The Truth of Magic


Chapter 11: Start of the Apprenticeship

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The hostel room that Zhao Xu had in the game was way larger than the four-person room that he was currently living in on campus.

After everyone on earth transmigrated, the first problem they faced was the issue of housing. So many were horrified that after working so hard to finally get their own houses on earth, they had to go through it all over again in a different world.

Many people ended up living hand-to-mouth and wandering outside. They were no different from homeless people.

But Zhao Xu had settled his accommodation issue just like that.
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There was a sturdy wooden table in the middle of the room, and the waist-high table had some simple alchemy tools laid on it.

His simple rectangular bed was to the left of the table. The sheets and blanket were already neatly folded and stacked on it.

On the other side was a large bookshelf that spanned three walls and was high enough to reach the ceiling.

Zhao Xu scanned the shelf. Simple Spellcasting, The Motivation for Becoming a Wizard, Discussion on the 8 Arcane Schools, Transmutation Spells…

Every book was on wizardry, but Zhao Xu knew that no matter which book he opened, he would find that all of its contents would be highly detailed and actually useful.

At first, many people were shocked at how detailed Arthur was. Later, when some of the contents of books on spells started circulating, some started wondering if the AI technology had advanced to such a frightening stage that it was able to create a fully functioning system like that.

Even though this sounded like a ridiculous discussion on magic books, it was shockingly rational.

This definitely wasn’t just some random copy and paste job from books on magic from the middle ages.

But these things alone weren’t enough to make Zhao Xu’s jaw drop to the point that he nearly couldn’t close his mouth again.

In front of the desk stood a female Wizard in a Wizard robe and cloak. She stood there and looked at him as if she was watching time pass before her.

Zhao Xu wondered to himself, “Don’t tell me Wizards in Arthur are so numerous that they end up even guiding new players like me one-on-one.”

“Hello, Mr. Zhongxia.” The lady didn’t remove the cloak around her head, and her face was still buried in the dark shadows of the hood. Her entire body gave off a mysterious aura.
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“Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Antonya, your mentor to guide you through your Wizard apprentice course. While you’re here, I will be the one helping you to finish your training as a Wizard.” The mysterious lady’s voice was clear and soothing.

“Mystra has so many Wizards that they can do things like this?” Zhao Xu asked in surprise.

He knew that even though he was at the most powerful Wizard Association headquarters in Mystra, this place still conducted its training of Wizards via small group classes that each apprentice could choose from.

The traditional method of having a mentor take on one disciple each was only used for those disciples who were going to become Legendary Wizards and stand at the top of the world. Otherwise, the effects of private tutoring wouldn’t be as good as the current mainstream method of focus group teaching.

The only one-on-one mentorship that existed these days were those wandering witch doctors in villages.

So, when he heard her mention this sort of teaching style, his first reaction wasn’t pleasant surprise, but puzzlement instead.

If he was just playing a game, then it wouldn’t have mattered to him, but he had to make sure he learned everything properly right now. Even if other players went up to Level 2 and he was still stuck here, it didn’t matter.

The time spent in the academy could possibly be the only time in his life where he could gain knowledge without paying a price.

“No need to worry; I’m just a guide who’s in charge of answering all your questions in the beginning. For your actual courses, you can refer to the lecture timetable on your desk and attend the necessary lectures according to your requirements.”
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She said this as she passed the paper over without looking at it, as if she knew everything on the document by heart.

Zhao Xu didn’t look carefully at it after taking it from her either, just stuffed it into his bag. His eyes kept glancing at her cloak from time to time.

There was a glow around the cloak, as if it was made from starlight, and he couldn’t help but make a guess.

The mysterious lady, Antonya, noticed that Zhao Xu seemed more interested in her cloak than herself, so she couldn’t help but remark, “If you’re so interested in this cloak of mine, then after you’re done with your training, I could give you an identical one.”

“Really?” Zhao Xu’s voice went up in volume without him realizing it. Could he really be able to snag the legendary prize meant only for the best graduates?

“Of course. This cloak isn’t valuable anyway. It’s just decoration,” said Antonya.
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Zhao Xu nearly stopped breathing when he heard this. So much for his incredible imagination.

A legendary item that couldn’t be bought even if one had the money had come to mind just a moment ago.

The Starmantle Cloak was supposedly able to protect one from any attacks by a weapon that wasn’t powered by magic. And even if one was attacked by a magic weapon, as long as it passed the activation process, one could reduce its damage by half. It was listed at 130,000 gold pieces, but it was never in stock, and there was nowhere to buy it from even if one offered a higher price.

But that was to be expected. According to the discussion forums in his previous life, the biggest prize any graduate received for doing well was a Greatsword that was worth only 50 gold pieces.

Everyone else generally only received a weapon that wasn’t worth more than 10 gold pieces.

Over the next few hours, Zhao Xu quietly sat at his desk and read the beginner’s book that Antonya had passed to him: Road to Arcane Magic.

There was a strange drawing on the front cover of the book. It looked like a huge net that connected countless dots together.

But the material of this book didn’t come from modern times. It felt ancient to him.

Even though, traditionally, the older a book was, the more powerful it was, this book wouldn’t sell for much if he tried to sell it.
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The fact that the author of this book was stated as Antonya alone had completely undercut its value. Zhao Xu sighed to himself. Human nature throughout the ages had never changed, and Wizards must have had some ulterior motive for inventing a way to make things look old on purpose.
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He read through its contents while asking Antonya about the various aspects written inside.

This was exactly what stopped many players from choosing to become Wizards in Arthur.

Everyone was here to play a game, not to study.
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So, before everyone found out how powerful a Wizard could be, a lot of them were discouraged when they realized how crazy the training was going to be and immediately switched to a different Character Class.

The worst part was that even being a Level 1 Wizard was terrible.

A Level 1 Wizard had a hit dice of D4, which was the poorest among all the Character Classes. Even a Cleric had at least D8.
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Given that each player had a limited number of revival stones, attempts by a Wizard to level up by fighting monsters without bringing anyone else along was as good as throwing their life away.
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So, besides those who had an interest in dark arts or teenagers who were deluded about themselves, very few were able to set their minds to sitting down and studying knowledge about magic in a game properly.

The players only realized how powerful Wizards were after the first Level 5 Wizard appeared. Then there was a Level 7 Wizard, followed by a Level 9 Wizard, and a Level 11 Wizard.

These Wizards slowly shifted the players’ perception of Wizards, and they slowly began to push this Character Class up the ranks to become one of the top classes.

It wasn’t as though players had never come into contact with what they thought were NPC Wizards though. However, in other such online games, NPCs and players didn’t follow the same system, and there were even NPC Wizards who were powerful enough to destroy the entire universe, so when everyone saw powerful NPC Wizards in the beginning, nobody was bothered by them.

They didn’t know that the NPCs rose in level just like the rest of the players. The NPCs also relied on a combination of their race, character class, feats, skills, spells, hit dice, health, and equipment.

Zhao Xu knew all these things, but it didn’t alleviate the pain of going through these books that looked like Greek to him right now.
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Didn’t the schools teach these things by allowing the players to listen to a lecture in a group then slowly guiding them along the way?

He was going through self-study right from the beginning, which was really odd.

The only comforting part was that even though this Road to Arcane Magic looked like Greek to him, he could still sense that this book had been written pretty well.

Especially because this entire book had a deep sense of how timeless Arthur was.

It took a long time, and Zhao Xu just asked question after question. The female Wizard answered his every question in detail.

But he still felt that this whole process was very awkward. It made him feel like he was going down a desert road with no destination in sight.

After turning several pages, Zhao Xu decided to push her. “Why aren’t we starting with learning something like cantrips?”
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Cantrips were Level 0 spells for Wizards. Basically, every Wizard would be able to grasp all the cantrips.

Wizards learned higher level spells later, according to their ability.

Actually, it was already a little perplexing that Antonya hadn’t started from explaining some basics of wizardry to him and just dove straight into the beginnings of arcane magic from the minute he stepped in.

No matter how difficult the course was, there would be a proper order of things. They would start with the basic concept of magic, how to prepare spells, and how to cast spells.

Sure, it could be boring for the players, but at least one could see where it was going.

But Antonya remained elegant and replied, “What’s there to talk about regarding the preparation of spells? Isn’t that something that comes naturally eventually?”

Zhao Xu was shocked. “What do you mean by ‘it comes naturally eventually’?”

According to the records in his previous life, the first player to finish the Wizard course took an entire week.

And that was the first player, not the average player.

One could imagine what the rest of the players were like. There were even those who hadn’t completed their training after Zhao Xu entered the game eight months late.
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In order for the system to recognize the player as a Level 1 character, the player had to be able to display every skill that the character class was capable of.

For example, a Wizard had to be able to copy down all Level 0 spells and three Level 1 spells, as well as cast a Level 1 spell. They also had to be able to Copy Scrolls, successfully summon a Familiar and learn how to speak Draconic.

And now she was actually saying that all this would just come naturally?

He really wished that these big shots could empathize with noob players like himself. The players from Earth didn’t have the actual intelligence of their character stats and couldn’t really absorb this knowledge so quickly. All this would only come naturally one year later when everyone inherited the body that really matched their Ability Scores.

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