The Truth of Magic


Chapter 21: Copying Spells

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
But when Zhao Xu started taking in all that knowledge, he realized that he had been thinking about this too simplistically.

There were so many players who chose to be Wizards, and the fastest among them took seven days to graduate from the training for a good reason.

It was like making a middle school student study high school math. It wasn’t impossible, but it would be difficult.

The amount of studying needed in high school wasn’t as much compared to university, but they had to go through it over and over again throughout their three years in high school, just so that they could apply it on the spot when they were faced with a question during the high school exams.

The time given for high school exams wasn’t enough for each student to take their time and think about it, so many students were well versed in answering techniques and used their experience in tackling questions to deal with the lack of time.

Spells were like that, too.

The formation, words, and positions all had to become instinctive.

Zhao Xu had learned how to cast spells over the past few days of studying, and most of the work was done within that one hour he had each day to decide which spells he was going to cast.

The actual act of casting spells was like driving a car. The spell was already there, just like how the car was already assembled.

But this process required everyone to put their hearts and minds together.

Wizards couldn’t possibly flip their spellbooks open at the last minute to check what they had to say in order to cast a spell when they were faced with danger. Their enemies would just laugh at them.
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But Zhao Xu got a headache just reading the various words of a spell out loud.

But this didn’t slow Zhao Xu’s progress down too much, and he was still in line with the schedule Antonya had planned. This sort of thing required him to repeat spells several times to solidify the process in his mind anyway.

So he more or less finished looking through the two books on spell preparation and spellcasting after five days and moved on to the book on cantrips.

“The spellbooks that we wizards use are written in arcane texts and there are some similarities among them, but each wizard has to add on something extra to it. So even if I give you a spellbook now, you have to use an Arcana check in order to be able to decode the book and read it properly.”

What Antonya was really saying was that every spellbook had an additional layer of protection and you needed the key to translate it into something you could understand.

Arcana was a skill that the characters in Arthur had. Just like Perception and Sense Motives, they were skills that required points and practice.

Zhao Xu hadn’t reached the course on advanced Arcana yet, so it didn’t matter for the time being.

“You’re able to read the spells in this book because this Encyclopedia of Cantrips has been specially configured. Or rather, when the owner of the spellbook has allowed you to read it, you won’t have to use Arcana.”

“And using the cantrip Read Magic, wizards can also read spellbooks that haven’t been specifically sealed by others without any problems.”

Zhao Xu nodded as he listened. In other words, the Read Magic spell was the key to opening all sorts of spellbooks.

So it seemed like using arcane words was a way wizards tried to protect their spells. They made them complicated so that it would be difficult for non-wizards to read them, so then wizards came up with a spell that could decode the words.

They were protecting themselves against the other classes, not other wizards.

“But you must remember that a spellbook is the foundation of every wizard. You don’t need a spellbook to prepare the Read Magic spell, but for all other spells, wizards must have a spellbook with spells already copied into it in order to prepare spells and cast them.”

Antonya spoke very slowly and gravely.

Zhao Xu had heard about how wizards in his previous life had gone broke from copying spells, so he couldn’t help but ask out of curiosity, “Mentor, is there a price to pay for copying spells?”

Antonya passed a book to Zhao Xu instead.

After Zhao Xu took it from her, he opened it up. It was also another thick tome, but this book was completely empty inside. He touched it and estimated that there were about 100 pages in it. But since every sheet was made from parchment paper, it looked pretty thick.

He looked back at Antonya a little confusedly and didn’t understand what she was trying to tell him.

“Once you’ve taken one full day to study spells, you can start copying spells into your own spellbook. The number of pages required will depend on the level of the spell, and even a cantrip will require one page even though it’s considered level 0.”
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Zhao Xu frowned when he heard this. Taking one day to study just one spell was already a problem in itself, but the other problem was that 100 pages were only enough to copy up to eleven Level 9 spells. These spellbooks ran out of pages very quickly, so he would have to carry many spellbooks on himself.

“Also, each time you copy one page, it will cost you 100 gold pieces. You rookie wizards get a special concession, and the association will cover the cost of copying all cantrips as well as three Level 1 spells. So you don’t have to worry about that.”
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Zhao Xu had heard that the price of copying spells was high, but he didn’t expect it to be this exorbitant.

“Mentor, who do I have to pay this money to?”

“It doesn’t go to anybody. It’s just the cost of the materials used. The spellbook for copying spells, the special goose feather pen required, the specially processed ink, and the incense sticks for lighting up the place where you copy the spells would average around 10,000 gold pieces for copying 100 pages worth of spells, and so we’ve all agreed that it will cost 100 gold pieces per page.”

“If you don’t cover these costs, then there’s no way you could copy spells that carry magic in them and you wouldn’t be able to cast them.”

After Zhao Xu heard this, he could just sigh and say that wizards were really poor and led really difficult lives.

There were so many special requirements. No wonder nobody thought of mass printing spellbooks in his previous life.

If you didn’t have enough assets, there was no way you would be able to spend money on reproducing spellbooks like that.

“That’s the way it is if you either copy from memory or copy from a spell scroll. If you copy from someone else’s spellbook, then you could get a check and the cost and time of copying would be halved to just 50 gold pieces a page. That’s also the result of a calculation.”
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Zhao Xu perked up when he heard those words.

But he didn’t need to see her face to know that Antonya was probably grinning away under that cloak of hers, just waiting for him to make a fool out of himself.

He had to pay membership fees even if he just wanted to stream a comedy online.

But these people weren’t stupid. Even if another wizard lent you a book, and you could copy it at a faster rate than normal, it meant that the owner of the book wouldn’t be able to use any of the spells in that book while it was being borrowed.

It took 50 gold pieces per page to make a duplicate of your own spellbook, and nobody would do something so dumb unless they had to.

Antonya didn’t wait for too long and explained it to him directly. “Nowadays, borrowing a book just to read costs 50 gold pieces per page too. And some really rare spells require you to either pay more or you might not get to read them at all.”

Zhao Xu nodded at her words. The cost of borrowing a book was exactly the same as the amount saved by copying from someone else’s spellbook.
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That meant that borrowing a book to copy spells would cost 100 gold pieces per spell.

“So now you have to make a decision between two choices.”

“Your first choice would be to take the book in my hand.” As she said this, Antonya suddenly pulled out another book from absolutely nowhere and sent it flying into his hands. It was a 30 by 15-centimeter book that was about 15 centimeters thick, and it had a metal cover with a lock on the side.

“That’s the goddess’ Blessed Book. It’s a Wondrous Item. Because the process of creating it infused magic into it, you don’t have to pay for the materials to copy spells. Each book has 1,000 pages and it’s sold for 12,500 gold pieces. It’s hard to buy because so many wizards want one.”

Zhao Xu looked at the plain cover and couldn’t imagine that there was an item that could actually reduce the price of copying spells to almost 10% of the original cost.

As long as you had this Wondrous Item, then the cost of copying spells would go down to 12.5 gold pieces a page. That was way better than the original cost of 100 gold pieces or even the 50 gold pieces required to copy from another spellbook.
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As for the fact that the item was difficult to purchase, that was a problem for others. He had managed to get himself into a large organization, so there was a way to get his hands on this internally.

This was probably one of the special privileges everyone was talking about.

But Zhao Xu didn’t get too excited at this point because he noticed that Antonya had mentioned he had a second choice.

“The other option is to activate your Enlightened Spellcaster feat.”

“Once you use that, the spells will be copied into your memory and you won’t need a spellbook anymore.”
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Zhao Xu couldn’t stop his heart from racing. His path to becoming a wizard had begun, and the powerful feats that this organization held were finally being revealed to him.

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