Chapter 38: The First Battle Skeleton
Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
When Zhao Xu logged back into Arthur the next day, he was feeling energetic and refreshed.
This was the first time he had gotten a full 8 hours of sleep since he first started playing the game two weeks ago.
Wizards had to sleep for a full 8 hours before being able to prepare spells, and it didn't matter whether you were in light sleep or deep sleep. But many people complained about this in his previous life.
But none of this affected how powerful a character class like a Wizard was.
Zhao Xu had logged off while he was on the obelisk, so after he logged in again, he would appear on the obelisk once more.
But if he died, then he would be revived at the Palace of Character Creation and then teleported to the nearest temple within the last town he went past.
Once a player had gotten lost in the wilderness of Arthur and simply couldn't find his way back at all. So he had no choice but to kill himself and sacrifice a Revival Stone in order to be revived in the town.
After everyone found out how precious these Revival Stones were, maps and other survival skills slowly filled up the players' inventories.
By the time Zhao Xu logged in, Antonya was already standing there, waiting for him.
She looked at Zhao Xu and said, "Sit down and start preparing your spells."
Zhao Xu listened to Antonya instructions and quietly sat down cross-legged where he was, as if he was going to meditate.
As for how to prepare spells, Zhao Xu had already learned about it when he first learned cantrips some days back.
But Antonya would still watch him and guide him along when necessary.
The obelisk that Zhao Xu was on was supposed to be the highest point of the floating city.
But he didn't feel the slightest bit of a breeze, just like how his mind was right now.
For most wizards, they would be busy flipping through their spellbooks at this time in order to prepare spells.
But Zhao Xu only needed to quiet down and look inside himself to see all the various spell formations that were etched on his heart.
The process he was going through now was to cast these spells in advance.
Once this one hour of spell preparation was completed, then when he wanted to use a spell, he just needed to go according to the requirements of the spell and spend the corresponding Swift Action, Standard Action, Full Round, or however much time was needed to cast the spell.
Most of the usual spells in Arthur went according to standard action time.
Only an extremely rare few were naturally swift action spells.
For example, a spell like Feather Fall, which could be cast just by thinking about it, was able to fit into the swift action time.
And during actual battles, a spell that took up a full round took too long to complete, so the wizard would be easily targeted and he wouldn't use it if he didn't have to.
In one round's time, even if he cast a swift action spell followed by a standard action spell, the standard action spell could also take up nearly one full round to cast.
So the way low-level wizards fought was by taking turns to throw a spell at each other.
After slightly more than half an hour, Zhao Xu suddenly realized that he had finished preparing all his spell slots.
These spell slots were added to his character stats the minute he woke up.
What he had to do was to spend an hour to just fill up these blank spell slots with actual slots.
And for him, he had three spell slots that he could leave open using Uncanny Forethought, so he didn't have to prepare spells for those slots.
This also allowed Zhao Xu to save some time in the future when it came to preparing for back to back battles.
Zhao Xu then stood up on the spot and looked over at Antonya as he said to her, "Mentor, I'm ready."
Antonya glanced back at him and said, "Are you sure?"
Zhao Xu nodded.
This time, Antonya moved with a flash, as usual, to appear right in front of him. She grabbed hold of him and then cast a teleportation spell.
"You are about to be teleported. Are you agreeable?"
This time around, Zhao Xu finally saw the activity board at the bottom of his character stats light up with these words in his mind.
This was also a special privilege they got after becoming a Level 1 character.
This entire world would start to show messages to them.
But after he had completed the ceremony yesterday, it only asked him if he was agreeable to the actions the other party was going to do to him. It didn't specify that it was teleportation.
And that was because the source of the messages on this message board was himself.
He thought that this was teleportation, and that's why the word 'teleportation' had appeared.
He had no way of turning this message board into a form of evidence
Zhao Xu didn't make a choice either. The decision was made in line with the decision he had made the day before—he agreed by default.
Zhao Xu was instantly teleported away from the obelisk into a large and empty private space.
The entire place was empty except for the high walls in the distance. It was like a gargantuan cage of sorts.
There were several torches that would never go out placed all around the area, so there was no way for Zhao Xu and Antonya to hide at all.
"This is the Primitive Arena, and most wizards would go through their spell battles here," said Antonya.
"Your mission is to extinguish anything that is summoned in this space. You don't have to feel too stressed because they'll just be projections. But if you can't bring yourself to even do this, then I'd suggest that you go back and live a life of researching magic."
Zhao Xu didn't seem very bothered by what Antonya had said at all. He had dismembered more goblins in his previous life than Antonya had ever seen.
When it came to something like blood, people were only sensitive to it the first time around.
Antonya then randomly pointed a finger out. "Level 1 Summon Undead."
A middle-sized Human Warrior Skeleton immediately appeared before Zhao Xu.
Its entire body exuded an evil air, and a large metal shield was placed in front of itself to block any major attacks, while its other hand was swinging a curved knife around. Its empty eye sockets were just staring straight at Zhao Xu.
Zhao Xu looked at the Human Warrior Skeleton before him and immediately calmed himself.
In his previous life, he had also joined in some battles that involved dealing with a large army of undead creatures.
It was a bit difficult for a Commoner to deal with a skeleton, but it wasn't a problem for a Level 1 Fighter.
While Zhao Xu was making his judgment, the Human Warrior Skeleton that didn't have any Intelligence at all, listened to Antonya's instructions completely and treated Zhao Xu as an enemy and it dashed toward him.
Zhao Xu held his breath.
His brain kept thinking about his opponent's statistics.
A middle-sized skeleton's Hit Points were 1D12, which meant that it was between 1 to 12 Hit Points (Average 6 HP).
Its base attack was only 1 point, so if he just dodged it, the chances of him dodging an attack were 50% or higher.
But the skeleton had an Armor Class of 15, which was 5 full points over his own natural 10 point Base Armor Class, so it would be a bit difficult to fight this skeleton with just his fists.
Their advantage was that they had the feat of Improved Initiative and so they moved extremely quickly. Thus they were often able to attack their opponents first.
As he was thinking about all this, the skeleton drew closer to him.
The skeleton might even come close enough to launch an attack at him before he could finish casting a spell.
Zhao Xu had to decide which spell he was going to cast first.
This was a test set for him by Antonya, so the choice he made would decide his final grade.
Protection from Evil, Color Spray, Magic Missile, Mage Armor, Ray of Enfeeblement, or Benign Transposition?
All six Level 1 spells he had immediately came to mind.
But which one should he choose?
Magic Missile could launch 1 dart of magical force to cause 1D4+1 (so 2 to 5 points) of damage, but it might not prove fatal immediately.
Protection from Evil was good against the skeleton's evil alignment, but it wasn't helpful in getting rid of the problem itself.
Mage Armor would increase his Armor Class by 4 points and ensure that the damage he would take from the skeleton would drop by 40%?
In the end, Zhao Xu gritted his teeth and started chanting incantations.
A missile of magical energy flew out from his hands.
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