The First Spell

A week later.

A strangely designed windmill stood behind Richard's Palace. When a gust of wind blew, the turret at its top automatically adjusted itself with a creaking whine. Its main blades aligned with the wind and began to turn.

Mechanical energy was transmitted.

Whirr, whirr!

The spinning blades drove a magnetic rotor below through gears and a crankshaft. A metal coil around the rotor continuously generated electric current, which traveled through connected wires to the bottom.

Mechanical energy became electrical energy.

At the bottom sat a simple yet practical Lead-Acid Battery, absorbing and storing the current, waiting to release it when needed.

Electrical energy was converted into chemical energy once more.

Night.

Richard's Palace, bedroom.

Richard sat cross-legged on the bed, with a fully charged Lead-Acid Battery before him.

With his eyes shut, Richard was in deep meditation. He felt his body rapidly vibrating, and then, like a butterfly breaking free from its cocoon, his consciousness burst out of his body.

Looking at his physical body through the eyes of his consciousness, Richard tried to use Mental Strength to gain control of it. He had done this many times before and was already familiar with it. Soon, the body sitting cross-legged on the bed began to move, slowly raising its hands toward the two external wires of the Lead-Acid Battery.

Crackle!

The instant his body's hands touched the wires, his body itself became a conductor, forming a closed circuit with the Lead-Acid Battery. Current flowed from the battery and rapidly coursed through his body. The sensation of electrocution spread throughout him, passing through the transparent strip at the back of his neck to Richard's consciousness, numb and scorching.

The bioelectric current within his body began to intensify drastically, and the cells throughout his body entered a Highly Activated State.

Richard recalled the contents of the Chapter of Munro as he gathered his Mental Strength.

When Mental Strength was condensed to its limit, it became something semi-material, tiny as a speck of dust. He controlled this speck of mental dust to drift toward the area around his heart and fixed it there, then condensed another speck and stuck it to the first.

The process resembled a swallow building a nest, slow and time-consuming.

According to the Chapter of Munro, Open Source of Magic was crucial for a Wizard and often took dozens of days, or even several months.

The longer it took, the larger the constructed source of magic would be, and the more mana it could store, allowing more spells to be cast.

Of course, since a source of magic could be constructed, it could also be altered. Many Wizards began by opening a small source of magic, then later found it insufficient for their needs and modified it to expand its capacity.

However, modifying a source of magic was not much easier than opening a new one. Therefore, Wizards who did not wish to modify their sources of magic would continue opening new ones as their strength increased. It was said that the most powerful Wizards possessed more than ten sources of magic, their mana nearly inexhaustible.

Naturally, once one possessed more than ten sources of magic, perfectly using the mana in each without causing conflicts was another major problem. But for a Wizard who had not yet entered the field—a Wizard Apprentice—thinking about such things was clearly premature.

As Richard pondered, he continued condensing specks of mental dust and slowly constructing his first source of magic. After working through the entire night, he had only built an area less than the size of a fingernail. He was still far from completing a full source of magic.

But Richard was in no hurry. For a long time afterward, he patiently continued building it.

Thus, as the days passed, the source of magic gradually took shape. In the end, a standard diamond shape formed at the center of Richard's chest.

What Richard faced next was the third Life Reshaping required to become a Wizard—Energy Melting.

According to the Chapter of Munro, the purpose of Energy Melting was to transform the energy absorbed through Astral Projection into the purest standard energy: mana.

Simply put, because celestial bodies differed, the energy from Astral Projection was a chaotic mixture of many different types. Even if that energy was stored in a source of magic, it was difficult to use. It had to be "melted" into uniform mana before it could be used to cast spells.

To undergo the third Life Reshaping of Energy Melting, the body had to enter a High Energy State.

During the process of opening his source of magic, Richard had come up with many theories about this High Energy State. The one he found most likely was a magnetic field.

The Chapter of Munro described the second and third Life Reshaping as both involving energy covering the entire body. They had a certain similarity, yet were not completely alike.

Considering the relationship between electricity and magnetism, the third Life Reshaping could basically be confirmed.

Once it had been determined, the solution was easy. It was simpler than both the first and second Life Reshaping. Due to electromagnetic induction, electricity and magnetism were inseparable—magnetism could generate electricity, and electricity could likewise generate magnetism.

He arranged metal coils around the bed in the bedroom. When current from the Lead-Acid Battery flowed through the coils, a magnetic field naturally formed.

Within it, Richard clearly sensed the energy stored in his source of magic being refined bit by bit, eventually becoming mana.

Thus, the three barriers to becoming a Wizard—the so-called Three Life Reshaping—had all been overcome through scientific methods.

The door to casting spells burst open.

A month and a half later.

Late at night.

The entire Blue Lion City had fallen asleep, and the royal palace was silent as well.

Richard's Palace, bedroom.

Tonight, Richard was not meditating. Instead, he stood before the window, seemingly lost in thought.

After a long while, he turned his head. His gaze fell on the Chapter of Munro lying on the bed, opened to a page describing a Zero-Ring Spell.

Zero-Ring Spell.

According to the Chapter of Munro, spells could be divided into Zero-Ring Spells, One-Ring Spells, Two-Ring Spells, Three-Ring Spells, and so on, corresponding to different Wizard ranks.

Wizard Apprentices could cast Zero-Ring Spells and occasionally cast weaker One-Ring Spells.

Level 1 Wizards cast One-Ring Spells and could cast some Two-Ring Spells in an explosive state.

Level 2 Wizards normally cast Two-Ring Spells, and when fighting desperately, could even cast some Three-Ring Spells.

And so on.

Each ring of spells was further divided into three minor tiers: low, middle, and high.

Clearly, the higher a spell's ring, the greater its power and difficulty. In fact, even One-Ring Spells could be considered terrifying. The strongest One-Ring Spells—high-tier One-Ring Spells—were as powerful as missiles on modern Earth.

Zero-Ring Spells, meanwhile, were the lowest-level spells. Most had no destructive power and could only serve indirect purposes, such as illumination, opening doors, repelling enemies, warning of wild beasts, and so on.

The weakest Zero-Ring Spells, low-tier Zero-Ring Spells, were often called tricks by Wizards.

The spell Richard was looking at now was precisely such a trick. Its name was—Phosphorus Candle! "Ke Rui Te... uh... Plas... Te Ke... Ai Ni Ze..."

An obscure, difficult incantation left Richard's mouth as he slowly extended one hand.

The next moment, the source of magic within him trembled. Mana surged out, racing through his blood vessels and undergoing a particular transformation as it circulated.

Once it reached a certain speed, the mana became active, like boiling water. As it passed through his blood vessels, it brought a distinct burning sensation.

Richard's palm shook, and the active mana traveled along the radial artery, entered the veins of his fingers and palm, reached his fingertips, and then burst forth.

The five fingers of Richard's right hand suddenly twitched. With a puff, five eerie blue flames appeared and burned quietly.

His five fingers closed toward the center, merging the five flames into one. It burned more fiercely, illuminating the entire bedroom. Under its ghostly blue light, the whole room became sinister. The sweltering summer night gained a trace of chill, as though the air temperature had suddenly dropped several degrees.

"Phosphorus Candle... does phosphorus burn? Is that why the flame is blue?" Richard muttered to himself. Holding the flame, he walked to the window and looked outside. There was no one there.

With a throw of his hand, the flame flew from his grasp and hung in midair. Its volume quickly expanded, growing from the size of a fist to the size of a washbasin, then to the size of a bathtub.

The flame, more than half a meter across, cast an eerie blue glow over the ground before the palace. Just as it was about to continue expanding, it went out with a puff, vanishing without a trace as though it had never existed.

Edward, the Guard Captain keeping watch at the palace entrance, suddenly looked up. His eyes flickered. He felt that the corner of his eye had just caught something extraordinary, but after looking around, he found nothing.

"Did I see it wrong?" Edward shook his head and lowered his gaze back to the palm-sized book in his hands, reviewing the "knowledge" he had learned.

"Countess Elizabeth gave a coquettish laugh... suddenly... gulp..."

Inside the bedroom, Richard sensed a strange energy fluctuation dissipating outside the window. Looking at his unburned hands, his eyes brightened slightly. "A spell, a real spell? Is this pseudoscience that science cannot explain, or hidden science that modern Earth has yet to explore? But no matter what, the legends of Wizards in this world appear to be true. In that case, I want even more to uncover this world's truth and find out how I came here. Interesting."

He closed his eyes as though savoring something. After a long while, he opened them, nodded, and said seriously, "Mm, truly interesting."