Chapter 344: Salvatore’s Determination

“Bernardino Telesio?” Salvatore, in pajamas, frowned slightly, holding the hot water cup in both hands, “Why is he here?”

Clarence, sitting on the side, shrugged. “He wants me to follow his path.”

“Telesio Spiritual Monk? Heh… forget about it.” Salvatore yawned and sneered casually, “I’m not going to lose most of my ability to read minds just to become a ghostly person.

“Isn’t that the legendary traditional and conservative school? No way.”

“It’s still a tradition after all.” Clarence pushed his glasses and chuckled, “The ‘Necromancer’ is indeed our predecessor and ancestor. It seems like we’re going retro.”

“Nah, it’s called going backward in time.” Salvatore said unceremoniously, “Senior Clarence, don’t believe his nonsense.

“There must be a reason why the necromancers are eradicated. Today, the eight schools of wizards had undergone the challenge of the times and the test of the blood in the Unification War before they finally took shape. The Soul Snatch School has embarked on the path of manipulating the mind instead of manipulating the soul. There must be a reason for it. Most probably, its practicality is the defining factor.”

“Oh ya…” Salvatore took a sip of the hot honey drink and sighed in a low voice, “You must have sentiments attached to it.

“It’s like me being stubborn to choose [Alchemist] profession despite knowing that fact that [Great Wizard] is the most practical advancement, given it being the most popular choice.”

Salvatore had completed the advancement exam with excellent grades.

After that, he made a selection of his curse type. Then, the tower master handed him the “dream key” to enter the designated nightmare, and told him about the available choices, what would happen, and the potential curse he would acquire.

This was also the benefit of being a wizard bound to a wizard tower.

The database of wizard towers would be inherited from generation to generation so that the wizards had a considerable understanding of the nightmares and curses.

Generally speaking, besides the [Hunter] profession, the rest of the Transcended picked their choices in two approaches.

The first approach would be choosing the curse with as little adverse effect as possible, like Annan.

Secondly, the wizards would make their selection based on the special mechanism involving the curses.

In the process of collecting the data, the wizards had subconsciously discovered the mechanism revolving around the curses.

Covenant and clergy were the most advanced curses. Sure enough, they were the higher priority of selection than all other curses.

Below them was the advancement curse obtained during the advancement from the Silver Rank to Gold Rank. The ranking was then followed by the curses of Silver Rank advancement and then Bronze Rank advancement — the curses granted to those who just embarked on their path of transcendence. Lastly, the curse ranking at the rock bottom was the temporary curse, which was the curse that was stripped away from the others.

The distinction of the curse ranking was also one of the main reasons the Transcended was divided into Gold Rank, Silver Rank, and Bronze Rank.

When a higher-priority curse was conflicted with a low-priority curse, only the high-priority curse would be effective, which was the “law of curse ranking”.

For example, when the curse of Bronze Rank was “no pain” and the curse of Silver Rank was “I will have a headache after dark”, then the curse of Silver Rank would be applied instead. Conversely, if the curse of “pain relief” were in Silver Rank, the host wouldn’t have a headache after dark.

The second law was that when a high-priority curse and a low-priority curse act on one effect at the same time, the most severe negative effect would be selected, while the positive impact would amplify on one another.

For example, having two curses of fire resistance -30% and fire resistance -50% would not contribute to a total deduction of 80% in fire resistance. Instead, it would be -50% on fire resistance. On the other hand, the positive effect of Strength +5 and doubling the Strength would take effect simultaneously and stack in the order of the curse ranking.

In other words, if the curses were matched correctly, it was possible to have one “weakness” only.

This path revolved around choosing a similar high-level curse to overlap the low-level curse, preventing the host from having multiple weaknesses and being able to concentrate on protecting their only disadvantage. Some hunters also adopted this principle when collecting curses.

In addition to these two approaches, the rest made their selection blindly.

In the end, the stray Transcended who chose their curses blindly would pay their due price sooner or later.

“Speaking of which, do you want to be my secret keeper, senior?”

“I don’t mind.” Clarence asked casually, “But why don’t you go to Teacher Benjamin? He seems to be a pope. That’s much safer.

“Also, the little brother you found outside the wizard tower.”

“It’s alright. I chose an overlapping curse, and it doesn’t matter if I simply tell it to others.” Salvatore embarked on the second approach too.

Hearing him say that, the red-robed wizard Clarence was surprised, “So, it’s still possible to nullify that curse?”

“Yes, through a reverse approach. Let me explain to you.” He said with pride and helplessness, “My new curse is that ‘I can’t sleep more than six hours a day’. My apparent age will shrink by one year for every hour of additional sleep, but my lifespan will not increase.”

“If I’m not wrong, you can’t sleep more than 6 hours originally, don’t you?” Clarence was silent for a long time and asked in doubt, “This curse is still useful when you are old, right? At least it will keep your body from getting too old.”

“The premise is that I can really live to grow old.” Salvatore sighed gloomily, “I always have the hunch that I’m going to die suddenly.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. You’re an alchemist. Sudden death doesn’t exist for you,” Clarence waved his hand to brush it off, “If you think you’re going to die suddenly, you should equip yourself with a ‘reagent to prevent sudden death’. I remember alchemists can do that.”

“That’s true.” Salvatore nodded.

The [Alchemist] profession would significantly weaken the host’s combat prowess. But for Salvatore, this wasn’t much of a problem because he was inherently poor in combat already.

Having combat power of 2 reduced by 40% would only make it 1. That was all.

This profession would weaken the combat effectiveness because it made it impossible for him to “perform alchemy without material”.

The [Alchemist] was the ancient version of the profession, [Alteration Wizard], which dramatically increased the efficiency of converting the matter. For example, the original alteration process involved converting the wood into iron, then electricity, and later fire, only to convert fire into the red crystals for the transmutation into diamonds. Instead, he could convert wood into diamonds immediately.

In the past, he could have used a cane-sized piece of wood to alter it into a diamond wall five or six meters high. However, he could only turn it into a diamond the size of a walking stick.

The advantage was that now Salvatore could perform “alteration in a reverse manner”.

That would be turning diamonds back into wood or turning gold into brass.

This ability was useless for combat.

However, it allowed Salvatore to terminate any alchemy reaction at will, letting the reactants change back directly or completing the catalysis in an instant rather than a lengthy period.

If Salvatore managed to harness this trick well, he had succeeded in time reversal in a way.

This was why modern alteration wizards rarely invented new alteration techniques but focused on the optimizations of ancient alteration arts.

Since the modern alteration wizards considered the issue of “efficiency”, they abandoned the production of such small workshops but focused on production lines instead.

Salvatore didn’t want that.

Perhaps at first, he also wanted to learn the alteration spell to make money.

However, after getting to know Annan, he understood his heart more and more.

It might be a simple passion for the alteration magic.

Salvatore believed that his friends would help him with fighting and his safety.

His primary goal at this moment was to study “Sage’s Stone of the Hermetic School”.

Then, he wanted to complete the recipe without the help of Miss Vatore’s (the shadow) power.