Chapter 271: First Class Respec Completed, Tenth-Tier Magic: Heating
So far, it seemed the levels of both the Sun Anglerfish's blood and the Fire Dragon's blood were too high. Tang Zheng had been unable to make them into potions as he could with troll blood. Until he had thoroughly researched the dragon blood, he would let the few Frost Dragons living in the depths of the Angelicisia Mountain Range live for now.
The Sun Anglerfish's blood was far inferior to the Fire Dragon's, though their enhancement effects were similar. This had already been verified on the evil spirit hounds. However, the Fire Dragon's blood contained a curse, while the Sun Anglerfish's blood contained a certain toxin.
Until Nfirea Bale developed a better method, Tang Zheng didn't plan on giving it to Imina and Leinas.
"A reminder: this contains a certain toxin, but it should be a small problem for you." Tang Zheng looked at the Demon Snake Naga and waved his hand. "First, summon 1,000 goblins here."
The Demon Snake Naga withdrew its gaze from the crimson potion bottle, subconsciously nodded respectfully, and quickly departed. Before long, 1,000 goblins were brought over.
"Waa waa!"
"Waa, ya!"
"Ah waa!"
"..."
The moment the thousand goblins appeared, they erupted into a chaotic clamor.
Looking at this green-skinned crowd, he first needed to verify how much experience 1,000 goblins would grant him. Killing so many goblins one by one would be too troublesome.
Tang Zheng only had two true area-of-effect spells. One was "Sand Domain," which had a limited range and wasn't worth using on goblins. The other was the skill "Blazing Sound Wave" from "Body Armament," a wide-range attack spell. This skill had a massive area of effect and would cause severe collateral damage.
Given the goblins' low strength, they would be instantly turned to ash if hit by such an attack. Tang Zheng, however, planned to preserve their corpses to use as food for the next wave of goblins.
"Magic Arrow!"
After a moment of thought, Tang Zheng began chanting in a low voice.
Bzz— Bzzzz—
Ten magic arrows lined up in a row, materializing before him.
Snap!
With the sound of a finger snap, the non-elemental magic arrows transformed into wind-attribute arrows, a sharp edge appearing on their surfaces.
"This feeling of perfect control... my ability to manipulate magic feels even stronger. Is it because of [Magic Transcender]?"
Tang Zheng raised a finger and pointed toward the goblins. All the magic arrows shot out, their speed multiplied several times under the enhancement of the wind element.
In an instant, the ten arrows pierced through a row of goblins. Then, under his control, they returned. All within just a few breaths, the thousand goblins were pierced and killed by the magic arrows; none could resist the assault.
[Gained 21 Experience]
[......]
[Gained 19 Experience]
[Experience Bar: 368923/410000]
Tang Zheng looked at the change in his experience on the panel. Excluding the experience gained from killing blue maggots and other races in the Hills Region, killing these goblins had earned him a total of about 20,000 experience points. On average, each goblin provided around 20 points.
"Not bad."
Tang Zheng nodded in satisfaction. He then ordered the bewildered Demon Snake Naga, who had been waiting on the side, to have the trolls and other monsters pile up the goblin corpses.
To store the goblin corpses, Tang Zheng had specifically learned the second-tier "Preservation" spell. It could preserve items for up to a year, similar to how it worked on potions that would otherwise degrade.
[Skill Points: 63 → 62]
Some nobles and caravans would even specifically hire spellcasters who had mastered this magic to preserve valuable food.
After casting the spell several times, all the goblin corpses were transported to the cave where Troll Gu used to live for storage.
With his current passive enhancements, casting any first, second, or third-tier magic only cost a single point of magic power.
Next, Tang Zheng began increasing the number of goblins. His experience quickly met the requirement to gain a level, and he even deliberately stopped at the exact threshold for leveling up.
[Experience Bar: 410077/410000]
"Increase Ninja job level," Tang Zheng commanded.
[Comprehensive Level: 47 → 48Lv]
[Ninja 1 → 2Lv]
[Experience Bar: 77/460000]
He looked at the stats on the panel.
Tang Zheng looked back at the numerous goblins and continued to use the first-tier "Magic Arrow." This time, however, he wasn't casting with magic power, but using "experience casting."
[Comprehensive Level: 48 → 47Lv]
[Shaman Master 1Lv → 0]
[Experience Bar: 1/410000]
He continued this process.
[Comprehensive Level: 47Lv]
[Ninja 2→3→4→5Lv]
[Sword Saint: 10→9→8→7LV]
[Skill Points: 74]
Repeating this four times, he completed the class respec by consuming only 1.64 million experience points.
While his comprehensive level remained unchanged, his [Ninja] job reached max level, [Sword Saint] dropped to level 7, and the [Shaman Master] job disappeared completely.
During this process, Tang Zheng paid close attention to his [Magic Swordsman] class. Seeing that the level drop in his Sword Saint job didn't affect it, he finally set his mind at ease.
Soon, 100,000 goblins were completely slaughtered, their corpses filling the entire cave. The excess had to be buried in pits for preservation.
[Experience Bar: 351023/410000]
Of the roughly two million total experience points, only 350,000 remained.
"I'm back to a state where I have no jobs left to level up."
Tang Zheng looked at the jobs on his attribute sheet, sighing again amidst his excitement.
His level 7 Sword Saint job still needed to be respec'd, but he had no other jobs he could level up.
"Fluder's [Immortal] job class, the Elf King's [Elementalist (Earth)]... both are high-tier job classes, but I have no leads on any others."
Tang Zheng pondered, "The Elf King's power is immense, and I'm not completely confident right now. There's no rush to acquire those two jobs."
"My original theory for the special job class [Catastrophe Apostle] couldn't be implemented because I had too little information and it required an intermediate-tier job class as a prerequisite. But now that I can perform a class respec, I can continue to work on that theory."
"Uh... why are they all spellcasting-type classes?"
Tang Zheng snapped out of it and shook his head lightly, then looked toward the slightly trembling Demon Snake Naga.
"I've deliberately left 1,000 goblins. With their powerful reproductive ability, you should be able to raise them back to the current numbers by around May, right?"
"Y-Yes, my Lord."
The Demon Snake Naga hurriedly lowered its head and replied, fear showing in its eyes.
It had always been puzzled and curious as to why this human was breeding goblins. It had made all sorts of guesses but never imagined the reason was simply for slaughter.
Does he hold a grudge against goblins?
The thought surfaced uncontrollably in the Demon Snake Naga's mind. At the same time, it felt that this human before it must never be provoked.
"Then I'll be troubling you, Your Excellency, Dominator of the Forest," Tang Zheng said gently.
The Demon Snake Naga nodded in terror. After a long moment, when it raised its head again to look where Tang Zheng had been, it found he had already vanished.
"I feel like he becomes more terrifying and mysterious every time we meet," the Demon Snake Naga murmured to itself, stunned.
...
It was still the unchanging Fiery Lava Zone.
Ever since he took control of this area, Tang Zheng had made it one of his bases. The high-temperature magic power emanating from the Magma Sea could effectively conceal fluctuations in his own magic power.
Having gained a large number of skill points through class respecs, Tang Zheng no longer held back and began to upgrade the tier magic he had previously mastered.
First up was "Heating"!
Through a "Magic Ascension" ritual, combined with the job skills of his [Mad Mage] class, he raised the fourth-tier "Heating" to the sixth tier.
...
Skill: Heating (Sixth Tier)
Cost: 30 MP
Effect: Heats a touched object to 4800°C over one minute, or instantaneously to 1200°C.
...
"The fourth tier's temperature was 1200 degrees. It really doubled." Tang Zheng's eyebrows shot up. If it continued to double like this, the result would be unimaginable.
"The strength of tier magic shouldn't be able to surpass super-tier magic, right?"
He remembered that the extreme heat generated by the Bone King's super-tier spell, "Fallen Down," hadn't seemed *that* overwhelmingly powerful in its visual display.
He continued to use magical materials to set up the magic ritual. He also wanted to see what level this spell would reach at the tenth tier. Perhaps he could deduce the growth limit of zero-tier magic created by the humans of this Otherworld.
...
Skill: Heating (Eighth Tier)
Cost: 40 MP
Effect: Heats the area within a ten-meter radius of the user to 6000°C over one minute, or instantaneously to 3000°C.
...
BOOM—
A dazzling white light flashed for an instant. The air distorted under the intense heat, and a visible heatwave formed with Tang Zheng at its center. It spread out with rapid, wave-like undulations. Though its rhythm seemed slow and heavy, it actually expanded in a split second, creating an intense sense of suffocation that could make one forget to breathe.
Under that intense white light and extreme heat, an ordinary person would likely be reduced to ash in an instant!
The extremely heat-resistant rock beneath Tang Zheng's feet caved in, and granular, scorched-black, high-temperature crystals appeared.
"A temperature of six thousand degrees... that's close to the surface of the sun, isn't it? No, wait, why is it only six thousand degrees? And it gained an area of effect."
Tang Zheng stared at the surrounding air, which seemed to distort and turn illusory under the heat's influence, a look of astonishment in his eyes.
After the searing heat completely dissipated and everything returned to calm, Tang Zheng looked at the skill's description again. Based on the previous doubling, it should have reached 19,200 degrees at the eighth tier. Now, the increase had stopped at 6,000 degrees, and it had gained an area-of-effect stat.
"So there really is a limit to the temperature change." Tang Zheng stood up, strode to the edge of the cliff, and jumped directly into the magma.
The area-of-effect disturbance was getting a bit large; it was no longer suitable to cast it on the ground.
Tang Zheng swam down to the very bottom of the Magma Sea. Since it was unsuitable for setting up a magic ritual within the sea, he decided to use the normal "Magic Ascension" to raise the tier, which would just waste an extra skill point.
After a short while, the turbulent Magma Sea suddenly became calm. In the center of the scorching crimson sea, the floating magma suddenly sank, affecting an area several hundred meters in radius, as if the magma in this region had vanished into thin air. The surrounding magma immediately rushed in to fill the void, creating a continuous, thunder-like roar!
Whoosh!
Tang Zheng's figure shot up from the Magma Sea, flying back to the cliff.
...
Skill: Heating (Tenth-tier)
Cost: 50 MP
Effect: Instantaneously heats the temperature within a fifty-meter radius to 6000°C.
...
The spell had now completely transformed.
"Just now in the depths of the Magma Sea, even with the magma's obstruction, the affected area reached nearly 300 meters. If I were on open ground, the directly affected range should reach about one kilometer."
Tang Zheng's breathing grew rapid, somewhat exhilarated. "Beyond one kilometer, the temperature will probably decay rapidly, but even so, this could be called a city-destroying level of magic."
"In terms of sheer destructive power, it's likely inferior to a tier-ten spell focused on pure magical might, but its area of effect should far exceed that of a normal tier-ten spell."
This was the first tenth-tier spell in his hands. Not only was its power astonishing, but most importantly, it was a zero-tier spell originally created in this Otherworld.
"The issue of a skill's power and strength... it seems there really is an upper limit." Tang Zheng calmed down, gaining a more accurate understanding of skill strength.
According to the settings in YGGDRASIL, rankings weren't based on destructive power, but purely on strength.
World Item > Trump Card of a Special Job Class > Super-Tier Magic (Special-type Skill) > Tier Magic (Normal Skill)
"This must be the classification of strength."
This information flashed through Tang Zheng's mind. He had faintly sensed this when he acquired [Magic Transcender]. The "Word of Elemental Collapse" from the Transcender class possessed the power to ignore the four elemental resistances, which all but proved that resistances also had a limit.
This reminded Tang Zheng of the described abilities of the legendary World Bosses in the game YGGDRASIL. Abilities like the "Five Decays of Devas" of the Five-Colored Tathagata and the "Seven Deadly Sins" of the Seven Deadly Sins Demon Lord could easily break through the various nullification resistances and immunities possessed by jobs like the Undead.
After upgrading "Heating," Tang Zheng upgraded another spell, "Papermaking."
...
Skill: Papermaking (Tenth-tier)
Cost: 50 MP
Effect: Creates two sheets of paper imbued with powerful magic power.
...
Compared to the "Heating" spell, which grew stronger with each tier, "Papermaking" was the complete opposite. Not only did the number of sheets not increase, but as the tier level rose, the quantity of paper actually decreased.
"At the tenth tier, it can only create two sheets."
"To create a single magic scroll normally, you need twenty sheets of magical paper of the same level. The cost is staggering." Tang Zheng's eye twitched; he didn't even need to do the math. To create a single tenth-tier magic scroll, the magic power cost alone would require casting the tenth-tier "Papermaking" spell ten times.
(end of chapter)