Chapter 69: Spellcaster Talent and Hobmei

Line up, all of you, get in line properly!

Dozens of dark-scaled warriors in full steel armor, bearing greatswords and steel knives, eyes flashing with sharp light, loudly rebuked.

Under the dark-scaled warriors' organization, the monsters began to line up in an orderly fashion.

At the front, Lai Ang lazily squatted on the ground, watching the gray-scaled dragonfolk, swamp snakefolk, and other monsters walking over in line.

His pale yellow dragon eyes flickered with two glows—Zero-Ring Spell: Mental Detection and Zero-Ring Spell: Elemental Detection.

To test for spellcaster talent among the dark-scaled tribe, Lai Ang deliberately learned these two spells.

It took him a few hours.

After his mental power broke through to the fourth stage and he entered the intermediate spellcaster threshold, Lai Ang's speed in learning low-level spells increased markedly, let alone zero-ring spells.

It was merely an introduction, very simple.

Lai Ang's dragon eyes swept over the ten monsters before him, whose expressions were reverent and excited.

Under his dragon eyes augmented with Mental Detection and Elemental Detection spells, the monsters' mental power strength and elemental affinity were laid bare.

The sole function of the Mental Detection spell is to see, at close range, the strength of a creature's mental power; of course, it can only see those whose mental power is lower than the caster's, and cannot probe those whose mental power exceeds the caster's.

The same applies to the Elemental Detection spell.

"Next batch." Lai Ang said.

Instantly, the ten monsters' eyes showed disappointment, yet they dared not say anything, turning and leaving.

How does one determine whether a creature possesses spellcaster talent?

First, there are two crucial points to becoming a spellcaster.

First, mental power.

Second, elemental affinity.

If either of these two meets the standard, there is a chance to become a spellcaster; if both meet the standard, there is a chance to become an intermediate spellcaster.

If both are excellent and outstanding, then there is talent to become an advanced spellcaster.

But if one wants to be even stronger—to become a great mage, or a historically renowned, astonishingly talented mage—then one must add one more thing: insight.

Without insight, having only mental power and elemental affinity means one can only follow the predecessors' path by the book, making innovation difficult.

One can become strong, but it is hard to become a venerable great mage.

Lai Ang naturally could not demand such a high standard from the dark-scaled tribe's monsters, nor could he set it too low.

If too low, he fears they would not even be able to learn the fusion spells he would pass down.

Fusion spells, upgraded spells, have power and effect many times stronger than the original spells.

But correspondingly, the learning difficulty also increases somewhat.

It's not overly difficult, after all, being a structural optimization rather than deliberately making the spells more complex.

"At the very least, both mental power and elemental affinity must meet the standard." Lai Ang thought to himself.

Under his dragon eyes, the ten monsters before him all glowed with light.

The most common was white—pale white, white, deep white.

All were unqualified.

White, green, blue, purple are the four levels of mental detection; reaching green counts as passing, indicating innate mental power is not low, allowing some achievement on the spellcaster path.

In the elemental detection view, most of these ten monsters before him glowed blue.

Blue represents water affinity, and the dark-scaled tribe's monsters are mostly water-affiliated.

The deeper the blue, the higher the water affinity.

"Huh?" Lai Ang's gaze fell on a swamp troll standing just over three meters tall.

After adulthood, swamp trolls generally stand between 3.5 and 4 meters tall; this swamp troll before him is clearly still some distance from maturity.

The mental detection color shown on him was deep white with specks of light green, indicating his mental power is near the passing threshold.

As for elemental affinity, the blue representing water was quite rich, exceeding the passing mark, at least high affinity.

Moreover, a rich yellow elemental hue appeared—this represents earth, the earth element.

"Your mental power is just shy of passing, but your water affinity is high and your earth affinity is medium (passing); you pass." Lai Ang thought it over and still passed this swamp troll.

"Thank you, Your Highness!" the swamp troll couldn't help cheering, under the envious gazes of the other monsters nearby, following the dark-scaled warriors to the other side and waiting.

The chance of a swamp troll being a spellcaster is quite low, but when one does appear, its talent is generally not low.

Especially among its variants—the double-headed troll.

Double-headed trolls innately possess spell-like abilities and are born with dual spellcasting talent.

After training, they can even perform quadruple casting—releasing four spells at once. In this regard, Lai Ang cannot achieve quadruple casting, for he lacks two heads.

Lai Ang recalls that a few years ago, the Emerald Academy had a double-headed troll student; at the time he also felt drawn to it, thinking of taking it as a retainer.

Unfortunately, the gray-scaled dragonfolk 'Diuges' also has strong talent, and gray-scaled dragonfolk are a water-affiliated monster race, making them quite suitable as retainers of a black dragon.

That double-headed troll is not a water-affiliated swamp troll species, but a nature-affiliated forest troll, and its compatibility with the black dragon is somewhat poorer.

Poor compatibility means the boost from the dragon's bloodline naturally suffers a significant discount.

As time passed, half a day went by, and Lai Ang's dragon eyes examined thousands of monsters.

In the end, he screened out twenty-one monsters with spellcaster potential; among them, twenty were basically passing, or had outstanding mental power but insufficient elemental affinity, or outstanding elemental affinity but insufficient mental power.

Only one was a goblin—a female goblin girl named Hobmei, who possessed both high water affinity and high mental power.

Lai Ang turned his gaze to a frail female goblin no taller than 1.2 meters.

Under the black dragon's gaze, this goblin girl, who had been born less than three years ago, was extremely nervous, at a loss.

"Goblins, being among the lowest-tier monsters, often have a high chance of mutation." Lai Ang felt somewhat surprised.

Given her talent, as long as she acquires sufficient spellcaster knowledge, becoming an intermediate spellcaster is almost certain, and she also has a chance to become an advanced spellcaster.

"Afterward, I will build a mage tower beneath the Gray Stone Dragon Fortress; you twenty-one will study spellcaster knowledge there exclusively, no longer needing to do labor, hunting, etc." Lai Ang said.

These selected monsters are mostly young; in terms of human age stages, they are all adolescents.

Those who are older can't even get a place in the unit and are eliminated. The thousands of monsters waiting in line are all immature monsters from the Dark Scale Tribe.

"Yes, Your Highness." The twenty-one young monster boys and girls all responded excitedly.

They knew that from this moment on, their fate had been rewritten.

The honorable title of spellcasters is known even to the most foolish and inexperienced monsters.

(End of chapter)