"Total monster kills: 70,005"
"Reward received: 5th-level Necromancy Spell - Energy Drain."
Thanks to the diligent efforts of the Red Dragon Team members, the number of kills recorded in Gauss’s Monster Atlas quickly surpassed 70,000. At that moment of breakthrough, he was rewarded with a new 5th-level spell, Energy Drain.
The effect of Energy Drain is similar to an enhanced version of Vampire’s Touch.
It similarly extends magical tendrils to attack targets within the spell’s range, causing significant dark erosion damage and draining life energy from the target to restore oneself.
Gauss felt the newly emerged spell model of Energy Drain deep within his consciousness.
Compared to Vampire’s Touch, Energy Drain requires more magic power to activate and generate the tendrils, but it affects a wider area and targets more entities, with higher efficiency in life energy absorption.
Combined with Gauss’s professional specialty [Three-Phase Source Power], this is like upgrading an engine. He, like a pump, can continuously absorb life energy from other demons at a faster rate, converting it into physical strength and magic power.
So, Gauss was quite satisfied with obtaining this spell.
After all, Vampire’s Touch is merely a 3rd-level spell. Even if its effects can be enhanced with Tier-Up Casting, it’s still not as straightforward and forceful as higher-level spells.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Vampire’s Touch, as a lower-tier alternative, has completely lost its place.
It still has certain use cases. The advantage of Vampire’s Touch lies in its lower magic power requirement, making it useful in small-scale, lightweight battles when one doesn’t want to go to great lengths.
Furthermore, even if there were no opportunity to use it, Gauss would not choose to intentionally forget it and erase its spell model from his consciousness.
Because there’s no need. He has not yet reached the mental burden limit due to learning too many spells.
If keeping it poses no burden, he might as well leave it as part of his magical foundation.
This foundation sounds vague but is in fact real.
Why do high-level casters master unfamiliar low-level spells much faster than low-level casters? Beyond magic power and professional level, a significant reason is their magical foundation.
They have studied more magic, with more diverse and complex spell models in their minds, which helps in extrapolating and understanding new magical knowledge.
The reason why Gauss’s magical talent is so strong is also because he has a vast amount of magic in his mind.
This is like a positive cycle.
With enough magic mastered, the mental magic library is vast, and this "big data" further aids him in expediting the learning of more new magic, increasing efficiency in mastering proficiency later on.
Even for ordinary people, space magic is extremely difficult, but Gauss encountered no bottleneck and broke through quite smoothly during practice.
Since the spell was a reward from the Atlas, there’s no extra effort needed to learn it. Plus, Gauss had already mastered two 5th-level spells completely, understanding enough about their complexity.
Thus, his first casting of Energy Drain was very smooth. After mentally reviewing the spell model a few times and meditating slightly, tens of inky energy tendrils spread from beneath his feet.
The tendrils were vivid and very robust, writhing flexibly beneath him like a giant octopus.
However, compared to Bigby’s Hand from the Evocation school, the tendrils of Energy Drain are more energy-oriented, so using them physically like real tendrils isn’t as effective as Bigby’s Hand.
In essence, though they appear to have ample volume, their core function is still to inflict dark erosion damage and absorb life.
After practicing Energy Drain for a while, Gauss stopped.
He still had plenty of time to practice, but something interrupted him.
"Are you saying that the Adventurer’s Guild of Barry is inviting all adventurer groups to a meeting in Central City?"
"Yes, Captain Gauss."
George Bell and several other captains nodded.
"Your group probably also has people out procuring supplies. Once they return, Captain Gauss, you should also receive an invitation."
Gauss wasn’t particularly doubtful about the intelligence shared by these people.
They had no need to deceive him; firstly, Barry is right next to the Maze, and confirming the credibility of the information doesn’t take much time. Secondly, issuing false information in the name of the Adventurer’s Guild is a serious crime. Adventure groups frequently dealing with the Adventurer’s Guild wouldn’t do something so foolish, as reporting them would cause great trouble.
He was just curious about why the Adventurer’s Guild in the Forest Capital was inviting so many adventurer groups.
Regarding identity, Gauss didn’t have much connection with Forest Capital Barry, as he was neither a native nor was his adventure group registered in Barry.
Could it be that something big was happening?
Instinctively, he felt this gathering might have little to do with the Timbel Maze.
Due to Timbel Maze’s restrictions, its influence is limited to adventurers below the extraordinary level. Although it appears bustling, the deeper influence behind it isn’t as significant as the commotion it creates.