Chapter 197: Gains and Job Change

Shaoke observed the stone disc, also known as the altar, which was over a meter in diameter and nearly half a meter tall. It appeared extremely worn and ancient, with characters of various sizes twisting and moving across its surface. Filaments of golden light covered the entire altar, and the intricate patterns formed by the complex magic arrays surprisingly resembled one strange creature after another. Strange lights flickered intermittently on the altar, looking as if hundreds of tiny gemstones were embedded within.

When a cleric slowly dripped the heart's blood of a thousand pure female lambs onto the altar, it looked even more dilapidated. One gap after another suddenly appeared on the altar, with some even forming where characters were inscribed. This stunned the cleric, who thought she had made a mistake. Fortunately, a Seventh Tier Mage who had recovered in time informed her that this was a normal phenomenon, not a failure, as the gaps had sunken in on their own rather than being caused by external force.

The recovered Seventh Tier Mage carefully approached the altar and meticulously counted the gaps. After finishing, he joyfully exclaimed in a hushed voice, "Over a thousand! Heavens, there are actually over a thousand!" With that, the Seventh Tier Mage instructed Shaoke and the others to keep watch over the altar, calmed his emotions once more, and then continued his incomplete recovery.

Shaoke repeatedly used his spiritual power to sense the special fluctuations emanating from the altar. As time passed, the spiritual power he had initially infused into the altar was slowly forced out. Upon discovering this, the nearby mages grew excited. They quickly began chanting the spell taught by a Seventh Tier Mage.

With a series of complex gestures and the recitation of obscure incantations, dozens of fine threads, either silver or purple, clearly emerged from the altar. These threads wound around the hands of Shaoke and the others and, as the gestures changed, slowly merged into the mages' bodies and disappeared.

This was the spiritual power or mana that the mages had repeatedly infused into the altar earlier. Now, the altar was completely returning it, and in a more refined form.

The rapid influx of a large amount of spiritual power made Shaoke feel as if he had taken expensive medicine and simultaneously used an advanced Meditation Method. The spiritual power quickly formed bands of light through the rhombic planar array. The increase in these light bands clearly boosted the spiritual power within his mental space by nearly three times or more. Points of spiritual light easily merged into these passing light bands, enhancing their brightness and length. Some light bands even abruptly merged into the walls of the mental space, thereby reinforcing its stability.

This peculiar feedback greatly excited the low-rank mages like Shaoke, who were at the Fourth Tier and Fifth Tier. They not only gained nearly three times the spiritual power or mana for free but also suffered no side effects from this sudden surge. Shaoke estimated that if he had cultivated this increased spiritual power on his own, it would have taken him at least a decade to achieve such gains. Of course, he had also infused some mana into the altar. Possibly due to the quantity, the returned mana only doubled his existing amount. Even so, Shaoke was quite thrilled.

The Sixth Tier Mages did not reap such bountiful rewards as Shaoke and his peers. The feedback of spiritual power or mana only increased theirs slightly. As for the Seventh Tier Mages, the altar's feedback merely accelerated their recovery further. However, a Sixth Tier Mage told Shaoke and the others that although their spiritual power or mana hadn't increased much, their entire Meditation space had become much more stable. This provided a slight possibility for them to cast spells beyond their tier. Of course, it was only a slight possibility, and no mage had actually tested it.

After two or three months of hard work, the mages received this tremendous reward, which truly made the guarding warriors envious. Fortunately, they didn't worry about such occurrences happening frequently, as the construction of this altar had already consumed nearly half of the Blizzard 33rd Corps' precious material reserves accumulated over decades. Moreover, the Blizzard Legion had paid other significant costs for this altar's construction. Under these circumstances, even if the mages were willing, they would be unable to undertake such altar construction again for nearly a century.

Everything proceeded smoothly. After receiving the magical message from the Seventh Tier Mages, the Legion Commander, who was handling affairs at the city center, rushed over immediately. He carefully examined the seemingly very worn altar, his white beard trembling with excitement as he silently muttered something, unfortunately inaudible to Shaoke and the others.

Finally, after conversing with the mages for a while, the Legion Commander left again with the senior officers.

The altar was finally magically transported by the Seventh Tier Mages to a prepared site—a stone house piled with three to five tons of gem powder. The altar slowly settled into the powder, which was formulated from hundreds of types of ground gemstones. It could then be seen that the powder was slowly merging into the altar, and the altar was also slowly increasing in size, though the process was indeed slow.

Some senior warriors brought large stones to construct a stone platform. This platform's construction was relatively crude. After the mages carved patterns on it with engraving tools and filled it with materials for mana transmission, the stone platform was considered complete. Now, it only awaited the placement of the gem powder-absorbed altar to proceed with Mage Roman's class change.

That day, as Shaoke, having finished his work, was recalling his involvement in making the class change altar and recording it in his spell record, a rapid knocking interrupted his task.

The visitor was Mage Yisier, her face filled with excitement. Catching her breath slightly, she said, "Mage Xueye, Mage Roman's class change is about to begin today! Let's go and watch!" She then glanced at the papers, ink, and brushes on the writing desk, feeling somewhat embarrassed for disturbing Shaoke's work. However, Shaoke didn't mind, as he had been waiting for this day for a long time. But now he was somewhat worried whether Mage Roman's class change would be as easily successful as she claimed. This was a question for which he had found no answer in many books he consulted; even in the underground death garrison, he hadn't seen any books introducing class changes.

Mage Yisier quickly understood Shaoke's concern and stepped forward to comfort him softly. After all, things had reached this point, and no one could change it now.

The stone platform carved with countless magic arrays was already surrounded by mages. Shaoke noticed that all mages above the Fourth Tier were present, while those at the Third Rank and Second Rank were denied access, as the intense fluctuations emitted during the class change were beyond their capacity to withstand.

Mage Roman, whom he hadn't seen for two or three months, stood on the stone platform in her golden robe. She easily spotted Shaoke and smiled at him, signaling that she was fine, which inexplicably reassured Shaoke somewhat.

The seemingly worn altar was already placed on the stone platform. Finally, with the appearance of the Legion Commander and several senior officers, and the completion of the guard duty by the Blizzard Warriors led by the Sleazy Officer, the class change officially began.

Two Black-robed Mages, appearing from nowhere, suddenly materialized beside the altar and gestured for Mage Roman to step onto the slightly enlarged altar. They then took out their staffs and began the class change work.

A series of complex gestures were formed. Due to the infusion of vast spiritual power and mana, the patterns formed by these gestures became substantial. These patterns swiftly imprinted onto Mage Roman's body and slowly merged into her. Strange characters flew from the mages' mouths, also materializing due to the focus of immense spiritual power and mana. Shaoke even recognized that the characters spoken by one mage were in Ancient Magic Script, though he only knew some simple ones; slightly more complex ones were beyond his current ability to comprehend.

As the gestures and characters continuously merged into the female mage standing on the altar, a strange pattern slowly appeared above Mage Roman's head. This pattern resembled a small altar, with some peculiar characters swirling around it. At this moment, the two Black-robed Mages simultaneously retrieved their spellbooks from their magic bags. The palm-sized spellbooks rapidly enlarged, eventually becoming as tall as a person.

Under their owners' control, the spellbooks flipped quickly and finally stopped on a page. Both spellbooks simultaneously enveloped Mage Roman between them. At this time, the worn altar abruptly began to rotate. A large amount of golden light emerged from the altar, forming fine threads that tightly wound around the outside of the two spellbooks, constricting them firmly. The two mages struggled to chant incantations to resist the pressure brought by the golden threads.

The fine threads on the altar eventually disappeared, and the two spellbooks, under their owners' control, returned to the magic bags. A multitude of magic scripts flew out from the altar and imprinted onto the female mage, whose eyes were tightly shut. This scene lasted for nearly a magic hour. Throughout this time, the two Black-robed Mages chanted incantations without pause, only stopping after the magic scripts vanished.

Subsequently, the two Black-robed Mages simultaneously floated away from the stone platform carved with countless magic arrays, hovering in mid-air as they began chanting incantations again. The two spellbooks once again floated before them to reduce their consumption. As the incantations ended, both the stone platform and the altar emitted a violent surge of magical fluctuations. This fluctuation caused a severe disturbance in Shaoke's somewhat fragile mana space, but fortunately, the silver light promptly halted this adverse situation. However, some Fourth Tier Mages were unable to withstand this sudden fluctuation and began meditating to calm the spatial turbulence.