From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 633 Legendary Spell Penetration

The Hill Giant Chieftain died a horrible death; all the buffs he had were merely prolonging his suffering.

The native creatures of Grallion have high magic resistance, so even Ivy will not be as adept as before when facing encounters without specific preparations.

Fortunately, when countering the buff spells cast on himself by the Mountain Giant Chieftain, his spell resistance didn't need to be considered. Ivy's superior dispel spell, combined with his high caster level of 26, easily removed all five buffs from the Mountain Giant Chieftain.

"How strange..." Ivy muttered, looking at the ice crystals emerging from the corpse of the hill giant chieftain, "I'm actually experiencing a long-lost magical confrontation with a creature that's generally considered brainless..."

Ivy's combat strategy has always revolved around differentiation, targeting the enemy's weaknesses—the saying goes, "Many hairs are weak against fire, large bodies are weak against the rear." A creature's inherent strengths often come with certain weaknesses.

But Ivy had rarely encountered someone like the Hill Giant Chieftain, who could use magic to compensate for his weaknesses, in his past adventures. So much so that he had to resort to a high-level dispel spell he hadn't used since casting the Preparation spell.

This sixth-circle spell is similar to its third-circle version, which dispels magical effects. Both are used to interrupt magical effects that are currently in effect on creatures or objects, or to interrupt area-specific magical effects. Even magical items can be temporarily suppressed.

The difference between advanced dispelling spells and regular dispelling spells lies in the number of spells applied. If the latter is cast on a creature that has multiple magical effects, it will counteract the ongoing spells on the target in descending order of difficulty, until one spell effect is dispelled, or until none of the spell effects are dispelled, at which point it will automatically terminate.

Higher spell dispel, on the other hand, requires every four caster levels to dispel an active spell.

The highest-level spellcaster class for Ivy is the [Supreme Warlock]. With the Legendary rank and the [Arcane Power] buff, the effective spellcaster level is 26, and a maximum of 6 active spells can be dispelled at once.

If the Mountain Giant Chieftain were to apply a few more buffs to himself, he would soon exceed the limit that Ivy could remove.

The Hill Giant Chieftain was not a particularly strong opponent, but his appearance prompted Ivy to think.

In previous battles, Ivy had hardly encountered any particularly challenging opponents.

Even god-like creatures like the Necrobrain have corresponding Necrostones as counters. Therefore, he usually wins by stomp the game, annihilating his enemies in the blink of an eye.

But in Grenadines, this situation may soon change.

The Litumon Mingna Gu that appeared in the Kanaburi Grey Camp was just a mid-level demon from the abyss. Ivy's fire breath as a golden dragon couldn't even hurt her in the slightest. It was only after using mythical power and legendary magic that she achieved an overwhelming victory.

Even so, without being familiar with the characteristics of the Litu Demon, she still managed to escape wearing Stoutton's body.

Facing the Mountain Giant Chieftain who could buff himself, Ivy felt a sense of crisis.

The demons that emerged from the World's Tragedy are certainly not all small fry. Among those who raided Kannabri this time was Descari, a demon lord from the abyss.

Magic was so prevalent in Grallion that Ivy couldn't believe a demon lord couldn't buff himself. At that point, would Ivy's superior dispel magic still be able to remove the opponent's buffs as usual?
In addition, Ivy must find an effective way to overcome the demons' spell resistance. The most basic way is to increase her spellcaster level and select feats that increase spell penetration.

The former can be improved by increasing the level, but after entering the legendary realm, Ivy needs a massive amount of experience points to level up each time, so the progress is destined to be slow.

Instead, finding a quicker way to compensate would be to work out in other, lower-level professions.

Ivy's Bard rank consists of three parts: Level 5 Basic Bard, Level 5 Transcendent String which provides advanced spellcasting abilities, and Level 4 Arcane Follower which provides buffs to all arcane spellcasting classes.

If you continue to invest experience points in the Bard, when the Arcane Follower reaches level 10, Arcane Power will grant all arcane spellcasting classes an additional +4 caster level boost, equivalent to adding two legendary levels, but at a lower experience cost.

Furthermore, the [Transcendent String] class ability [Arcane Enhancement Song] can also increase the caster's level through performance, up to a maximum of +4.

Therefore, continuing to invest experience points in the [Bard] to improve their combat strength is an excellent way to increase combat power at present.

Another option is Ivy's divine spellcasting class, [Sun Dominator]. The divine power in the magical realm can also increase the caster's level. Although activating this ability requires a standard action, making it somewhat lackluster, once [Sun Dominator] reaches level 8, it can use melee attacks to inflict the divine power of dispelling magic, Touch of Dispel, which becomes extremely useful.

As a golden dragon, all of Ivy's innate weapon attacks are melee attacks, which can all trigger Dispel Touch.

When building the Golden Dragon's Dragonflight specialization, he specifically leaned towards melee combat and high-altitude mobility, and the 50 points in Strength attribute also brought a higher hit rate.

By launching a charge from high altitude and using the full-round attack of [Ferocious Charge] to deal multiple effective hits, combined with Dispel Touch, you can fight and remove buffs at the same time.

If Ivy had cast a speed spell on herself beforehand, which provides an extra round of actions, she might have been able to strip the enemy of all their buffs with a single surprise attack.

Even without the buff, Ivy's Mythical Golden Dragon Body shouldn't be too far behind the Demon Lord, right?

Not to mention that he himself can also have a considerable number of buffs, which can give him a significant advantage on the battlefield.

"It seems this giant's culinary research in the field of humanoids has come to a complete end." The android Five emerged from its hiding place, curiously examining the ice crystals floating above the hill giant chieftain's corpse. "What are you thinking, Doom? Why don't you hurry up and put it away? If it burrows into another mortal's body, we'll have to spend even more effort to get it out."

“You’re right.” The Grimoire of Destruction appeared in Ivy’s hand, several psionic tentacles wrapping around ice crystals and pulling them into the pages. Now, Ivy possessed four fragments of Hishad’s soul, more than half the total. There were three more portals within the Cursed Glacier, but Ivy didn’t intend to collect them all at once, mainly due to time constraints.

With the Crusader army about to set off, he, as the military advisor, couldn't remain absent indefinitely. It would be perfectly feasible to continue collecting Heathcoat's soul fragments once they reached a more stable location.

Anyway, he's been dead for thousands of years, so it's not a problem for him to come back to life anytime soon.

After completing the task of recovering the soul fragments, Ivy didn't rush to close the Grimoire of Destruction. Instead, she went to her character panel and performed a series of operations.

After the previous major upgrade, he still had three feats left to select, one of which was a common feat, and the other two were legendary feats.

To counter the spell resistance of the native creatures of Grallion, Ivy chose the [Legendary Spell Penetration] talent, which grants him +6 spellcaster level when resisting spell resistance.

Another legendary feat is to select "Integrate into Form," which allows him to integrate any magical equipment that doesn't fit his body shape into his body when he transforms into a golden dragon, and still receive the benefits of wearing them as usual.

In this way, even the Beast Bite Sword can be used as the claw of the Golden Dragon, giving full play to the various professional characteristics of the [Sword Saint].

As for the remaining general feat, Ivy chose the supermagic feat called "High Power Spells," which costs an additional 2 spell points and puts enemies affected by spell effects at a disadvantage on saving throws, essentially choosing the lower of the two dice.

Gaining an advantage or disadvantage in exemption testing has a very significant effect in practice.

In the best-case scenario (when the test difficulty is moderate, the DC difference is around 10), the success rate can be increased by about 25% (the disadvantage is a decrease), while in the most extreme scenario (the DC difference is 20 or above), the success rate can still be increased by about 5%.

In this way, Ivy's magic, which is enhanced by the "High-Power Spell," combined with the increased spellcaster level, is definitely enough to break through the spell resistance of ordinary mid-to-high-level demons.

In addition, Ivy invested some experience points into the [Sun Dominator] class, raising its level to 5, gaining a new general skill slot, and one free attribute point.

Ivy reserved the specialization slot for [Extra Energy Guidance], which added two extra attempts to guide divine power. The attribute points were then added to Intelligence, bringing the Golden Dragon's Intelligence to 30.

The level 5 [Sun Dominator] class also gains a series of new class traits. Two of them are particularly worth mentioning: the level 4 [Eye of Radiance] and the level 5 [Sunfire Weapon].

The sun's radiance began to shine through Ivy's body, his eyes constantly emitting a dazzling golden light like the sun, and from then on he would no longer be troubled by any magical effects, natural effects, or spell-like abilities that used light as a medium to cause blindness or dizziness.

Furthermore, he can actively unleash the sunlight within his body, releasing radiant rays from his eyes that deal 1d6 damage per caster level, half of which is fire damage and the other half is light damage. Releasing radiant rays is a bonus action, usable twice daily, and thereafter, for every 5 levels [Sun Dominator] gains, an additional daily use is available.

This ability, though seemingly insignificant, deals damage that increases with the caster's level and is activated quickly, similar to Ivy's commonly used [Gaze Spell]. Furthermore, the effective range of this radiant ray changes with the caster's size; if Ivy transforms into a golden dragon, the radiant rays emitted from her two enormous eyes are no longer a single-target spell, but rather a pillar-shaped area resembling a lightning bolt.

The effect of the [Sunfire Weapon] is much simpler and more direct. The weapon that Ivy is using will automatically gain the Blazing Flame effect, and after level 10, this effect will be upgraded to Fire Blast.

Combined with the Golden Dragon Path's [Flawless Body] enchantment, Ivy's +5 innate weapons will also be imbued with this enchantment. When engaging in melee combat with the Golden Dragon Body, it will truly be a matter of controlling fire.

"Your eyes are glowing. Do you, like me, have some kind of luminous indicator in your eyes?" The android five was the most affected by Ivy's sudden change, after all, she had seen the whole thing.

The mage, who was transformed from a golden dragon, only looked down at the spellbook for a while. When he raised his head again, his eyes began to glow (in a physical sense).

The sudden change piqued the curiosity of the android, who even waved his hand in front of Ivy's eyes to feel the intensity of the light.

"Is it...sunlight?" The android withdrew its hand. "The heat radiation level seems similar to that of the midday sun in summer, and it also decreases with distance. It can only provide dim lighting thirty feet away."

“You are indeed a research-oriented android, and I am becoming increasingly interested in inviting you to join the academy.” Ivy closed the Codex of Destruction and led the android toward the cave where the hill giants and Kelideans lived together. He had already wasted enough time here, and he wanted to finish everything here as soon as possible before showing the android around Dawnstar City.

The cave where the hill giants enslaved the Kelids wasn't far away, and along this short stretch of road, all sorts of animals had begun to appear, running towards the cave entrance.

It is evident that the chieftain brothers are highly efficient. With the help of invisibility magic, they have obtained the missing materials and begun to perform the ritual magic left by their ancestors.

With [Legendary Spell Penetration] and [High-Power Spells], Ivy's magic could easily break through the resistance of the Hill Giants. Even the Killing Curse, a psionic spell that is easily resisted after leaving the wizarding world, was as powerful as if he had a cheat code.

Having traversed numerous worlds, Ivy has begun to discover the unspoken rules of magic. Although all magic is essentially about manipulating objective reality, different types of magic rely on different structures of reality.

Wizards' magic in their own world doesn't require mana regeneration or spell models; they can unleash this idealistic power simply by chanting incantations and waving their wands in a specific trajectory.

Although the source of wizarding magic is the wizard himself, after traversing worlds, this power cannot easily alter the reality of other worlds.

For example, in the world of Arda, Ivy's wizarding magic almost exclusively works on herself, and her spells that affect external objects are limited to everyday enchantments. This is actually quite easy to understand; the entire world of Arda was created by Ilúvatar using the Great Symphony, essentially her own work, so how could she allow external magic to arbitrarily alter reality?
In the world of Faerûn, Ivy must consume spell slots corresponding to the power of the spell to cast a wizarding spell. This is because the fundamental principle of Faerûn magic is that it is governed by the magic network overseen by the goddess of magic. In this worldview, Mystra, possessing the highest authority over the magic network, can even prevent magic from taking effect at will. Ivy's act of consuming spell slots to cast wizarding spells is equivalent to paying for a blank casting pass; the strength of the spell depends on the size of the casting pass. Although somewhat restrictive, at least Ivy's wizarding spells cannot be countered by Mystra using her highest authority over the magic network.

Now that Ivy's [Wizard] profession and [Psychic] profession are integrated, it is equivalent to completely using psychic energy based on her own will as a prerequisite for the spell to take effect. In this way, wizard magic will not be restricted by spellcasting in other worlds, and Ivy's other psychic magic can also enjoy the benefits of no spellcasting cost and casting speed depending on the speed of speech in the wizarding world.

(End of this chapter)