Lava Shadow

Dungeon, meditation chamber!

Yin Ming finished his daily meditation and took a gray-skinned ancient book from his gourd, beginning to leaf through it.

"Is this the original rune for Wizard's Hand?"

The first page recorded a rune diagram for 'Wizard's Hand.'

The spell energy circuit was similar to the rune Yin Ming had outlined, but differed slightly in the finer details. It was more—streamlined.

"After replacing the original rune, the time needed to outline the rune can be shortened by 0.5 seconds, but it doesn't mean much."

Yin Ming shook his head. What Wizard's Hand lacked was power; this little enhancement was negligible.

He decisively turned to the second page.

There, the rune diagram for 'Wizard's Hand' had been broken down into three parts.

The twisting Wizard Script that entered his sight immediately captured Yin Ming's full attention.

[Zero-Ring Wizardry: Detailed Diagram of Wizard's Hand.]

Was the core of wizardry a rune?

And what were runes made of?

The answer was: spells and energy circuits.

Wizard's Hand was considered a relatively simple spell even among Zero-Ring apprentice-level wizardry.

It contained only two spells, 'Elemental Shaping' and 'Mind Sense Manipulation,' which were then linked by energy circuits to form a rune.

"..."

Yin Ming nodded, seemingly enlightened. This book's descriptions were exceedingly straightforward. Compared to Daoist scriptures that concealed true methods beneath countless cryptic phrases and veiled metaphors, the difficulty of learning had dropped by more than a level.

Spells were like light bulbs and semiconductors, while energy circuits were electrical wires, and magic power was the power source that supplied the energy for operation.

"Third page: Detailed Explanation of Elemental Shaping!"

"Fourth page: Detailed Explanation of Mind Sense Manipulation!"

"Fifth page: Principles of Energy Circuit Construction."

Basic Rune Exposition discussed only the spells and energy circuits related to Wizard's Hand, but once he understood the fundamental principles...

If Wizard's Hand were compared to a mobile phone,

then Yin Ming had previously only learned how to operate that phone.

Now, Yin Ming finally knew what components the phone contained and how they could be assembled into one.

In other words, he had gone from an ordinary person who used a phone to the level of an appliance repairman.

Yet Yin Ming's grand undertaking of merging the immortal and wizard paths required him to independently develop chips, backed by computing power on the level of a quantum computer.

Half a day later, Yin Ming closed the book with a frown, but one point still baffled him. "If a wizard's mental power cannot leave the body, how can it control a giant Wizard's Hand made of elemental energy outside the body?"

No! That wasn't right! Not right!

Mental power was not incapable of leaving the body.

Rather, it had not merged with a model of the five senses and thus had not formed perceptive ability.

The sixth sense, a wizard's spiritual intuition, had likewise not formed an information circuit, making it impossible to transmit perception back.

Magic power wrapped around mental power to control Wizard's Hand, much like the positive and negative charges in living creatures transmitted information unidirectionally through nerves.

"Is this... the inner workings of the wizard system?"

"It feels as though I've pushed open a corner of the wizard world. Those two thousand merit points really weren't wasted."

Countless thoughts collided in his mind in an instant—for example, how to train mental power into divine sense, how to strengthen wizard intuition for fortune-telling...

Yin Ming felt that his brain's computing power was severely insufficient.

"The gourd: Brain neural optimization, 36%..."

"When the day comes that I can construct rune spells on my own, the immortal path and the wizard path will no longer be any different in my eyes."

Yin Ming shook his head. His thoughts had wandered too far afield. For now, he had to stay grounded and begin developing the wizardry 'Wizard's Hand.'

[Zero-Ring Wizardry: Wizard's Foot.]

[Zero-Ring Wizardry: Wizard's Head.]

"..."

"Zero-Ring Wizardry: Wizard's Body."

After a few experiments, Yin Ming used his entire body as the target for the spell's Elemental Shaping.

A massive amount of magic power flowed into the newly constructed spell energy circuit.

A transparent giant seven or eight meters tall immediately appeared behind him.

"It worked!"

A smile appeared on Yin Ming's face.

Ever since the first day he had obtained 'Wizard's Hand,'

he had thought that since there could be a Wizard's Hand, then if he gathered a left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot, and a head...

How could an unsealed dark archmage not create a 'pseudo' version of Dharma Form of Heaven and Earth?

"Walk, lift, grab, squeeze..."

Yin Ming controlled the transparent giant to stand, walk, sit, lie down, and grasp an iron ball before exerting force.

[Zero-Ring Wizardry: Wizard's Body.]

Duration: 15 seconds.

Mental power consumed: 4 points.

Magic power consumed: 2 points.

For every additional 2 points of magic power and 2 points of mental power consumed, it can be maintained for another 15 seconds.

Characteristics: Like a set of external Armorbound, with a grip strength of roughly four thousand kilograms. It can move up to twelve meters away from the body.

After measuring Wizard's Body's data, the smile on Yin Ming's face instantly vanished. He furrowed his brows in thought.

"The strength hasn't changed! It doesn't deserve to be called a 'pseudo' Dharma Form at all. It doesn't even count as Susanoo. Aside from becoming bulkier and consuming more energy, it has no enhancement whatsoever."

Whether it was Wizard's Hand or Wizard's Foot, even if he used both hands to grip and exert force at once, their combined strength still did not exceed the four-thousand-kilogram limit.

"That's it! That's it! The reason people can concentrate the strength of an arm into a single finger, or even draw upon the force of their waist and abdomen, is because the human body has muscles, tendons, and bones—media that transmit force."

"But the Wizard's Body constructed from elemental energy has none of that. Regardless of its shape or size, its strength is entirely determined by mental power and magic power."

"I'm lacking a detailed biomimetic structural-model spell. Otherwise, creating a mech that can stack force, even if it were only an arm, would be an unbelievably massive undertaking."

"No wonder! No wonder other wizards hadn't failed to think of building a pseudo Dharma Form based on Wizard's Hand. They knew this path was unworkable."

Yin Ming's brain was operating at high frequency, rapidly consuming energy as his lifespan irreversibly drained away. Fortunately, he quickly found the reason.

However, knowing the problem did not mean he could solve it.

Constructing even a basic model of tendons, bones, and muscles would require adding at least dozens of spells and linking them with new energy circuits.

Not to mention that constructing wizardry was as difficult as dismantling a radio for parts and assembling a computer from them.

The enormous expenditure of magic power and mental power was more than a Zero-Ring Wizard Apprentice could bear.

"..."

"Hah... I failed!"

Yin Ming exhaled a breath of stale air and chose to temporarily set aside his research into Wizard's Hand.

He took out the Bloodline Potion and prepared to analyze it.

Then, his eyes abruptly fixed on the totem Mystic Rune of the 'Lava Troll.'

"This thing—isn't it a ready-made biomimetic structural-model spell? And it's even a structural-model spell for a supernatural creature."

Yin Ming's heart thumped, and two sharp glints burst from his eyes.

When all seemed lost, a new path opened.

Put simply, a totem Mystic Rune was the True Name Rune of a supernatural creature.

The totem Mystic Rune recorded on the leather was the True Name Rune revealed by the two-ring Abyss 'Lava Troll' when it was at the first ring.

It was a genuine first-ring rune, capable of being divided or combined, and broken down into ten Zero-Ring-level runes.

"Zero-Ring Wizardry: Lava Shadow."

Yin Ming outlined the rune once more. As magic power poured into his body,

a huge humanoid figure appeared behind him: a savage giant whose skin was formed from rock and flames.

[Question 1: The body constructed from elemental energy has no material substance. How can a totem Mystic Rune be inscribed upon it?]

"The answer: me! As long as Lava Shadow envelops me, then I am the true blood. Raising my wizard cultivation is equivalent to raising my warlock cultivation."

"This also solves the issue of wizards and warlocks conflicting with and mutually draining one another."

[Question 2: How can the erosion of my original flesh by the warlock bloodline be resolved?]

"The answer: the Immortal Golden Core Method—External Elixir Art. Though supernatural energy has changed from spiritual energy into elemental energy, the refinement methods of the two worlds are compatible."

Yin Ming tossed two Grain-Repelling Pills into his mouth. His lifespan visibly declined, but he could not be bothered to care. Lifespan was meant to be used in moments like this, and he still had several decades to squander anyway.

He ran the deductions over and over, refining every detail of each step until he confirmed that the feasibility was as high as ninety percent.

Suddenly, two sharp glints burst from Yin Ming's eyes. He muttered in disbelief, "Wait! I fucking... seem to have met the prerequisites for cultivating the Eight-Nine Mystical Art."