"So, what do you think about the proposal I just made?" Ian folded his hands and leaned elegantly on the large command chair. His deep eyes slowly swept across the Reincarnators who came from another dimension in front of him.
"Do we... do we still have room to refuse?" Tobias's mouth curved with a hint of bitterness and helplessness. In front of this Legendary Arcanist who can destroy galaxies with a wave of his hand, the so-called "senior Reincarnators" title seems so ridiculous and feeble.
"Of course you have a choice," Ian's tone was calm and almost cold, without a single ripple. "You can resist desperately and choose death in the heroic sacrifice of fighting for dignity instead of surrendering to me."
"This... is this also a choice?" Tobias breathed stagnantly and shook his head with a wry smile.
"Of course it is. However, I guess if you are really the kind of martyr who would rather break than bend, I am afraid that a long time ago, you turned into a wisp of dust among Void because you refused to surrender to that 'Main God'." Ian's words pierced the soul, causing all Reincarnators present to fall into a deathly silence. No one dared to comment on this naked reality.
"Okay, now that we have reached a consensus, let us start working immediately." Ian clapped his hands, his expression restored to the rigor and fanaticism of a scholar, "I will cast a few spells to deeply analyze your power system. During this process, I will raise some questions. As long as the restrictions in your souls allow, please be sure to give detailed answers."
His eyes first locked on the elf with long pointed ears, "Let's start with you, elf, what's your name?"
"Set." The elf replied in a low voice, with a hint of unconcealable panic in his tone.
Ian waved his hand, and a bright arcane halo instantly enveloped Set. In the halo, he continued to analyze every inch of the opponent's body structure, "You haven't answered my question directly just now. In the previous battle, what kind of means did you rely on to tear my space shield at that moment?"
"I... I own a divine weapon made by Titans himself." Set hesitated for a moment, and finally chose to reveal the truth under the pressure of absolute strength.
"Oh? Creation from Titans?" Ian's pupils instantly lit up with excitement, "Take it out immediately and let me see it."
Set's voice was filled with extremely obvious pain and sadness. He knew very well that this life-saving Divine Artifact no longer belonged to him from today on. "That weapon has been completely Fusion with my Mage Tower and has become the core of the tower's energy cycle. If you want to see it, you must enter my tower in person."
"Really? Then let it go for a while and wait until I finish dealing with the others."
Ian turned his head and slowly aimed his eyes that seemed to be able to penetrate the essence of all things at the woman in smart modern clothes, "Sasha, you should also be a spell caster. But the strange thing is that the energy rhythm in your body gives me an extremely weird and inconsistent feeling."
In Sasha's wary eyes, Ian acted like the most sophisticated instrument and quickly gave a preliminary scan conclusion, "The magic power reserves in your body are very small, and can even be said to be shabby. What's even stranger is that these magic powers are not stored in a specific core or magic pool, but are perfectly Fusion combined with a strange structure similar to an 'energy vein'."
While observing, Ian quickly conducted a cross-system comparative analysis in his mind. On Arcanist's advancement path, and after Fourth Tier, although the role of magic circuits or magic veins is still important, it is no longer a key factor limiting spell casting.
In addition, in the Empire system, the more function of these veins is to use the tide of magic power to passively temper the physical qualities of Enhancement Arcanist. However, after the development of [Battle Aura], a system that specifically strengthens the body, the original physical magic power enhancement seems a bit useless.
"Your set of 'magic veins' is actually directly Fusion in the soul. This is fundamentally different from our arcane system." Ian marveled at this completely different evolutionary path., "It seems that the higher the precision of this venation structure, the greater the upper limit of the magic power your body can carry. Although it does not seem to have any physical strengthening properties, it has amazing and outstanding performance in assisting the micro-management and precise control of magic power."
"Which system do you practice in?"
"This is 'Magic Circuits' from the <Fate> universe." Sasha gave the answer cautiously. Her eyes looking at Ian were full of fear, fearing that the fanatical emperor would put her directly on the dissection table because of his temporary curiosity.
And this fear is obviously not unfounded, because Ian has begun to think about how to use this structure to mass-produce "artificial Magic Circuits" for the Empire citizens, thereby comprehensively improving the citizens' energy manipulation talents.
"Fate? I see. This can explain the vague and powerful contract afterimages I saw in your Soul Dimension before." Ian smiled, "Are you the 'summoner' under this system, or... the 'master'?"
"Yes."
"Then please, let me see with my own eyes what the so-called 'Servant' under your command is like."
Following Sasha's soft call, two dazzling light pillars broke through Void and slowly solidified into two powerful figures in the laboratory.
"Only two?" Ian raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"I have other trump cards in my hand, but those are not suitable to reside in the soul." Sasha responded briefly.
Ian's eyes looked back and forth at the two people in front of him. One of them was wearing majestic white armor with a blue background and holding a holy sword wrapped in an invisible hurricane - the Eternal King of Britain, King Arthur. The other person was the trembling madman he was so familiar with - Madara Uchiha.
"Master, please be careful. What we have in front of us is a terrifying and powerful enemy that we have never seen before." Saber tightly held the holy sword in her hand and stood in front of Sasha with a stern expression. The way she looked at Ian was as if she was looking at some ultimate evil that was destined to destroy the world.
"King Arthur, we never meet again in life. I really never thought that our first official meeting would be on such an occasion." Ian sighed with a complicated expression.
"What do you mean?" Saber frowned.
"In terms of academic inheritance, you and I are actually 'apprentices' practicing under the same mentor." Ian chuckled lightly.
After a brief confusion, Saber seemed to sense some familiar frequency from the magic power fluctuations around Ian, "You mean... there is also a 'Merlin' in the universe you are in?"
"Exactly."
"So," Saber hesitated for a very short moment and suddenly asked a question that caught Ian off guard, "In your world, am I...'King Arthur' a man or a woman?"
Ian's expression froze, and he laughed after a moment, "To be honest, I really didn't expect this to be your first question.
"Please answer my question directly." Saber seemed extremely persistent.
"In my plane, according to official historical records... you should be a powerful male king." Ian told the truth.
"Should?"
"After all, you have been sleeping in the dust of history for hundreds of years. I can only get a glimpse of your true gender through those yellowed classics."
"So, there is also the possibility that history has tampered with the true records and covered up the truth, and I was actually a woman?" Saber's questioning left Ian speechless for a moment.
"That's true. There are still a large number of historians in the Empire who firmly believe that the legendary King Arthur is actually a female hero." Ian did not lie.. In the early days of the establishment of the Empire, the controversy about this type of mythical figure never stopped. It was not until later that he opened up the permissions of [Time Recorder] to allow those old antiques to trace back and record the true history of the earth with their own eyes, and all the rumors were finally settled.
"That's it... that's great." Saber murmured in a low voice, and the haze between her brows seemed to have dissipated a lot.
"Okay, now that both parties have reached a consensus, please put down your guard for the time being and cooperate with me in collecting underlying data about your body structure and existence form. I have reached a compromise with your Master."
Ian cast a soft magic net and began to scan crazily on the bodies of Saber and Madara Uchiha's Servant. He has always dreamed of creating Arcane Empire's own "Valhalla", re-embodiing the dazzling heroes, legends and myths in history as the ultimate weapon to protect Empire. But in his universe, due to differences in laws, many so-called heroes are actually just wizards who have mastered Ancient Magic. In today's arcane era, their combat power can only barely rank in the order of Fifth Tier at best.
Therefore, he tried to find another way to forcibly turn the fantasy into reality by gathering the [mythic] power of all living beings-that is, a mutated and highly purified Faith Power power.. Using this method, he can even fictionalize "Yahweh" in Bible or "Old Ones" in the Cthulhu myth, and come to the world as Empire's Servant.
"Sasha, thank you for your cooperation. After analyzing Madara Uchiha's body structure, my gains are simply beyond imagination. For the next experiment, I need you to demonstrate the transformation of a living person in front of me. For the complete process of Servant." Ian's fiery eyes were filled with the madness of searching for Truth, and he even provided a precious clone as an experimental sample..
After dealing with Sasha, Ian turned to the young woman who had been silent, "Michelle, it's your turn."
"The energy attributes in your body are extremely rare, and are full of strong and manic negative emotional fluctuations. This is a unique observation sample among the countless planes I have traveled in the past." Ian was amazed.
"This is...Cursed Energy." Michelle responded in a low voice.
"From <Jujutsu Kaisen>? It's really interesting." Ian's eyes burst out with brilliance, "So, have you mastered the most core skill in that system - 'field'?"
"I only mastered an incomplete area."
"Expand it and let me see it."
As Michelle crazily leaked the cold and twisted Cursed Energy, the space in the laboratory began to undergo strange folds and distortions. Ian walked through Michelle's Inner Landscape that was full of dark atmosphere, constantly recording the reorganization frequency of the space.
"I have been thinking hard about how to give Arcanists an absolute defense method that can directly resist the starry sky god 'Divine Kingdom'. I named it 'Magic Domain'." While sensing, Ian shared his scientific research ideas with Michelle. His original intention was to try to combine the magician's "Domain Expansion" with the "Inner Landscape/Reality Marble" in the Fate world into a high-dimensional Fusion.
"Now, I have finally taken this crucial first step." Ian looked at Michelle with relief. "In the next few days, I will personally supervise and train you. I will provide you with all the high-level resources you need until you truly master a perfect and complete field. Tell me your needs, and I will use all my strength Empire to satisfy you."
"Thank you... Thank you so much, Emperor!" Michelle was trembling with excitement. Since the supreme Overlord took a fancy to her scientific research value, it meant that she finally had a ticket that could escape the cruel fate of Main God Space..Sasha on the side was cursing his bad luck crazily in his heart, hating why none of the Servants in his hands could display the genius of Reality Marble.
Finally, Ian walked up to the man Blink who was covered in mechanical cold light, "Finally, it's you. Tell me your name and the professional role you play."
"Kingsley. I am a 'Technician'."
"It's very interesting. Most of the mechanical structures and energy circuits in your body are not unfamiliar to me, but what's amazing is that you can perfectly integrate such a massive and complex technological branch into a single carbon-based life form." Ian clicked his tongue in admiration.
In his eyes, Kingsley is simply a walking "epitome of technological civilization." As long as he is given sufficient raw materials and core energy, he alone can instantly pull up a torrent of steel that is enough for Cleansweep's low-level planes.
"So, with your current technical limits, what is the strongest weapon you can create?" Ian asked.
"Fifth Tier."
"This is absolutely impossible." Ian heard this and frowned deeply, "With the level of micro-level craftsmanship displayed by your body, you shouldn't be trapped in a mere Fifth Tier."
"That is indeed the case. That 'Main God' only gave me the technical blueprint for building Fifth Tier destruction-level weapons." Kingsley twitched the corner of his mouth helplessly, revealing an extremely stiff and self-deprecating smile.
"But as a top-level Technician, you should have the computing power to deduce and evolve higher-level weapons."
"I do have that kind of computing power," Kingsley's face suddenly turned ferocious, and his body twisted violently due to the tremendous pain, "But in the core of my underlying operating system, there is an extremely overbearing and insurmountable logic lurking. Virus. It has blocked my upper limit of evolution... If you want to obtain higher-level technology, the only way is..." At this point, Kingsley seemed to have touched some absolute taboo, and almost fainted from the pain..
"No need to go on." Ian waved his hand, with a hint of understanding in his eyes. He had already guessed that the so-called only way must be to provide a massive amount of points to Main God.
However, what excites Ian even more is the kind of logic virus that can lock the evolution of technology. He is eager to find out whether this is the causal restriction imposed by the Main God contract, or some kind of high-dimensional protection program created specifically for the special life form of Kingsley.