Deep in Dante's mind's eye, there was a sea of light spots around him. If his spiritual core was the center point of this void-like world, then around a short distance away from it, separated by a strangely thin yet invisible barrier (which should be his body), there was an endless nebula-like existence in every direction. It had millions of different colors in every single inch of it, alternating randomly.
Dante was in awe of it at first until he realized what this meant. In truth, the hard part about becoming or being a mage was raising one's Spiritual Power, because that was the source of your power and what generated your abilities.
Absorbing or using elements was never really a problem because they were the fuel for the spells one made. They were present in every environment, in some more than others, so there was no situation where one could not gather them for their own use.
But looking at the congestion of it, the hard part was getting what you specifically needed. In other words, to attract elements of your spell, you needed to have a spiritual core with the same element fold to call it over.
This was why specialization was necessary. With 100% specialization, no matter how clumped up the element you needed was, you could attract it over using your spiritual core as an anchor.
So technically, it wasn't actually impossible to use spells of other elements after specializing, it was just as hard as a person with an SDI of 1 point in each stat trying to calm down an angry mob bearing down on him.
It's possible to achieve it, but the most likely outcome was devastation and self-harm.
Now, it was time for Dante to stop. The goal of initiation was only to condense the spiritual core and sense the elements. After that, he would become an Initial-stage Magic Apprentice, and he would work on using the Void Speaker Chant to do two things: increase his Spiritual Core's quantity until he reached the suitable limit, and absorb the necessary elements of his meditation technique until his Spiritual Core becomes 100% of that element.
Once that is done, he would be ready to become a mage!
Achieving this was split throughout the Magic Apprentice realm, with the initial stage being entry, the moderate stage being when one's elemental conversion reached 25%, the advanced stage being an elemental conversion of 50%, the master stage being 75% elemental conversion, and the pinnacle stage being 100% elemental conversion.
Each sub-stage also had requirements for spiritual power, but that did not matter to Dante as he already surpassed that requirement just by existing. If it weren't for the need to achieve elemental conversion of his Spiritual Core, he would have jumped straight to the end of the Magic Apprentice Realm and been ready to transform into a level 1 mage!
Dante stood up, dusted himself off, and then walked out of the room. He saw Master Elandor waiting for him outside, not surprised at all to see him come out so quickly. Instead, he sized Dante up and down, and Dante could feel a strange wave pass over him that inspected him thoroughly.
It wasn't a physical thing, but more of a subconscious feeling. It was like when you went through TSA and they scanned you. You could only hear the scanner beep and see it pass over you but could not actually feel anything, but you felt like a scorching light passed over your body.
"Interesting. Before condensation, I could only tell you were born with a huge amount of mental power akin to an official mage, but now that you have condensed it, I can tell you that you have as much mental power as a level 3 Mage. Simply amazing!" Master Elandor explained with a strange light in his eye.
Dante did not act excited but simply nodded calmly as if it had always been this way. The strange light in Master Elandor's eyes died down at the sight of this, and he sighed.
"If only there was a way to replicate it! As it stands, before the 4th level mage, you will not have any bottlenecks in growing your power, and because your foundation is so good, there is almost a guaranteed chance that you will become a level 9 mage as long as no mistakes occur!"
Dante listened with interest and then asked, "Then isn't it in the best interest of your enemies that I am killed? After all, every level 9 mage was enough to shake the foundation of the entire world."
"That's right! I am the only Rank 9 mage in our Celestial Arcanists faction, and the rest are either half-step level 9 or level 8 and below. The same goes for our enemy faction, the Underworld Magisters!" Master Elandor affirmed with a look of fatigue.
"Both our forces are similar in power at the upper level so most of our conflicts occur at the lower level. Even there we are mostly equal, partly because our mages also practice the knight method, and we have the secret support of the Knightly Order."
Master Elandor gave Dante a pointed look. "After all, a magic faction willing to practice the 'inferior' knight method is one in a million, so they support us fully. This is balanced out by the fact that those arrogant fellows at the Wizard Council support the Underworld Magisters since they are pure wizards and despise us for 'polluting' the practice."
Dante sighed. Discrimination would exist everywhere and this time, it was not without reason. The Knight system was powerful, yes, but it was created and designed by ancient wizards to create powerful servants for themselves who would patrol their laboratories and fight their wars for them.
It was only because raising knights was hard that they eventually gave up and tossed the various breathing methods they made into the world and focused on other, cheaper endeavors.
Since it was largely unfinished, the highest realm for a knight was the Grand Knight, which was about equal to a level 6 Mage. While this would be hugely powerful in another world, in this world where there were level 7, level 8, and level 9 mages, knights only barely had some autonomy.
If they didn't pose any threat to the wizard rule and usually even worked alongside wizards most of the time, they might have been uprooted long ago. It was a sad existence to be only a knight without magic talent in the world of wizards.
"Anyway, we can't let everyone know your talent. Anyone above the official mage level 3 who scans you will know how special you are, and loose lips are troublesome. There is no way the Wizard Council or the Underworld Magisters would allow you the peace of time to grow."
Master Elandor clutched the air and took out a ring, then tossed it to Dante. "Wear this. It's a special magical tool that will allow you to suppress your spiritual fluctuations completely. If anyone asks why you wear it, tell them it's because I said so."
Dante took the ring and noticed that it was golden and very smooth. It was very similar to the famous One Ring and even had runes on its body that glowed brilliantly.
Dante wore it and immediately felt more secure. It was like he had been walking up and down naked before and finally put on some goddamn clothes.
"What's next?" Dante asked Master Elandor in a low voice.
"Still the general initiation process. We are going to the Painting of Monsters and Things, where we will test your resonance for breathing techniques. After that, we will find a specific technique that suits you based on your resonance." Master Elandor explained as the duo reached a special room in the building.
Along the way, they met many other wizards and apprentices, all of whom greeted Master Elandor politely, while Dante didn't even glance at them. He had already learned his lesson from the True Martial World that if you got dragged into their stupid social customs, you would be tired.
The best solution to this was to pretend to be ignorant and uncouth of customs so that no one would expect you to follow them. Anyway, Dante would be spending very little actual time in this world after the initial period, and that was true for the True Martial World.
There were too many important tasks waiting for him in the real world, whether it was his home universe or the Eternal universe. So, apart from acquiring items and setting a foundation that he could return to, he would practice his various methods in the real world.
This was also part of the reason why Beatrice suggested quantum worlds with power systems that relied on one's stats and personal growth rather than external resources or energy like the Immortal World for cultivation of the Dungeons and Dragon world with mana.
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