Chapter 1889: Verifying the Line of Reasoning

For a moment, countless sparks of inspiration flashed through Xia Duo's mind, giving rise to myriad conjectures regarding the various contradictory phenomena of the experiment just conducted, but these conjectures would ultimately need to be proven through concrete experimentation.

He took a deep breath, his fanatical gaze gradually calming down.

Just now, he had thought of a line of reasoning for verification; the first point that needed to be determined was—

The results of the previous experiment showed that Arcane Energy had mysteriously disappeared during the process; was it because the matter of the Projection Plane itself could only be converted into a tiny amount of Arcane Energy, or had some unforeseen accident occurred during the experiment?

As for the former, Xia Duo had only just thought of it: the Projection Plane is essentially just a strange wisp of spirit from the Astral Plane, with its internal evolution being a certain possibility of the Main Plane.

So, was there a possibility that the matter of the Projection Plane could not be converted into an energy form, or rather, that the energy converted was extremely minimal?

However, after a brief moment of thought, Xia Duo ruled out this possibility; if the matter of the Projection Plane were converted into an energy form, it would also be virtual energy, not real energy.

The Arcane Energy he had used before was not brought from the Main Plane, but accumulated by creating Arcane Fire in the Projection Plane; it was a completely local product—virtual!

As for the latter—that some unforeseen accident occurred during the experiment—after thinking it over, Xia Duo also felt it was unlikely. Although the Arcane Infusion Transformation Ritual was improved from the Demon Descendant Elf Sailuo, he had completely mastered every detail of the spell itself.

The only possibility was that the rabbit chosen just now had a problem; by experimenting a few more times with other rabbits, he could determine whether it was a problem with the rabbit or a problem with the experiment.

Of course, Xia Duo was not prepared to give up on the matter-to-energy conversion experiment either; even if he believed the probability of that conjecture was very small, he still needed to let the experiment speak for itself.

Thinking of this, Xia Duo immediately began to act. He first turned to the other side of the Laboratory bench, then took out several precision measuring instruments he had kept in reserve from the Main Plane from his Personal Space.

But then he found himself in a bit of a bind. Psionic Creations were easy enough to handle, but converting matter into energy was not so simple; some spells might be able to do it, such as elemental forms or converting astral matter.

But these were all temporary, or required being in certain special environments; once the spell ended or one left the special environment, it would revert to its normal material form.

If this matter were simple, there would be no need to build any 【Mythallar】 devices; one could just dig up some dirt or draw some water to get massive amounts of energy.

But why was there such an asymmetrical difficulty in conversion?

Was it because this world had a tendency toward materialization? Or was there some other reason?

Xia Duo discovered that the more he thought, the more doubts he had, and he felt increasingly like a stranger to this world. This reminded him of a viewpoint from Earth, which said that Knowledge is like a circle: the more one knows, the larger the circle becomes, but at the same time, the unknown Domain one comes into contact with becomes even more vast.

If Xia Duo were just an ordinary person (physiologically), he would inevitably think of giving up because of this path of exploration that almost never reached an end.

Undoubtedly, he was interested in the unknown, but as an ordinary person, his lifespan would be limited, and the future would be almost entirely visible at a glance.

But now, lifespan was not a difficult problem for him; he had enough time to explore everything and witness everything.

Right now, he realized the difficulty, but this only strengthened his determination to march toward the future.

……

After thinking it over carefully, Xia Duo thought of Disintegration. This spell could not completely convert matter into energy, but it should be fine to use for an experiment.

The only difficulty was how to determine the change in energy before and after Spellcasting.

However, this problem was not hard to solve for Xia Duo, who possessed a Micro Magic Net; he only needed to connect the measuring instruments to the Micro Magic Net.

If he were not an Arcanist, he would probably have a headache. The Magic Net naturally possesses energy-conducting properties, and the energy dissipated after Disintegration would quickly flow into the Magic Net; one would have to seal the Magic Net within a certain area the instant the spell was completed.

The precision measuring instruments Xia Duo had taken out now acted as sensors, while his Micro Magic Net served as the environment for the spell's operation, or rather, a relatively closed system.

After everything was ready, Xia Duo placed a Gold Coin on a base on the Laboratory bench and began Spellcasting.

As the spell completed, a dark green Disintegration Ray accurately struck the Gold Coin on the base. In an instant, a large amount of energy erupted from the point of impact.

Under the Guidance of the Micro Magic Net, it was converted into Arcane Energy by the Arcane Fire mechanism. When the elemental anomaly dissipated, a tiny black dot appeared at the center of the Gold Coin's face; looking closely, one would find that the black dot was actually an extremely small, shallow hole.

"That's it?"

Xia Duo was stunned for a moment. He had originally thought the Gold Coin would disappear entirely after being hit by the Disintegration Ray; he hadn't expected it to just lose a bit of "skin."

However, just this bit of "skin" was already enough.

There was no need to deliberately check the measuring instruments; Xia Duo had already "read" the measurement results through the Micro Magic Net: less than 10 Arcane Energy points.

Converted into Standard Arcane Crystal, that was about one percent of the amount.

After thinking about it, Xia Duo decided to try again with a rabbit. This was both to facilitate comparison with the previous experiment and to satisfy his normal expectations for Disintegration.

"Poor rabbit!"

Xia Duo had picked five male rabbits from the rabbit hutch before entering the Laboratory; in the blink of an eye, only two were left, but with the firing of a dark green Disintegration Ray, two became one.

Compared to casting the spell on the Gold Coin earlier, the effect was much better when the target was changed to a rabbit. Besides the usual dissipation of a large amount of energy, a pile of fine ash, about a handful, was left on the Laboratory bench.

If someone who did not understand the essence of Disintegration saw this scene, they might think it was the rabbit's ashes, but Xia Duo was quite certain that this fine ash should be the legendary manifestation of the Earth Element.

Normally, all four major elements should have elemental manifestations, but in Reality, only the Water Element manifestation exists—that is, water.

As for the other elements, fire itself is just a state and cannot exist independently, while the manifestations of wind and earth elements cannot exist stably.

Just as Xia Duo was "reading" the readings on the measuring instruments, the pile of fine ash on the Laboratory bench began to disappear bit by bit; it seemed somewhat abrupt, yet it was so natural.

These energy changes were also reflected in the changes in the readings of the measuring instruments.

Converted into Arcane Energy points, it was about 500 points, which was half the amount of one Standard Arcane Crystal.

This formed a sharp contrast with the dissipated energy after the Gold Coin was disintegrated; if one wanted to get rich using Arcane Crystal, perhaps raising rabbits would be a good choice.

Of course, for Xia Duo, this efficiency was still too low; it was not on the same level as the 【Mythallar】 at all.