Wizard: Starts with Advanced Meditation

After returning to his dormitory from the black market, Hughes began meditating. He probed his consciousness with his mental energy and focused all his efforts on outlining the 10th mental energy rune.

The tenth mental energy rune gradually solidified in his consciousness space...

As the 10th mental power rune solidified completely in Hughes's consciousness space, the magic power around Hughes surged wildly into his body, and Hughes's mental power also skyrocketed.

Finally, Hughes ended his meditation and slowly opened his eyes.

"Second-class wizard apprenticeship, completed."

He felt his spiritual power surging and tried to attach it to the quill pen on the table. In an instant, he seemed to feel the "existence" of the quill pen.

With a gentle manipulation of the spiritual energy attached to the quill pen, the quill pen actually moved slightly in response to his manipulation of spiritual energy.

Using the items in the room as examples, Hughes discovered that his mental strength was only enough to barely control the movement of objects weighing about 5 kilograms.

However, some forms of witchcraft can actually control the movement of objects, and some can even allow the wizard to fly briefly.

Speaking of witchcraft, Hughes's eyes narrowed slightly. His magical power had also increased significantly, and it was time to learn more witchcraft.

Hughes had already sensed that the atmosphere at the academy had become increasingly tense recently, and there were even more third-class wizard apprentices on the road.

Moreover, even the potions he sold were one or two magic stones more expensive, and Beel always wore a rune armor.

Hughes had also studied runic literature for a while, and just a casual glance at the runes on it was worth at least several hundred magic stones.

He must now seize the opportunity to strengthen himself and make up for his shortcomings in magic, such as attack and defense, so as to avoid being unable to protect himself when a crisis comes.

The Frostweave Treasury is where apprentices at the Everfrost Spire purchase various types of sorcery.

Hughes arrived at the entrance, where two statues carved from deep blue crystal stood silently, the gems at the top of their staffs emitting a deep, soft blue glow.

The first floor of the Frostweave Vault is where level zero sorcery is stored.

Hughes pushed open the door and found that the interior was like a library, with rows of tall shelves neatly arranged throughout.

These bookshelves are not made of ordinary wood, but of a mysterious metal that emits a faint glow, and are filled with various crystal balls.

In the very center of the palace stands a massive stone platform made of black rock, upon which float crystal balls radiating multicolored light.

Each crystal ball is surrounded by a ring of runes. Once the runes are activated with mental energy, the rune ring will move the crystal ball to the apprentice's side.

Hughes took a recording crystal from an apprentice at the counter, went to the stone platform, and used his mental power to contact the runes. A crystal ball, driven by the rune circle, came to Hughes.

Hughes picked up the crystal ball, which contained the levels of various elemental spells and their effects. Hughes selected the spell type he wanted, and the crystal ball immediately displayed the location of those spells.

Upon arriving at the metal shelf, Hughes first began to examine various ice-based spells.

The academy's sorcery is far more extensive than that of Seraphia, with hundreds of level zero ice spells alone, partly due to the fact that the entire academy specializes in ice sorcery.

Hughes reviewed all the eligible spells for a while, and finally selected two ice-based spells. Both of these level zero spells were ranged attacks.

Frost Bomb: Fires a missile made of ice element. The explosion of the ice bomb will cause area-wide freezing damage.

Spinning Ice Spike: A revamped version of Ice Spike, now fires a continuously spinning ice spike with increased penetration.

These two spells, one for area-of-effect attacks and the other for single-target attacks, compensate for Hughes's current attack methods. As for the Flame Bead Ring, it can be used to deal with situations such as insufficient magic power.

However, considering that they might face frost-skinned dwarves later on, who have extremely strong resistance to ice magic, Hughes decided to choose a shadow-based attack spell.

The information runes for Frostbolt and Spinning Ice Cone in the recording crystal ball were moved into the recording crystal, and the runes recording these two spells in the Hughes crystal ball were restored.

Next, Hughes arrived at the metal shelf where spatial magic was stored.

The academy's space magic department had relatively few items; there was only one crystal ball in front of the metal shelf, and Hughes noticed there were only a dozen or so, so there was no need to categorize them.

Hughes examined it for a while and discovered two spells:

Deflection Field: Creates a force field that can deflect the direction of spells by changing the spatial structure of a specified area.

Short-range protective membrane: Forms an invisible protective membrane covering the entire body, enhancing defense, and can also be used on a designated target at a short distance.

These two spells made up for Hughes's weakness in defense. Previously, he only had a few screen spells on his cross sword, but they could only defend one side.

The short-range protective membrane defends the entire body, and if it can't stop the attack, there's a deflecting force field to deflect the direction of the incoming witchcraft.

After choosing these two types of witchcraft, Hughes prepared to look at displacement-type witchcraft. Based on Hughes' current attribute affinity, it would be best to use dark-type displacement witchcraft during his apprenticeship.

Upon arriving at the dark-themed metal frame, Hughes specifically selected the displacement-type magic to examine.

A type of witchcraft caught Hughes's attention:

Shadow Walk: Creates a shadow beneath your feet that can move silently, ignoring terrain.

This ability to ignore terrain and remain silent attracted Hughes, who decisively chose to also select the penetrating Dark Ray sorcery. Hughes then went to the counter to pay.

Each level zero spell costs around 20 magic stones, which is considered a benefit of the academy. After all, unless you're a high-profit potion master like Hughes, 20 magic stones is a considerable burden.