Chapter 29: Mages

Leon was completely unaware of the events that occurred after he returned to the tower.As expected, whenever something good happened, it was almost always accompanied by misfortune.

Before today, he thought he would have time to develop slowly and quietly, but after the events of the day, he realized that things wouldn't be so easy for him. S~eaʀᴄh the nôvel_Fire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

His previous peaceful life made him think that his life as an Apprentice could continue forever at a gradual pace. But after the exciting encounter today, he recognized the vast gap between a Beginner Apprentice and an Advanced Apprentice.

Having witnessed the extraordinary potential of Advanced Apprentices and how they utilized magical spells that perfectly aligned with their talents, Leon realized how slow and delayed his progress was.

Following his original development path, it might take him three to four years of daily meditation and relentlessly pursuing the accumulation of magical knowledge before he could become an Intermediate Apprentice. To become an Advanced Apprentice, Leon would need at least another ten years of hard work. As for becoming a Pseudo-Mage?

With Leon's current potential and innate talent, he had little hope of reaching that level.

As an Apprentice Mage, each small increase in his Spirit was unimaginably valuable to him and resulted only from much hard work. His innate talent was no better than others, so if he wanted to grow faster than the other Apprentices, the only way was to leverage more resources and acquire enough magical knowledge.

Beyond these, there was no alternative solution.

And to enhance the power of his magical spells, his first priority was to improve the quality of his body. All magical spells, whether support spells or long-range attacks, were backed by the caster's body. Magical spells could only unleash their full strength when used by a user who had improved the quality of their body.

After safely returning to the Tower from the jaws of death, Leon immediately locked himself in his room and began to reflect on his future path.

Thinking about the four main branches of Mages, Leon carefully pondered the advantages and disadvantages of each, associating them with his own abilities and silently assessing his future.

Body Refinement Mage.

To become a Body Refinement Mage, the first requirement was a firm will, which had to be as solid as steel. To stimulate and strengthen the body, these Body Refinement Mages had to be willing to do anything.

As an example of a training method for Body Refinement Mages, they would soak in a container filled with toxins every day. Venoms from Scorpions, Snakes, Spiders, Poison Herbs, Nightmarish Herbs, Zombie Dust… In short, no matter where the toxin came from, they would use anything they could get their hands on.

From mild to strong, from weak to powerful, using all kinds of deadly toxins, they would continuously stimulate every cell in their body, forcing it to release its potential and gradually strengthening it.

Of course, while doing this, survival was definitely the most important thing. They would have to discover the maximum amount of toxin they could endure so that they wouldn't die from it.

As they progressed in the body refinement process, as they surpassed the beginner threshold, they gained resistance to certain toxins, and perhaps no common toxin in the mortal world could harm them. If they wanted to go further, the only way was to tirelessly seek rarer and more powerful magical toxins.

Thus, as a Body Refinement Mage, perhaps the first half of their life would be spent discovering the maximum amount of toxins their bodies could take and hunting for those rare magical toxins that worked best for their bodies.

Of course, there were also some Body Refinement Mages who used objects with horrifying radioactive characteristics to stimulate and refine their bodies, and some specifically sought out hostile natural environments, using the terrifying forces of nature to advance.

Overall, there was a variety of methods to train in this branch. But no matter the method used, a Body Refinement Mage would have to endure constant pain and hardships. Only then would they have a frightening body that no ordinary man could ever compare to.

If Leon wanted to become a Body Refinement Mage, he would first need to find a complete body refinement method. After that, he would have to gather all the poisonous items he would need to use over the long refinement process. Furthermore, during the body refinement process, he would become extremely weak, so he would need better and more nutritious meals to nourish his weakened body.

Additionally, he would also need to find some suitable fighting techniques so that he could unleash the power of his enhanced physique and strength.

After analyzing these basic situations, Leon felt extremely doubtful about becoming a Body Refinement Mage. Setting aside the extreme difficulty of the body refinement techniques, it would be challenging to acquire the precious nutritious foods needed to complement the body refinement process.

"Lineage Mage."

Obviously, this was the easiest choice to gain a strong short-term combat capability.

When talking about Lineage Mages, biological modification was a quite common topic, as it was the most popular method among Apprentice Mages. With just a 'small' magical ceremony, they could transplant a highly efficient organ from a powerful demon, potentially granting them special abilities in the process.

Most Apprentice Mages would never turn down such a simple method of strengthening themselves whenever the conditions allowed, and they would always perform certain degrees of modification on themselves. However, this was easier said than done! It came with the risk of having their lineage contaminated, losing vitality, or transplanting a faulty organ that didn't provide good abilities.

For Apprentice Mages like Leon, who lived in the Magical Swamp, isolated from the outside world, what kind of powerful demons could they encounter? With their skills and status, it was simply impossible for them to acquire organs from those truly frightening demons.

Therefore, if these Apprentices could find a usable piece from a demon that matched the level of an Advanced Apprentice, it would be incredibly valuable.

It was said that the lethal shot Evan, one of the three strongest Apprentices in the Tower, had transplanted the eyeball of a 'Red-Eyed Crow King', which granted him the ability to control Carnivorous Crows.

Leon felt that this decision was shortsighted.

Perhaps this demon organ would allow him to reach a higher level in a quick step, becoming one of the Advanced Apprentices, the elite among all the Apprentice Mages in the Tower. But at the stage he was currently at, the potential brought by biological modification had reached its limit.

If he were lucky, he might become a Pseudo-Mage in five years and begin his preparations to break through to the level of an official Mage. But if he were unlucky, he might never become an official Mage.

After all, for anyone whose lineage was contaminated, the difficulty of becoming an official Mage would become exponentially harder!

So, compared to a Lineage Mage, biological modification was a wasteful path that led nowhere, a deceptive power that would ruin one's future.

However, in comparison to biological modification, the path of a Lineage Mage was much, much harder.

To become a Lineage Mage, one would have to find a creature with ancestral lineage, using a large amount of its blood, and a process called blood purification, to obtain the inherited power hidden in its blood.

If he chose this path, there would be many challenges he would have to face.

First, many of the known powerful lineages were controlled by different families of Mages.

These Mage families were descendants of some original Bloodline Mage who had become powerful in the past. As descendants of someone with a strong lineage, they naturally inherited the superior lineage of their ancestor. To ensure the continuity of their family lineage, they refused to marry anyone outside their own family, maintaining a closed circle to protect the purity of their family lineage.

Besides these known powerful lineages, if any other Apprentice Mage wished to pursue the branch of Lineage Mages, they could only try their luck with the lineages of other inexperienced demons.

If they happened to obtain a Third Grade lineage, perhaps their descendants wouldn't even become Second Grade Lineage Mages, and those Second Grade Lineage Mages would be lucky if their descendants became First Grade Lineage Mages.

So, for junior members of families with strong lineages, if they did not possess powerful abilities, once they left their homes, they would be attacked by others. Some unscrupulous Apprentice Mages would happily capture them, trying to squeeze the essence of their lineage, in turn granting themselves some powerful abilities.

But to achieve this, a huge amount of blood from the lineage Apprentice was required, and the success rate was quite low. Another thing to consider was that this was a great taboo for these lineage families.

With the incredible resources and strengths of these lineage families, would they simply sit by and let their lineage be obtained by others? Thus, even if they had to pay a high price, they would hunt down the culprit and kill them. Hence, in the history of the Mage World, there have been many incidents of great turmoil caused by the theft of a lineage from a powerful lineage family.

In fact, perhaps the Serpent Head Apprentice from earlier today was also a descendant of a lineage family, or else he wouldn't have displayed such distinct characteristics of a demon. Perhaps Leon could have obtained his blood… but he did not.

Of course, he did not regret it.

This descendant of a Lineage Mage was merely an Advanced Apprentice, so he wouldn't have a very strong lineage inherited in his blood. To ensure that Leon became a Pseudo-Mage, he might need at least a dozen of these descendants. Only then could he extract enough blood to purify his lineage.

This would be as difficult for Leon as fighting a Mega Dragon!

Moreover, according to what Leon had learned from the books, currently, among all the Lineage families still active at the center of the Mage Continent, the highest level among them was only Seventh Grade. The Ninth Grade was the current pinnacle of the structure of Lineage Mages.

As a Lineage Mage, there was no need to do much cultivation or knowledge accumulation. All they needed to do was continue purifying their own lineages, and eventually, they would be able to obtain the abilities of their ancestral lineage.

For example, let's say a Mage was the heir of a Fifth Grade lineage; just by being a Lineage Mage, he would be able to level up at a speed that was dozens to hundreds of times faster than that of the other branches. This allowed him to advance with an indomitable spirit during the first half of his life and live a life of glory.

Furthermore, the Mage who possessed a unique lineage might have some special abilities as well, giving them an advantage when fighting against a Mage of the same grade.

However, the peak of the original lineage was also the end of their path as a Mage.

When a Mage with a Fifth Grade lineage finally became a Fifth Grade Mage, he would be forced to face the fact that the road ahead of him was completely cut off. He would never be able to progress further after reaching that point.

This was the saddest thing about these Lineage Mages!

Once they chose to follow this path, and picked the wrong lineage, the chances of reaching the top of the Mage World were lost forever.

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