Chapter 258: Talent Wizardry Selection

Chapter 258: Talent Wizardry Selection



"Metal Morphing!" Rain softly spoke the name of this new wizardry.

After carefully examining it several times, Rain quickly realized that the difficulty of the model visualization for this new wizardry, 'Metal Morphing,' was far beyond the other wizardries he had learned, such as 'Scorching Touch,' 'Heat Field,' and 'Blazing Light.'

It was even several times more challenging than 'Sharpening,' which was also a metal-type wizardry.

Rain had anticipated this difficulty.

This was because it was a Level 1 wizardry.

According to the hierarchy, whether it was 'Sharpening' or 'Blazing Light' that he had learned before, they were merely apprentice-level wizardries.

Therefore, even with Rain's current high mental attribute of 39 points, learning this Metal Morphing wizardry was not an easy task.

Since he had planned to exchange for Metal Morphing beforehand, Rain had prepared numerous metal ingots, including iron and copper, in the corner of the room.

After spending some time memorizing the structure of the wizardry model, Rain walked to the corner, picked up a hefty iron ingot, and began his attempts.

For Rain, with the help of the system, one successful attempt meant permanently engraving the wizardry on his profession panel.

Thus, despite the high difficulty of this wizardry, Rain was confident that he could master it within a short time.

After spending over an hour and failing dozens of times, Rain, with beads of sweat on his forehead, finally succeeded! As he cast Metal Morphing, the rectangular iron ingot in his right palm began to deform at a considerable speed, transforming into the shape of a dagger in just a few seconds.

Rain estimated that it took about three seconds.

Surprised and intrigued, Rain furrowed his brows, deep in thought.

He carefully examined the blade of the dagger and tested its sharpness with his fingers, his expression contemplative.

Soon, Rain recited the incantation again, casting Metal Morphing once more.

Quickly, the dagger underwent another swift transformation, this time becoming a delicate little iron hammer.

In appearance, it resembled a common blacksmith's hammer.

However, the head of a typical blacksmith's hammer is usually made of iron, while this small hammer was entirely made of iron, including the head.

Swinging the small hammer in his hand a few times, Rain's face showed satisfaction.

Setting the small hammer aside, Rain crossed his arms and paced back and forth in the room.

"The blade of the dagger is a bit soft. This is because the dagger formed through Metal Morphing hasn't undergone tempering to harden it."

"In combat, the destructive power of the blade would be significantly reduced."

"This is because" format for your output.

"In that case, I need to find a special metal or alloy to complement this Metal Morphing wizardry to achieve the best effect in terms of power."

"No, that's not right!"

Suddenly, a flash of insight crossed Rain's mind.

He cast Metal Morphing again, transforming the small hammer back into a dagger.

Immediately after, Rain cast 'Sharpening,' another metal-type wizardry.

As Sharpening was successfully cast, a somewhat dazzling, silvery light in the form of water ripples appeared on the dagger in Rain's hand.

Rain picked up an iron ingot with his left hand and began to cut it with the dagger in his right hand.

With the aid of Sharpening, the task was not difficult.

This brought a smile to Rain's face.

"If I cast Sharpening in conjunction with it, the requirements for metal materials are easily met with Hardened Fine Gold Ingots or Blood-veined Steel."

"I don't need to search for rare or scarce metals."

"Hmm?"

"Wait, my Sharpening seems to be significantly better than before." In an instant, Rain noticed an issue.

He could clearly sense the increase in power, a boost of one or two-tenths!

"But that's not right. Sharpening is still at lv1 (90/100), and the level hasn't increased." Rain glanced at his Apprentice Wizard profession panel.

"Could it be because my mental attribute has grown?"

"No, that's not it either!"

"My mental attribute has been at 39 points for quite some time now."

Rain furrowed his brows in confusion and opened the system to check his attribute panel, examining each item carefully.

When he saw the talent 'Intermediate Steel Body,' a thought crossed his mind.

"Could it be because I spent a talent point to upgrade 'Basic Steel Body' to 'Intermediate Steel Body'?" Rain muttered to himself.

He remembered it clearly.

When 'Basic Steel Body' was upgraded to 'Intermediate Steel Body,' his body was enveloped in a silvery-gray metallic halo.

"But that's impossible. I've never heard of anyone's elemental affinity changing."

Rain was quite certain about this.

He had discussed this issue with Naya Usman, a wizardry family member.

Additionally, ancient records rarely mentioned anyone's elemental affinity changing.

"But if it's true, as I suspect, that upgrading the 'Steel Body' talent increases my metal affinity..." Rain's heart began to race with excitement.

This would mean that metal-type wizardry would be the perfect match for his talent wizardry`!

"I remember Naya testing me once. My fire elemental affinity was 71, and my metal elemental affinity was 72, both in the above-average range."

"I must go to the Training Hall right away! They have testing crystals there.

At that moment, Rain also noticed that the system prompt appeared:

【You have studied Metal Transformation Technique, and your related insight has improved!】

【You have understood a new skill - Metal Transformation Technique】

【Your skill Metal Transformation Technique has improved, +1 experience】

However, Rain's mind was preoccupied with the matter of elemental affinity, and he didn't pay much attention to the prompts. Instead, he left the room and quickly made his way towards the training building.

When Rain entered the first-floor hall of the training building, he saw the same welcoming maiden he had met before, standing not far ahead, still guiding others.

Upon seeing Rain, the maiden's beautiful eyes lit up, and she eagerly approached him, asking with enthusiasm, "Greetings, Sir Rain. How may I assist you today?"

"Hello. I'd like to take an elemental affinity test this time."

"Oh?" The maiden's eyes widened in surprise.

Could it be that the formidable Sir Rain is considering venturing into the path of wizardry? It's not uncommon for members of the Swordsman Division to simultaneously pursue the paths of knights and wizards.

On the contrary, this situation is not rare at all.

What's rare is someone like Rain, with extraordinary knight talent, also studying wizardry!

"Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing. Sir Rain, the elemental affinity test is on the third floor. Allow me to take you there." The maiden quickly regained her composure and smiled as she spoke.

"Okay." Rain followed the maiden up the spiral staircase.

"By the way, what's on the second floor?" Rain asked casually.

The last time he was here, he mainly used the Torrent Room and Advanced Torrent Room on the first floor, so he wasn't familiar with the second floor.

"On the second floor, there are small-group classes led by instructors teaching various Extraordinary Combat Techniques to Swordsman adults. Additionally, there's a Massage Room and Attack Power Testing Room on this floor."

"There's a massage room?" Rain couldn't help but feel slightly surprised.

"Yes, Sir."

"Well, Sir Rain, actually, I'm quite skilled at massages too." The maiden noticed Rain's expression and, assuming he was interested in massages, her pretty face flushed as she recommended herself.

"Umm, maybe next time. I have something to attend to this time." Rain politely declined.

"Okay, Sir." The maiden couldn't help but feel slightly disheartened, but the thought that Sir Rain didn't outright reject her made her spirits lift again.

"What about the Attack Power Testing Room you mentioned earlier?" Rain asked again.

"That's where Swordsman adults test the power of their Extraordinary Combat Techniques. The third floor also has a Wizardry Power Testing Room." The maiden quickly explained.

Rain nodded in understanding.

He now had a general idea of the layout of the entire training building.

The second floor was primarily for Swordsmen pursuing the knight path.

For example, small-group classes.

Different instructors teach various Extraordinary Combat Techniques.

Quite impressive.

Rain had already made up his mind. Next time, if he wanted to improve his Rocken's Extraordinary Combat Technique, he could come here, potentially saving some skill points.

As for the third floor, it should be for Swordsmen pursuing the wizard path.

Soon, Rain followed the maiden to the third floor.

"Sir, this is the room for elemental affinity testing. A specialist will attend to you here. I'll leave you here." The maiden smiled and said.

"Thank you."

Rain noticed that the room's door was wide open, and he could see several small rooms inside, seemingly empty.

Understandably so.

Everyone's elemental affinity, unless influenced by some divine power, remains constant throughout their life, so frequent testing isn't necessary.

As Rain entered the room, a young girl quickly approached him, her voice crisp as she asked, "Sir, how may I assist you?"

"I'd like to take an elemental affinity test."

"Certainly, Sir. According to the regulations, this service requires 5 merit points from you. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes." Rain nodded.

The girl led Rain to another compartment inside.

Upon entering, Rain saw a prism crystal, taller than the Usman family's crystal, with a height of two meters, and its cross-section was also an equilateral triangle.

The room's walls were white, and the illumination came from the paint on the walls, emitting a soft white light.

"Sir, using this testing crystal is simple. Just infuse it with your mental power and manipulate the energy particles as much as possible." The girl explained briefly, gesturing to the crystal beside them.

"Okay." Rain nodded.

Without hesitation, Rain began to grasp the prism crystal, almost as tall as him, closing his eyes and focusing his mental power.

As Rain's mental energy flowed into the prism crystal, it quickly glowed with a soft white light, and the originally transparent prism began to swirl with multicolored radiance.

Gradually, the light stabilized.

Rain opened his eyes to see the top of the prism crystal shrouded in a silver mist, with the middle section displaying a slightly longer length of multicolored light.

At the crystal's base, there was a slightly shorter length of multicolored light.

"Oh, Sir, you actually have an extraordinary metal elemental affinity! And it's of superior degree."

The girl was astonished, exclaiming in wonder.

Hmm?

Rain's heart skipped a beat!

Indeed, his affinity for metal elements had changed.

Before Rain could ask, the girl proactively reported the data:

"Sir, your metal elemental affinity is 84.2, which is considered superior. It's truly rare. The second highest is your fire elemental affinity at 71.8, which is above average. Both are quite impressive."

Metal elemental affinity of 84.2!

Rain remembered clearly.

Previously, when Naya tested him, his metal elemental affinity was only 72, but now it had reached 84.2. No wonder his wizardry power had increased significantly!

The higher one's affinity for a particular element, the stronger the wizardry power under the same conditions.

In other words, if Rain were to cast metal-based wizardry now, its power would be significantly stronger than before.

The key issue was that he might still have the opportunity to acquire more talent points in the future, which could enhance his 'Steel Body' talent.

This meant that his metal elemental affinity could potentially reach even higher levels, making the increase in the power of his metal-based wizardry quite substantial!

It was common knowledge that improving one's control over wizardry didn't enhance its power; it only increased the casting speed.

To enhance the power of wizardry, the simplest way was to increase one's spiritual energy.

However, the problem was that most wizards of the same level, such as first-level wizards, had very little difference in spiritual energy. Therefore, the power enhancement from elemental affinity became particularly valuable.

At this moment, Rain was faced with a happy dilemma!

A dilemma that no one else would ever encounter.

He had originally planned to study fire-based defensive first-level wizardry 'Fire Ring Resistance' and use the Fog Condensation Elixir to advance to a formal wizard.

But now, not pursuing the path of metal-based wizardry would be a waste of his potential.

"Sir?" The girl noticed the young sword-wielding man with rare talents standing dumbfounded and gently reminded him.

"Yes?"

"Sir, do you require any other tests, such as testing your total spiritual energy or understanding of wizardry models?" The girl asked proactively.

"No, thank you."

Rain's mind was now fully focused on choosing a path for his wizardry.

He could always come back later to test whenever he wanted.

"Sir, regarding the study of metal-based wizardry, our branch doesn't offer it. However, there are two instructors teaching fire-based wizardry."

"I'll come back later!" Rain waved his hand and left the third floor.

As he walked, Rain continued to ponder.

"The problem with choosing metal-based wizardry is that there are too few spells."

"Of course, there might be some metal-based wizardry in certain wizardry schools, like the Prima Armament School, which offers this Metal Morphing spell. They should have more than just this one metal morphing technique!"

"But I'll need to confirm this first."

While thinking, Rain quickly made his way to the library of the Sword-Wielding Division.

In the library.

"Hello, sir. How may I assist you?" A beautiful female staff member noticed Rain approaching, stood up, and bowed.

"Please help me find information about metal-based wizardry." Rain handed her his gold emblem.

"Yes, sir! Please wait a moment." The girl respectfully took the emblem with both hands and began searching quickly.

"I've found it, sir. There are several books related to metal-based wizardry, such as, and."

"I'll borrow all eleven."

"Hmm?" The girl fanned her big eyes at Rain.

Eleven books? Could he finish reading them all?

"Is there a problem?"

"No problem, sir. The total cost for borrowing these books is 110 merit points."

Rain quickly paid the fee.

Soon, Rain returned to his room with a stack of heavy printed books and began reading them eagerly.

He used a scanning method of speed-reading.

Two hours later, he had clarified several questions.

Firstly, the book mentioned that the Empire had metal-based wizardry spells like the first-level 'Mercury Sword' and 'Steel Ball Crush', as well as the second-level 'Spike Flood', and so on.

However, metal-based wizardry was strictly controlled by the Empire due to its application in equipment manufacturing.

In other words, if Rain wanted to obtain metal-based wizardry from official channels, he would need to continue improving his status or find alternative means.

Additionally, certain wizardry schools possessed some metal-based wizardry.

For example, the book mentioned that the Prima Armament School had a second-level metal-based wizardry spell called 'Armament Guardian'.

This school was dedicated to researching metal puppets and war colossi, and its members were very few.

After all, without metal elemental affinity, it was challenging to excel in this field.

Furthermore, multiple ancient books recorded that 'Metal Morphing' was a crucial metal-based wizardry spell that provided various degrees of enhancement to other metal-based spells.

And so on.

"It seems that choosing metal-based wizardry as my talent wizardry is not impossible!"

The more Rain thought about it, the more feasible it seemed!

At this moment, Rain suddenly remembered that he hadn't checked the system prompt yet.

He flipped through the pages and noticed that below the Apprentice Wizard (Extraordinary) panel, at the very top, there was a brand new icon.

The icon depicted a twisted, deformed metal column with palm patterns on both sides, connected by short arcs.

These short arcs formed a circular pattern, seemingly symbolizing a palm facing the metal pillar, releasing a mysterious wave that caused the pillar to distort and transform.

Below the icon, there was a small line of text:

Metal Morphing lv1 (1/100)



Effect of Metal Morphing lv1: Consumes a certain amount of spiritual energy, using a specific wizardry model to induce the surrounding metal-type energy particles, changing the shape of the metal held by the host.

(Note: Metal Morphing is a continuous induction-type wizardry, with deformation speed and control level, spiritual energy proportional, and deformation metal quantity, metal type, etc. inversely proportional.)



Hmm?

Rain repeated the words in the annotation several times.

The deformation speed and control level are proportional, as he had already anticipated. The few apprentice-level wizardries he had learned were all proportional to his spiritual energy.

However...

"The fact that metal type and deformation metal quantity are inversely proportional is a bit annoying." Rain muttered to himself.

This aspect had been overlooked in his previous tests!

Soon, he picked up the two iron ingots he had prepared and began testing the Metal Morphing spell again.

As expected, when transforming into a hammer, due to the increased number of iron ingots, the time required increased from the previous three seconds to around four seconds.

This caused Rain's eyebrows to furrow.

After some thought, Rain tested the spell with a larger quantity of iron ingots, approximately the weight of his two-handed war hammer.

It took a full ten seconds to transform the iron ingots into the original shape of the Pig Head Hammer!

This...

The situation before him made Rain's expression turn grim.

Although he was currently at lv1, he could improve the spell's efficiency by allocating points in the future.

Even if he improved the spell by one level, reducing the casting time by twenty percent, it would still not be enough.

"So lv2 would be around eight seconds."

"Lv3 would be over six seconds, lv4 around five seconds, and lv5 around four seconds."

"Lv8 would be around two seconds."

Rain calculated in his mind.

He realized that even at lv10, it would still require around one and a half seconds.

While it seemed fast, the gap between this and Rain's initial expectations was still significant!

Rain's original plan was to instantly transform his weapon during combat, such as turning a greatsword into a scythe, catching the enemy off guard and landing a surprise attack.

Or, he could transform his war hammer into a shield or armor to defend against sudden enemy attacks.

The battle between Peak Knights was calculated in seconds.

This meant that even if Rain improved the spell to lv10, it was still off by an order of magnitude.

"That's not right!"

"There's also metal type!"

Rain's heart skipped a beat!

He realized an even bigger problem!

He quickly walked to the corner of the room and picked up a piece of hardened fine gold debris, the same fragment that had shattered his Pig Head Hammer.

After a few seconds, Rain's expression turned extremely grim.

He tested the Metal Morphing spell with the hardened fine gold, and it was significantly more difficult than with iron ingots!

To transform the hardened fine gold ingot into the original shape of his hammer, it took nearly twenty seconds!

This meant...

That his previous idea of instant weapon transformation during combat was almost impossible to achieve!

Unless there was some way to significantly improve the efficiency of the Metal Morphing spell, but how was that possible?

Metal Morphing was not a defensive spell.

Rain took a deep breath, adjusting his emotions.

He decided to put the Metal Morphing spell aside for now.

At this moment, Rain noticed the wooden box containing the Fogging Potion on the table.

He opened the box and a bottle emitting a deep blue light with speckles of golden starlight appeared before him.

Suddenly, a system prompt appeared:

[Ding! Host detected obtaining Fogging Potion, triggering class change - Wizard (Legendary)!]



[Promotion to Wizard (Legendary) pre-conditions: 1. Obtain Fogging Potion, 2. Obtain a Level 1 Wizardry, 3. Current conditions met, is/is not class change Wizard (Legendary)!]



[Note: After class change to Wizard (Legendary), the Apprentice Wizard (Extraordinary) profession panel will be covered.]



"I haven't learned 'Fire Ring Resistance' yet, how..." Rain muttered in confusion.

Suddenly, Rain froze in place!

He realized something!

He recalled the fourth pre-condition for his promotion to Flame Walker (Legendary) - learning the Level 1 Fire Wizardry 'Flame Guardian'. The system's statement is just a misconception.

Rain carefully recalled.

This misconception came from the bloodline descendant of the wizard family, Naya Usman.

"I assumed too much!"

"So, Metal Morphing can be a talent spell!"

"With my talent 'Intermediate Steel Body', my defense is already strong. If my talent continues to improve, it shouldn't be weaker than a Level 1 defensive spell."

"And if I transform metal into armor or shields, isn't that also a defensive spell?"

Rain's eyes lit up!

He decided to put the Metal Morphing spell aside for now and focus on improving his talent and learning defensive spells.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end