Elite Mages' Academy

Chapter 197: Magical Scrolls

Xiao Lin could not change Gu Xiaoyue’s choice, but he now needed to choose his own branch. He was not willing to be relegated to a support-type mage. Coupled with the fact that he would mostly be in the frontlines as a dual-cultivator, support magic was out of the question.

There were a lot of types of offensive magic. The basic ones would be the four elements of wind, earth, water and fire, and each of them gave birth to a very large array of spells. Other than that, there were mixed elemental magics such as ice, lightning, and nature, but they usually had higher requirements to begin learning them.

For instance, nature-type magic required the use to first get their earth and water element magics to a certain level before they could begin learning it.

Xiao Lin could not help but be anxious. The different branches of magic were all regarded as equals, and it usually depended on the user’s preferences and roles, which was what caused him grief.

Would he mainly use swordsmanship, with magic to support, or mainly use magic, with swordsmanship to support it?

That involved thinking about his combat tendencies, but to Xiao Lin, he had only entered the academy for three months, and he had not considered all that since he was still finding his way around. More accurately, he never really had the time to think about it.

If that was the case, he would temporarily focus on being a jack of all trades.

Xiao Lin quickly made his decision. His current focus was still preparing for the third monthly examination. Even though they were considered a team during the examinations, based on the first examination, he needed to officially become the monitor. Otherwise, there would always be people who would question his authority.

Basically, Xiao Lin would need to rely on himself.

That was why Xiao Lin decided to focus on long range attacks and disruption as his spells, which was why he temporarily focused his attention on the flame and water branches. Flame elemental spells had the strongest attack power among the four main elements, and the water element was a prerequisite to learning ice spells.

After making the decision, Xiao Lin finally relaxed. Now, he just needed to follow the plan for his training. He then shifted his focus back on Li Meiling, who was busy conducting her class.

Today’s basic meditation class was a little different. They did not go straight into meditation or skill training. Based on Gu Xiaoyue’s notes, that was usually the focus of most classes. However, Li Meiling was teaching them something new: elementary magical strolls.

Casting spells were not limited to meditating to gain harmony with the elements, then using one’s perception to gather the elements for use. Magical scrolls were a consumable tool that allowed anyone to easily cast spells.

On Planet Norma, mages could use a special type of ink to draw seals to invoke certain spells on specialized paper. They would then use magical crystals to imprint the magical energy needed to cast spells on the paper. At that point, anyone, even those with absolutely not spell-casting basics, could just take out the scroll to use the spell stored within.

It was just like an electrical circuit. After an engineer manufactures a complicated circuit, the user would only need to flick a switch to operate it, not needing any engineering knowledge.

Similarly, scroll creation was an important part of the magic courses, but creating magical scrolls was both time and energy consuming, and it was much harder to break through than even basic meditation. During the beginning, the quality and success rate of creating scrolls were also very low, which meant that good magical scrolls were very expensive, several times more than other equipment of the same rank. Most people who had magical scrolls would not use them save for emergencies.

Of course, the class was not about teaching them how to make magical scrolls. They were just new mages. Even Gu Xiaoyue would not be able to do it.

Xiao Lin listened in earnest for a while and finally grasped the true reason for the class. Lin Meiling was actually using the introduction to magical scrolls to have everyone understand that casting spells was not the end goal. There was still a long journey ahead which could allow them to have a lot more strategies and choices when they were fighting.

Xiao Lin was somewhat worried; that was not a good sign. There were a few others with the same expression in the class, and the smarter students all mostly guessed what was hidden within Li Meiling’s words.

Everyone knew the third monthly examination would be very hard, and Li Meiling was clearly telling them they would never be able to pass the examination with just their own skills, so she encouraged them to buy a few magical scrolls for emergencies.

In truth, most classes had some changes these few weeks. More and more students had noticed something was up. The teachers all carried serious expressions, and some students even tried to get some information regarding the upcoming examinations from the teachers, but they were all tight-lipped; or rather, the student union was incredibly strict with the information, and even the teachers only heard rumors, not having concrete information themselves.

The attitude the teachers had adopted also caused a lot of nervous tension among the new students, especially among the minority that did not have much of a lifespan left. Most of them were all begging for loans in points to buy Lifewater in anticipation of the batch that would be released for the first year students in a few days.

The truth was, after the two prior monthly examinations and the entrance examinations, coupled with the fact that the second month was fairly easy, it was actually not difficult to afford Lifewater as long as they were not reckless with their spending. That was why the more positive individuals who were not as ambitious were not too nervous.

Their lifespans were still quite long, so dying just one time was not a big deal. At the time, when everyone was full of tension, there were quite a few students who thought that way.

However, all that was happening did not affect Xiao Lin too much, outside of him constantly reminding Gu Xiaoyue that she needed to buy Lifewater, no matter what. He even offered to help her if she did not have enough. He currently had an abundance of points.

Li Meiling’s class also gave Xiao Lin an idea. He gave a call to Lu Renjia that afternoon, saying he wanted to change up the order and cancel a few things. He needed the points to buy some magical scrolls, which Lu Renjia was obviously not too happy about.

After that, it was time for his planned training for the final week. The magical scrolls were just in case of emergencies. His own magic was still going to be the most reliable thing.

Before he started training, Xiao Lin once again received a call from the student union president, asking him to retrieve something, stating it was something the dean personally asked to be handed to Xiao Lin.

Even the student union president did not know what the object was for, so he expressed a great deal of curiosity. However, Xiao Lin immediately knew what it was. It was the key to levelling up his talent!