Chapter 177: Time Magic
Dulag, the city gate has been unbarred, and it’s been less than two days since the entire city was under martial law.
News about this battle is circulating everywhere in the city, with people excitedly discussing it, and even commoners knowing a bit about it.
It started with stone throws and oil airstrikes, followed by legendary elemental beings appearing, routing the Amn people completely.
No one expected this result; they thought there would be a tense and fierce siege warfare, but it ended as soon as it began, and the numerically superior Amn side proved so vulnerable.
Dulag is adjacent to Amn, and no one understands Amn’s strength better than the Dulag people, so many didn’t believe it at first and only reluctantly accepted the result after repeated confirmation.
Actually, few people truly know the details; everyone only knows that the Amn Army collapsed at the first blow, suffering heavy casualties, and all of this turned into awe and respect for the new president Anse.
The Federation’s prestige has also risen accordingly, with the guard barracks packed with people coming to enlist; being a guard in Dulag is simply too easy.
Jacqueline Castle, those magic cannon turrets have all been moved into the castle and placed in one corner of the plaza.
Anse secretly lamented the pity; at the time, he was only thinking of taking out the enemy, and the earth elemental struck too hard, damaging these turrets severely so they can’t be used.
“Can you repair them?” He looked at Illyas.
Illyas shook her head slightly: “I haven’t studied engineering mechanics or the like, but the castle library has books on this; if you want to learn, you can study them.”
“I’ll grab a few to study when I have time.” Anse wasn’t joking; he really had this plan.
With his such strong memory and comprehension, learning would definitely be twice the result with half the effort; accumulating a little each day, even if not mastering it deeply, as long as he can understand those magical creations.
He patted the sturdy cannon barrel and sighed: “I used to underestimate mechanists; a war-direction cannon master is this powerful.”
A level three cannon master can produce this kind of self-propelled cannon, with strong power, range, and mobility; it’s indeed invincible for conquering territory.
Among mechanists, there are alchemists who can brew experimental spirit medicine, field artificers who create steel guards, and armorers with arcane armor; they are like scientists among spellcasters.
If mechanists devote themselves entirely to war, the destruction and influence they cause depend completely on their moral standard.
“There won’t be too many people in this group.” Illyas raised her eyebrow, lightly tapping her temple with her index finger. “This class is a bit like wizard; it not only requires brains but also a complete elite education.”
“Makes sense.” Anse suddenly realized.
He had just fallen into a cognitive blind spot, subconsciously ignoring the number of educated people in Faerun.
This isn’t modern society; literate people are very rare, many can’t even do addition and subtraction within ten, and basic education is very poor.
It’s no wonder the mechanist organization wants to cooperate with Amn; Amn is very wealthy with a complete education system, and its talent base is stronger than most areas in Faerun.
As the two were chatting, old butler Harold hurried over and handed Illyas a letter.
Illyas opened it and scanned it, her expression changing slightly.
Moments later, she looked up to meet Anse’s gaze and sighed lightly: “Last night, Beregost was night raided; the Emerald Kingdom deployed large numbers of kobolds and dragonborn, with wyvern guard assisting; both sides suffered casualties, but fortunately the city didn’t fall.”
“Any green dragons?”
“No.”
“Any news from Candlekeep?”
“Candlekeep is safe and sound; kobolds have blocked the road but haven’t approached or attacked Candlekeep…”
“I see.” Anse paced back and forth, various speculations and ideas flashing quickly through his mind.
The Amn Army had previously seemed poised for a long-term siege, but they launched a hasty attack early this morning, which should be related to the situation in Beregost.
They need the power of mechanists and advanced professionals for support, so the situation is probably not optimistic.
This is also good news for him; once Beregost falls, Nascal and Dulag will be the first to bear the brunt.
The matter of demanding war reparations from the Amn people might have to be put on hold for now; speaking up would feel like taking advantage of their misfortune and extorting them.
The Amn people can be shameless, but he needs to consider his reputation.
“Have someone closely monitor the battle in Beregost; if something happens, we’ll be prepared.” He instructed solemnly.
“Don’t worry.” Illyas smiled brilliantly, showing no worry at all. “You’re underestimating Amn too much; a bunch of primitive tribes absolutely can’t match the Amn people.”
Amn is a top civilized nation on the Faerun continent, with extremely strong war potential; dealing with a very primitive Emerald Kingdom won’t be too difficult.
Moreover, given the Amn people’s greed, they might have already set their sights on Abel’s vast lands; to them, even a giant dragon is just an advanced prey.
Anse being able to make the Amn people suffer repeated setbacks is entirely due to intelligence issues; they keep miscalculating, and despite being extremely cautious, unexpected things always happen.
The two didn’t dwell on this issue anymore; with the Amn people holding the front line, Dulag should enjoy some peace for a while.
After a simple meal, Anse returned to his room alone, still thinking about multiclassing.
He pulled up the character card; the experience pool had gained over a hundred experience points, probably from those soldiers who were seriously injured and died.
Paladin needs 3600 more experience to reach level four, and the new multiclass needs 5400 to reach level four.
‘Experience is never enough.’ He lay on the balcony lounger, somewhat missing those werewolves.
The new multiclass has only three options: mechanist, psion, and wizard, all with intelligence as the main attribute.
Mechanist is eliminated first; this class is a half-caster, known as invention master, able to make items perform extraordinarily through clever ideas and magic, biased toward support.
Mechanists have a very strong feature: they can attune up to six magical items; the more attuned magical items, the stronger their saving throws, and they can also use magical items to saving throw against instant death.
But Anse has 【Brilliant Soul】, which allows attuning more magical items, and also has death ward, so he doesn’t think much of this feature.
Psion is a rare class, masters who control mind power; not only can they use psionics, but they can also weave magic and supernatural power through mental power.
In other words, psions can also spellcast, but unlike sorcerers’ innate magic and wizards’ spell modeling, they create magical effects through mental power, with vastly different casting styles.
Psions have four major subclasses: metamorphs who manipulate life and flesh with mental energy, riftwalkers who distort space with mental might, telekinetics focused on developing psionic power, and mindthralls skilled in mental manipulation.
Although subclasses emphasize different things, psions’ spell list is mainly enchantment school, mixed with some illusion and transmutation school spells.
Anse doesn’t value the psion’s thin spell list but covets the power of psionics itself.
Because psionics isn’t afraid of anti-magic domain and can still function in no-magic areas.
Of course, this is limited to psionic power itself, i.e., the commonly said “telekinesis”; psionic spells that produce magical effects will also be suppressed by anti-magic domain.
The last option is wizard, academic arcane spellcaster, Toril’s eternal protagonist; they can learn almost all spells except some divine magic.
Wizards are theoretical masters skilled in exploring magic secrets, mastering every spell from underlying logic; since everything relies on self-study, the floor is very low, but potential is unlimited, and the ceiling depends entirely on personal talent and effort.
Sorcerers’ casting style has similarities with wizards; it’s said many sorcerers’ ancestors were powerful wizards.
Multiclassing wizard can fill the gap in casting theory, improve casting ability, master many good spells, and use it as a foundation to learn auxiliary disciplines like copying scrolls, alchemy, enchanting, astrology, etc.
‘So torn.’
He checked wizard subclasses and found not only the conventional eight schools of magic but also rare branches like war magic, sword singer, blood magic, gravity magic, time magic, etc.
‘This… time magic?’ His heart skipped a beat.
