Starting Today I’m a Mage

“Crackle, crackle.”

Snapping back from the magnificent starry sky above, An Ye casually picked up a piece of wood beside her and tossed it into the fire.

Sparks flew, and the fire grew a bit stronger.

“This is another world, after all. The starry sky here is so beautiful. There are even three moons.”

If she judged by the time before she transmigrated, it should be around eleven o’clock at night.

An Ye herself had regained her mobility around dusk, at five or six o’clock.

In this unfamiliar and dangerous other world, who knew what kind of strange things she would encounter after dark.

After experiencing the slime swarm during the day, An Ye had thoroughly recognized the difference between games and reality.

The monsters in reality were far more ferocious, dangerous, and deadly than their simplified counterparts in games.

Here, a moment of carelessness could result in becoming fertilizer for the surrounding plants.

So, after careful consideration, An Ye decided to set up camp right where she was.

The trees in the surroundings had all been pushed over, creating a relatively open area at a glance, making it easier to spot any danger.

She could also try to gather some wood.

The wood in her inventory would eventually run out, so she should replenish it as much as possible.

Even if she didn’t use it all, she might be able to sell it for some funds when she found a town, especially since An Ye had no local currency.

Of course, these were secondary reasons.

The main reason An Ye chose to spend the night here was to make use of the residual ‘Dragon’s Might’.

During the time she couldn’t move, An Ye had more or less figured out her skill.

And just now, she had pretty much figured out all the functions of the interface in front of her.

First, she wasn’t limited to tapping with her fingers; she could also operate it directly with her thoughts.

Then, looking at the character portrait on the left of the status bar, after defeating the slime swarm and the giant beetle, a green experience bar appeared around the portrait, and the number ’11’ floated above her head.

Just like in the game An Ye was preparing to play before transmigrating, this… let’s just call it the character interface from now on, it’s catchier.

In short, this thing also had a leveling system.

But leveling up didn’t provide An Ye with a direct, intuitive power increase.

Even though she had already reached level eleven, her basic attributes hadn’t changed at all.

This leveling system gave skill points and attribute points when the character leveled up.

Skill points, as the name implied, were for unlocking and upgrading skills.

Attribute points were for increasing character attributes.

The former was self-explanatory.

For the latter, for example, if she wanted to increase her total mana, she would add all the attribute points to mana, and her total mana would increase accordingly, while other attributes with no points invested would remain unchanged.

To grow her character, besides leveling up to unlock more skills and dumping attribute points, she had to unlock crafting recipes and create various equipment and accessories that provided buffs.

Considering the nature of the crafting interface, An Ye had reason to believe that the crafting recipes that needed to be unlocked in the original game had changed in this other world, requiring An Ye to learn the crafting methods herself.

Right now, there was no one to teach her, nor did she have the right materials.

Therefore, to safely pass the novice period, An Ye decided to strengthen herself based on the skill she possessed.

And this was where the previously mentioned ‘Dragon’s Might’ came in.

Tapping the character portrait, she entered the newly unlocked skill interface.

There was a massive skill tree, covering a huge range of skills from basic life skills to combat, healing, and so on.

At the center of this tree diagram, on the main trunk, shone the one and only skill An Ye currently possessed.

[Dragonification: Consume 150 mana to transform the body into a dragon that exists distinctly in the caster’s cognition. Thereafter, consume 5 mana per second to maintain the transformation. High-cost actions in the dragon state require additional mana. When mana is insufficient, the dragonification will be forcibly canceled. Skill Cooldown (600 seconds) Skill points needed for next level (20)]

Although she didn’t get a chance to confirm which dragon she had turned into, it was precisely because of this skill’s name that she had the idea of “borrowing the residual Dragon’s Might.”

After all, regardless of Dragonification’s main trunk position in the skill tree or its performance, the ecological niche of dragons in this other world should be quite high.

If not invincible, it should at least be a regional overlord.

Ordinary monsters nearby probably wouldn’t dare to approach an area where a dragon existed.

The fact that An Ye could stay here safely until late at night was powerful proof that her choice was correct.

As for the strengthening mentioned earlier, seeing the power and cost of this skill, and considering the state of this body, anyone with a brain should understand what to do.

Of course, it was to mindlessly dump all eleven attribute points gained from reaching level eleven into mana, bringing her total mana to three hundred and thirty.

One step closer to being a “one-minute man.”

But having said that, [Dragonification] could only be used as a last resort.

A “one-minute man” sounded impressive, but if the battle wasn’t resolved within that minute, she would be fish on the chopping block for the enemy after the skill ended.

Moreover, did you notice that line in the skill description?

‘High-cost actions require additional mana.’

Previously, just standing still only lasted about thirty seconds.

An increase of fifty-five mana wasn’t fundamentally that much.

If she actually had to fight, she’d be lucky to last ten seconds.

Therefore, An Ye was very rational and did not spend her current twenty-two skill points on [Dragonification].

Instead, she turned her attention to other initial skills.

The result of careful consideration was:

[Arcane Missile: Consume 5 mana to continuously fire five magic missiles forward. Can pay extra mana (up to 10) to increase missile damage. Skill Cooldown (2 seconds) Current Level (3) Damage (8) Skill points for next level (1)]

[Fireball: Consume 5 mana to launch a fireball forward, which explodes in an area upon contacting a target. Skill Cooldown (5 seconds) Current Level (2) Damage (10) Skill points for next level (3)]

[Meditation (Passive Skill): Slightly increases mana recovery speed. Entering a meditative state further increases recovery speed. Current Level (4) Skill points for next level (5)]

[Dragon Claw: Consume 30 mana to transform both hands into dragon claws for three minutes. During this time, can pay 15 mana to slightly extend slash range. Skill Cooldown (30 seconds) Current Level (1) Damage (45+) Skill points for next level (10)]

Two mage skills, one basic skill, and the last one, [Dragon Claw], came from the [Dragonification] skill tree.

The four skills consumed a total of twenty-one skill points, leaving An Ye with only one point left.

Although she could learn one more basic skill, this was enough for now.

She had ranged, melee, and area-of-effect options.

Moreover, a quick look at the skills on the skill tree revealed that the skills on the [Dragonification] tree were, no matter how you looked at it, too strong to be in-game skills.

Even as an initial skill, the un-upgraded [Dragon Claw] had significantly higher damage than the upgraded [Arcane Missile].

If [Arcane Missile] was considered a normal initial skill, then [Dragonification] and [Dragon Claw] were completely balance-breaking.

With such a skill, who would choose other classes?

An Ye didn’t believe a game company would put such a skill tree in the game.

As for why this skill tree existed, maybe it was a perk for transmigrating, or maybe it was an add-on mod for the character model.

Who cared.

This was the real world, and this cheat-level skill tree was exactly to An Ye’s liking.

So, she would use it as needed.

Besides, ‘why wouldn’t you shoot if there’s a frame?’.

Therefore, while ensuring her survival, An Ye wanted to save as many skill points as possible, in hopes of unlocking more skills down the [Dragonification] line.

Especially those high-tier skills that required prerequisite skills to unlock.

“But that’s for later… Nnngh~”

An Ye closed the character interface in front of her and stretched widely, then relaxed and leaned back against the tree stump behind her.

It was really late today.

Tomorrow, she had to continue searching for the exit of this forest, grind monsters to level up, save attribute points and skill points, and stock up on some materials.

Maybe she could exchange them for money when she found a town.

In short, she would probably be very busy from now on…

For today, I’ll just…

As she relaxed, fatigue washed over her.

It made sense.

Ever since she transmigrated, she had been rushing to find an exit, then got chased by slimes, and after recovering from her weakened state, she hadn’t rested for a moment, spending all her time gathering wood and studying the skill list.

“Right, I still need to organize my hotbar and equipment, and add more wood to the fire.”

An Ye laboriously raised her right hand, equipped the only mage weapon she had to her main weapon slot, then dragged the staff and the four skills into the hotbar in order, ensuring she could cast them at any time…

[Oak Staff: A magic staff made from the oak trees of the Moonlit Forest. Having been bathed in mana-filled moonlight and the breath of nature for many years, it possesses magical conductivity superior to ordinary wood. The residual moonlight mana within can also increase the user’s concentration, thus making it the most popular staff material for magic apprentices. Magic Atk (10) Phys Atk (1) Max Mana (+10)]

She almost forgot about this.

Opening her inventory, An Ye turned her gaze to the five new items that had appeared inside.

[(Violent) (Sudden Death) Hejax’s Short Knife: This cool, black short knife, which looks like a beetle’s mandible, was probably dropped by that bug earlier. Sigh… if only it were a mage weapon. Phys Atk 14 (+0.7) Special Affixes: (Violent: Increases critical rate by 5% and this weapon’s attack power.) (Sudden Death: Moderately reduces durability consumption, but the weapon has an extremely low probability of breaking directly during use.)]

[(Tainted with faint Dragon Qi) Gel*483: It’s just gel, what’s there to say? It’s flammable, a lubricant, and it looks like jelly, so maybe it’s edible. Special Affix: (Tainted with faint Dragon Qi: Increases all attack power by 1%. Has a deterrent effect on weak monsters, but will attract medium to large dragon-type species and a few weaker sub-dragon species.)]

[Hejax’s Carapace: My intuition tells me this thing can be used to make armor, but how to make it is the question.]

[Wood*563: What are you looking at? It’s just ordinary wood. Were you expecting it to have some other special effect?]

[Broken Wooden Shield: It has already fulfilled its duty as a shield. Its only remaining use is probably as firewood… You’re not really going to burn it, are you?]

She also placed Hejax’s Short Knife on the hotbar, then took out a piece of gel and tossed it into the fire along with the broken wooden shield.

Watching the flames turn a deeper shade of red, An Ye had no mind to ponder these strange item descriptions for now.

She draped the cape from her inventory over her shoulders.

Allowing the growing sleepiness to take over, she sat by the campfire and, for tonight, she would sleep.

Tomorrow would be the beginning of her journey.