Decide to Battle

"Mentor, do I have to keep reading The Road to Arcane Magic today too?"

Zhao Xu asked because he realized from the second day of reading the book that it was a magic book that had undergone some special process.

After he finished reading the book and closed it, the contents inside would change, so there was always new content whenever he opened it again.

And if he wanted to check on the content that he had read before, he just needed to remember a few things about it and it would pop up when he reopened the book.

Zhao Xu only came into contact with a book that had this sort of AI search function during this life.

In his previous life, he had only heard of how some equipment was able to speak to its owner.

Zhao Xu had spent the past few days just reading this book and attending lectures.

"No need," replied Antonya.

Even though they had spent the past few days together, Zhao Xu still hadn't gotten a chance to take a proper look at the face hidden in the shadow of the cloak around her head.

"Over the past two days, the organization had a bit of an argument about your path in the future."

Zhao Xu perked up and didn't feel the burden of being a chess pawn at all.

The only thing he wanted in life was to be able to survive.

"It's mostly because someone has a new idea, this one because of your Double Elite status."

"You may not know that there are those who don't take on a prestige class and just remain either a Wizard all the way or a Cleric all the way. They are the few who remain as pure base classes and they're not weakened because of it."

Zhao Xu knew what she meant. Advanced Wizards and Advanced Clerics were truly incredible people, and it was true that one couldn't be that weak if you trained hard in one direction even without going into a Prestige Class.

"After reaching Legendary level, a pure wizard can achieve a lot with a feat. Also…"

Antonya paused for a moment. "A pure wizard can have purer contact with magic, and this would be helpful in the research of magic."

"And so there are some people in the organization who have suggested turning you into a pure wizard and you wouldn't need to increase your fighting abilities for the time being."

Zhao Xu understood what she was saying. So, just after observing him for a few days, he looked like someone they could groom?

So instead of having to work and fight outside, he would become a researcher?

But after Zhao Xu thought a little more carefully about these things, it was true that everything that Antonya told him about had only happened after he stepped into this floating city.

So these new ideas in the organization really only took shape over the last two days.

Three days ago, nobody in Arthur knew of his existence.

"Before this, we insisted on deciding your future path because we were afraid that you might waste the advantage you had and end up in some useless prestige class. So, instead of making me use an energy drain on you to negate your character level, the organization is actually considered pretty flexible and so I'm here to ask you about what you think."

"Do you want to try for a Prestige Class and improve your fighting power, or do you want to become a pure wizard and remain in the floating city to do research?"

Zhao Xu listened intently to every word that Antonya said. His hair stood on end when he heard her mention Energy Drain.

You could go into a variety of affected states in Arthur, like Ability Score Damage, Ability Drain, Energy Drain, dizziness, blindness, deafness, feelings of being shaken, fear, panic, dilemma, hypnosis, tiredness, exhaustion, disgust, nausea, delay in reaction, staggering, collapsing, being captured, suppressed, entanglement, shock, numbness, immobility, being bound, sleepiness, put into a coma, being petrified, being paralyzed, etc.

The thing that players were most afraid of was this Energy Drain.

Energy Drain was a Level 9 Arcane Spell able to wipe out 2d4 of a player's level.

2d4 represented the values of two four-sided dice added together, so the total could range between 2 to 8 points.

Anyone who had suffered damage from that spell would feel the pain. If your level was lower than the total number on the dice, you would die on the spot.

If your level was higher than the total number on the dice, the spell would be effective for 24 hours and then incur penalties for every level that was lost.

If you could successfully use a Saving Throw, the negative level would disappear. If you failed, then the negative level went away, but the character would go down by one level permanently.

Going down by one level permanently was the real punishment.

In Zhao Xu's previous life, he had a really powerful friend who suffered an Energy Drain from a witch. He failed all the saving throws required and lost all his powers to become an ordinary person again.

So for people who relied heavily on their character levels to survive, like Zhao Xu, they were terrified of spells like that.

When Zhao Xu realized that he was part of an ideological fight, he carefully picked his words and asked, "Mentor, could I ask something? Was this topic brought up by people in the organization with a particular inclination?"

"Strictly speaking, The Final Scroll is only one of the major powers in Arthur's Wizard Association. The goddess is revered, but she doesn't have the last say. The ones who brought this up are some old researchers within the Association, and they've been stuck in one area of Divine Spells for a very long time. That's why they're hoping that someone who is able to develop both Arcane and Divine spells like yourself could join them."

Zhao Xu felt quite relieved after hearing this. People in research were usually not as quick to kill others, so even if he rejected their proposal, they probably wouldn't try to get back at him.

"I heard that Arthur has a Prestige Class called Mystic Theurge. That class can also cast both Arcane and Divine spells, right?" Zhao Xu asked after he suddenly remembered something from his previous life.

Antonya looked surprised and Zhao Xu could feel her sharp gaze even through the shadow of her cloak.

"The Prestige Class of Mystic Theurge has always been well hidden. I wouldn't be surprised if you players found out about it at a later stage, but I'm surprised that you know about it so soon."

Zhao Xu felt terribly awkward. He didn't think that his off-hand remark might actually give himself away.

In reality, Antonya and the rest of these high ranking people knew that Zhao Xu had a communication channel like the internet on earth because the gods had told them about this before. So whenever Zhao Xu randomly asked about things in Arthur, Antonya would always just explain it to him and never questioned him about it.

"Are you wondering why I'm asking you about it?"

Zhao Xu nodded quickly.

"The Prestige Class of Mystic Theurge doesn't have any class features. The only good thing is that each time one moves up one level, you can add the level to the arcane spellcasting class and divine spellcasting class you have."

After hearing this, Zhao Xu suddenly realized why the people from his previous life had said so many good things about Mystic Theurges.

A Level 1 Wizard/Level 1 Cleric/Level 10 Mystic Theurge was equivalent to a Level 12 character and would be able to cast spells like a Level 11 Wizard and a Level 11 Cleric.

Then what was the point of being a Double Elite like himself?

Or rather, weren't they capable of the same things as himself?

But Antonya quickly burst his dream bubble.

"You need to be able to cast Level 2 Arcane spells and Level 2 Divine spells in order to take on the Prestige Class of Mystic Theurge. Also, Double Elites like you aren't allowed to take that prestige class."

Zhao Xu realized that this was the catch. Players could only go for a Prestige Class after they hit Level 7, so it was impossible for him to hear about this when the game servers had just opened. It was little wonder that he had become suspicious.

In order to cast Level 2 Arcane spells and Level 2 Divine spells, that meant that the player would have to be a Level 3 Wizard/Level 3 Cleric, so a Level 6 character. Even if you could take on a Level 10 Prestige Class and maximize it, then even at Level 16, you could only cast Level 7 Arcane spells and Level 7 Divine spells.

By this time, a pure wizard would already be able to cast Level 8 spells and would be close to getting to being able to cast a Level 9 spell.

Slowing down in one area would result in slowing down everything. If he could become a Level 20 character immediately, then there was no problem with becoming a Mystic Theurge. But if he had to start from Level 1 and take on a Prestige Class that didn't come with any features, then Zhao Xu would have a terrible time playing.

This was the biggest advantage of his Double Elite status. He was able to have his cake and eat it too.

"Mentor, I choose to go for battles." Zhao Xu decided that there was no point in thinking about it any further. Since he had a Double Elite account, then he was going to take full advantage of it. If he didn't choose to battle, then he would have really wasted this one Testing Account that he had picked out of so many possibilities.