喜淘淘

It was the ninth day after learning the “fireball” spell. Whilst lifting a finger in his right hand, Abel began drawing the spell pattern at an extremely slow pace. It took him two minutes to finish drawing, but he was sure that he could make his very first spell.

Finally, the pattern was finished, and Abel began to chant the spell. He spoke out in the noble tongue of the elves, “O the passionate elf of fire; please lend me your strength! O the element of fire, under the command of the elf, you shall become an indestructible ball of flame!”

The pattern began to glow. At this moment, a dark golden light flashed from the Horadric Cube and reflected on the ‘fireball’ spell pattern. Just when he wanted to know what happened, the ‘fireball’ spell pattern started burning towards its inside, and a fireball was slowly formed. Abel felt the hot temperature of the fireball, flung his hands quickly, and threw it to the ground not far from where he was standing.

Boom.

Abel didn’t pay too much attention to the power of the “fireball.” He was more interested in what the Horadric Cube’s response was. This cube was everything for him, so every little change mattered to him.

He pressed it over the illuminated shadow of the Horadric Cube. The Horadric Cube was enlarged in front of Abel’s eyes. The 12 spaces remained unchanged. Everything he’s put inside was still there. The Tome of Town Portal was still inside and was taking up three slots of the cube. The portal bag was taking up one slot, and the private storage box was taking up four slots.

There was something else, though. Abel noticed that there was a small fireball logo next to the combine button. As he focused his power of the Will towards it, a message began to pop up:

[Fireball

Description: Create magical fire arrows

Mana cost: 2.5

Current skill level: 0

Fire damage: 2-5

Progress to level 1: 1/5000]

This was just like inside the game. Since Abel could release up to four ‘fireball’ spells, his total mana capacity was only 10. And just what in the world was that last part of the message?

1/5000? That’s 4999 more fireballs before he could level up. How much time would he have to spend on that?

If Abel had ten mp (mana points) in total, he would have to mediate after every four fireballs. And for every 20 mediations he’s had, he would have to take a rest before his head starts hurting. If it took 10 minutes for him to recharge his mana with meditation, it would take 3 hours for him to meditate 20 times. If he was to include the time he would need to take a break, he would have to spend 5 hours to practice fireball 80 times.

And if he was to scrape off his meditation training and not have any sleep at tall, he could do a total of 200 fireballs in a single day. That’s 25 days in total to shoot 5000 fireballs. No wonder Sam was practicing just one type of spell. His goal was to become an official wizard, and he didn’t have much time to learn any other spells.

Abel’s math was actually right. There were still some things he hadn’t taken into account, however. Because of how dense the mana was in the Rogue’s Encampment, it would only take 10 minutes for him to recover his mp fully. The same process would take up to 20 minutes inside the magic tower and would take longer after ranking up.

So, even the simplest spells would take a lot of time to practice. That’s why a lot of wizards didn’t participate in quest and combat. Even if they weren’t taking part in either one of these activities, they would still spend most of their time inside laboratories than learning spells.

Anyway, Abel got his first spell. Although the preparation time was far too long, he was still happy with his progress. As he took a few steps forward, he went to see how the ‘fireball’ spell had affected the ground.

“What the....”

Abel found a bit of stone hit by the “fireballs” on the ground. After cleaning up all the dirt and dust, a small teleportation portal appeared before him.

“It’s a waypoint!”

This was what Abel was searching for this whole time. This was the travel point between various regions in the Rogue’s Encampment. There were nine stations in the Rogue’s Encampment, which corresponded to the nine regions within the area.

Abel lowered his body. There was a 2-square-meters circle of quaint stones with two grooves at each one of its ends. He looked at the empty grooves. There was no energy to activate them.

He took out two ordinary diamonds from the portal bag and put them in the grooves. Both grooves flashed white light at the same time, and then the white light was starting glowing along with the groove patterns. Just when Abel thought that the teleportation station was about to be activated, he heard a “crack” coming from inside the grooves. The two ordinary diamonds he put in had just exploded.

This waypoint required a lot more energy than what ordinary gems could hold. Abel had a lot of perfect gems with him. Since he’s got the portal bag before coming to Bakong City, he’s combined a lot of various gems and had them all safely stored inside the bag.

He took out two more perfect diamonds and put them into the two grooves. This time, the white light flicker for a bit. All the lines on the stone surface started to glow, and then disappeared slowly, leaving only the two grooves shimmering.

Abel stood on top of the waypoint and thought of the places he could go to. Actually, since only this waypoint was activated, he would have to go to the other locations on foot to activate the portals.

Abel turned to look at the hourglass. There was not much time left. He needed to leave here after two hours. He was looking outside the Rogue’s Encampment. He’s suddenly had another idea. He could use the “fireball” spell now. Why not test it on a wild quill rat?

As he went past the barricade outside the gate, Abel entered the Blood More once more. As he was a lot more careful this time, it took him about ten minutes before he found another quill rat from inside the bush.

The quill rat noticed him as well. A long spike was shot at him, but he was able to deflect it with his hand. After deflecting the spike, he put down the visor on his helmet. This way, the quill rat could no longer do any damage to him.

Abel’s right-hand finger began to swipe in the air. When his finger just started to swipe, the Horadric Cube on his right arm began to flash out a dark golden light. Two options began to pop out inside Abel’s head. He could choose to use his skill tree to synergize the “fireball,” or he could choose not to.

So that’s what the fireball symbol on the Horadric Cube was. It was a skill tree for him to boost up his ability. With that in mind, Abel chose “yes” inside his mind, and a fireball began to emerge from his hand. He didn’t even chant out the spells while this was happening.

Abel was screaming as the fireball was literally cooking his hand. He was shocked to see how the fireball charged up so quickly but quickly came to his senses after realizing how hot it was.

Abel threw the fireball towards the quill rat. While it was screaming painfully, the fireball had burnt about half of its body into ash. It didn’t die, though, as it kept on shooting spikes towards Abel.

Abel was preparing to attack the quill rat for the second time. This time, he thought about using a ‘fireball’ with his fingers extended. As he did so, a ‘fireball’ pattern appeared in front of his fingers and shot out the flame towards the rat’s head.

A dark shadow floated on the corpse of the quill rat and was absorbed by the Horadric Cube. Abel wasn’t sure what going on here, but he knew that it was harmless for him.

Abel unfastened the armor on his arm. He looked at the ‘fireball’ logo in the block of Horadric Cube and focused his power of the Will on it. He was now 4997 fireballs aways from getting to the next level.