Chapter 1294: Educational Reform, Spell Chip Trial Production

After reviewing the data of those twelve people, Xia Duo couldn't help but have a thought—"Should I introduce an examination and promotion system at the Tower of Time?"

The Ascension Trial can indeed verify an Apprentice's learning achievements in terms of spell Principles and Spellcasting techniques, but it is not comprehensive enough.

Moreover, the assessment is singular, and in the Tower of Time where the number of Apprentices is ballooning, it no longer serves much purpose in gauging the newcomers.

It exists more as a tradition.

"Educational reform is imperative!"

With almost no hesitation, Xia Duo decided to bring the examination system from the Empire Remnants back to the Tower of Time; besides the system, the syllabus, exam questions, and even the teaching materials here could also be brought back for reference.

Educational resources are limited, and prioritizing the selection of more excellent talent conforms to the general laws of development.

Even in Xia Duo's hometown, where education is highly developed, the national universities were unable to allow all age-appropriate people to enter university for study even after multiple rounds of enrollment expansion.

The magic world is the same; perhaps only when productivity develops to an extremely high level in the future, with no shortages in resources, will true universal comprehensive education appear.

Of course, besides selecting talent, the purpose of examinations also lies in allowing learners to have a relatively clear understanding of their own state, so they can identify gaps and move toward a higher level.

In Xia Duo's plan, before becoming an Advanced Arcanist, Apprentices will undergo general education to broaden their knowledge, deepen their foundation, and at the same time, recognize the development direction they yearn for.

After becoming an Advanced Arcanist, they can choose a specialty and focus on their chosen direction; of course, this applies to the vast majority of people.

For the few with exceptional talent, a specialty cannot limit their development; they have a broader path ahead.

……

Two days later, the Laboratory returned to calm; the new Apprentices were well-behaved and did not stir up any trouble.

As for the Assistant Researchers, they were full of drive, constantly forging ahead in their respective projects.

The Hake Laboratory had been established not long ago, and a living example was placed right before them; if they didn't work hard now, when would they? What if Maikade changed his mind after waiting too long?

For a time, Xia Duo could clearly feel that the progress of each project was faster than usual by more than a notch; he could vaguely perceive everyone's thoughts, but at this moment, he didn't have much energy to consider those.

Since yesterday morning, he had monopolized one of the precision Alchemy Arrays in the Laboratory; the trial production of the Spell Chip had reached a very critical step—

Mithril injection!

Since it is a "chip," it is naturally extremely tiny, and the smaller the Mithril Component, the softer the Mithril wire within it, leading to more restrictions during production.

It is possible that even a tiny tremor in the Levitation Field could cause it to deform, thereby affecting its subsequent Link Magic Web.

Therefore, what Xia Duo thought of was to use a material with stable physical properties as a base and etch the space required for the Mithril Component into it through a high-precision Alchemy Array.

He chose Adamantine, which does not easily deform.

Of course, the physical properties of gold are also very stable, but gold is relatively soft, so out of caution for the first experiment, he did not choose gold.

For the entire day yesterday, Xia Duo was manually etching the Adamantine base; until now, by injecting the Mithril, a semi-finished Spell Chip would be considered complete.

……

Since Mithril generally exists in a solid state, it needs to be converted into a liquid state when injected, which requires the use of Magic, and once Magic is used, a relatively violent Elemental Transmutation reaction will occur.

The key to this step is to complete the injection in the shortest possible time.

Otherwise, the reserved channel for the Mithril Component is extremely tiny, and any extra or faster Elemental Transmutation reaction during the process will greatly affect the purity of the finished Mithril Component.

And the purity of the Mithril Component is related to the frequency of the Elemental Transmutation reaction when the actual Spell is generated after the subsequent Link Magic Web.

Simply put, if the purity is insufficient, this Spell Chip will easily have an accident when linking to the Magic Net, and even if nothing happens during the Link Magic Web, it will definitely have an accident when activated for use.

It might even explode in his hand!

Therefore, Xia Duo's mood at this moment was tense to the extreme, yet calm to the extreme; these two contradictory psychological states appeared on him simultaneously, all for the sake of one tiny Spell Chip.

The last time he had this mentality was when he learned his first Spell; at that time, he was also like this—both nervous and excited, but at the same time, he was doing his best to restrain himself and keep calm.

Fortunately, Xia Duo had never let himself down at critical moments; he calmly operated the Alchemy Array, turning a Mithril grain only the size of a soybean into a liquid state, and drove it to enter from the "entrance" of the chip base.

Counting silently "1, 2, 3," a thread of extremely fine Mithril liquid, almost invisible to the naked eye, flowed out from the "exit" of the chip base.

But Xia Duo did not wait for more to flow out; he controlled the Alchemy Array to drop the suspended chip into the Adamantine liquid at the other end of the Levitation Field.

Injecting the Mithril, sealing with Adamantine—all in one go!

The final formed chip body was a dark blue Adamantine Small Ball, with a diameter about the size of a human pupil.

Although named a "Spell Chip," this was mostly Xia Duo borrowing the name of a similar item from his own cognition; in reality, the distribution of the Mithril Component inside the Spell Chip is generally an irregular spherical shape in space.

Based on the principle of not wasting too much, the Adamantine used for sealing naturally took on a spherical shape.

Of course, this is just the internal Mithril Component distribution form of this 【Protective Field】 Spell Chip; considering the mutual cooperation mechanism of multiple Spell fusions, Xia Duo specifically designed it as a sphere.

If one does not pursue Spell fusion and only uses normal stacking, then designing it as an array layout might be more reasonable.

In that case, the Spell Chip could really be designed as a "sheet."

……

Weighing the Adamantine Small Ball in his hand, which had quite a bit of heft, in reality, a small half of it was occupied by Mithril—it was about the size of a soybean.

Yet that tiny soybean-sized Mithril grain used up nearly half a month's worth of the basic Mithril quota for Xia Duo's Laboratory.

If it weren't for the fact that many Level 1 Projects in the Laboratory had been completed during this period, and many new ones had been established, he really wouldn't have been able to squeeze out so much Mithril to make the chip.

Not to mention the labor costs or equipment wear and tear, just calculating the Mithril itself, for this tiny bit of high-purity Mithril, he had consumed over 50 pounds of Standard Mithril—which could be completely called High-Grade Mithril in the Main Plane of Netheril—back and forth.

Having obtained such a tiny bit in the end, Xia Duo didn't even dare to test its purity, because the test itself would either consume the total amount or reduce the purity, neither of which was something he could accept.