger than before.
Her Skills section was now packed full of abilities from all sorts of fields, and it was a complete mess.
Mainly because she normally held the attitude that if she had the chance, she might as well learn something new, so she had picked up a great many Skills.
But honestly, the Skills she truly used on a regular basis were only a small handful. As for the rest, their role in her hands was mostly limited to things like forming professions. In actual practice, they were hardly useful at all.
“Next, I’ll first get the Alchemist profession, then go to the Battle Mage Corps and exchange for two Elemental School spells to practice...”
Fulan settled on her next course of action and decided that the first thing she should do was secure the Alchemist profession.
The reason she had not done it earlier was that she had originally intended to complete a Battle Mage Corps mission while she was at it, but who would have thought it would take up so much time before she finally returned to the Northern Society?
Her Alchemy had not yet reached the level needed to produce a finished First-Tier alchemical creation, much less refine one.
Her plan had been to directly write an alchemy paper on the laws of thermodynamics, letting her Alchemy gain a huge amount of proficiency so that she could reach the point where she was capable of producing a First-Tier alchemical creation.
She had already written half of that paper. With just a little more time, she would be able to finish it completely, and it would surely raise her Alchemy proficiency to a very high level.