Above the mage

Chapter 435 The Foundation of the "Green Wood Longevity Scripture"

After advancing from a first-ring mage to a second-ring mage, Gao De naturally acquired the second-ring ability of the "Green Wood Longevity Scripture": the Words of Nature.

Sunefa had already revealed this ability to him before, so it wasn't exactly a surprise.

As for the [Elementalized Body], it simply enhances the mage's resistance to a certain element in an extremely pure way. It does not bring any other additional changes to the mage's physique, and the idea of ​​turning into a superhuman is utter nonsense.

A mage is still a mage, and still a "fragile" character.

According to Gaode, the so-called process of "elementalizing the physical body" is actually somewhat like getting a vaccine.

The type of element you choose is the same as the type of vaccine you choose.

Just like choosing a rabies vaccine gives you antibodies against rabies, choosing a hepatitis A vaccine gives you antibodies against the hepatitis A virus.

Regardless of which vaccine you choose, it only adds antibodies to the corresponding virus; the body will not undergo any other substantial changes.

The same applies to elementalized physical bodies.

If Gaode chooses the fire element, he will gain corresponding resistance to fire element spells.

However, this resistance only applies to the "pathogen" of fire element; his physical constitution remains unchanged.

After a successful ring upgrade, the quality of a mage's mana will be greatly improved as the liquid mana condenses and solidifies into magic crystals.

Therefore, even a mage who has just entered the second ring can increase the number of first-ring spells they can cast in one go from sixty in the later stages of the first ring to one hundred and eighty.

As for magic tricks, the number that can be cast will exceed five hundred, which can basically be understood as casting magic tricks without consuming mana.

Of course, the number of second-circle spells that can be cast is limited.

The newly formed magic crystal has sixty ripples, which are formed from sixty drops of liquid mana. Each second-circle spell cast consumes one ripple.

This is normal; some spells may consume far more mana than this.

The cultivation process of a second-ring mage involves continuously adding ripples to the magic crystal.

When the number of ripples on the magic crystal reaches 120, it is the mid-stage of the second ring; when it reaches 180, it is the late stage of the second ring.

On the other hand, the ice elemental magic cultivated through the [True Ice Secret Technique] is still in its early stages, and is currently only enough to cast one spell.

The high-ranking monk was extremely familiar with the training process during his apprenticeship.

When the mist-like mana expanded to be enough to support him in casting twenty spells, his mana reached the level required for the Ring Ascension.

As for mental strength... well, that goes without saying.

Given Gao De's current resources and mental strength, the time required to cultivate the [True Ice Secret Transmission] to the first level will be unimaginably fast, equivalent to a high school student doing an elementary school test.

Roughly speaking, it might take about six months.

In other words, after six months, once he breaks through one level of the [True Ice Secret Technique], he will be able to fully awaken his pure Iceborn bloodline, and then replicate Sunefa's path to become a fourth-circle mage in two years?!

He's only sixteen and a half years old now. In two and a half years, he'll be nineteen?!

It's horrifying to even think about.

Of course, that's what they say, but when the time comes, Gaode will definitely still appropriately suppress the speed at which his mage levels increase.

The reason is simple: he needs time to accumulate and master more spells before advancing through the rings to gain more powerful specializations.

Both [Adaptive] and [Iceblood] have clearly demonstrated the strength of the feats that can be awakened when there are enough spells.

Since the Fourth Ring Road is already a certainty, there's no need to rush it; instead, we should consider the road ahead after the Fourth Ring Road.

Before reaching the fourth ring, the [True Ice Secret Technique] was indeed invincible, but after reaching the fourth ring, the [True Ice Secret Technique] became a dead end.

However, that's at least a year from now.

Gao De quickly dismissed the numerous thoughts that crossed his mind.

Gaode finally snapped out of it.

Then, immediately, he felt a slightly scorching gaze upon him.

Following my instincts, I was surprised to find that the gaze was coming from Sunefa, who usually didn't show much emotion.

"My King, congratulations," Sunefah said as she saw God looking at her. "The power belonging to the King of the North has finally begun to recover."

Seeing Sunefa's "I knew it" expression, Gaode didn't know what to say.

Although he was the biggest "beneficiary" of the prophecy.

In fact, he had always been skeptical of this prophecy, and was not as convinced as these Zhenbing people.

Because Gao De was, after all, a time traveler, the education he received in his previous life gave him a subconscious skepticism about things like "prophecy".

Even after coming into this world and coming into contact with and mastering extraordinary powers, this subconsciousness still exists.

It's like walking on a glass walkway in a past life. Even if you keep telling yourself that you're safe because of the glass and there's nothing to be afraid of, the subconscious fear of falling will still exist.

But now, after obtaining the [True Ice Bloodline], Gao De is gradually beginning to believe in this prophecy.

This is too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence!

He thought for a moment, then asked Sunefa, "Do you know who Anivia is?"

This is the biggest question after Gao De awakened the Zhenbing bloodline.

Both being pure-blooded Iceborn, it is said that Sunefa has the blood of Boreas flowing through his veins, so why is he Anivia?

As far as he knew, none of the first War Mothers of the three ancient Iceborn tribes—the Frostguard, the True Ice, and the Winter's Claw—were named Anivia.

So, who is this Anivia? Her bloodline could purify the impure blood in his body, allowing him to obtain the True Ice Bloodline.

Faced with Gaode's sudden question, Sunafa blinked slightly and fell into thought.

After quickly searching her memory, she shook her head. "My king, I've never heard of this name before..."

She apologized, saying, "Although the Zhenbing tribe is the oldest ice-blooded tribe in the North, it has lost many books and traditions over the years."

Perhaps the information about Anivia lies hidden in these lost traditions and histories.

"If I don't know, I don't know. It's no big deal." Gaode has a very good attitude.

Whoever Anivia is, she's an ancient relic from a bygone era, her remains long since turned to ash, so there's no need to find out her identity.

The main reason is that people are in high spirits when they have a happy occasion.

"My king, your awakening of the Zhenbing bloodline caused some commotion..." Sunafa briefly recounted the events that had just occurred to Gaode.

"I have already conveyed the news that the phenomenon originated from you to Phoenix. I believe that soon, not to mention all the Iceborn tribes in the North, at least the Winterhammer and Frostwolf clans will know about your awakening of the True Ice bloodline."

"Their previous reason for not recognizing you as the new King of the North, on the grounds that you are an outsider, will no longer hold true."

Sunefa's action already made the meaning quite clear.

It's tantamount to forcing someone to abdicate.

Using overwhelming force to coerce the emperor.

However, she also knew what Gao De had always wanted to see, so she explained first: "Yarna and Helika are both my defeated opponents. After our last encounter, they are very clear about the difference in combat strength between us, so they definitely wouldn't dare to use force."

Yarna and Helika are the War Mothers of the Winterhammer and Frostwolf clans, respectively.

Sunafa was referring to her previous victory where she easily overpowered the two War Mothers, fighting them one against one.

"You shall take the lead in matters concerning the northern tribes." Gao De nodded slightly, offering no objections.

His main responsibility is the development planning for the North, which is his area of ​​expertise.

Because he possesses ideas, experiences, and knowledge that are not found in this world, and he also inherits extraordinary knowledge that is capable of changing this world.

However, the unification of the North was primarily led by Sunefa.

She was a native of the Northern Ice People, extremely knowledgeable about the various tribes of the North, and had also experienced a political struggle, demonstrating outstanding ruling skills.

Most importantly, she is very good at fighting.

This is equivalent to Gao De being a civil official and Sunafa being a military general.

Development is the responsibility of civil officials, while unification is the responsibility of military generals.

The ring raising was successful without any major incidents.

There was definitely joy, but it wasn't excessive.

After all, with such conditions and resources, it would be too unreasonable to fail in the upgrade.

The first thing Godp did after advancing to the second ring was to have his collection of second-ring spell recipes retrieved from Phoenix's treasury.

The problem remains the same: the Northern Territories were previously dominated by Iceborn mages, and there was never any talk of needing to build spell models and master spells on their own. As a result, the number of spell recipes they collected was extremely small.

Phoenix still has some first-circle spell recipes in his collection, while the second-circle spell recipes were all obtained after the destruction of the Snowfield Guardians.

In the end, Gaode only had six second-circle spell recipes in total:

[Beast Sensation], [Summon Mount], [Bloodstained Face], [Light Armor], [Spiderweb Shelter]

【Hound tracking】.

The quantity is small, but the advantage is that since they all come from the Snowfield Guardians, the necessary spells and potions are either readily available.

Either the main and auxiliary materials can be found in the North.

The number of stars in a second-circle spell model is between 200 and 250.

This level of complexity means that even if Gaode wants to master a second-level spell, it will take him more than a week, unlike when he was a first-level spell where he could master several first-level spells in a single day.

Of course, Gaode is not short of time. He has neither a three-year agreement nor is he nearing his end. He can take his time and plan accordingly.

Even after successfully upgrading its ring system, Gaode still focused its main efforts on the development and construction of Phoenix.

In Gaode's plan, many of the ideas for the future of the northern region are actually stuck due to the progress of tree growth, which makes it impossible to promote and implement them for the time being.

Although the first ability of the "Green Wood Longevity Scripture" is the Natural Arts, which allows mages to use it to accelerate the growth of trees and skip their long growth period.

But as the saying goes, it takes ten years to grow a tree, but a hundred years to cultivate a person.

Trees are inherently long-lived; even the most ordinary tree often takes more than ten years to grow from seed to usable maturity.

Such a long growth period requires an enormous amount of magical power to be consumed in order to accelerate its development.

Originally, because the Northern Iceborn mages all practiced the "Azure Wood Longevity Scripture," they already had a high mage level and abundant magical power.

Therefore, even if one has just begun practicing the "Azure Wood Longevity Scripture", one can rely on their high-level mage status to unleash natural magic without restraint.

However, the ability of nature magic can only be obtained after forming a bond with a sacred artifact.

Cultivating the "Green Wood Longevity Scripture" is easy, but finding a suitable sacred object is not.

Thanks to the vigorous promotion by Gaode and Sunafa, in Phoenix, if not 100%, at least 99% of the Iceborn mages have begun to practice the "Azure Wood Longevity Scripture".

Due to the restriction of needing to form a bond with sacred artifacts, although the number of Iceborn mages in Phoenix who also practice the "Azure Wood Longevity Scripture" is close to 20,000, there are fewer than 200 Iceborn mages who have mastered the "Art of Nature".

Both Gaode and Sunaifa were helpless in the face of this.

The magic tree is a rare thing.

Since forming a bond with a sacred relic requires the consent of the magical tree, in most cases, one can only form a bond with a newly sprouted magical tree sapling or seed.

This further increases the difficulty of finding the sacred artifact for forming a bond.

The most practical way is to cultivate the magic tree seeds yourself.

For the vast number of Northern Iceborn mages, relying on wild magic tree seeds to fulfill their bond requirements is absolutely wishful thinking.

Gaode understood this from the beginning, so he always encouraged Flora to pay attention to and try in this direction.

But whether it is a plant or an organism, they all share one characteristic: those of high social status face great difficulty in reproducing.

For example, according to Flora, there is no possibility of Yugathira having offspring.

There is only one Yugathishira in the entire world.

Although the Ice Jade Wutong is not as miraculous as Yugathira, it is just as demanding when it comes to reproduction.

It reproduces by dividing its own offspring.

After being divided, the original plant will suffer irreparable damage, cutting off any possibility of advancement.

Therefore, the Ice Jade Wutong will only divide its branches when it faces a survival crisis.

Of course, Gao De wasn't greedy enough to want all Iceborn mages to be able to form a bond with a magic tree seed of this rank.

His idea was simply to have a stable supply of second-tier magic tree seeds.

After all, even among the Zhenbing tribe, the number of Iceborn with mages at level two or above has never exceeded two thousand.

But this is not easy either.

If all else fails, we'll have to make do with a first-tier magic tree seed...: Gao De pondered for a long time, tapping his knuckles lightly on the table, and thought to himself.

There is no sign of a stable second-tier magic tree yet, but in the current Northern Territory, there is indeed a stable first-tier magic tree species—the gem berry he obtained using the [Divine Berry Technique].

The majority of mages are Iceborn Mages, and forming a bond with a Tier 1 Magic Tree Seed is not a particularly high-level or acceptable option.

However, Gao De always hoped to help the Iceborn Mage secure a brighter future.

The difference between a first-tier and a second-tier magical tree seed is significant for a low-level Iceborn mage who forms a bond with it.

For him, the strength of the tribe was also a great benefit.

Therefore, unless absolutely necessary, Gao De would not want to use the Predestined Method to advance, and the extremely promising Gem Berry Tree Seed as the Iceborn Mage's Bond Relic.

However, Gaode Maps certainly wouldn't waste a gem or a berry.

In his plan, the Gemberry variety will be the cornerstone for promoting general education in magic for all citizens.

Gao De never expected that the problem that Wu Chen was still fretting over would take a turn for the better in the afternoon.