Does this argument rely on countable choice?

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Consider the following

Theorem: Any algebraic field extension $K|F$ of infinite degree contains finite subextensions of arbitrarily high degree.

Proof: We'll prove that, for any n, there's a finite subextension $F_n|F$ of degree $\geq 2^n$, by induction on n.

The case $n=1$ is obvious. Suppose, by inductive hypothesis, that we have a finite subextension $F_{n-1}|F$ of degree $\geq 2^{n-1}$. Since $K|F$ is an infinite extension, there's an element $x\in K\setminus F_{n-1}$, which is algebraic over $F$; then $F_{n-1}(x)|F$ is a finite extension of degree $\geq 2^n$, as we wanted.

Does this rely on countable choice? Note that for each fixed $n$, we have only made a finite number of choices to get the desired subextension.

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No, this is really just induction with finitely many choices.

The axioms of choice would come in if you would have wanted to say there is a countably infinite set of algebraically independent elements. With this proof, you would invoke Dependent Choice, which is stronger than countable choice. But I reckon the proof can be slightly modified to use just countable choice instead.