Chapter 262: Actually, Since You Enrolled, You’ve Had Nothing
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 262: Actually, Since You Enrolled, You’ve Had Nothing
When your mana sources are limited and cannot recover infinitely, you face two choices when confronted by a massive, endless stream of enemies.
Either you find a way to achieve more with the absolute minimum amount of energy, or you kill as many enemies as possible in a single instant to achieve a deterrent effect.
Both choices revolve around a single concept: energy efficiency.
In terms of efficiency—without resorting to "micro-modifications"—the best options are naturally transformation magic and summoning spells. Right now, I chose summoning. However, I didn't use the Shadow Legion Summoning Spell; I chose a different path.
In my increasingly robust spell library, aside from the newly acquired spellbooks, there were two summoning spells I hadn't used in a long time: the Spirit Cat Summoning Spell and the Falcon Summoning Spell.
I had always somewhat underestimated the Spirit Cat Summoning Spell. Once a Spirit Cat enters a combat state, its striking power is terrifyingly high. A single heavy strike from its claws, bolstered by transcendent power, can subdue an undead.
I still remembered how a single Fireball Spell had failed to kill an undead back then. The Spirit Cat’s precision kills stood in stark contrast to the effect of a lobbed Fireball Spell.
Right now, the undead were constantly surging within the trial secret realm. It wasn't quite the "sea of skeletons" I had imagined; instead, skeletons crawled out from the ground at a steady, intermittent pace. There was a specific spawn rate.
If one ignored the issue of consumption, then theoretically, as long as your kill rate was faster than the spawn rate, you were safe.
By using summoning spells now, I was also buying myself time.
As time ticked by, I could feel the skeleton spawn rate gradually increasing. This meant that even with my Infinite Mana, there would eventually come a moment when I would be overwhelmed by the undead.
Therefore, I had to constantly refine my methods and techniques to suppress the enemy in turn. That was my initial thought.
As the Fireball Spell—which I had already completely mastered—took another step forward into the realm of Rune Rituals, I felt a much broader territory opening up from the spell.
However, facing such a massive leap, I felt a sense of powerlessness. This broader territory was supposed to provide me with a brand-new way to master the Fireball Spell, but I had a fatal flaw I couldn't overcome.
My mental power could not harness the mana.
At this stage, my various uses of mana through the spellbooks—whether it was resonance or conversion rates—relied on the structure of the spellbook platform itself.
Right now, I felt like I had reached the realm where "the sky is high and the bird flies free," only to awkwardly realize that I wasn't a bird and had no wings to fly with.
But there are ways to play even without wings. Mental power isn't something you can rush. Whether it's potions or magic potions, increasing mental power isn't an overnight process. It’s like having a baby—you can’t get ten women to give you a baby in one month, right?
I continued to fight, using the Fireball Spell as my primary example, and I even pulled out my long-unused portable Ley Line system to activate it.
Now, I wanted to perform a new construction of the previous Fireball Spellbook model. It would no longer be a model on the structural level, but a reconstruction based on Rune Rituals.
This meant that many of my previous findings had to be scrapped and restarted. I didn't mind, though, because I understood that those things were already obsolete to me.
Although doing this during combat was a bit frantic, it was also the best time to fully mobilize my body and focus.
This state was also the one where inspiration was most likely to strike.
"The gap between a standalone spell and a spell within a spellbook is so huge..."
I recalled my previous attempt to construct a magic ritual independently without a spellbook. Although the resulting Fireball Spell only produced a few sparks, it at least proved the method was correct.
But clearly, a spell constructed through a Rune Ritual within a spellbook was even more complex than a simple spell.
From the beginning until now, aside from the issue of energy supply, I had always felt that this was the other reason why spellbooks could release normal spells.
However, when I reconstructed it on the Ley Line system and isolated it, I noticed something was off.
It looked like a spellbook "limiter" wrapped in layers of runes!
At the very least, this kind of Rune Ritual couldn't hide from my Floating World level Spirit Vision, but I couldn't open it either.
It seemed to form a ritual that required me to meet certain conditions before it would unlock.
To have something right in front of my eyes that I couldn't touch was a total slap in the face for someone like me, who claimed to fully understand the Fireball Spellbook.
Was the Fireball Spellbook I had been playing with actually incomplete?
But based on my current shallow understanding of runes, this composite ritual seemed quite different from a limiter. Yet, why would a spellbook have something that was completely useless at this stage? It couldn't be a tumor, could it?
Or did the person who created the spellbook have a screw loose?
No one is a fool, and the people who create spellbooks are certainly not fools.
Therefore, the only fool could be me.
At this moment, I discovered something even more important than killing enemies and sparking inspiration: trying to break this ritual rune to see what secrets were hidden inside this spellbook.
This was something I had never seen before, and it was worth a try. After all, it was just a basic consumption Evocative spellbook.
With that thought, I stopped everything else and began using my mental power to interfere in various ways. In the end, everything resulted in failure. Even my Floating World level Spirit Vision, which usually served as a guide, was useless here.
It wasn't until I channeled mana into it that the rune finally reacted.
As long as there was a reaction, it meant I was on the right track. However, I was soon hit with another setback. While constant power could indeed activate the rune, the spellbook itself couldn't handle the strain.
The memory of the last Fireball Spellbook I broke was still fresh in my mind. But I didn't give up, pushing the Fireball Spell to its absolute limit until the rune also seemed to reach its final breaking point.
It felt as if the rune would be unlocked the moment I crossed that limit.
What a joke!
If I took one more step, the spellbook would explode. If the book was gone, there’d be no point in unlocking the rune. So, was this still a dead end?
Stuck in a corner, I suddenly realized that usually, in these situations, you have to "destroy to create."
But... I didn't have the ability to let this spellbook break and then restore it to its original state...
Abandoning that idea, I converted all the wasted mana into the destructive power of a Fireball Spell and threw it directly into the pack of skeletons. The terrifying explosion instantly blew apart several undead. Consider it my final gift to these creatures before I left—a massive Fireball Spell.
Then, I prepared to exit the trial secret realm.
After all, I hadn't forgotten why I came here: to "stretch my legs" and see if my understanding of runes would create new sparks with my spellbook modification techniques.
Teacher Ji Niang was right about one thing: if you find something more important than what you're currently doing, go do it. Don't hesitate.
Just like during the week I vanished—who would have thought I was simply learning the basics of Rune Studies?
And now, I seemed to have found the door to making spellbooks even more powerful, but I lacked the key.
Now... the only one who could probably answer this doubt for me was Teacher Ji Niang.
But before exiting, I had to take some spoils of war.
Of course, the so-called spoils weren't those bones, rotting wooden shields, or rusty swords. They were the steles.
These steles were vastly different from the tombstones scattered across the wilderness; they were engraved with unknown notes and records.
After the trial secret realm took all my mana, it stopped producing mana sources for the week. Instead, it gave other rewards, and these engraved texts were one of them.
After taking photos with my phone, I left without a second thought.
I checked the time; it was getting late. I had spent most of the day reading in the library and quite a while in the trial secret realm. I hoped Teacher Ji Niang was still there.
If all else failed, I wouldn't mind asking her over the phone, but that would never be as clear as a face-to-face explanation.
Soon, I arrived at the teaching building on my broom.
"Oh? You finally came to see me? You've been missing for days. How was your harvest at the library?" Teacher Ji Niang asked as I pushed open her office door. She sounded as casual as if we were just chatting about the weather.
"The harvest was pretty good. At least now, when I see common runes, I generally recognize them and can even identify many combination patterns," I replied simply.
After all, I really hadn't looked for her these past few days. I wondered if she missed me. Her Great Spellbook plan had been stalled because of me.
But then again, since Teacher Ji Niang was a long-lived Transcendent Witch, maybe she really wasn't in a hurry?
"Really? But I have to say, knowledge is only truly yours once you've learned it yourself. So, tell me, what are you here for this time?" Teacher Ji Niang tossed her pen aside and leaned back lazily in her office chair, looking at me.
"Um... well, I have some questions regarding spellbooks."
"Spellbooks again? You didn't just have some random epiphany, did you? Let me state this clearly: your Memory Bookshelf spellbook was a special case. I won't help you complete any other spellbooks unless you have a legitimate reason." Teacher Ji Niang turned serious. She didn't want to become Xiao Han's laborer. If it was just to boost strength, she definitely wouldn't help.
"No, it's not that. I'm not asking you to modify a spellbook for me, Teacher. I have a serious question. It's just that it's about spellbooks—specifically, the Fireball Spellbook," I said, waving my hands hurriedly.
"Fireball Spell?"
Hearing this, Ji Niang became curious. Didn't she remember Xiao Han already doing everything possible with the Fireball Spellbook? Why was she obsessed with it again?
"Let's hear it. You don't have much time. It's already late, and I'm about to get off work—or rather, I'm already off. You understand, right?" Teacher Ji Niang glanced at the time on her phone and spoke to me.
"I understand, I understand... It's like this." I nodded quickly and told Teacher Ji Niang about my discovery in the secret realm.
However, as Teacher Ji Niang listened to my description, her expression darkened, eventually turning into a strange look.
"Alright, stop. I think I know what it is." Teacher Ji Niang reached out to stop me.
"You know?" I stopped immediately. Hearing her words, I felt a surge of joy. As expected, going to a teacher when you have a problem is the right move!
"First, let me correct one thing. It's not a 'limiter' like you guessed. Spellbooks don't have those, unless they're for a very specific purpose," Ji Niang began.
"Second, congratulations. You've once again touched upon a concept you aren't qualified for yet."
"You have two choices now. One is to ignore it and act like nothing happened, just like with the [Domain] back then. The second is for me to tell you about it to satisfy your curiosity. Since I'm giving you the second option, it's because I believe telling you now won't cause any issues."
"Uh... since you put it that way, Teacher, I'm obviously choosing the second one," I said helplessly. If there was a chance to understand, I definitely wanted to.
"Fine, I figured you'd choose that... Before I explain, let's cover some background information." Ji Niang cleared her throat and looked at me seriously.
"How do you think the transcendent powers you've encountered at the Witch Academy should be ranked?"
"Ranked?" I fell into deep thought at the question.
I didn't know how to rank them. By the number of mana sources? But those are just mana sources; they represent your mana bar, not your actual strength. If a rank doesn't represent strength or something else, then simple numerical stacking and stages are meaningless. At least, that's what I thought.
"I see the answer in your conflicted gaze. One mana source for an entry-level witch, ten for a junior witch, a hundred for an intermediate witch, a thousand for a senior witch, and ten thousand for a quasi-witch. That is the widely circulated ranking system in the academy right now."
"Huh? It really is based on the number of mana sources... Wait, 'widely circulated'?" I was shocked by her words, but amidst the shock, I caught the keyword. Teacher Ji Niang never said anything imprecise.
"It's a tradition that's been around for a long time. The academy adopted it because it's convenient for administration. But regardless of how many mana sources you have, all students are just Beyonder Prospective Witches in our eyes."
"So it's meaningless, right?" I confirmed.
"Yes, it's meaningless to us, but it's meaningful for managing the academy. You don't need to worry about it. It's just something students use to show off. We teachers know what actually matters."
"I see."
I nodded. Her explanation put me at ease. At least the whole thing felt casual and a bit absurd now.
"Look at you, sighing in relief. What are you afraid of? Does the ranking of transcendent levels need your approval? You don't have that kind of power yet." Teacher Ji Niang gave me a small lecture before continuing. "However, once you reach the Transcendent level—or rather, in the void outside the world—rankings are indeed directly related to the amount of energy you master. This energy refers to more than just mana sources; it includes many other things."
"But... the amount of energy doesn't determine strength, does it?"
"It matters. It matters a lot. But that refers to qualitative change. Numerical stacking before that qualitative change doesn't matter."
"So don't let the large number of mana sources you have now go to your head! I believe I've told you this before: the spellbook doesn't belong to you, and neither do the mana sources. Right now, they are just items you can replace at any time, not power you've mastered. To you, they are just handy tools." Teacher Ji Niang's tone became stern.
"Things that aren't yours are ultimately just external objects. When mana sources were first introduced to the Witch Academy's curriculum, they were just tools for witchification. Later, they were integrated into spellbooks to give students the ability to cast spells themselves. Only then did the current situation arise where students hold multiple mana sources. From beginning to end, mana sources and spellbooks have never been power you mastered; they are teaching tools. Tools you need to promote to a Transcendent Witch."
"I understand."
"From the look of it, even if I didn't say anything, you probably figured out the key points yourself. I won't waste any more breath on that." Teacher Ji Niang glanced at me and returned to the main topic.
"Back to the spellbook. I didn't expect you to discover that thing so quickly after learning about runes. Normally, even Transcendent Witches don't know much about it."
"Then you, Teacher..."
"I am an Academic Witch. Of course I know." There was an indescribable confidence in her voice as she said this.
"Anyway, if I were to describe it to you, the abstract way to put it is that it's the 'seed' of the spellbook."
"A seed?"
"Yes. I'm explaining it this way to make it easier for you to understand. Tell me, using the Fireball Spell as an example—once you become incredibly powerful, do you think the Fireball Spell will become useless?" Teacher Ji Niang asked.
"Um... a little. It has an upper limit. Too much energy will destroy the Fireball Spellbook," I answered honestly. Ji Niang seemed satisfied with the answer.
"But in reality, that's not the case. A preparatory witch becoming a Transcendent Witch is called a witch advancement. It's an ascent to a different level, a qualitative change. The same applies to spellbooks. That thing you found is the key to a spellbook's advancement."
"Spellbook advancement!" I was shocked by the concept. Spellbooks... could advance?
"Yes. A spellbook is like a seed, and the power you possess makes it sprout."
"But even with my Floating World level Spirit Vision, I can't make it advance... Is advancement that hard?" I asked again.
"You're half right. Advancement is indeed hard. But the other reason is that you truly cannot make it advance. The spellbook isn't yours, and the mana sources aren't yours. You haven't mastered the spellbook, and you have no power of your own. How can you make it advance? By pulling a fast one? Even if it's inside your body, it... ultimately isn't yours." As Teacher Ji Niang spoke, she reached out toward my chest.
Instinctively, I tried to block her, but her hand didn't grab me. Instead, I felt something leave me. An unknown force drove my spellbook out of my body.
"See?" Ji Niang held up a spellbook. It was my Fireball Spellbook!
"It doesn't belong to you, and you have never truly owned it. This will continue until you become a Transcendent Witch. At that time, your spellbook will undergo a metamorphosis. Only then will it be a true spellbook. Only then will you be qualified to own a spellbook and mana sources, unlike now." As she spoke, she tucked the spellbook back, placing it exactly where it had been on my spellbook shelf.
I stood there, dazed and shocked... I couldn't quite snap out of it.
So, from the day school started until now, I had never actually owned anything...
Just now... Teacher Ji Niang... had taken my spellbook so easily.
This was the first time I had felt so vividly how easy it was to lose something that wasn't truly mine.