Chapter 809: Yi Rui's Success
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 809: Yi Rui's Success
Yi Rui’s experiment proceeded exactly as anticipated.
Starting from the initial self-generated mana shaping ritual, she used a limit of exactly ten thousand mana sources, laying out and sketching the ritual's patterns with as much precision as possible.
I also witnessed Yi Rui’s perfected micro-operation resonance method. This was a customized technique tailored to her personal circumstances, designed specifically to squeeze out every last bit of possibility.
In truth, such a minute difference wouldn't matter much when it came to widespread promotion. However, Yi Rui had spent a long time at this stage, so she was most familiar with it.
The reconstruction of the brand-new shaping ritual went off without a hitch. It simply required a significant amount of time to coordinate with the ritual war dance and the micro-operation resonance method to bring both her personal state and the ritual itself to their peak.
Everyone watched Yi Rui’s process with rapt attention, as this was a hurdle they would all eventually have to face.
Up to this point, no issues had arisen in any area, and even I didn't sense anything out of the ordinary. It seemed that Yi Rui had reached a level of absolute confidence in this step.
I silently stepped forward. Yi Rui’s gaze instinctively met mine; she gave a simple nod, and no further words were exchanged. We both knew what came next.
It was time to begin the architecture of the self-generated mana. To the limit of what Yi Rui and the others could understand, this meant anchoring the architecture upon their own life essence.
However, I knew clearly that it was fundamentally anchored upon the Witch racial concept. Only by doing so would the self-generated mana directly interface with the Transcendent Witch racial concept upon their advancement, thoroughly perfecting the Transcendent version of self-generated mana.
Therefore, whether it was the successful Tan Han or the currently proceeding Yi Rui, the essence of the self-generated mana they were constructing was different from mine.
I had first perfected "prototype self-generated mana" through self-awakened body cultivation and then anchored that onto the Witch racial concept. This resulted in a triangular architecture between my "self-generated mana," "self-awakened body cultivation," and the "Witch racial concept," giving birth to a far more complex totem effect.
But they couldn't do that. They had to anchor it directly to the Witch racial concept from the very beginning.
There was no other way.
Consequently, even if they perfected it, as long as they hadn't ascended to the Transcendent level, it wasn't the same "prototype self-generated mana" as mine. Instead, it was perfected to a limit—a threshold. They would need to ascend to Transcendent status to complete the perfection, at which point it would become the Transcendent Witch version of self-generated mana.
The difference was that I was progressing in stages, while they were jumping straight to a predetermined position.
This was why I had told Tan Han before that the so-called derivative concepts I researched could not be applied to them. Since they lacked the "prototype" and the foundation, how could there be any "derivatives"?
Thus, self-awakened body cultivation was the threshold—a total, absolute threshold. It was the foundation for constructing a prototype independent of the racial concept, possessing infinite potential for development!
Indeed, the deeper one's understanding, the more one could discover just how valuable those seemingly insignificant abilities truly were.
Yi Rui’s architecture ritual continued.
This was Yi Rui’s experimental demonstration, so even I was merely acting as an assistant. However, being an assistant didn't mean being unimportant. An assistant often needs to provide error-correcting warnings and a margin for error at the most critical moments.
Just like now, I performed an emergency fix on one of Yi Rui’s operations. Fortunately, I managed to pull it back.
Crack—
A faint sound rang out, exceptionally piercing in the silence of the laboratory where no one dared to make a sound. The source of the noise was at my neck.
At that moment, I was maintaining real-time communication with Yi Rui through a consciousness communication spell. The greatest advantage of this spell was the near-transparent interaction of thought, bypassing verbal expression to communicate cognitive understanding directly at the level of consciousness.
"Focus. An alchemy item on my neck suffered some damage; don't worry about it. That small mistake you just made was quite serious. I didn't expect it to be so subtle—even my clones in the lab didn't catch it for you. It might have been a deviation in understanding during teaching combined with a lapse in your personal perception."
"Sorry... The next step should be like this, right?"
Yi Rui offered a brief apology, but the urgency of the moment didn't allow for an extensive review. She needed to continuously link the next steps of the ritual architecture, so there was no need to waste each other's time and energy on unnecessary chatter through the consciousness communication spell.
"Have some confidence. That was just a small slip-up. Don't get so nervous that you have to ask me about the very next step. This is an experiment led by you," I encouraged.
As for the matter of the misfortune coin... I didn't tell Yi Rui.
From what just happened, it seemed the misfortune curse had taken effect. It was directed at me, but the source of the misfortune had been blocked by the collar around my neck.
This indirectly proved Teryx’s experimental hypothesis: the misfortune medium of the misfortune coin and the misfortune curse that follows the severing of ley line shackles share the same source.
The misfortune curse had taken effect on me, meaning the price had been paid. However, "price" and "effect" are not identical concepts. Thus, while the collar on my neck couldn't ward off the price for me, it bore a certain effect in my stead.
And that effect was surely terrifying.
That collar had been with me until now, and even the curses the world consciousness rained down on me hadn't damaged it in the slightest. Yet now, a single error correction—one I had even remedied in time—caused this misfortune-suppressing alchemy collar to make a cracking sound. It truly shocked me.
But another thought gradually surfaced in my mind.
When the time came, I would definitely have to find Natalie, that master witch alchemist, to refine an extremely powerful anti-misfortune alchemy item for me. If I had that, perhaps this misfortune silver coin could become a permanent tool in my arsenal.
Absolute probability within a world!
That was even more heaven-defying than being a Child of Destiny favored by the world consciousness. What an alluring power. Though it had its limits, it could resolve the vast majority of problems within the scope of a world.
The experiment continued.
The difficulties of the architecture ritual remained. For a pre-witch, the Witch racial concept—which evolves from the witchification transformation of their own life essence—is not yet perfected. This was one of the reasons why the architecture ritual was so difficult.
However, after comparing the two extremes of Tan Han and Yi Rui, I found the gap between them was quite large.
First was the matter of witchification progress. Tan Han had been at the academy for just over a year, while Yi Rui was a senior student on the verge of graduating. The degree of perfection in their Witch racial concepts was different. Theoretically, Yi Rui’s architecture ritual should have been easier than Tan Han’s, though the difference wasn't massive.
Furthermore, Tan Han was protected by luck.
But Yi Rui’s treatment this time was essentially the same. With a Transcendent item as a medium and me bearing the price, who was to say that a rebellious misfortune couldn't be a helping hand?
Still, if the closer one gets to being Transcendent, the easier it is to shape self-generated mana... does this really have any meaning?
Many might feel that since they only have to wait a few years to ascend to Transcendent status, there's no need for all this trouble. All this work just to gain an ability they were destined to have anyway.
It was indeed a valid question.
However... humans grow from weakness to strength, from ignorance to knowledge. This is a process, and it cannot be skipped. If one believes they have seen the end and deems the journey meaningless, such a person not only misses the beauty and uniqueness of the path but also loses the foresight and determination to go further once they reach the destination.
Power is gained through fumbling and exploration. At the very least, I didn't think the acquisition of self-generated mana was meaningless.
If someone couldn't wrap their head around it... then let's just call it a filter.
It’s like those who feel that since everyone dies eventually, why bother working hard? When someone asks that question, those who disagree shouldn't bother explaining; they should simply walk away. It is a filter between different kinds of people.
"Watch out!"
Suddenly, I instinctively shouted a warning, bypassing the consciousness communication spell and speaking aloud.
In the next instant, the collar around my neck shattered. The alchemy runes upon it fell into chaos and conflicted with one another, leaving only the leather parts barely connected.
I caught the broken collar as it slid from my neck with one hand while stabilizing the architecture ritual inside Yi Rui with the other.
We were at the final stretch... and something still went wrong? Though I had anticipated it, experiencing it for real still felt frustrating.
But was it a failure?
Of course not!
At the very least, the current misfortune curse was still within the range of what I could endure.
A misfortune curse isn't just "bad luck." In essence, it is the world's rejection of an individual who exists outside the world's framework. Only upon reaching the Transcendent level can a life essence ignore this kind of standardized pressure.
So, I suddenly felt as if I were drowning. A sense of pressure far exceeding anything before made it difficult to breathe.
When I severed the ley line shackles, there hadn't been this much pressure. Although it had felt uncomfortable then, I was far more powerful now than I was back then.
Pressure is different from a suppression of life level. Even with the strength of my body cultivation, I could only make myself feel slightly better; I still couldn't fundamentally ignore the impact misfortune events had on me.
"Don't worry about what happened to me. Focus on your own situation!" I met Yi Rui’s confused gaze and offered a quick explanation.
After adjusting my state, I continued to fulfill my duty.
"Yes, just keep it like that. Once it stabilizes, you've basically succeeded."
"Succeeded?" Yi Rui repeated the word, her obsession with it evident. I hadn't expected Yi Rui to show such a side of herself.
"Yes... you will succeed," I said with a firm nod.
With the mature "perfecting ritual" in place, knowing whether the self-generated mana physical talent had been successfully constructed was as simple as testing it. It was enough if, under the perfecting ritual, one could reach the point of ignoring mana interference to perform observations.
However... the one in trouble now was me.
I could feel that my collar had borne the vast majority of the effects produced by the price in that single moment. Now, I could feel the pressure gradually leveling off, returning to the level of a normal misfortune curse.
This basically meant the endeavor was a success.
"Xiao Han, are you alright?" Mentor Belica was the first to step forward and ask.
"I'm fine. It's just that the collar broke," I said, shaking my head.
"This collar..." Belica looked at the collar in my hand. As a Transcendent Witch with a "slight" understanding of alchemy, she could probably guess its function. Even if she didn't know, she could use the Ley Line Identification Art to get the information.
"I'll just go find Dean Mei and ask for another one later." In any case, this misfortune curse wasn't extremely severe; it would just bring some inconveniences to my daily life. But those inconveniences couldn't last too long, or they would start affecting my mood. After all, having everything go wrong is infuriating for anyone.
"Is it really necessary to go through the trouble of finding her?" Dean Serena walked over. As a veteran witch, she had certainly seen alchemy items that suppressed misfortune curses before, though she hadn't seen them in a long time.
"Am I not also a Dean? I don't know what that Mei Lind was thinking, giving you a collar of all things. That's a symbol of servitude..."
Clearly, as a veteran witch who wasn't fond of Rebel Witches, Serena’s views were somewhat outdated. In her eyes, collars were for the God Servant Army. Since when had they become fashion accessories?
"Uh... actually, I don't really mind it..." I said quickly.
"...Suit yourself." Serena glanced at me, ultimately deciding not to press the issue. Instead, she handed over a woven bracelet. "Same effect. It works as soon as you put it on."
"Thank you, Dean Serena!" I thanked her immediately.
There was no reason to refuse a gift from the Dean. Besides, refusing would just be asking for trouble.
"No need for thanks between us," Dean Serena said, shaking her head as if dismissing the matter. "Let's talk about the self-generated mana. Is it a success?"
"The initial self-generated mana is nearly impossible to observe directly—"
"It's a success."
Yi Rui’s voice interrupted my attempt at a long-winded explanation. Though it was only three words, they were saturated with her current joy and excitement.
The moment the process ended, Yi Rui had immediately used the detection method I had taught her. She stared at the mana fluctuations before her—fluctuations so faint they couldn't even condense a single standard unit of mana—and was almost unable to contain her excitement.
If the Dean and Mentor Belica hadn't been right there, she might have even lost her composure and celebrated wildly with the other girls.