Chapter 0029 The Choice of Path 1

Grim was, of course, utterly oblivious to these external secrets. He was now experiencing that classic blend of pain and pleasure. He had thought that he would have plenty of time to develop in obscurity, but today’s events reminded him that life might not unfold as smoothly as he had expected.

The tranquil days he had enjoyed previously had given him the illusion that his apprenticeship would continue in calmness forever. Yet today’s harrowing encounter abruptly made him realize the vast, insurmountable chasm between a novice apprentice and an advanced apprentice. Observing the advanced apprentices, their distinctive innate abilities and the sorceries that complemented their gifts, Grim felt all the more keenly his own sluggishness and lagging progress.

If he followed the original path, it might take him three or four more years of daily meditation and accumulation of sorcerous knowledge to ascend to the level of a mid-tier apprentice. To become an advanced apprentice, Grim would have to endure another ten arduous years. As for becoming a proto-wizard? With Grim’s current talent, the prospect was bleak.

As a wizard apprentice, every increment of spiritual power was precious and hard-won. If one’s talent was inferior yet one still wished to advance faster than others, the only way was to seize more resources and amass sufficient sorcerous knowledge to support oneself. There was no other path.

To enhance one’s sorcerous power, the primary option was to improve one’s physical constitution. Every sorcery, whether for support or ranged attack, was always sustained by one’s own body. Only with a perfect physique could sorcery unleash its full destructive potential.

After his narrow escape from the tower, Grim immediately locked himself in his quarters and pondered deeply. Weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the four major wizard development paths summarized by his predecessors, Grim silently considered his own situation and selected a direction forward.

Body-refining wizard.

To become a body-refining wizard, one must first possess an indomitable, iron-willed resolve. For the sake of stimulating and strengthening their bodies, these wizards were capable of doing just about anything.

Some would soak themselves daily in vats of venom, using scorpion, snake, spider toxins, and the deadly juices of poisonous plants—sevenfold blossoms, nightmare weed, zombie powder—anything that could poison, they would employ. From mild to potent, from weak to strong, they would repeatedly stimulate every cell in their bodies with a variety of terrifying toxins, forcing their bodies to unlock hidden potential and gradually fortify their flesh.

Of course, they would take precautions, carefully calculating their limits to avoid inadvertently killing themselves. As their body-refining techniques progressed and they gained resistance, ordinary poisons would lose their effect. To advance further, they would have to painstakingly seek out rarer sorcerous toxins.

Thus, as a body-refining wizard, nearly half their early years might be spent repeatedly measuring their endurance and seeking effective toxins. Some would even collect items imbued with terrifying radiation to temper their bodies, while others would seek particularly harsh natural environments to harness the forces of nature for their progress.

In short, there were myriad methods, but always the same torment. A body-refining wizard must endure relentless suffering to acquire a body far more formidable than any ordinary person.

If Grim wished to become a body-refining wizard, he would first need to obtain a complete set of tempering techniques, then scour the land for various toxins to endure the long and arduous trial. During this process, his body would become extremely weak, requiring better and more refined nourishment to sustain it. When his body was successfully tempered, he would also need to find suitable physical arts to train, so that his newfound strength and constitution could be wielded for greater offensive power.

Considering these factors, Grim felt averse to becoming a body-refining wizard. Not to mention the difficulty of acquiring secret tempering techniques, even obtaining the rare ingredients required would be a formidable challenge. Unsurprisingly, he dismissed this path outright.

Bloodline wizard—this was, evidently, the easiest way for wizards to achieve short-term combat power. Speaking of bloodline wizards, one must mention the popular practice among apprentices of biological modification. With a simple sorcerous ritual, one could transplant a high-energy organ from a powerful magical creature, thus acquiring some strange abilities.

Most wizard apprentices found such an easy means of augmentation irresistible; if conditions allowed, they would modify themselves to some extent. But such things are always easier said than done. To risk one’s vitality, to endure the threat of bloodline contamination, all for the sake of implanting a useless organ—it was often a loss rather than a gain.

For apprentices like Grim, living in the magical marshes, what powerful magical creatures could they possibly access? With their abilities and status, it was impossible to reach truly terrifying monsters. If they could implant an organ from a magical creature of advanced apprentice level, it would already be considered a stroke of luck.

Among the three strongest tower apprentices, Hawk-Eye Krusa was said to have transplanted the eyeball of a Red-Eyed Raven King, granting him the ability to command carrion crows.

Yet Grim had always disdained such shortsighted actions. The Red-Eyed Raven King! Such a high-energy organ might allow Krusa to leap into the ranks of advanced apprentices and become a leader among the tower apprentices. But at that point, the potential gains from biological modification would have reached their limit. If luck favored him, perhaps he could become a proto-wizard within five years and prepare to vie for the title of true wizard. But if not, he might never reach that lofty goal.

After all, for those whose bloodline was tainted, ascending to wizard would become exponentially more difficult.

Thus, compared to bloodline wizards, biological modification was a crooked path, narrowing further with each step and ultimately severing the way forward.

Yet the path of the bloodline wizard was even harder. To become a bloodline wizard, one had to find a sufficiently powerful ancestral creature, then refine its blood in large quantities to extract the hidden power of its lineage.

There were many obstacles to this path. Most known powerful bloodlines were monopolized by sorcerer families. These families were often descended from a bloodline wizard who had risen to prominence. As heirs to powerful bloodlines, they naturally inherited their ancestors' superior genes. To preserve the purity of their lineage, they refused to marry outside their group, keeping their bloodline pure within a closed circle.

Aside from these known strong bloodlines, other apprentices could only try their luck with unknown magical creature lineages.

If the creature whose bloodline they inherited was a mere third-tier being, then due to generational dilution, those inheritors might not even reach the second tier. If the bloodline was impure, even ascending to the first tier could be perilous.

Therefore, if the heirs of powerful sorcerer families lacked sufficient strength, venturing outside could make them prime targets. Some wandering wizard apprentices would not hesitate to capture them, extract their bloodline essence, and acquire some of the powers of mighty creatures for themselves.

However, this required large amounts of apprentice blood, and the success rate was low. It was also strictly forbidden by sorcerer families. With their formidable power, how could they allow their bloodline to be stolen? Even at great cost, they would hunt down the culprits. The history of wizardry was marked by many upheavals caused by the theft of powerful bloodlines.

To be honest, the snake-headed apprentice who invaded the magical marsh today was likely a descendant of a sorcerer family, given his pronounced magical creature traits. But Grim had no opportunity to acquire his blood.

Grim felt no regret over this. How potent could the ancestral blood be in a descendant of an advanced apprentice-level bloodline sorcerer? To help Grim steadily ascend to proto-wizard, it would take at least a dozen such descendants to meet the demand for that precious blood. The difficulty was akin to challenging a dragon outright!

From what Grim had gleaned from books, the most powerful bloodline sorcerer families active in central wizard lands these days were only seventh-tier at most. This was still two tiers below the pinnacle of wizardry, the ninth-tier wizard.

Bloodline sorcerers needed little cultivation or knowledge; constant purification of their lineage would naturally unlock ancestral power. A fifth-tier bloodline heir could ascend at a speed ten or even a hundred times faster than others, making them unstoppable in the first half of their lives. Moreover, special bloodlines granted unique abilities, giving them a decisive advantage in battles of equal rank.

But the summit of their bloodline was also the end of their wizardry. Once they reached the fifth tier through strength and luck, they would painfully realize that their advancement was completely cut off, their wizard path ended at the fifth tier, and there was no further progress.

This was the greatest tragedy for bloodline sorcerers! Once on this path, if their bloodline was ill-chosen, they would never hope to scale the highest peaks of wizardry.