Simon immediately began the process of resolving his many questions.

‘Hmm, as for whether I keep mana in real life or not, this is simple. Log out!’

He then found himself back on his bed and quickly took his helmet off.

The sun was streaming through the edges of his blinds, and the sun had long since risen above the horizon. But Simon couldn’t care less as he hurriedly checked his body.

Suddenly, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud. ‘Hahaha, fate is finally favoring me!’

Indeed, he retained the mana that he had absorbed ingame!

But after a moment of mirth, he sobered up and suddenly realized how laughable his situation was.

‘Doesn’t that mean that I am completely reliant on this game? The moment they ban me or something... I’m screwed again!’ he thought with a tinge of helplessness in his expression.

After all, he could detect that his mana was dissipating once again. Though it wasn’t fast enough to threaten his magical accumulations in the short term, a sense of urgency still remained - if he could no longer access the game, he would eventually revert to a magicless being.

To rely on such a game… was akin to pinning his success to it.

But despite his doubts, Simon was still hopeful; after all, if such a transcendent power which was able to simulate magic existed, who was to say that they would even care about him? In any case, he did not even have a single star core at the moment. He truly could be considered an insignificant being as of now.

However, if things worked out, then he would have opportunities that far surpassed what he had in his past life!

Clearly, with his experience and memories of magic he would have a major advantage over any other mages if he were given the opportunity to utilize it.

But that was only if he were given the opportunity...

He then nervously put his helmet back on and logged back in.

[Loading Island Ascension Online… Please wait]

Upon reappearing on the island under the vast skies, Simon sighed in relief, seeing that he wasn’t banned or anything.

‘Now, I just have to confirm one more thing… Will I retain my stats if I choose expert mode?’

Simon thought seriously about this point. After all, this was a decision that was bound to affect his future career in Island Ascension Online immensely.

‘Well, if I really lose my stats upon deleting this profile and can’t regain them, then it really is a bug so it will be removed anyways…’

‘But if it is intended, then creating another profile wouldn’t lose me my stats, since they came from real life.’

‘In other words, I may as well try expert mode because if it doesn’t work on expert mode, my stats will be gone anyways!’

Having reached this conclusion, Simon resolutely decided to delete his current profile and to create an expert profile.

In his opinion, expert mode was without a doubt the better choice - at least if his level of strength was intended. After all, with magic, he would be infinitely more formidable in the game than a magicless being!

…

A few moments later…

‘I choose Expert Mode!’ Simon thought anxiously, while holding his breath.

He then once again found himself on the floating island.

His surroundings were similar to when he made a casual profile. The only change that he felt was the absence of any system notifications greeting him. However, he did not care for that fact.

‘Open stat page!’ he immediately thought, not even bothering to look around.

-----

[Pro Farmer#69] (Human)

Island Level: 0 (0%)

Magic Level: 0 (27%)

Nature Lv. 0 (63%)

Hot Lv. 0 (36%)

Cold Lv. 0 (34%)

Dark Lv. 0 (29%)

Light Lv. 0 (30%)

Time Lv. 0 (29%)

Space Lv. 0 (27%)

HP: 2175

MP: 943

Strength: 592

Speed: 435

Resilience: 475

Endurance: 446

Intelligence: 943

Vitality: 415

Skills:

(No Skills)

You will unlock more of your stat page as you progress.

-----

Simon pumped his fist into the air as he read his stats.

‘Now that’s what I’m talking about!’

As it turns out, it was at least somewhat intended that his stats were already so high; without a doubt, the game had detected his remaining magical strength and converted it into stats.

He then took some time to contemplate further about the meanings of his stats.

‘I suppose magic levels correlate to star core progress while levels for elements should be elemental stars!’

In Simon’s past life, the strength and standing of mages were in fact, determined by the amount of elemental stars and star cores that one had.

Both elemental stars and elemental cores manifest in one’s mana core, which resides in one’s heart. Similarly, the mana core is where mana is stored in the human body.

As a result, it could be said that a mage’s mana core was their life’s work!

As for how they were useful, having a single elemental star would boost the strength of spells under the elements attribute by 30%, while a complete star core would boost the strength of all spells by a whole 50%.

This boost was exponential, and so, the significance of these stars could not be understated. After all, even a difference of 10% was enough to determine a fight, let alone one of 50%.

It also has to be known that on top of boosting the strength of spells, elemental cores also upped one’s overall mana capacity and mana absorption capabilities; this made all the difference in fights between mages.

As a result, star cores were naturally the most important factor when estimating a mage’s strength.

However, that did not mean that elemental stars were insignificant either! After all, even a single spell being 30% more powerful could nonetheless, decide a fight.

From just this, it is easy to see how important elemental stars and star cores were for mages.

As for how they were formed…

Every elemental star requires a certain level of understanding regarding a specific element to pave the way for their growth. On top of that, one also had to absorb enough mana into each individual elemental star. Only then, would a mage be able to form an elemental star.

Once one gains an elemental star for all 7 major magical elements, they would then be able to form a star core by combining the 7 stars. Likewise, having 2 stars in every magical element would allow one to form 2 star cores, and so on.

However, getting stars was easier said than done.

Becoming a 1 star core mage marked the difference between a regular mage and a professional mage. Most people would not get more than a few elemental stars in their lifetime, let alone a star core which required a star in every element.

By the 5th star core, one would have the strength to defeat thousands of regular humans with ease; these people were easily considered monsters in human skins and were as rare as phoenix feathers.

By the 9th star, one qualified to disobey most laws in any kingdoms or empires, and could destroy entire regions singlehandedly. They were beings who were akin to natural disasters; very few things could stand in their way. Naturally, figures of such strength were far and few between, even in the entire history of Simon’s old world.

By the 10th star, one could even be called one of the strongest fighting forces that existed! With the power to shatter mountains and clear oceans, they had the capabilities to threaten even entire kingdoms, if not empires! These figures were akin to gods, and very few of them were even known by the public.

As for anything with power beyond a mage with a 10 star core… they were the trump cards of the major empires or the most powerful organizations in his past life.

These powers were not even known by the public, and Simon only knew of their existence from his old master in his previous life.

Nevertheless, not even his master knew if actual 11th star core mages existed!

However, even if they did exist, those figures were beyond the reach of someone like Simon, even at his peak.

After all, Simon himself was a 6 star core mage who mostly specialized in nature magic, followed closely by temperature magic. With a total of 8 stars in nature magic and 7 stars in hot and cold magic, he was considered to be stronger than an average 6 star core mage.

His old master, on the other hand, was an 8 star core mage who was only a step away from becoming a 9 star core mage. He only lacked one light star, as he had 9 stars in every other magical element with the exception of light magic.

If he had taken the final step to the 9th star core mage… Not even the ancient agricultural organizations of his previous life would dare to mess with him!

But alas, he didn’t make it in time.

Considering that Simon was only 44 years old in his previous life and had managed to get a 6th star core, he was considered extremely talented. Likewise, his master had been alive for 146 years and almost managed to become a 9th star core mage, which was even more impressive.

After all, most regular people wouldn’t even form a single star core in their lifetimes! Even professional mages wouldn’t necessarily be able to reach the 2nd star core in their lifetimes either.

However, upon transmigrating to this strange world, Simon reverted to a measly one star core mage, losing most of his hard earned magical accumulations in an instant. To add insult to injury, he even slowly lost his already meager amount of strength in the following months, degrading from a one star core to a 0 star core mage.

Indeed, this world was very inhospitable for mages; there was not even mana present anywhere. Combined with the suppression of magic that made casting spells many times more mana intensive, he knew that his situation was hopeless!

He could only helplessly watch his hard earned accumulations drain away like water.

At least, that was until Island Ascension Online...

In this case, the system’s stat evaluation also seemed to correlate to Simon’s progress towards gaining stars for every element. That was why he came to the conclusion that the levels represented elemental stars.

He was fairly sure of this fact, as his senses were extremely acute; if his own estimations agreed with the system, it was more than likely that the system was displaying his elemental star progress.

‘But how could this be? Is magic really universal across worlds? Or is this the same world but a different place?’

Simon continued to ponder over the mysteries of his situation, but he eventually decided to give up. After all, such questions were impossible to answer at the moment; he had better things to do!

He then tranquilly sat down cross legged and closed his eyes.

It was time to begin the process of regaining his magical accumulations!