The Cindra Award ceremony dinner hadn't been particularly interesting, but the ripples it caused were enormous.
It hadn't sparked doubts. Instead, people were preparing to make their mark through the Magic Net.
Jiang Han's future career mentor, the Ghost Witch Hestia, had once racked up Influence Factor by making minor innovations to old papers.
Without a world-famous work to her name, she'd nearly scraped together a Proof of the Water Dragon.
Though she was eventually exposed, and the Ghost Witch had trouble earning certificates afterward, she'd shown countless Witches a possible path.
Of course, it wasn't minor innovations to papers.
Witches had thoroughly blocked that way of boosting one's Influence Factor.
Finding loopholes was a skill, but making too much of an impact was a problem.
The current trend was to focus on a renowned new system and conduct some basic research around it.
It took little effort, but could still earn a decent amount of Influence Factor.
In practice, it was still minor innovation—some might even call it a sham review—but at least it looked a lot better on the surface.
As long as it wasn't someone's main line of work, and they didn't rack up enough Influence Factor to earn a top-tier certificate like Hestia had,
the various academic research organizations in the Witch world generally turned a blind eye.
New systems needed people to refine them, after all.
All that tinkering might even lead to something unusual and foundational, who knew?
Compared to those benefits, they could have that little bit of Influence Factor.
In fact, quite a few Witches had already seen the Magic Net's potential and gotten involved, hoping to make a profit.
If Angelite hadn't been so formidable in both power and foresight, monopolizing nearly all the early opportunities,
the Magic Net would already