Chapter 11
Greem suddenly shuddered, shaking him out of his deep meditative state.
Greem sat up on his bed, panting. He could still vividly remember what he just experienced in his dream. He could even feel a bit of the burning pain he had received from the white speck.
Was it an illusion? A dream? Perhaps it was something else?
Greem began to feel a certain sense of bewilderment and confusion.
He had meditated countless times before, and every time it had been a vague experience. Only rarely did he feel anything even slightly spiritual. As for that last dream…. it was… it was like he was in control of himself while dreaming!
“Chip, run a self-scan!” Greem, having suddenly thought of something, gave the chip an order.
*Beep* “Beginning scan of the host’s body… Scan completed. Saving self-test report…”
Following the messages from the Chip, a new self-scan report was projected into his mind.
Huh? Optimize the Burning Hand?
It sounded like something really good. But why did it consume so much Experience? If any operation related to Spiritual models cost him this many Experience points, perhaps all the Experience points he accumulated in the past six years would be used up in the next few days.
Greem calmed himself down and took a moment to ponder this optimization. After a few moments he decided to decline.
First off, Burning Hand was just a close ranged spell. It didn’t have much potential combat value in Greem’s mind. Sooner or later, it would be replaced by other long ranged offensive or defensive spells which were more valuable, therefore it wasn’t worth investing in it now.
Second, taking his current Spirit energy into consideration, he couldn’t have more than 3 solidified models in his Spiritual Domain. Under this situation, where only limited slots were available, giving Burning Hand a space in his Spiritual Domain clearly didn’t match up with his optimized path.
In fact, Greem himself would’ve preferred to prioritize the solidification of a long-range attack spell, and he had a specific spell in mind for this very purpose.
This was a fire spell that he had studied and researched for nearly half a year – Fire Arrow.
Fire Arrow, a low-grade fire elemental spell. The spell allowed him to form a magical arrow of Fire Elementium and throw it at his target, causing 7 points of physical damage and 18 points of fire and explosive damage.
With Greem’s pitiful 3 Physique and 11 Health Points, a Fire Arrow was more than enough to instantly kill him. Therefore, all this time Greem had been dreaming of learning this long-ranged attack spell.
But too bad, although Fire Arrow was a low-grade spell, it consisted of 34 Spell Words. This was the reason why, even though he had been restlessly studying for half a year, he still hadn’t mastered the method of constructing its Spiritual model.
Greem had invested more than 20 Knowledge points and a huge amount of time in learning this Fire Arrow spell. It even delayed his research into Magic knowledge. However, he was still lingering outside the door of success, and far from becoming an elite among the Beginner Apprentice Adepts, mastering more than two spells.
But now, with the help of the Chip, presumably this ‘doorway’ had come much closer!
Ignoring the fact that it was time for breakfast, Greem hurriedly washed his face, then sat in front of his writing table, excitedly opening up his magic notebook. Everything related to the magical model of the Fire Arrow, the magic words of it, the frequency of the Spirit Energy, and the material of the spell construct; Greem had copied all of them into this notebook.
Real spellcasting was not as simple as ordinary people thought it was.
34 syllables of magic couldn’t be recited in one go like how they were written. A spell couldn’t be cast just like that. The entire process was an extremely complicated process and required the perfect combination of hand, mouth, heart, and mind. It was the result of them working together.
When reciting each syllable, Greem needed to adjust his Spirit to a matching vibrational frequency, and both of his hands had to perform a specific gesture.
Any mistake or delay in the casting process and the only result would be a… casting blowback.
Although this kind of casting blowback wouldn’t kill an Apprentice, it would cause damage to his Spirit, and it would take him a long time to recover. Also, if one’s spirit was frequently damaged, there was a possibility that they could suffer a permanent reduction in their Spirit!