freenovelworld Chapter 20 The Burning Ritual
Chapter 20 The Burning Ritual
"Let me show you what a mastermind is!"
The seabirds resting on the beach didn't even have time to react before Jiang Shuzhou snapped their necks with his mage's hand.
Let me show you the mage's massive hands!
A week has passed since the game launched, and Jiang Shuzhou has not been idle during this time. He has already maxed out his magic power, and he has also kept up with his spell learning and mastery. In addition to Mage Hand, he has now mastered four apprentice-level spells.
Since mastering these spells and maxing out his magic power, Jiang Shuzhou felt like he had hit a bottleneck. Although he meditated and cultivated every day without fail, his three main attributes—soul, spirit, and will—had not improved.
At first, he was at a loss, after all, he didn't even have a teacher, and he had to figure out all the problems on his own. However, Jiang Shuzhou later remembered that although he didn't have a teacher, he did have spellbooks.
As the saying goes, "There are beauties like jade and houses of gold in books." After searching carefully, he actually found the answer in the book.
He's about to advance to the next level.
Yes, Jiang Shuzhou has only been an apprentice for less than two days, and now he is about to advance to become a first-level mage.
What truly confirmed his suspicions was his control panel.
Name: Navis Lebo
Class: Mage
Rank: Apprentice (promotion possible)
"Magic Power: 100/100"
"Soul: 10"
"Spirit: 10"
"Willpower: 10"
Strength: 6
Endurance: 6
Agility: 7
"Spells: Hand of the Wizard, Spark, Water Condensation, Magical Tricks"
The panel is much more luxurious than before. Strength and Stamina have increased by two points under the influence of magic, and Agility has increased by one point.
Among the newly learned spells, there's not much to say about the Mage's Hand. The Spark spell is basically just a small flame that can be released, with limited destructive power and can only be used to start a fire. The Water Condensation spell is the same; Jiang Shuzhou often uses the Water Condensation spell to condense water to drink.
Magic tricks are worth mentioning. They consist of two runes: channeling and shaping, which means they can do many things, such as making flames dance and conjuring up tiny people in the sea. Of course, in addition to their entertainment function, they can also unlock doors, clean stains, and so on.
With this magic, Jiang Shuzhou never had to lift a finger again, and finally lived a life where everything was done for him.
So here's the question: can't the Mage's Hand do this?
No, it's not possible. The Mage's Hand can only pick things up like a hand. It can't make objects come together like magic tricks, nor can it mold water into the shape of a person. At most, it can only control the container and then use the container to hold water.
Of course, just because it doesn't work now doesn't mean it won't work in the future. When Jiang Shuzhou is able to multitask in the future, he can achieve the same effect by controlling a dozen or so mage hands.
But don't think about it now. Since there's something so useful, why shouldn't I use it?
Jiang Shuzhou's most frequently used spells are now Mage's Hand and Magic Tricks.
No wonder sorcerers are lazy and meticulous, able to identify anyone as someone who uses magic.
If you can use magic, why would you want to do the work yourself?
Returning to the matter of promotion, Jiang Shuzhou originally thought that he could easily become a first-tier mage with a little more practice, but the promotion requirements made him feel disheartened.
「晋升要求：灵魂属性（10/5），精神属性（10/10），意志属性（10/5）燃烧仪式（0/1），一阶法术掌握（0/1）」
Jiang Shuzhou could meet all the other conditions. Even for first-tier spells, he had a spellbook with more than a dozen first-tier spells recorded in it. If he wanted to, he could learn them with some time. However, the prerequisite for learning first-tier spells was to complete the burning ritual.
The burning ritual was the most troublesome, for a simple reason: he didn't have the magical materials suitable for performing the ritual.
The burning ritual, as the name suggests, involves burning things, and there are specific requirements for what to burn. You need to burn things that contain magic, preferably with gentle attributes such as water, wood, and earth. It absolutely cannot be fire, because fire itself is a symbol of burning and cannot be burned again.
The reason why the burning ritual requires burning magical materials is to use a large amount of magic power to stimulate spiritual breakthroughs and transformations; the better the talent, the fewer magical materials are needed.
With Jiang Shuzhou's talent, he was confident that he only needed a little magic material. However, the problem now was not how much magic material he needed, but that he didn't have any magic material at all.
What should we do then? Do we have to buy it from the trading house?
"Tier 1 Magic Core (Wood): 19965740 yuan"
Jiang Shuzhou seriously suspected that the person didn't really want to sell it; they were just putting it up to show off. The same went for the other magical materials, the cheapest of which cost four million.
However, none of this could stump Jiang Shuzhou. First of all, forget about monster drops. Ordinary monsters only drop magic cores, and the lowest level monsters are Tier 1. At this level, it would take at least a team of apprentices to kill a single monster.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that Jiang Shuzhou can't beat them, it's that there are no monsters to farm. This island simply doesn't have the potential to breed magical beasts. Although the island is not small, Jiang Shuzhou circled around but didn't find any trace of magical beasts living there.
Secondly, there are the magical beasts in the water, which is even more impossible. Jiang Shuzhou can fight some of the land-based ones, but don't even think about the ones in the sea.
Now that he can't breathe underwater, his fighting ability in the sea is greatly reduced, and it's uncertain who will kill whom then.
Now there's only one way out—cut down the trees!
Yes, you heard right, it's about cutting down trees. Jiang Shuzhou was completely dumbfounded when he saw it. Can you get magical materials by cutting down trees? The most important thing is that it's just ordinary trees, not some kind of magical tree.
This method was obtained by Jiang Shuzhou in "How to Create Magical Materials from Nothing". There are many operations involved. The most common one is to grow plants in a high concentration of elements and wait for the plants to absorb the elements and eventually mutate into magical plants. Animals are similar. They are raised in a high concentration of elements and then killed after they turn into magical beasts to obtain magic cores. The advantage is that it is renewable and stable, but the disadvantage is that it takes a long time and has a lot of luck involved.
There were all sorts of other unconventional methods, but Jiang Shuzhou didn't have the opportunity to put them into practice, so he ignored them until he saw this particular method.
As we all know, there is a profession called Druid, whose duty is to maintain the balance of nature. So why maintain it? I'm going to destroy it, I'm not going to maintain it, so what?
Then you will die.
Nature's will will retaliate against you; this is not a metaphor, but the very literal meaning.
In the past, in pursuit of development, humanity destroyed nature on a massive scale, cutting down countless trees. Humanity's actions angered the will of nature, which then bestowed life upon countless trees. Thus, war began.
Humans waged a war against the Tree People for decades, which ended in victory for the Tree People. Fearing the power of nature's will, people knelt and submitted to it, and in doing so, they gained power. Thus, the Druids were born.
What does that have to do with Jiang Shuzhou now?
Excessive deforestation will lead to nature's revenge, which is to unleash a powerful attack from the Treants. The core of the Treants is also a type of magical material.
Therefore, in conclusion, as long as you cut down trees, you can obtain magical materials.
Of course, the premise is that you can beat them.