Chapter 54: A Familiar Feeling
Gauss focused and sensed the “protection” loss in his mage armor, gaining new insight.
This loss was much greater than the first time.
The difference lay in that, the first time, he had merely made a small scratch on a fingertip, while this time he had drawn a line about ten centimeters long on the back of his hand, with significantly greater force.
Even with the same weapon, different strike range and force brought different armor degradation.
Therefore, one could not simplistically quantify mage armor’s protection effect by counting how many hits it could absorb.
It still required individual perception and experience to judge accurately.
Gauss continued testing for a while.
When he felt the mage armor’s effect growing very faint, he cautiously moved the knife to his fingertip again.
He applied slight pressure.
The next moment, accompanied by a crisp “bang,”
the protective force field of the surrounding mage armor shattered dramatically!
Gauss hurriedly lifted the knife to avoid cutting himself.
“Mage armor shattered…”
Feeling the disappearance of magical fluctuations around him, Gauss nodded.
Thus, when mage armor felt weak, it couldn’t withstand damage—it basically offered little protection.
If it was about to break, it was better to dispel the spell and reapply a fresh layer of mage armor.
After all, enemies wouldn’t stop their blade the moment mage armor shattered like he might.
“Mage Armor proficiency +1.”
“Tier‑1 spell Mage Armor lv1 (2/10).”
Seeing the pop‑up prompt, Gauss raised an eyebrow.
Not only did the first successful casting increase proficiency, but subsequent testing and taking damage would also raise it?
It seemed that from now on, his practice would not only involve successful casting but also continuous testing involving taking hits.
Gauss was a bit surprised to see his proficiency panel digits jump.
Mage Hand and Magic Missile didn’t provide this kind of “process” proficiency accumulation.
It looked like this spell would level up quickly.
And unlike Magic Missile, Mage Armor could be practiced anytime, even in town.
He had come out today simply for caution, thinking that for a first practice of this spell it would be safer in an open, deserted area.
But for now, practicing didn’t appear to cause any destruction to the surroundings, so the training location required almost no constraints.
Thinking of that, Gauss felt much happier.
Although Mage Armor had been discovered later, it seemed not very difficult to train.
So, he decided to continue practicing!
He still had more than half of his mana.
It was enough for continued practice, and Gauss had no intention of stopping.
It was best to strike while the iron was hot.
Riding the newfound casting feel and momentum, he pushed his proficiency forward in one go.
With the experience of the first time, Gauss tried several more times; soon mana surged through his bone staff, and he successfully released a second Mage Armor.
The following operations repeated the same process as before.
He continued testing various types of damage, including but not limited to daggers, rapiers, punch attacks, wrestling, fall damage, and so on.
The final conclusion was that Mage Armor could provide protection against all kinds of physical damage until it broke.
What remained unclear was how it would perform against magical attacks.
He was temporarily unable to test that.
Mage Hand, though a magical effect, still attacked in a physical manner.
As for Magic Missile, it couldn’t be tested.
First, objective factors prevented him from targeting himself, so that action could not be completed.
Second, Magic Missile itself was somewhat dangerous.
His Mage Armor training had only just begun, so even if he had a way to test it with Magic Missile, he had no plans to do so for the time being.
If the not-yet-proficient Mage Armor failed to withstand the Magic Missile, wouldn’t he become a spellcaster who died by his own hand?
That would be far too frustrating.
...
Time always passed quickly when busy.
Unknowingly, several more days had gone by in the blink of an eye.
“Tier‑1 Spell Mage Armor lv2 (8/20).”
Gauss glanced at the Mage Armor proficiency and turned to look at the bald middle-aged man beside him.
“Let’s end today’s practice here.”
“This is today’s payment.”
Gauss handed a few copper coins to the bald middle-aged man.
Watching him thank him repeatedly and then leave briskly, Gauss couldn’t help but shake his head.
On the first day alone, he had pushed Mage Armor’s proficiency to lv1 (10/10), smoothly entering the lv2 stage.
Although he always trained spells quickly at lv1 due to skipping the beginner stage, Mage Armor had undoubtedly been the fastest so far.
This Tier‑1 spell even trained faster than the Tier‑0 cantrip Mage Hand.
The reasons were manyfold—his overall casting ability had steadily improved with time, and his mana strength and quantity had increased significantly.
In Gauss’s view, lv1 meant barely being able to cast, but without much proficiency, unable to guarantee successful casting every time.
Lv2 meant that as long as he wasn’t distracted, he could cast with a high success rate, and the higher the proficiency, the stronger the interference resistance.
As for what lv3 proficiency entailed, he wasn’t sure yet.
The other two spells’ proficiencies were Mage Hand lv2 (18/20), Magic Missile lv2 (10/20).
After reaching lv2 proficiency in Mage Armor, Gauss had deliberately hired a laborer to assist his training—it didn’t cost much, just a few copper coins daily.
Gauss found that being attacked by others improved his Mage Armor training much more effectively than attacking himself.
This was why his Mage Armor proficiency continued to grow quickly after entering lv2.
“Unfortunately, the effect is slowly diminishing.”
He had trained all day today.
Although most of the time was spent recovering mana, it still only reached lv2 (8/20).
In truth, Gauss had a vague guess about this.
He recalled what Groln, the Black Anvil workshop manager, had told him about Professionals.
The most important part was that class ranks were a rule-formed aspect of the world.
Stepping onto the Professional Path required constant commitment to its pursuit.
If that was true for Professionals, then Apprentices, as their preliminary stage, likely faced similar constraints.
Thus, self-attack training, being the safest, had the lowest efficiency, whereas hiring someone to attack—someone obedient and non-lethal—produced better results.
Only real combat training yielded the best skill growth.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t be so hard for ordinary people to become Professionals.
Even if others didn’t have his kind of permanent verification ability via the Adventurer’s Handbook panel, if mechanical training alone could always increase experience, then even with ups and downs, one could ultimately accumulate it over time.
Unfortunately, reality was that most apprentices struggled to advance to Professionals.
What a malicious set of world rules.
To become strong, must one constantly place oneself in danger?
Or was this invisible rule guiding all beings toward battle and bloodshed?
Gauss put down his staff and looked up at the sky. For some reason, a familiar feeling stirred in his heart.
No one answered his inexplicable emotion.
After gazing for a while, he lowered his eyes.
“In that case, I can only keep moving forward.”
“Next goal, the fifth entry in the Monster Encyclopedia.”