From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 281 Aftermath
"Whoosh!"

Seeing the dragon's head crashing open the main gate of Lonely Mountain, Bard subconsciously activated the wind crossbow in front of him, and the black arrow flew towards Smaug's open mouth.

By the time Bard discovered that the dragon was dead, the black arrow was almost hitting its target.

Colorful rainbow light erupted from Smaug's chest, and Ivy, the caster of this seventh-ring spell, was half hanging between the gaps between the scales, with wounds all over her body from scraping against rocks and the ground.

At the last moment before the black arrow hit the dragon, Ivy loosened the beast-biting sword in his hand, summoned the last bit of ancient magic in his body, and stopped the flying black arrow steadily in front of the dragon.

Ivy breathed a sigh of relief, her body covered in hot dragon blood, and pulled herself out of Smaug's chest.

The ancient wizard's magic power was completely exhausted, and the black arrow suspended in the air fell to the ground with a crisp sound.

If the black arrow itself wasn't as light as a feather, Ivy wouldn't have been able to stop it so easily.

Thinking about it this way, using ancient magic to control the black arrow to attack Smaug might be the right way to use it... Ivy could easily use ancient magic to speed up the light arrow to a speed that was enough to penetrate the dragon's scales. If the ghost strike technique was added, with just a little aiming, it could penetrate the dragon's entire body with one shot. Maybe it could kill the dragon on first sight without wasting so much resources and energy...

Ever since he decided to start slaying dragons, Ivy's mind has been on how to fight against the dragon's flames and scales, and he never thought of using magic to shoot black arrows. This can also be regarded as a kind of rigid thinking. Can an arrow shot without a bow and crossbow still be called an arrow?

Ivy remembered that the wizard had a 0-level trick called Archery, which fired the crossbow arrows, but the flight distance would be longer.

Although this trick is limited to crossbow arrows placed on crossbows, a wind crossbow is also considered a crossbow, and a black arrow is of course also considered a crossbow arrow, so why can't this spell be used?
Besides, there are also many possibilities for 0-ring tricks. Bigby's Palm is an extension of the trick of Wizard's Hand. Ivy may be able to develop a spell specifically used to launch large crossbows, or even siege crossbows or artillery shells.

Magic has too many possibilities, and it is impossible for one person to exhaust them all. Ivy once again felt how far away the goal he was pursuing was.

After laughing at her own mistake, Ivy began to deal with Smaug's huge corpse.

After being hit by two rainbow beams at negative distance, Smaug's body was full of holes, and the heart that was used to pump out the boiling blood was petrified, which was the main cause of Smaug's death.

Now Ivy needs to find a container to collect all the blood in Smaug's body, or find a way to plug the wounds he cut with the beast bite sword. Otherwise, all the good dragon blood will be wasted, and it is still fresh.

"Smaug is dead! The dragon is dead!" The young men who volunteered to help Bard cheered. With their cheers, the Lonely Mountain, which had been silent for a long time, finally regained some vitality.

"You did it, wizard! You really killed the dragon!" Bard also came to the gate of Lonely Mountain. Without bothering to pick up the black arrow that fell on the bridge, he congratulated Ivy first.

"Yes." Ivy nodded. "It was indeed a difficult battle. Have all the residents of Long Lake Town arrived in River Valley? We don't have much time to cheer, if you haven't forgotten those orcs."

"The old, weak and women have already arrived. They have begun to clean up the city and prepare rooms for those who come later. We don't have much food. It can only support us for three to five days at most. If the cargo ships traveling between Changhu Lake and River Valley City continue to flow, we can bring back a lot of supplies. But in this case, we must allocate manpower to collect and transport goods." Bard introduced briefly, "According to what you said, repairing the city wall should be the most important thing."

Ivy released a stream of cold air from the top of her staff, freezing the biggest wound on Smaug's body. Although the dragon was dead, the heat in his body had not yet dissipated. Fortunately, the hot blood had stopped flowing, otherwise the ice created by Ivy's freezing magic would not last long.

"Yes, repairing the city walls is indeed the most important thing, but if the battle turns into a defense, we must consider the issue of supplies, so the ship collecting supplies from Long Lake Town cannot stop. I will use magic to see if I can help." Ivy circled around Smaug's huge dragon head and found that except for the wound she left on his chest, there was no more bleeding everywhere. Smaug's recovery ability was indeed terrifying.

"It would be great if magic could help." Ever since he saw Smaug's body, Bard has been smiling. "There are still many weapons in the warehouse of Dale City. I plan to recruit some young men and train them in the use of spears and bows and arrows. They are all fishermen and hunters. Spears are no harder to use than harpoons, and orcs are no harder to shoot than deer in the forest."

"Yes, we need to gather every bit of strength before the orcs arrive." Ivy sat on a stone in front of the gate of Lonely Mountain and used magic to clean the blood on his body. "If you don't mind, I need to rest for a while."

Bard raised his head and took one last look at Smaug's huge dragon head. "I'll have someone prepare a room for you in Dale, wizard. Perhaps you would rather stay with your dwarf friends? Anyway, I'll wait for you in Dale."

Ivy waved her hand and said nothing. Bard picked up the black arrow on the ground and told the young men hiding not far away to leave. Before leaving, he said something to them and pointed at the dragon and Ivy at the door. Then the young men cheered again and hurriedly picked up their crossbows and left.

It was noon, and the sun was shining on the land, making people feel warm. It was not the scorching heat during the battle with Smaug, but a kind of warmth that made people drowsy.

Ivy squinted his eyes for a moment and checked his harvest.

The experience points provided by Smaug are not as exaggerated as Ivy imagined, only less than 20 points. It allows Ivy to upgrade the career level of [Scribe Mage/Ancient Fighter] or [Sword Master] to level 19, and also allows him to upgrade the career level of [Dazzling Warlock] to level .

It seems that Smaug's strength is seriously inconsistent with his size. The challenge level of an ancient dragon that is only one-third of his size is 25, but it can provide 1638400 experience points. The gap is too obvious.

Ivy hasn't decided which profession to upgrade, but what is certain is that the [Scribe Mage/Ancient Fighter], which is more severely restricted by the Arda world, is obviously not a suitable choice, so he can only choose from the remaining two professions.

The Swordmaster is more inclined to extreme single-target damage, and will definitely give Ivy the ability to come and go freely on the battlefield, but the next battle is a large-scale legion battle under the Lonely Mountain. No matter how powerful a person's ability is, the impact on the battle situation is relatively limited, but there is a hand that can kill the general and capture the flag, which is worth looking forward to.

On the contrary, although the Dazzling Warlock cannot obtain the ultimate ability at level 20, it is certain that Ivy will obtain the professional ability of large-scale lethal spells, and even immunity to certain elemental damage. After all, the level 6 [Heart of Elements] provides resistance to two elements of your choice, and it is not excessive to obtain immunity to one elemental damage at level 18.

So Ivy didn't think much about it and injected all the fresh experience points into [Splendid Warlock], raising this profession from level 9 to level 19.

The 12th, 16th, and 19th levels all give him new opportunities for attribute value growth, or he can replace attribute value growth with equivalent expertise options.

Two new metamagic feats are available at 10th and 17th levels.

As for the new class features, they are available at levels 10, 14, and 18.

The three new class features are [Advanced Elemental Penetration], [Elemental Summoning], and [Dazzling Spectacle].

The most eye-catching one is of course [Dazzling Wonder]. The description given in the Destruction Grimoire is as follows: Call upon the power of elements to create a magical wonder, with a cooldown of 3d12 days. During the creation of the wonder, you need to continuously invest in spell slots to maintain the effect. When the total number of spell slots invested reaches 50, a legendary Dazzling Wonder will be created, and the cooldown will be 12d100 days. The description of this new professional feature is very simple, with only the basic description and the cooldown of the feature, but the information revealed is very intriguing.

What kind of magic can be called a wonder? And what kind of magic wonder can be called a legendary magic wonder?
Ivy still doesn't understand how to trigger this ability, but he can imagine that the magic effect created by [The Most Stunning Spectacle] must be of a very large scale and a very gorgeous scene, otherwise it would not be worthy of the name.

As for the two new features, [Advanced Elemental Penetration] and [Elemental Invocation], they are a little less eye-catching compared to [Stunning Wonder].

The former is simple to understand but powerful, and it increases the caster's level when releasing magic described by elements. The latter allows you to choose one of the four elements of earth, wind, water, and fire to pray for every day, and gain benefit attributes according to different categories.

The earth element provides a 30-foot underground burrowing speed and allows Ivy to cast stone shaping, stone into mud, or mud into stone at will, but it must be prepared for one minute when casting, so it can be used in combat. At level 18, the earth elemental will also provide complete immunity to acid and poison damage.

Water elemental provides underwater breathing, 60 feet water movement speed, and twice a day no consumption of 4-level ice storm. At level 18, it is completely immune to frost damage.

Air element provides a 30-foot flying speed, a 6-ring chain lightning once a day, or three 3-ring lightning bolts. At level 18, the flying speed is increased to 60 feet, and it can become a group of 30 feet, completely immune to lightning and thunder damage.

The last fire element provides a 7th-level firestorm once a day, and allows Ivy to use a reaction to create a harmless explosion when attacked in melee combat. The attacker will take damage equal to twice the warlock level and need to make an agility check and a strength check with a DC equal to the warlock level respectively. If the agility check passes, the attacker will take half the damage; if the strength check passes, the attacker can attack normally, otherwise the attack will miss and the attacker will be knocked back 10 feet. At level 18, the attacker is completely immune to fire damage.

Although the ability provided by [Elemental Invocation] is not as exciting as [Dazzling Wonder], it is undoubtedly a very practical ability. If Ivy summons the earth element next, he can completely transform into a one-man construction team and renovate the dilapidated River Valley City inside and out.

Before, Ivy was still worrying about what magic to use to repair the walls of River Valley City, but he didn't expect that someone would send him a pillow now.

For the two metamagic specialties, Ivy chose [Instant Spell] and [Spell Repeat]. The effect of the former is to greatly reduce the casting time, making it look like the spell is successfully completed with a raise of the hand or a syllable. The latter allows a spell to be cast again at the same area six seconds after the effect ends. This is very useful for large-scale lethal spells, such as the fourth-ring ice storm. If it is released in a crowded battlefield, this ability will become a veritable mob sweeper.

As for the remaining attributes or specialties, Ivy planned to choose all of them except for the Dragonsmith, which he had been optimistic about for a long time. On the one hand, higher attribute adjustment values would help to obtain more spell rewards, and on the other hand, it would also increase the difficulty of resisting spells. Besides, this was 4 attribute points, which was the same as the agility bonus provided by the Beast Bite Sword.

Ivy allocated it to Charisma and Agility in a 2:2 ratio. The former was the key attribute for spellcasting for the [Splendid Warlock] and [Wizard] professions, while the latter affected his defense level and the damage that the Beast Bite Sword could cause. It wouldn't go amiss to add a little more.

"wizard!"

Just as Ivy was thinking about which new spells to choose, a voice came from behind him.

Ivy turned her head and saw the Hobbit thief Bilbo, who was standing on Smaug's body and looking around.

"I can't believe you did it!" Bilbo's face was full of excitement. "This dragon is as big as a mountain! Even standing on it makes me feel dizzy."

"I can't believe you followed me." Ivy smiled. "Where are Thorin and the others?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe you are looking for the Arkenstone in the golden mountain below? I was hiding aside and watching you fighting the dragon. Later, it ran upwards, and I came all the way here." The clever and brave Hobbit carefully slid down along the dragon's wing membrane and stood next to Ivy.

"What do you want, Bilbo?" Ivy glanced at the hobbit, who was rubbing his hands together.

This was a nervous and concealed body movement. Ivy knew that Bilbo liked the dwarves very much. The height difference between hobbits and dwarves was not much, and when they stood together, they looked like a pair of cousins. But now he avoided the dwarves and did not wait for them near the gold mountain piled by Smaug, but came alone to find Ivy.

Ivy could only think of one reason that could make him do this, and that was the Arkenstone.

"What do you think of Thorin's illness?" Bilbo looked at the collapsed gate of the Lonely Mountain behind him. "Is it the one that makes you love gold?"

"Dragonism?" Ivy said. "I don't know if there's a cure for it, but Thorin..."

"But Thorin does have dragon disease, right?" Bilbo quickly continued. "When we were in the secret passage before, Balin told me a lot about dragon disease and Thorin's father and grandfather. He believed that the gem Thorin mentioned was the source of dragon disease."

"He..." Bilbo swallowed, "He doesn't want me to find the Arkenstone... nor does he want Thorin to have it... He didn't say it, but I can see it."

"But I was thinking, what if I was wrong?" Bilbo put a hand into his arms and licked his dry lips. "So I came to seek your wise advice... People say that wizards are knowledgeable and talented. You must have a perfect solution, wizard!"

"You got the Arkenstone, right?" Ivy smiled noncommittally. "What I can tell you is that I think Thorin can only overcome his dragon disease by himself. No one else can help him."

"But we can prevent this terrible disease from continuing to develop!" Bilbo took a deep breath and took out a piece of rag from his arms. "We can lie and say that the Arkenstone has been destroyed by the dragon's fire!"

He slowly opened the package, revealing a perfect gem.

The word "perfect" is too pale to describe it. It cannot accurately describe the brilliance it sparkles in the sun. The colorful light makes it look like a star, a magical star that has fallen into the earth.

"So this is the Arkenstone." Ivy said confidently. The gem was more dazzling than he had imagined. "Are you going to give it to me?"

"I trust you, wizard. I think Thorin and Balin trust you too. With your intelligence, you will definitely find the most appropriate way to deal with it." Bilbo did not give Ivy a chance to refuse. After taking a last deep look at the Arkenstone, he stuffed the gem and the rag wrapped in it into Ivy's hands.

"Your trust is heavy, Mr. Baggins." Ivy squeezed the rag and stuffed it into his pocket, "but I swear I will not betray your trust."

"Phew..." Bilbo breathed out, "That's much easier now. I have to go back and join them quickly. I have to convince them that the gem has been destroyed by the dragon's fire!"

"Let me help you, Bilbo." Ivy reached out and touched Bilbo. "I'll use magic to give you the ability to fly. It will last for 10 minutes, which should save you a lot of energy."

　The character attribute cards will be listed separately after the end of this volume... Next up is the Battle of the Five Armies, I hope you enjoy it
　　
　
(End of this chapter)