Master Gose stood ramrod straight. Upon hearing Ian's words, his Adam's apple bobbed as though he wanted to say something, but in the end, he forcibly held it back.
This old man was surprisingly tall—the most powerfully built person present. Through augmentation surgery, Master Gose had made his body extraordinarily tough. Even among the Second Energy Level, he counted as strong. That was why he had been able to recover so swiftly despite suffering so many grievous injuries in the South Sea Grand Labyrinth—if he had found the point where his research overlapped with his dreams, if he had found a way to transform the world, he likely would have advanced to the Third Energy Level long ago.
Yes. Few alchemy masters could become Third Energy Level beings, because they were too intelligent and too proud. Every alchemy master possessed knowledge far beyond ordinary people and a deeper understanding of the world—but just as those who understood society best were more aware of how difficult it was to transform it, the masters' knowledge made their dreams soar too high, making them difficult to unite with the power they possessed.
It was like a scholar with knowledge enough to fill five cartloads, believing he could reform an entire nation, only to find that when he truly set to work, even managing a small town left him struggling at every step; like creating an epoch-making invention, only for it to be unable to replace the old, backward creation because of the market, cost-effectiveness, and countless other reasons, forcing it to be shelved until a suitable era arrived.
Because their wisdom was too powerful, masters found it difficult to make their souls and convictions one, to make their dreams overlap with their power.
Only once they had personally experienced the world's stagnation and