Changing His Mind (Part 1)

The paper about the new method for refining White Star Sand had the following Paper written in the upper right corner:

[Except for one featured section which doesn't have a cover image, all featured sections are highlighted.]

Vernon also knew that those Paper that only had one recommendation slot were probably as worthless as the garbage produced within their Ocean Society.

So he looked up and took the article, "On the Modification of the New White Star Sand Refining Device."

He placed the scattered pages on the table in front of him, and with the Mental Power of Fourth Order Mage, he scanned a page almost instantly.

After a quick glance, he could easily tell that this work was simple yet significant.

The modification of the magical device described in the Paper above only involved adding a layer of Soul-Repelling Copper shell to the device and sealing it properly.

As for Soul-Repelling Copper, Vernon, being a former member of the Necromancy School, naturally knew how cheap it was.

He only did a rough estimate and was able to calculate that even if he added ten magical devices to this Soul-Repelling Copper, he estimated that the final cost would be less than one Gold Coin.

A magical device like the White Star Sand, which even an apprentice can refine, would cost at least a dozen Gold Coin.

This Paper is so outstanding that it is worthy of being awarded the Silver Alchemy Award next year.

"But this Paper comes from the Northern Lands Society," Vernon thought with amusement.

Although the principles of this Paper are very simple, and even an apprentice who has just learned magic could understand them, Vernon saw another value in Paper.

That's their line of thinking. In the Paper, it is clearly stated that it was the first author, who had studied some Necromancy School at the Northern Lands Society, who was able to sense the existence of spirits during the experiment.

This could be entirely attributed to the Necromancy School adding the final step in refining White Star Sand, and they simply discovered this.

This allowed Vernon's thinking to begin to diverge. He knew that there were strong barriers between different School, and even his own Transmutation School was no exception.

Could this Paper's approach of using knowledge from one School to explore problems in other School offer a novel perspective?

He himself came from the Necromancy School, and when he built the Transmutation School, he drew heavily on the Necromancy School's ideas.

This was something that not only he himself knew, but also everyone within the Necromancy School. However, he still deliberately packaged these contents and expressed them in another form.

"Perhaps, other School can give me new inspiration and lead me to the Fifth Order." A bold idea popped into Vernon's mind.

He is currently at the peak of the Fourth Order, and there is almost no room for further advancement in the Order system. His best and only chance of improvement is to advance to the Fifth Order.

But how easy is it to advance to the Fifth Order?

Although he has always been known as the mage closest to becoming Fifth Order Legendary, he is stuck at the very beginning and finds it difficult to progress.

The Necromancy School he left behind had a method to advance to the Fifth Order, but for various reasons, this method is no longer effective, and now the Necromancy School has no way to reach the Fifth Order.

This led to the fact that after the departure of [Soul of Death] fifty years ago, the entire Necromancy School lacked a Fifth Order supporter, resulting in its influence within the Alliance being continuously weakened.

This also provided fertile ground for the development of his Transmutation School Transmutation School, which allowed it to develop so smoothly.

"What am I thinking? Isn't the Northern Lands Society the only one that allows knowledge exchange between different School? But even if I join, I'll only get low-level content; they don't even have the third-level content from different School."

Vernon shook his head, dismissed the idea, put the Paper down, and began to look at other Paper.

Just as Vernon had predicted, the other Paper, while having some value, were generally just so-so, only good for reading and not even particularly interesting.

However, seeing the academic garbage from other School is also something he finds very interesting.

In the past, apart from the Elemental School who often published some rubbish, when had he ever seen such new academic garbage from other School?

A short while later, he glanced at the piece of trash in his hand, sighed, and threw the Paper directly on the ground.

The initial novelty of seeing other School as rubbish has worn off; now he only feels constant boredom.

He only glanced at that Paper; from the beginning, he saw a lot of repetitive statements, and he knew it was another Paper with 'some results'.

He could now almost draw a conclusion about the Northern Lands Society's Paper: they were much the same as Paper within the society itself.

However, overall, the Paper from the Northern Lands Society are still much stronger than those from their Ocean Society.

This is not because White Star Sand's Paper raised the overall evaluation, nor is it because these Paper appear more 'advanced' simply because they are from other School Paper.

Rather, they are significantly stronger than those from their Ocean Society.

Because when writing Paper, the Northern Lands Society can constantly draw on the content of other School and analyze from the perspective of another School, this alone is enough to surpass the Ocean Society.

Even though Vernon stood in opposition to the Northern Lands Society, he had to admit that allowing the various School to fully exchange their ideas was indeed the right thing to do.

Within the Ocean Society, every monk must rigorously screen their Paper Paper content from other School, even if it is just hearsay, and delete it.

There are even dedicated censors who use magnifying glasses to conduct their reviews.

Often, a research result may be perfectly fine, but if it "involves" content from other School, the reviewers will refuse to approve it.

Vernon himself knew this, but he had no motivation to challenge the system that the entire the Alliance had established from the very beginning; the price to pay was simply too high.

Vernon continued reading these Paper and soon obtained Fran's "Mathematical Analysis of Fireball".

When he saw the title, his rapidly racing thoughts paused for a moment.

Fireball? That's so outdated! It's from some distant era, why are they still researching it?

This, however, piqued his interest somewhat, because someone who could use Fireball to reach the top ranks must have something extraordinary about them.

In addition, he recognized the term 'mathematical analysis', which seemed to be from the Alchemy School, where the term mathematics was frequently used.

"Could it be that they're using alchemical methods to analyze the Fireball?" Filled with curiosity and anticipation, his gaze swept downwards.