Chapter 1888: Arcane Rabbit, the Essence of the World

The faint blue fluorescence in the experimental rabbit's eyes spread at an incredible speed, dyeing its entire body a ghostly blue; meanwhile, as the rate of Arcane Energy assimilation rapidly increased, the speed at which it dissipated also rose geometrically.

And so, Xia Duo witnessed this scene—

Starting from the rabbit's eyes, the entire ghostly blue, crystalline experimental rabbit "evaporated" at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Although very surprised, Xia Duo still managed to cast a spell in time to collect a portion of the dissipated Arcane Energy, amounting to about four Standard Arcane Crystals.

In other words, his experiment was all for nothing; aside from being one rabbit short, nothing else had changed.

Of course, that was just a joke; in reality, this experiment gave Xia Duo quite a shock. He was certain the experimental rabbit hadn't been annihilated or teleported away, but had been assimilated by Arcane Energy.

Perhaps assimilation is the extreme of infusion, but this revealed a fact: perhaps all matter can be assimilated into Arcane Energy.

Theoretically, this is indeed the case. Spells can create objects, yet the essence of a spell is the change of elements and energy; there is no reason matter cannot be reversed back into elements and energy.

It is just like the "mass-energy equation" on Earth, which can be converted back and forth, except that the Earth universe is a purely material universe and does not have the static pure energy found in the magic world.

The so-called mass-energy equation is actually still a transformation between forms of matter, only the motion of matter can be recorded as energy; for example, the motion of photons is light energy, which is considered a man-made physical quantity.

It is not that there is truly such a thing as "energy."

Xia Duo had known for a long time that the essence of the magic world was highly likely to be a state of pure energy, and that matter was more like a special state of energy, rather than the Earth universe where energy is the state of motion of matter.

The difference here is very subtle; both have worlds with matter, and even have similar rules for material change, but when it comes to their essence, the two are completely different.

How fortunate Xia Duo was to be able to witness two worlds with such fundamentally different essences!

"So what should I do now?"

If viewed from the perspective of an Arcane Energy infusion and transformation experiment, this experiment was undoubtedly a failure, but from the perspective of exploring the essence of the universe, it was a great success.

He had never thought he would prove the energy essence of matter under such circumstances.

After a moment of thought, Xia Duo grabbed another rabbit and tossed it into the now-empty Force Field chamber. Perhaps because the "resentment" of the previous experimental rabbit still lingered in the Force Field chamber, this rabbit became extremely restless the moment it was put inside.

Although it hadn't started running wildly yet, it began to constantly rub its hind legs against the experimental table. This moment was just like that moment, and perhaps in the next instant, this little guy would start jumping frantically.

Placing the previously recovered Arcane Crystals back around the Force Field chamber, Xia Duo began his next spellcasting.

Only this time, he did not use all four Arcane Crystals. The previous transformation was indeed very complete—complete enough to turn the experimental rabbit entirely into an Arcane Energy state—but such an Arcane Rabbit could not exist stably.

This time, Xia Duo directly halved the Arcane Energy source used for infusion; if an Arcane Rabbit was still transformed, he would halve it again next time.

In any case, he was almost certain that even if the experiment failed, he could recover almost all the Arcane Crystals consumed in the experiment—no, there should even be a surplus.

He had actually only recovered a portion before; some Arcane Energy had still dissipated before he could recover it.

It could basically be understood that he had only recovered the four Arcane Crystals used for spellcasting, while the Arcane Energy converted from the rabbit itself had not been recovered in time.

And now, if two Arcane Crystals could still transform into an Arcane Rabbit, as long as he cast the spell in advance, he could fully recover most of the dissipated Arcane Energy.

"I didn't expect to discover a way to make a fortune!"

If the Netherese Mages of the Main Plane knew that Arcane Energy could be obtained this way, they would probably be overjoyed. However, with the 【Mythallar】 device already in existence, this method of obtaining Arcane Energy was truly an extremely backward and inefficient production method.

Soon, as the spell was completed, Xia Duo counted silently for one minute and then began casting to recover the Arcane Energy. This No. 2 experimental rabbit did not disappoint his expectations; it still began to rapidly assimilate into Arcane Energy starting from its eyes, and then began to "evaporate" rapidly.

But this time, Xia Duo had prepared the spell to recover Arcane Energy in advance, so how much Arcane Energy could he recover this time?

"Two Arcane Crystals?!"

Xia Duo couldn't help but widen his eyes. The experimental rabbit was gone, and his recovery spell was timely, so why were there only two?

Where was the Arcane Energy the rabbit had transformed into?

Xia Duo pondered over and over, but could not figure it out. Clearly, the rabbit had already transformed into an Arcane Energy state and had begun to dissipate, so why hadn't the rabbit's Arcane Energy been recovered?

Was it because the Arcane Energy transformed from living organisms could not be recovered? Or was it some other reason?

After thinking for a moment, Xia Duo brought over another rabbit and placed it into the Force Field chamber, then completed the Transformation Ritual without a word. This time, he still used two Arcane Crystals.

But this time, when he counted to one minute, he did not cast a spell to recover the Arcane Energy, but silently unfolded his Arcane Fire, using the Micro Magic Net he controlled to cover the surrounding Magic Net environment.

Other than that, he did nothing, just quietly watching the Arcane Rabbit dissipate starting from its eyes until it completely disappeared.

Yet, in his Perception of the Magic Net, he clearly "saw" the entire process of the Arcane Energy dissipating: entering the Magic Net, then circulating continuously within the Magic Net, being "decomposed" into the four elements of wind, fire, earth, and water, while simultaneously producing changes in positive and negative energy.

Although he hadn't actually measured it, Xia Duo had plenty of experience producing Arcane Energy with Arcane Fire; based on the process of Arcane Energy decomposition, he could roughly deduce how much Arcane Energy had dissipated earlier.

So, how much was there exactly?

It was still only the amount of two Standard Arcane Crystals, but because Xia Duo had kept the Micro-Mythallar unfolded throughout the entire process of the Arcane Energy dissipation, he had clearly recorded the dissipation process—

In fact, the true dissipation speed of the Arcane Rabbit was far slower than he had imagined!

In other words, he could still recover that much Arcane Energy even if he recovered it later, but this also brought up a fact—the rabbit itself was not worth "money"!

This was unacceptable to Xia Duo. Clearly, there was so much matter; if one wanted to create it through spellcasting, it would inevitably consume energy. But now, this experiment told him that the Arcane Energy transformed from the rabbit, after subtracting the amount used for spellcasting, was actually approximately equal to zero?!

Perhaps it wasn't zero, but compared to Arcane Crystals, it was no different from zero.

"How could this be?"

He couldn't figure out this problem, and Xia Duo estimated that he wouldn't be able to sleep at night once he returned to the Main Plane. There were many contradictions in this, the most obvious one being that the 【Energy-Matter】 conversion was no longer conserved.

Based on the experience of mass-energy conservation on Earth, Xia Duo speculated that there must be some details he had overlooked. If mass-energy were truly not conserved, then this magic world would likely have been destroyed long ago.

Xia Duo realized he might have touched upon the essence of this world, which made him feel both puzzled and extremely excited—excited about the brand-new Domain he was about to explore.