A man wearing armor and carrying a long sword broke through the guard and rushed towards the delegation of members Ian and Council, shouting, "Lord Archon! I only ask for a few minutes of your time!"
However, the guards ignored his request. They issued warnings to prevent him from approaching, but the man ignored them. So, members of Royal Guard took action.
One of the guards condensed a fireball with a diameter of ten meters and shot it directly at the uninvited guest. However, the man drew his sword out of its sheath and split the fireball into two, completely neutralizing the attack.
Unfortunately, the fireball was followed by a dense rain of bullets. Despite this, this man's skills were quite superb. He mobilized his core magic power to strengthen his muscles and nerves, and swung the long sword Speed in his hand, blocking most of the bullets.
But some bullets still hit him. Fortunately, his armor was strong enough and blocked some of the magic Negasonic Teenage Warhead bullets. The moment the remaining bullets touched his skin, a white light flashed from his body, forming a protection.
Seeing that the opponent's strength exceeded expectations, the guards prepared to use stronger force to subdue them. But at this time, Ian raised his hand to stop everyone.
"Looking at your skill, it is beyond the reach of ordinary wizard knights. You must also have some names. Tell me your identity." Ian asked.
"Your Majesty, I, Marcoh Griffin, it is my honor to meet you." Marcoh replied breathlessly, obviously the confrontation just now was very exhausting.
"Oh, it turns out it's you, the wizard knight who pioneered the method of concentrating and layering shields on the surface of the skin to enhance protection. Your method is quite ingenious and has revolutionized the path of the wizard knight. So, why are you here this time?"
"It is a great honor that the Archon actually knows my name. I apologize for disturbing you. I am asking the Archon to guide the way forward for us wizard knights."
"If I remember correctly, haven't the Lords of the Tower, Adora Obie and Ahalu, pioneered the method of enchanting the body, allowing the wizard knight to break through the limits of mortals and gain greater strength?"
"This method has many flaws and is not the right way." Marcoh replied, with a stubborn look on his face.
"So, you are the kind of 'magic purist' who firmly believes that the path of a wizard knight lies in finding better ways to control magic and strengthen yourself."
Marcoh remained silent. Ian glanced at him and said:
"The cruel reality is that wizard knights are a new field with very little knowledge to draw from, so slow progress is inevitable. In addition, many of you have stubborn ideas, and may even hold some prejudiced ideas that are prohibited by the Empire. It is no wonder that the overall progress is slow.
"Therefore, my suggestion is: either slowly develop your own field as you have been doing; or cooperate with other branch paths of wizard knights that have been opened up. Similar to Eastern wizards who recently identified an energy called 'qi' and studied its connection with magic.
"Many of them are trying to recreate 'martial arts' based on their own culture. Perhaps, you can try to explore the concept of 'Battle Aura' and see if it has the same origin as 'Qi'."
Hearing this, Marcoh's eyes flashed with enlightenment. He knelt down on one knee and saluted Ian, and then hurriedly left. At this time, a Ten Rings Council councilor hurriedly flattered:
"The Archon is wise and always guides civilization to the right path when we are confused."
"No need to praise me," Ian responded with a smile. "Over the years, I have strongly supported all kinds of artists, from writers to filmmakers to game designers. All of this is in the hope that Empire can draw inspiration from these people's wild imaginations and try to turn them into reality. Unfortunately, not many people can appreciate the benefits."
Everyone felt suddenly enlightened after hearing this. For many years, they all thought that His Majesty supported these industries because his cousin was a painter, but they did not expect that he actually used them as a "creative source" to promote the development of the Empire.
After thinking about this section, these people looked at Ian with even more respect; their respect for him also increased sharply.
After the commotion subsided, the group went to Second Magic Tower for inspection.
"Is this all part of your plan?" Amelia asked via Mind Stone.
"It's Prophecy from Luna; she hopes that I can use this matter to further stabilize Empire before I leave."
--Scene change--
When the group entered the magic tower, the first thing they saw were Narcissa·Malfoy and Solair·Greengrass. After a brief introduction, the team was teleported to the fifth floor, which was her main research area.
"As you all know, many years ago, I studied implanting the soul of Fantastic Beasts into the human body," Solair began. "At first, most of the experimental subjects died because their souls were destroyed. However, after implanting the soul of a non-Magical Creatures into the human body, one experimental subject survived and underwent transformation; to be precise, it was a transformation at the genetic level."
Solair showed a video of the first patient she mentioned. In the video, the subject demonstrated the ability to echolocate.
Unfortunately, when she showed these, not many people in Council paid serious attention because she had already shown the same content during the last inspection.
However, they knew that this was just the introduction and the real highlight would come next, so they waited patiently.
"This mutation is the result of the connection between the 'soul' and the 'body' at the Life Code level. Therefore, after implanting the bat's soul into his body, he gained the animal's echolocation ability."
"At the same time, I conducted another experiment at that time and obtained similar results," Narcissa added. "After implanting Werewolf's organs into one of my experimental subjects, she did not gain magical abilities as I speculated, but her genes also mutated. The experimental subject showed increased strength, Reflection nerves, a keen sense of smell, and even grew fangs."
"After that, the two of us began to cooperate. We implanted the souls of different animals into human bodies. Although only a few survived, they all underwent genetic mutations and acquired certain characteristics of the animals whose souls were implanted.
"By studying the genes of these individuals, Empire's genetic technology has developed rapidly, and can even directly genetically modify the body without implanting other souls."
"Dear Lord of the Tower," a council member interrupted, "We all know that the current genetic technology of the Empire benefits from the efforts of the two of you, but please directly show the recent discoveries instead of wasting time repeating old news."
Narcissa and Solair glared at the speaker at the same time. The man suddenly fell silent, remembering that these two were wizards who had broken through Third Limiter. According to the Empire standard, they were classified as "Walking City Destroyer".
Although annoyed, the two did not say anything or take further action, but continued their explanation.
"A failure case that always exists in our research is that most of the souls or organs of Fantastic Beasts will always cause the death of the experimental subjects after being implanted in the human body.
"However, recently, after implanting the newly discovered soul of Fantastic Beasts'Nivash', a brand new power was discovered."
An image appeared in the air, showing several different individuals. One of them can levitate surrounding objects, one can float in the air himself, and the other can bend metal plates with his hand. However, there is no trace of magic in these individuals.
"We discovered a new energy in their brains, currently named 'Psychic Energy'." Narcissa added, with a hint of joy on his face. Unfortunately, there are only a few people who have the same idea.
"That's all?" the previous congressman spoke again, "Retrieving objects from the air? There are countless spells with such effects in Arcane Grand Library."
These words immediately angered Narcissa and Solair, but they quickly saw from the facial expressions of other congressmen that many people had the same idea.
Although Wrath, Narcissa and Solair did not argue, because these councilors will determine the amount of their research funding for the next twenty years. This is a means for the Empire to balance the growing influence and power of wizards-especially the Lord of the Tower.
At this time, Ian, who had remained silent most of the time, finally spoke.
"You failed to see the potential of this discovery."
"Your Majesty, what is the meaning of this statement?"
Everyone looked at him, including Amelia who was also not impressed by the discovery.
"Let me paint a scene for you. Our Arcane Empire encountered a civilization that studied magic deeply and even developed Anti-Magic technology. They successfully bypassed our security system and dropped an 'anti-magic bomb' on the earth, rendering all our technology and magic Creation useless, and civilization instantly regressed to the Stone Age."
"How is this possible?"
"Why is it impossible? I have warned you countless times not to be complacent with your current achievements; Arcane Empire is not the only magical civilization in the universe. Compared with most of them, we are too young."
Council members became quiet after hearing this, and then someone asked, "How is this scene related to the discovery before you?"
"The answer to the problem is right in front of us," Ian replied with a smile, "This Psychic Energy is a brand-new power system, and its potential is no less than magic.
"Therefore, we can build a whole system based on it. For example, if we can transform all existing magic and technological advancements to be driven by Psychic Energy instead of magic, then we can deal with the scenario I just described.
"Not to mention, there may be some things Psychic Energy does better than magic, and we can take advantage of this and combine the two - just like we combine magic with technology."
These councilors finally understood the importance of the discoveries of Narcissa and Solair. After discussion, they agreed to increase the funding for the two people in order to better develop the Psychic Energy system.
The team then set off for the next tower.