The Truth of Magic

Chapter 54: Official Cleric

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Zhao Xu didn’t expect the fact that he had attained Divine Magic to be exposed like that. Thankfully, the one who exposed him was Archbishop Soz, a man who had a longstanding good relationship with the Wizard Association, so there wasn’t any problem there.

Zhao Xu was used to how people like Antonya and Reyan cast spells by just lifting their hands. This time, Archbishop Soz had actually gone through the proper process to cast a divine spell and even used a spellcasting focus. This method had confused Zhao Xu instead.

From the looks of it, he really had to make sure he started training his Arcana ability as soon as possible.

He hadn’t even recognized Detect Good and Evil, which was a spell he himself had grasped already. It would be embarrassing if someone found out that.

In Arthur, it was really difficult to be an evil character and remain concealed very well.

Unless you were some high ranking powerful person, in that case, people probably wouldn’t dare to simply use a spell to detect your alignment randomly.

Evil Detection was a basic spell that Paladins had, which also caused them to often end up in battles against evil characters.

Even though many players now wanted a Paladin on their teams, after a bit more interaction with these Paladins, they would soon come to understand what the phrase ‘A sleeping Paladin is the best kind of Paladin’ actually meant.

Most of the player teams had been frustrated with how Paladins insisted on fighting evil.

And that was also why many people liked being best friends with a Paladin but didn’t like them on their team.

Zhao Xu had a Good Aura, so spells that could detect his alignment had an even more obvious effect than others.

A Good living creature with 11HD and above would give off a Moderate level of Aura Power when the Detect Good spell was cast.

Zhao Xu was a cleric of a good deity, so as a Level 1 Cleric, his Aura was at Faint level, but a Level 2 Cleric would give off a Moderate level of Aura.

After Zhao Xu thought through this, he suddenly realized that something wasn’t quite right.

“But that’s not right. I chose Neutral as my alignment at the beginning,” said Zhao Xu.

Being Neutral was one step away from the Goddess’ alignment, something he had calculated before choosing his Alignment.

Clerics with a good aura were unable to use any spells that had a component of evil. He would have to pay the price for doing that.

“Young punk, don’t be too smart about it now. Did you think it was easy to remain in an absolute Neutral alignment for long? When you were able to do Spontaneous Casting, you had decided to go in the direction of a Cure Spell, and when it came to dealing with the Undead, you had chosen to use Turn Undead.”

“These choices you made are a reflection of your own alignment in and of themselves. On top of that, all the things you’ve said and done over the past two weeks have pushed you toward Neutral Good already,” said Reyan with a teasing tone in his voice.

“While it’s true that any Neutral Cleric under a Good deity will only be able to select Turn Undead, but, Mr. Zhongxia, earlier on, you naturally wanted to select Turn Undead without any hesitation. Your Alignment will naturally follow your heart,” Archbishop Soz also cut in at this point.

“Young man, since you’re naturally a good person, you should stop thinking about trying to hide within the neutral camp and hope to get the best of both worlds,” Reyan continued to prod Zhao Xu where it hurt the most.

He was so pleased with himself when he saw that Zhao Xu’s line of thinking had been exposed and ruined.

Zhao Xu didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t possibly say that he knew that Clerics of the Goddess could only choose to Turn.

He only noticed now that, on his character stats, his alignment had already changed to Neutral Good.

It had happened at the moment he unleashed his ability to Turn Undead.

Zhao Xu couldn’t do anything but sigh.

“What, are you upset that there are some divine spells that you can’t cast in the future?” Reyan seemed to be able to read Zhao Xu’s mind with just a glance.

Zhao Xu was instantly quite embarrassed. The righteous Archbishop Soz was standing right next to him, so how could he possibly admit that he was hoping to be able to cast some divine spells with an element of evil in them?

“Don’t worry, all divine spells that the clerics receive are from their deities, and they would never grant you any divine spells that go against their own alignment either. But whatever spells you copy are yours, so it’s completely up to you how you wish to cast them,” Reyan tried to console him.

After hearing these words, Zhao Xu’s thoughts started to churn again.

Reyan didn’t put it too obviously, but what he was saying on the surface was that he could still cast any arcane spells as a wizard.

But, in reality, he was referring to how Zhao Xu would eventually become an Archivist as a result of his double elite status and get divine spells by copying them, and he wouldn’t be limited in that aspect.

After thinking about it that way, it wasn’t too bad to become a Level 1 Cleric after all.

“Run along now, go to the training area in the back courtyard. Go and find someone to quickly teach you all the basics of fighting and everything about weapons that you need to know. Goodness knows what else I’d see if you stick around here.”

Reyan stood up to hurry Zhao Xu along, and he even helped Zhao Xu gather the books that Soz had passed to him. Reyan clearly didn’t intend to be polite around Archbishop Soz any longer.

“I won’t see you two out then.” Archbishop Soz quietly stood to his feet, as if their visit to his room was just like a gust of wind, which came and went without a trace.

But his gaze remained on Zhao Xu.

It was only when Zhao Xu and Reyan had walked nearly 30 meters out on the corridor outside the room, that he finally whispered, “Why did you have such a strange look when you were staring at the archbishop just now?”

“Oho, so when you’re not showing off, you’re actually quite observant, huh,” said Reyan as he chewed on the sweet that he took from the room earlier. “He’s an archbishop now, you know.”

“Strictly speaking, he’s considered a high ranking clergyman, and he’s only a few steps away from the cardinals and the pope of the church. If a young punk like you were so blessed by the Goddess, did you think a high-level cleric like him would have been unable to sense it?”

“If the Goddess were to grant you this ability before him, then that’s as good as scooping a spoonful of rice and feeding you with it. It’s good enough that he didn’t end up kneeling down and praying to give praise to the Goddess.”

Zhao Xu didn’t quite get what Reyan was saying. They were still a distance from the sparring arena, so he continued to ask Reyan questions.

“So why didn’t he do that?” Zhao Xu didn’t dare to say it too obviously, and didn’t add in that he was asking about why Archbishop Soz didn’t fall to his knees earlier.

“Because it wasn’t done right in front of him,” retorted Reyan in annoyance.

He turned to look at Zhao Xu. “I finally understood earlier that, on the day of her birthday, the Goddess gave you everything you needed in one shot, but you just had no idea. So, since the Goddess hadn’t come personally to the room, then of course he’s not kneeling.”

Zhao Xu finally got it now.

He hadn’t been able to do Spontaneous Casting the day before just out of nowhere. In fact, he just needed to find any random cleric and ask him about domains as well as the ability to Turn the Undead.

And he would have automatically activated all these abilities as well.

Other clerics were like ordinary students trying to become official clerics, while he was like the student with a guaranteed slot in the school.

This special treatment was a little over the top.

It was little wonder that Archbishop Soz kept staring at him while he left the room.

Nobody was jealous of a genius who worked hard.

But imagine if you had worked hard for several years to finally attain a particular thing, then you turned and watched that same thing just drop from the sky onto someone who happened to walk out of his door at the right time and even got all the peripherals that came with that particular thing.

Even if you’d meditated and cultivated yourself for decades, even the calmest and most mature of clerics would probably still feel that life had been unfair to them.

In no time, Zhao Xu and Reyan reached the sparring arena.

Many cleric apprentices were sparring each other. Everyone had a weapon in hand, anything from wooden clubs to maces.

There were several cleric apprentices in heavy armor too, trying to practice how to avoid attacks while wearing such armor.

Reyan scanned the place and muttered, “That old fellow in charge of the training has run off to take a break. Wait a while, he should be back in no time.”

Zhao Xu wasn’t really bothered when he heard what Reyan said. He walked over to an empty space in the arena and picked up a club from the weapons rack.

“Hey, you’re neither trained nor professional, so don’t hurt yourself,” Reyan called out after him.

Zhao Xu just smiled faintly. He held the wooden club in his hand and a familiar feeling overwhelmed his heart.

At the same time, he touched the leather armor hanging on the rack.

These had been his good companions in his previous life.

Adventurer Zhongxia attains Simple Weapon Proficiency character class feature (equivalent feat of the same name)

Adventurer Zhongxia attains Light Armor Proficiency character class feature (equivalent feat of the same name)

Adventurer Zhongxia has officially leveled up to become a Level 1 Cleric

“Hey hey, don’t tell me you’ve grasped all this as well?” Reyan came over to pat Zhao Xu’s shoulders. “Blessings from the gods don’t include becoming proficient in weapons and armor, you know. You have to train in those things.”

“I’m a Level 1 Cleric already, let’s go back to the floating city,” said Zhao Xu with a little annoyance.

“...”

In his previous life, he had been a Level 5 Fighter. So, with the context of becoming a Cleric in mind, such martial related skills naturally returned to him just by touching the items.