Above the mage

Chapter 445 Three Invitations

Gaud stayed in Phoenix for two more days, partly to handle some miscellaneous administrative matters, and partly to allow the tribe to help him prepare the things to take back to the North.

It is worth mentioning that on the day before he was about to leave the North, he successfully created the spell model for the [Lightweight Armor].

With this, Goddard has mastered the remaining three second-circle spells, bringing the total number of second-circle spells in his spellbook to six.

[Beast Perception] (Prophecy, Second Ring):

When you touch a willing beast, for the duration of the spell, you can use actions to switch your sight and hearing to the senses of the beast, until you use actions again to regain normal perception.

When you perceive your surroundings through the senses of a wild beast, you will also gain the special senses that the creature itself possesses; however, you will perceive the conditions around you as if you were simultaneously blind and deaf.

[Lightweight Armor] (Transmutation, Level 2):

The armor you are wearing no longer slows you down.

【Hound Tracking】(Change type, second ring):

You gain a special sensitivity to smells, including the ability to track smells, the ability to perceive smells, and a survival instinct for specific smells.

However, be aware that when being tracked by hounds, you are vulnerable to supernatural abilities involving scent, such as [Stinky Cloud Technique].

You will suffer more severe negative effects.

All three are auxiliary spells, or rather, functional spells.

With [Frozen Blade+] and [Northern Wind] available, Gaode's output is sufficient for now, so his need for offensive spells is not particularly urgent.

This mindset allows him to maintain an objective attitude towards functional spells.

Although these three spells didn't significantly improve his strength, they did provide a considerable boost to various actions, which he was quite satisfied with.

Before leaving, Gao De also retrieved all the spell recipes collected by the Zhenbing tribe.

There is no recipe for fourth-circle spells, but there are two recipes for third-circle spells and five recipes for second-circle spells.

These are spell recipes left behind by adventurers and merchants who entered the North from the outside world over a long period of history for various reasons.

They were all universal spell recipes, and most of the main and auxiliary ingredients needed for spell potions were only available in the outside world and were not produced in the North.

To the Iceborn mages of the North, these spell recipes were like worthless paper.

However, for Gaode, who can now freely travel between the Plantagenet Kingdom and the North, these spell recipes still have some value.

He does need to spend time and effort to collect the materials required for spell potions, but it's worth noting that the market price for a second-circle spell recipe is as high as 120 gold.

These five spell recipes are equivalent to saving Gaode 600 gold in expenses.

Yes, the price of a spell recipe, excluding potions, reaches an "astronomical" price of over 100 gold.

Add in spells and potions, and the cost of learning a second-circle spell will reach a terrifying 300.

gold.

Fortunately, the Second Ring Mage had a long lifespan, reaching 225 years.

With such a long lifespan, even if a second-ring mage can only save 300 gold every two years, theoretically, after a hundred years, it would be enough to save enough for 50 second-ring spells.

Of course, this is just theory.

Because most spell recipes are hard to buy even if you have money.

The higher the level of the spell recipe, the stricter the official control over it.

At the first level, you can easily buy a dozen or so universal first-level spell recipes from the Dorn Official Spell Guild.

However, once you reach the second ring, the number of second-ring spell recipes that the Dorn Official Sorcerer's Guild will make available for public sale drops drastically to less than ten.

This is in a big city like Dorne.

In those more remote and impoverished areas, there might only be two or three recipes for second-circle spells openly sold by the official mage association.

Therefore, for most ordinary mages, not to mention resources, even if they are just after spell recipes, even if they are exceptionally talented mages, they often end up joining mage organizations and working hard or even risking their lives for others.

Resources can be earned in the wild, but what can you do if others won't sell you spell recipes?

Knowledge monopoly is always the best way for the upper class to prevent the lower class from rising.

Despite his inner turmoil, Gaode quietly put away the five spell recipes collected by the Zhenbing tribe and informed Sunaifa that he was preparing to leave.

Although God adopted a "do-nothing" attitude towards the mysterious and powerful master craftsman in front of Sunefa,

It seemed like they didn't take it seriously at all.

But both Sunefa and he himself knew perfectly well that this was largely just a pretense of ease.

Even if the master craftsman didn't personally come, or even if he simply sent a few more mages similar to Master Yang,

This was already a pressure that the Zhenbing tribe could not withstand.

The situation is what it is: Yugathira has already taken root and cannot be moved. For now, all God and the Zhenbing tribe can do is pretend they don't know about it and keep their cultivation under control.

It was for this reason that Gao De decided to return to the Plantagenet Kingdom so quickly—in the Plantagenet Kingdom, he could obtain many mage resources that he needed but which were not yet available in the North through the Sea Sentinels.

Otherwise, he planned to stay in the North for a while longer, at least until he reached the level of a second-class mage apprentice in the "Secret Transmission of True Ice" before leaving.

Upon receiving the news, Sunafa quickly arrived, bringing with her the supplies prepared for Gaode to bring back to the Plantagenet Dynasty.

High-level blood food for feeding the pellets is already considered a regular item; in addition, there are some extraordinary materials.

There is also a box of Ice Jade Wutong Leaves.

A total of 360 fifth-tier Ice Jade Wutong leaves will drop during the upgrade of the Ice Jade Wutong.

This should be the most valuable treasure in the Zhenbing tribe at present.

Last time, Gaode took fifty pieces in order to purchase the Harland shipyard.

In addition, the tribe's ice-blooded mages used a small portion of the leaves during the year, leaving more than 250 ice jade parasol leaves.

Sunafa took out another fifty leaves from the remaining Ice Jade Wutong leaves and gave them to Gaode.

But this is something that Gaode Maps did not require.

"It's better to be prepared than not, so you won't be caught short when you need a lot of money and can't come up with it." Sunafa gave her explanation in response to Gaode's questioning gaze.

She curled her lip. "If the King of the North were to be in such dire straits abroad, wouldn't the North be ashamed of you?"

At this moment, she didn't seem like Zhenbing's mother, but rather like a worried housekeeper.

"Okay." Gao De didn't waste any words and simply put away the box containing the ice jade parasol tree leaf.

What Sunefa said is not impossible.

The huge sum of money obtained from the last sale of the Ice Jade Wutong Leaf has now dwindled to less than three thousand gold coins, or more precisely, 2657 gold coins.

It seems like a lot, but he's now a second-ring mage, and his expenses have increased accordingly, so it's not really fair to call him extravagant.

He hadn't considered this yet, but Sunefa had.

Otherwise, you could say she's meticulous!

After packing his things and saying goodbye to Flora, God rode his snow wolf and set off for Valar Bay.

Because of the incident a few days ago, Sunafa has become very concerned about the safety of Gaode Maps travel. Therefore, this time, he was escorted by Lan Wen, the deputy director of the Public Security Bureau.

Gao De had no objections. He was not one to underestimate himself and knew how much it would affect Phoenix if something happened to him.

Compared to this, assigning a deputy director as a "bodyguard" is hardly making a fuss or putting on a show.

Upon arriving at Valar Bay, God first checked on the raccoon eggs he had been nurturing on the trunk of the Yogathira tree, where they were absorbing astral energy.

Because of Gao De's instructions, Yugathira readily helped the Alien absorb astral energy.

With its help, in less than a month, one-tenth of the blue color representing the water element on the surface of the raccoon egg had disappeared, transforming into a five-colored hue representing astral energy.

Gao De gently placed his hand on the alien raccoon egg. After a month of nurturing with the magic imprint method, his connection with the alien raccoon egg had reached a very close state.

He soon received a faint emotional response from the tiny life inside the raccoon egg, indicating that it was in good condition, absorbing energy, and waiting to "emerge from the chamber".

Gao De was relieved, but he was still extremely looking forward to the "Astral Fox," which had never appeared before.

He then checked the growth progress of Yugathishira.

After all, he brought back quite a few tree seeds and magic tree seeds this time, including a fourth-tier magic tree seed.

Under Flora's skillful hands, all these tree species, including the fourth-tier Spirit Spring Dew Tree species, have sprouted and successfully taken root.

In addition, with the development of the permafrost during this period, although less than a month has passed, the changes in Flora Forest compared to when it was first returned are already enormous.

This is evident to the naked eye, and even more so from the feedback received by Yugathira.

【Yogathhira】

Rank: Tier 2 Magical Plant (3248/5568 months)

Growth gain coefficient: 8.12

Driven by the growth of this new tree species, the general upgrade progress is already more than halfway complete, and it is only 2320 months, or 193 years, away from being upgraded to a third-tier magical plant.

Another major improvement was the growth gain coefficient, which jumped from 4.04 when he first returned to the North to 8.12, more than doubling.

The most effective way to improve the growth rate of Yugathira is to plant new tree species, the higher the rank the better, which is equivalent to unlocking new illustrations for bonus.

To increase the growth bonus coefficient, one must consume the combined quality of all tree species in Flora Forest.

Such a significant improvement is due to two factors: firstly, the germination of the fourth-tier spiritual spring dew tree species, and secondly, the development of the permafrost tree species.

This is a second-tier magic tree species, which significantly improves the overall quality of tree species in Flora Forest.

With a growth gain coefficient of 8.12, Yggdrasil's growth progress can be increased by 8.12 natural days for a normal natural day to pass.

Based on this calculation, even if Flora Forest stops expanding, it will only take 23 years for Yugathira to be promoted to a third-tier magical plant on her own.

The future is boundless.

I just don't know where the limit of Yugathira's power lies.

Magical plants are somewhat similar to leyline creatures. Like fifth-tier leyline creatures, they naturally progress from tier zero to tier five from infancy to adulthood, unlike human mages who have thresholds and bottlenecks.

However, once you reach the fifth rank, it becomes extremely difficult to advance further, even more difficult than a human mage advancing to the next rank.

Yugathira is currently in the process of transitioning from "infancy" to "adulthood". Once the growth progress is complete, it will naturally advance to the next level.

This is considered the best-before period.

But once you enter "adulthood," you'll have a lot to worry about.

However, given the extraordinary abilities that Yugathira has displayed so far, he is confident that he can guarantee a sixth-tier rank, so this problem is temporarily irrelevant to him.

Without wasting any more time, Gao De activated the astral teleportation and headed to the Golden Flower Dynasty.

I don't know if it's because I've adapted or because my mage level has increased.

In short, Gao De felt no discomfort at all during this astral teleportation and appeared very naturally in the bedroom on the second floor of the Walmart Magic Supplies store.

He was already very familiar with the process of switching between the two locations.

First, there's the time difference. The time difference between Dorne and Valar Bay is about three hours, with Valar Bay being three hours behind Dorne.

Gaode chose to activate the astral teleportation in the afternoon, while Dorn chose noon.

He went downstairs and put the extraordinary materials he brought from the North on the shelves in the shop on the first floor.

Since he was already a second-ring mage, Gao De brought slightly higher-grade extraordinary materials this time, no longer as conservative as before.

After finishing this hastily and casually, he left the Walmart Magic Materials store and rushed back to the Sea Sentinel's dormitory.

The first thing Gaode did after arriving at the dormitory was to open the mailbox at the door and check it.

With a slight creaking sound as the mailbox was opened and closed, sure enough, after disappearing for nearly a month, three letters lay inside.

The thick parchment, with its faint scent of wax sealing, was all embossed with gold.

God opened the letters one by one; two of them were invitations to banquets from Dornish nobles.

One letter was from the Burns family, a family Gao De was somewhat familiar with; the Corporal Zuo Wen who had tried to "recruit" him was a member of this Burns family.

Hmm... He's already a sergeant now. I wonder if Corporal Zuo Wen has been promoted to sergeant?

The letter was written in a sincere tone, indicating that Gao De had been specially invited to a banquet.

Gao De glanced at the date at the end of the invitation: "20th of the month of Huayan, Thirteen Orphans..." Hmm, this banquet was long over, the tea had gone cold, and the music had faded.

He shook his head and glanced at another invitation letter.

This invitation was quite remarkable; it came from Goldenfeather Keep, the residence of Marquis Drake, the lord of Dorne.

However, these are not special banquets; rather, Golden Feather Castle hosts a series of feasts every year after Pentecost.

Invitations were sent to the nobles in the city and some outstanding young monks, inviting them to a banquet.

Gao De, however, returned to the North around Pentecost and missed the invitation.

This invitation is not one-on-one, so you can choose to go or not; it's not a big deal.

However, because this was a rare social occasion, although the invitation was not mandatory, it was an excellent opportunity to make connections with the powerful and expand one's network. Therefore, the monks who received the invitation were all honored and gladly attended.

If Gaode had received this invitation a little earlier, there's a good chance he would have attended the banquet. Now that he's missed it, there's nothing he can do.

The last letter, however, came from Auckland and was delivered just yesterday.

The content is also very simple: the disaster in Auckland has come to a temporary end, and the Earl of Roland is preparing to take the time to hold a ceremony to confer the title of "Honorary Muse of Auckland" on Gao De, and sincerely invites Gao De to attend and receive the honor.