For a far more advanced and knowledgeable guide to building a Mage, look here: 

http://larkinorguide.com/help/acg.shtml#Mages

Otherwise, if you want my opinion, 40 is absolutely not enough. The patient mage throws almost all of his points into Persistence early, aiming to get a large HP lead. Mages like these typically go for high levels of Persistence like 70, 100, and so on. 

Since you haven't done so, I advise you to put a lot of your points into Persistence immediately. As for how much Persistence you want, that depends on what you want to do with the character. 

If it's for PvP (which is, unfortunately, nonexistent, so I can't recommend it) then you're going to want a medium amount of Persistence and Intelligence (enough to get mana and magic lvls), followed by putting just about everything into Quickness.

If it's for splatting, I'd recommend an amount of quickness just barely above the minimum required not to get double-hit. Intelligence should stay around level * 1.5, with everything else going into Persistence. It's good to plan what exactly you want to do with the character beforehand, as extreme levels of Persistence in this case (150+) are rare, but not impossible.

Hope I helped with the wall of text!

thanks

btw...i can still pvp. i track the ones holding the balloon who're in my level range. most of the are in god mode and could be attacked.

In my experience most of these mages are not very well built anyways -- I suggest a Persistence mage (70 or 100 pers seems very reasonable for a PvP/Splat mix.)