7: Chapter 7 Mental Power Enhancement

In the Magical Plant Class, Ross learned a lot of knowledge about cultivating magical plants.

This was knowledge belonging to wizards that he couldn't access before enrolling.

These magical plants were by no means delicate ordinary plants; the temperaments and corresponding environmental requirements of many magical plants were bizarre and varied, and they also relied on the meticulous care of the cultivator.

Through studying the knowledge in the Magical Plant Class, along with these past few days of digging, loosening soil, weeding, and catching bugs in Evelyn's magical field while meticulously tending to these sun-gathering flowers,

although the days were rather busy and left behind plenty of sweat,

Ross found that work like cultivating magical plants already belonged to the relatively safe jobs within the academy.

Such chores of caring for magical plants were already considered quite technologically promising jobs among those accessible to apprentices.

Usually, the jobs that Wizard Apprentices could engage in either revolved around patrolling, security checks, and hunting magical monsters—tasks that required going out or had a certain degree of risk—

or they required a certain level of professional skills.

For example, if one was proficient in Potionology, they could refine potions.

If proficient in Runology, they could go and assist Official Wizards.

Like these, most were auxiliary types of work.

These were relatively safe, but correspondingly required Wizard Apprentices to have a certain amount of accumulation in that field.

Generally, after reaching a deeper understanding at the Level 2 Apprentice or Level 1 Apprentice stage, they could engage in more advanced work with higher labor compensation.

Apprentices like Ross, who had just enrolled not long ago, were mostly still taking general education courses to learn and understand the operating principles of magic as well as Spell Model construction.

Mainly, they accumulated mental energy through the Meditation Method to promote themselves to Level 3 Wizard Apprentices as soon as possible, thereby stepping into a stage separated from mortal objects.

Generally speaking, ordinary apprentices could enhance about 10 points of mental energy daily through the Meditation Method.

For someone with better talent like Ross, they could elevate their own mental energy to 100 points within 5 days.

That meant enhancing more than 20 points of mental energy daily through meditation.

It was already at an extremely monstrous level.

However, the mental energy enhanced by the Meditation Method was not static.

In the early stages, the effect of the Meditation Method was extremely large.

But after reaching the Level 3 Wizard Apprentice stage, it would basically be greatly discounted.

During the apprentice stage, averaged out, the effect of the Meditation Method was almost raising mental energy by 3 points daily.

Especially after mental energy reached 800, for some Wizard Apprentices with limited talent, the mental energy nourishment brought by the Meditation Method could no longer be elevated.

However, the academy had assessments for the apprentices.

If they could not break through to Level 2 Apprentice within 5 years, they would be expelled.

If they could not break through to Level 3 Wizard Apprentice within ten years, they would be deemed by the academy as having limited potential.

And if one wanted to break through to Official Wizard, they needed to swallow promotion potions.

This not only had requirements for the Wizard Apprentice's mental energy,

it also required physical constitution; if the age was too high, the risk would increase infinitely.

Therefore, before the age of 60, the promotion ceremony for Official Wizard must be carried out.

Otherwise, the probability of promotion would greatly shrink.

Moreover, swallowing promotion potions had side effects; if one successfully made the official promotion, it would be fine.

These side effects could be slowly resolved.

But if they failed, there might no longer be the possibility of swallowing potions to promote again.

Therefore, all apprentices aspiring to break through to Official Wizard needed to enhance their own mental energy.

This was also the reason why most Wizard Apprentices would even resort to unscrupulous means to swallow some mental-energy-enhancing potions with extremely high side effects.

As for mastering more Spell Models, it was also one of the means to raise mental energy.

Wizards constructing Spell Models was not only a means to enrich wizards' combat or living abilities, but could also make mental energy more condensed.

However, aside from the zero-rank trick model provided free of charge by the academy upon enrollment,

all subsequent Spell Models needed to be purchased with magic stones or academy points.

Moreover, the construction of slightly more advanced Spell Models was not something so easily built successfully.

The various Spell Models cast by Wizard Apprentices were basically all at the level of zero-rank cantrips.

But even at the level of zero-rank cantrips, there would still be relatively complex Spell Models.

If the mental energy level was not high, or if one's degree of mental energy condensation or control ability was insufficient, attempting to construct some Spell Models would very likely result in failure.

This fell into a dilemma.

If mental energy was not enhanced, Spell Models could not be constructed.

At the same time, if Spell Models were not constructed and mental energy was elevated solely relying on the Meditation Method, the enhancement of mental energy would also be quite difficult.

Furthermore, the prices of mental-energy-enhancing potions with smaller side effects were exorbitant.

For talented Wizard Apprentices, relying on grinding effort could also reach the peak of Wizard Apprentices.

Then at a time when their bodily functions were relatively optimal, they would attempt the first to second promotion ceremony for Official Wizard.

But for relatively ordinary Wizard Apprentices, it was quite cruel.

The path of wizards itself had strong screening for natural endowment and self-control.

Natural endowment would be resolved after Official Wizard,

but before Official Wizard, it was an uncrossable chasm.

Ross was very glad that his talent belonged to that top tier.

Otherwise, being all alone, it would probably be very difficult for him to attempt promotion to Official Wizard before the age of 60.

Now that his talent was top-notch, coupled with the help of the card-drawing system,

it would presumably greatly accelerate the speed of becoming an Official Wizard.

The cultivation mode of the Wizard World had always been like this, even back in the barbaric era.

There would even be classifications of White Wizards and Black Wizards.

Black Wizards cultivated their apprentices even more like raising Gu insects; the winner got everything, and the loser turned into dust.

Although White Wizards were said to be somewhat more civilized than Black Wizards, it was still hard to conceal the style of the barbaric era.

There would still be some taboo-class experiments targeting apprentices.

Nowadays, the Wizard World attached great importance to the safety of apprentices within its internal world.

After all, this was the source of the foundation for senior high-level wizards to advance into transcendence.

Therefore, wizards changed the survival of the apprentice stage from the original law of the jungle.

Today, various wizard academies spread across the Wizard World

were all uniformly managed by the Wizard Civilization Council.

By now, a stable set of procedures for cultivating Wizard Apprentices had been formed,

that was opening public classrooms to teach knowledge such as magic and sorcery,

as well as providing various tasks for bottom-tier Wizard Apprentices to strive for sources of magic stones and promotion materials.

Therefore, work like cultivating magical plants seemed on the surface to be wizards handing these tedious matters over to Wizard Apprentices,

but in reality, it was also distributing a portion of labor down to Wizard Apprentices.

On one hand, it enabled them to earn compensation; on the other hand, it also cultivated their knowledge and skills in cultivating magical plants.

Of course, there were also some financially strapped Official Wizards

who personally undertook work like caring for magical plants

solely to save magic stones, which existed among some wizards whose economic status ran into trouble.

This forced one to acknowledge that the fields researched by wizards were a bottomless money-swallowing beast.

Spell Models themselves were the products of Official Wizards studying various natural magics or their respective research fields.

Therefore, the Spell Models provided in the academy also needed to be purchased with points and magic stones.

This was also a certain knowledge fee collected by the wizards who provided these models.