Chen Cheng was curious as well and could not help turning his head to look.
When he saw the words "Chaos Magic," Chen Cheng's eyes lit up.
"Count, you're a Chaos Mage too? I wonder if I might be able to ask for your help in the future."
Chen Cheng's words piqued Pembez and Wisdom Shield's curiosity.
"Coming to me won't help. The thing around your neck still depends on that young lady beside you."
Wisdom Shield could not help teasing him.
However, Chen Cheng waved a hand. "It's not because of that. I saw your Chaos Magic in the Codex of Magic Elements. Chaos Magic is magical energy closest to the magic particles found in nature. I merely hope that, when you have time, Count, you can provide some assistance with magical energy for my experiments."
If they had previously been shocked because he could use Super-class Magic, then hearing that he was actually conducting magical experiments left the two of them even more astonished.
Especially since his experiment required Chaos Magic, the magic closest to the magic particles of nature.
Pembez was also a magic research enthusiast. The finest transformation spell currently available on the market had been tinkered out by him, so Chen Cheng's experiment immediately caught his interest.
"Good lad, hurry and tell me about your magical experiment. Perhaps this old man can offer you a few suggestions."
Yet Chen Cheng merely gave him a foolish grin, while Wisdom Shield beside him felt like facepalming and weeping without tears.
It was obvious that this experiment was extremely important to Chen Cheng, and experiments like this were generally guarded with the utmost secrecy.
Even if a professor of Pembez's status asked about it, ordinary people naturally would not casually reveal their research.
Seeing Chen Cheng remain silent, the old man Pembez remembered that Chen Cheng was not his student. Asking so directly carried a hint of using his status to pressure others.
Pembez beckoned, and a sheet of parchment flew from the bookshelf into his hand.
"This is a secrecy contract. Once you sign it, this matter absolutely will not spread from me."
Pembez then handed the parchment to Chen Cheng.
From this, Chen Cheng could see that this professor truly was a madman for magical research, and that he greatly respected mages of lower rank than himself.
Otherwise, given his status, if he truly resorted to forceful means against Chen Cheng, no one in the academy would be able to stop him.
Chen Cheng did not beat around the bush. He opened the scroll and examined it, then compared it with the diagrams of contract scrolls he had seen in the library before nodding.
As the two prepared to sign their names, Wisdom Shield spoke up as well.
"I think I should sign it too."
Wisdom Shield was not an overbearing man. He knew Chen Cheng's research was likely extremely important to him.
Moreover, he remembered Pembez saying that Chen Cheng's path of magical cultivation had already been ruined. This research might be his lifeline in the future.
In this world, most mages who could become researchers were Platinum Rank masters. Because they possessed Domains and understood magic beyond ordinary people, they achieved remarkable results in magical research.
It was also because people researched magic that Magic Artifacts, Magic Crystals, and magical potions came into being. With such things, even some ordinary people could use magic.
Thus, every nation offered tremendous rewards and protection to talents like them.
After the contract was signed, the parchment ignited without fire. The three could then faintly sense the contract within their souls. If they violated it, the power of the contract would instantly devour the violator's soul.
With no more danger of secrets leaking, Chen Cheng revealed the concept behind his experiment.
His idea was nothing if not audacious. He wanted to inscribe all the Magic Rune Corridors he had discovered that could form complete systems together, then link them through his Variable Magic structure.
Whenever he needed to use a certain spell, he would only need to use Variable Magic to control those Magic Runes and have them assemble themselves.
That would greatly shorten the time mages spent inscribing Magic Runes, which was the most time-consuming part of magical cultivation.
Of course, the various elemental magics involved would amount to an astronomical number. To operate such an immense magical construct, the required magical energy could only be the disordered magic particles found in nature.
But organizing those disordered magic particles was an undertaking too vast to imagine, so Chen Cheng thought of Chaos Magic.
At first, this had only been an idea in his mind, because the magical forms he had learned were merely a drop in the ocean compared with the current magical system.
But now that Pembez, a professor researching the simplification of magic, and Wisdom Shield, a Chaos Mage rare across the entire continent, were both present, Chen Cheng boldly put forward his concept.
After hearing it, the two men looked at Chen Cheng as though he were mad. They could not imagine it—if one day a weapon or a person appeared that could unleash overwhelmingly powerful magic of every system and every element in an instant, it would be like the God of Magic truly walking the world.
Pembez swallowed and spoke in an extremely low voice.
"That's impossible. Once all those Magic Runes are inscribed, the object or person bearing them would be blown apart by the fully formed magic."
Pembez wanted to use what he had learned to dispel Chen Cheng's shocking, world-defying notion.
However, Chen Cheng replied,
"This is actually very simple. We don't need to complete the magical inscriptions themselves. We only need to inscribe the different runes and corridors that compose them. As for their later use, that will be left to my Variable Magic."
Wisdom Shield immediately seized upon the key point.
"What exactly is this Variable Magic you speak of? Why have I never heard of it?"
Pembez also came to his senses. The crucial element of Chen Cheng's concept was that Variable Magic.
Chen Cheng looked at the two men before him. If he had not felt the security brought by the contract upon his soul, he would never have so easily shared his greatest research achievement with others.
Chen Cheng knew that words alone were empty. He rose and went to the room where Pembez conducted experiments, then began searching through the table.
He wanted to use Mithril to draw his Variable Magic, which he had yet to improve, and let the two men see it for themselves.
"The Mithril is in the clay jar on the left."
Pembez reminded him.
Chen Cheng found the clay jar holding the Mithril, then picked up a ceramic board used for experiments from beside it.
He placed the items before him, picked up a pen, dipped it into the Mithril powder in the jar, and began drawing Magic Runes and corridors across the ceramic board.
With Pembez's vast experience, he immediately recognized that Chen Cheng was drawing Magic Runes and corridors that formed the foundations of magic from different systems.
However, Chen Cheng had deliberately left these things unconnected, so they were merely exquisite-looking patterns for now.
After drawing those runes, Chen Cheng began to draw a strange and grotesque pattern that Pembez had never seen before, one utterly devoid of magical beauty.
But before Pembez could react, the originally somewhat chaotic ceramic board instantly became neat and orderly.
Chen Cheng then lifted the ceramic board toward the nearby wall and said to Wisdom Shield, "Count, you can now try injecting your Chaos Magic into it, then attempt to activate the magic within."
Wisdom Shield was excited as well. His hand trembled slightly as he gently touched the ceramic board.
The board was still cold, but after he injected Chaos Magic into it, several different options appeared within his awareness.
He touched the flame option. The patterns on the ceramic board immediately lit up, and several groups of Magic Runes and corridors capable of forming the Small Fireball Spell were drawn together by that bizarre Variable Magic before the three men's eyes, truly assembling into Fireball Magic.
A small fireball was then released.
At the sight of the small fireball, Pembez waved a hand, and it was blown out.
When they looked again, the Magic Runes on the ceramic board had returned to their previous disordered state.
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