The Truth of Magic


Chapter 8: Archivist
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Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The floating city far above Zhao Xu hung like a vast cloud in the sky.

Even though he had heard about how mysterious and majestic this city of magic was in his previous life, Zhao Xu still couldn’t control the excitement in his heart.

The world of Arthur used magic, an otherworldly power that was incredible and mysterious beyond belief.

But an ordinary person could only rely on the most primitive forms of strength like human strength, the strength of water, and the strength of animals.

If you wanted to travel far, you either had to walk or take a horse carriage. Zhao Xu was a Level 5 Fighter before he died the last time, so that was equivalent to being able to take down a small village.

But in the last ten years he spent endangering his life in adventures, he had only used a Teleportation Gate once or twice.

Ancient civilizations were limited by their methods of communication and travel.

In the world of Arthur, there were no modern modes of transportation like Earth had. So the vast majority of the people were limited to wherever their legs could carry them.

Even those who had played Arthur were no better. There was a Teleportation Scroll, but Teleportation itself was a Level 5 Arcane Spell.

Even though there was no price to pay, unlike another Level 5 Arcane Spell, Raise Dead, that incurred penalties due to its ability to revive the dead, the only ones who could cast a Level 5 spell were Wizards or Clerics that were at least at Level 9.
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And you could only find or come into contact with spellcasters that could do this in a large city.

Only such places had organizations for the various Character Classes.

Most Wizards had to do some research, so they normally hid in lesser-known places to avoid being disturbed.

Even the poor could have distant relatives living deep in the mountains suddenly appear to look for them, so where would a more advanced level Wizard go?
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The floating cities suspended above Zhao Xu’s head were the places where the Wizards did their research.

These floating cities were very high in the sky, so you either needed a Teleportation Gate or a Teleportation Spell to get up there.
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Zhao Xu had relied solely on his legs in his previous life, and even though he had been forced to move from place to place in the last six years to take revenge, he had never come to Mystra, the mecca of the Wizards.

Back then, he was mostly limited to the northern regions.

Just like most players, he had moved about only within walking distance of his city all his life.

In his previous life, his class’ league was able to gather together because Arthur tended to allocate players according to region.

So, all the players from the same university would often end up appearing somewhere near each other.

That was why Zhao Xu was so stunned when he realized that he was in Mystra, far to the south.

That meant that he was now away from his friends. If he had to go on a mission or level up or fight monsters, he wouldn’t have the help of his classmates.
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You could only be considered an advanced level Wizard only after you hit Level 5.

A Level 1 Wizard could cast Level 1 spells, a Level 3 Wizard could cast Level 2 spells, a Level 5 Wizard could cast Level 3 spells, and so on.

There was a big difference in power between each increase in spell level.

Zhao Xu had no team with him now and a low-level Wizard could only cast a few spells.

So in such a situation, it was going to be hard on him until he reached at least Level 5.
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The only thing he could count on was probably the fact that he was also a Cleric at the same time.

At least now he had additional Divine Spells for his spell slots, and his number of spell slots would increase too.

Zhao Xu started reading the recommendation letter carefully. There was a simple map of the place on it and it circled the place where he was right now.

Zhao Xu looked at the map and realized that the headquarters of the Wizard Organization in Mystra, The Arcane Gate, was actually right next to the main temple of Sisylvana, the Goddess of Magic.
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But then again, that made sense too. Sisylvana herself was an incredible divine force who was once a Legendary Wizard.

Even many arrogant high-level wizards believed in the Goddess of Magic and viewed her as the first person to go down the road of magic.
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Zhao Xu looked at his recommendation letter and his hands started shaking.

This particular Magic Academy was supposed to be the best in the world.

Maybe it was too much to say that they had as many Legendary Wizards as dogs, but there were definitely as many rare high-level wizards as dogs here.

At the same time, most Clerics were trained in a temple, and he had been recommended to the main temple of the Goddess of Magic to start his training.

That was like getting a guaranteed space in an Ivy League school.

Zhao Xu knew that those who went through the Class Prescription Test would get a better recommendation depending on how suitable one was for their role.

But the places in his recommendation letters weren’t just good, they were pretty much the best.
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It was little wonder that there were very few players along the streets. Most other players weren’t good enough to be sent here.

Even a year later, not many players could set foot in Mystra either.

As Zhao Xu picked up speed, more and more people appeared on the streets.

Hotels, scroll shops, material shops slowly appeared along the streets, meant for both wizards and adventurers.

Now and then, a group of guards riding horses, dressed in magic robes, would ride by to patrol the city.

When Zhao Xu looked at their robes, a blue so dark it was almost black, he slowly realized who these men were. They were Mystra’s Magic Guards.

This was the only place in the world of Arthur that was able to afford to use wizards for guard patrols.
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Or rather, the Prestige Class ‘Magic Guards’ was a famous one.

Having a Prestige Class was something that countless players of Arthur dreamt of.

There were few Prestige Classes for Wizards in particular. Without joining a group and contributing sufficiently, it wouldn’t be possible to get one.

There was one gamer who went through a lot of trouble to finally obtain sufficient credit in Mystra to become a Magic Guard.

That same player had also put up a long post about it, and you could sum up the entire article in two words: Don’t bother.
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It was thanks to that post that the name of Mystra spread far and wide throughout Wizard circles.

To Zhao Xu, the most beneficial thing to himself about being allocated to the large city of Mystra was that he could get a Prestige Class easily, as well as some of the secret features of the base Character Classes.

There were also powerful Feats here that he couldn’t learn anywhere else.

Zhao Xu’s list of Feats was still miserably empty.
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As Zhao Xu walked on, he looked at the other things in his bag.

In the end, he found two insignias at the bottom of the bag.

He picked them up to have a look. The words inscribed were in Common and he still remembered how to read them. “Mystra/The Arcane Gate/Apprentice/Zhongxia”.

Zhao Xu squeezed the insignias in his hands gently and immediately realized that they were made from mithral. It was a material that one could add to their armor to reduce the chances of their spells failing, and it was more expensive than gold.

But, because Wizards needed to get into certain positions in order to cast spells, higher grade armor worked against one’s ability to get into the required stance and it could cause a 25% failure rate in spellcasting. That was why Wizards generally just walked around in robes.

The other insignia was the one for the Cleric. The polished reflective surface had his identity and name on it as well.

Zhao Xu put both tags on himself. For many players, after going through a period of training in their respective Character Classes, they either felt that this particular Character Class wasn’t suitable for them, or they were still unsure about whether they wanted to continue down their path, and would normally engage in other training at the same time.

Either way, you had to meet the minimum requirements at the end of the training before the system would consider you a Level 1 player.

Before that, you could go through as much training as you liked and it didn’t matter. That was why the system also allowed one to choose a Character Class directly.

If you didn’t want to try this role out in your head, then you could try it out physically.

But Zhao Xu wasn’t thinking about all these things. His attention was focused on the feeling that these two insignias gave him. Could they really be Magic Items?

Magic Items in Arthur had to go through a period of activation before one learned what they really were.

But a period of activation didn’t affect their use anyway.

Something like this that could increase Ability Scores would be useable after carrying it around for 24 hours.

He wasn’t blind. He just had to check his character stats the following day to find out.

But, just after taking a few steps, Zhao Xu slapped himself on the forehead. These things were considered a +2 item that could increase his Ability Scores and were worth 4,000 gold pieces in the market.

How could it be possible that the system was going to give him 8,000 gold pieces right from the start?
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Zhao Xu continued walking to his destination while trying to figure this puzzle out, and it wasn’t far now.

But Zhao Xu didn’t know at this point.

He could receive these two insignias only if he went through the Class Prescription Test and made sure that only the Wizard and Cleric statues were left lit.

As long as someone with these two insignias was allocated to Mystra, then he could take on Arthur’s most mysterious Base Character Class, a Wizard with supernatural powers – an Archivist.
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