Annan opened his eyes on the bed again.
He set a limit on the dungeon entry, shutting down the players’ access to this nightmare.
He could advance to the Silver Rank at any time. At present, “Silver Knight” had instead become his secondary profession. Even if he were to continue improving this profession, it only strengthened his vitality and fitness. The upgrades in this profession wouldn’t provide any combat skills like how upgrading the Swordsman’s level would be. There were only attribute bonuses.
Moreover, its skills came entirely from the divine art purchased via holy light engravings, which was the proof of purifying nightmares.
Hence, Annan made up his mind. The benefits of upgrading the secondary profession simply didn’t worth it anymore.
It was better to give the experience here to the players first and let them adventure at a higher level for their safety.
Annan’s current top priority was to attain advancement.
After dispersing the players, the entry count left in the Gallery Nightmare was running out.
He had completed the dungeon three more times in the past few days, raising the [Silver Knight] level by three levels.
There were only four entries left to the nightmare remaining.
Louis was not efficient at purifying this nightmare.
Annan kept four more entries left, basically guaranteeing that Louis would have to stay here and purifying the nightmare roughly for another month.
As for Annan himself, he was ready to depart.
Yes, of course, Annan would not be so kind enough to reveal a treasure map to some players.
There were treasures in the elf ruins outside from the item which the Child required to attain advancement.
Despite the advancement treasure really did exist, Wandering Child was only at Level 15 now. There was still a long way to go before advancing into the Silver Rank.
Annan had actually planned to reserve those treasures for his advancement.
Salvatore wrote in detail about the wizard’s advancement pathways to Annan.
It was a tad bit different from the situation where [Wizard Apprentice] was guaranteed to be a [Wizard]. The need for wizards to advance was actually more complicated.
For example, the most common advancement — [Great Wizard] required the wizard to fill up all the existing spell slots and acquire proficiencies in three schools of magic. This was almost a default condition for those wizards who had graduated officially, but it wasn’t an easy task for Annan, a crash course wizard.
Also, the [Great Wizard] profession could hardly meet Annan’s needs. It felt more like a punishment for the wizards who didn’t learn the magic of the other schools.
But, Annan didn’t want to change the profession like Winter’s Hand because its side effects were quite heavy.
Among the remaining advancements, there were not many options for the wizards of Energy Falteration School.
In the end, Annan chose to advance into an ancient profession—Frostwhisperian.
At first, Annan recalled the profession because the Venerated Skeleton once mentioned the surname “Frostwhisper”.
But after asking the Man in the Mirror, Annan learned more about it.
The Energy Falteration School established after the Unification War was actually a combination of two completely different professions.
Before the Unification War, they were called [Ice Warlocks] and [Silence Warlocks].
Slothful Eye and Impeding Wall were the signature spells of Silent Warlocks. They excel at resonating with the enemy or space with their indifferent emotions, silent language, and weak bodies, forbidding the targets’ speech ability, spellcasting ability, range skills, melee skills, etc. All in all, they were a pure profession in controls.
The Ice Warlock was relatively easy to understand. In essence, they complied with the traditional sense of “ice magic”.
In this world, the two Transcended powers of ice and fire originated from ancient dragons. Just like Old Grandmother and Father Flint originated as enormous dragons. At least before the First Age, when humanoids had not been born and recorded in history, Old Grandmother and Father Flint were already ice and fire upright deities, respectively.
The origin of the Ice Warlock could be traced back to the Third Age.
During the Third Age, some elves received part of the power from the Old Grandmother and became [Frostwhisperian]. Since the soul of the elves was intimate to nature, the beginning of their entry into the path of transcendence was [Condensation], a curse to summon and manipulate the frost territory at Silver Rank. The elves acquired a profession similar to the priest who could communicate with the Old Grandmother, a rough equivalent to the magical branch of [Silver Knight].
Later, some Frostwhisperians thought that such efficiency was too low. There were very few elves who could carry the power of Frostwhisper, which pose a great deal of trouble in the matter of spreading this profession. So, they further diluted this curse and created the third-hand profession, [Ice Warlock].
In the end, the power that the Ice Warlocks used basically had nothing to do with Old Grandmother.
In other words, the transcended power was so weak that it could be used without permission from the Lord of Frost.
But now, it was the Fifth Age.
In the Third Age, the Ice Warlocks who were evaluated as “weak” previously had become one of the most powerful professions. Of course, part of the reason was that they had completely changed the way of fighting.
Ice Warlocks no longer use the robes of ice silk that could be used to increase the frost power, and the scepters inlaid with blue crystal and silver.
Instead, they wielded axes and hammers.
Although this would significantly weaken their frost output, they only needed to slow down the enemy’s movements compared to the previous victory condition of continuous spell casting until the enemies were frozen entirely to death. Once the new condition was met, they could just smash with their hammer. Even the giants were afraid of such a tactic.
The efficacy was much better compared to before.
After the Unification War, Ice Warlock and Silent Warlock merged because of the lack of advancement for Ice Warlocks. Another reason was that the two schools were both renegades among the ancient warlocks.
The Ice Wizards could slow down their enemies’ reactions, so they picked up slow but powerful axes and hammers.
The Silencers’ specialty was to limit the enemy’s spellcasting, remove the enemy’s protection, and shield themselves from the enemy’s projectile attack.
So they wielded guns and crossbow arrows and chose to fight the enemy one-to-one.
Milord, my times have changed, but you haven’t.jpg
After the ancient warlocks of the two schools merged into the wizard of the Energy Falteration School, they became more and more accustomed to this combat style of “imposing restrictions” and “relying on equipment”. After they arrived at the Austere-Winter Dukedom under the Old Grandmother’s lead, they became more pragmatic every year over the next few decades.
Sure enough, the ancient profession [Frostwhisperian] was still the Energy Falteration School wizards’ first choice in their advancement pathway — if they could successfully advance.
It was mainly because this profession had withstood the test of history and time since it was passed down to the present time.
Salvatore also wrote clearly on Frostwhisperian’s prerequisite conditions for advancement.
Erosion must be lower than 50% with at least 3 spell slots filled. In terms of attributes, the requirements were 10 points in Constitution, 10 points or more in Will, 40 points or more in Perception. Additionally, it was mandatory to attain the affinity of one element in the frost category at more than 50%. Lastly, the advancement required Frostwhisperian’s Frozen Blood and Basic Influence: Whispers of Grace.
Annan satisfied the former six requirements.
The progress wasn’t much because Annan still had to satisfy many more advancement conditions.
For the remaining material and influence, Salvatore had also marked the place to obtain it.
They were in the ruins where Annan let the Wandering Child go.
The [Basic Influence: Whispers of Grace] would appear in all Elven Ruins. As long as it was a ruin that left the traces of the elves, there were usually two “Influences”, [Whisper of Grace] and [Nature’s Anthem]. They were also a small probability that [Basic Influence: Remains of the Soul of Silver] would appear.
The signs of it would be the whispers in Elvish language on a deserted street or a sudden singing. When that happened, it meant that both “Influences” were collected.
The “remains of the soul” was simply a haunted event as if a ghost had been following a host.
The benefits explained why Swamp’s Black Tower kept the ruins as they were and even set up a barrier to seal the entrance. Then, when they needed the designated “Influences” in their ritual, they could just send someone to harvest them.
Such a place whereby the wizard tower utilized to guarantee a stable production of “Influences” was called “Influence Pool”. Each of them was a vital resource shared among the members of the wizard tower.
Annan sent the Child’s team consisting of 4 members to this “Influence Pool”. In fact, he wasn’t worried about meeting tomb robbers, nor was he worried about the monsters in it. But, there could be some neutral ghosts in this ruin. Hence, he dispatched the Half-dead Enchantress, Citalopram, to either deal with the ghosts in a friendly manner or eliminate them.
His main concern was encountering the Swamp’s Black Tower’s wizard.
The wizard tower only allowed its wizard to enter the “Influence Pool” and harvest the influence with a license.
If the players were in danger, Annan just needed to change their spawn point back in the home base.
When the four of them had thoroughly investigated the route, Annan could swiftly visit the ruins and hurry back to avoid encountering other people on the trip.
After all, it was still considered stealing. Although Salvatore had a high status and wouldn’t care about it, Annan still didn’t want to cause trouble for him.
Annan wasn’t worried about being caught on the spot and sent to the Black Tower.
He was worried that when he retaliated, he might accidentally kill one of Salvatore’s seniors because he couldn’t restrain himself.
But for now, Annan had another “eye” for himself.
He could see through Longjing Tea’s vision at any time and tell when someone might be heading to the Elven Ruins in the North Sea Territory.
The Importance of Vision.jpg
[TN: Reference to “Wards” in MOBA games.]
