Chapter 1941: Taking Shortcuts, Worrying

Inside the Spell Laboratory of the Tower of Time.

Xia Duo first took a lounge chair out from his Personal Space and placed it casually in the center of the laboratory, then explained to Niya: "This spell will require the vast majority of my consciousness later, so it's more convenient to lie down."

When in the Projection Plane, because his "original body" was a tree, it didn't matter whether he lay or stood, but upon returning to the Main Plane, Xia Duo became a human capable of jumping and running, so it did matter.

Next, while introducing the basic elements of the Saint Form Avatar to Niya, Xia Duo set the energy level of the Spell Suppression Field in the experimental area.

"I'm going to start now. The Spell Laboratory is not an absolutely safe place either, so be careful and don't let your guard down!"

Xia Duo gave one final reminder before lying down on the lounge chair, though he did not begin casting immediately.

As early as his first return from 【Projection Plane: Evereska Independent】, he had already tried it; at the final stage of casting, he was simply unable to control the complex and ever-changing Magic Net Strings, so he had to take a shortcut—

He first submerged his self deep into his consciousness,

quickly organized his memories, established a brand-new Personality backup using the current time as a boundary, and then temporarily categorized all subsequent memories as "untrustworthy."

Then, with the help of his Memory Retrospection ability, he completely substituted himself into the memories of Xilin in 【Projection Plane: Evereska Independent】 from an all-sensory perspective.

It was fortunate that Xilin was a treant and did not have many selfish thoughts or distractions, which allowed Xia Duo to barely maintain the stability of his self amidst these surging feelings of alienation.

But this stability could not be maintained for long; of course, Xia Duo did not intend to maintain it for long either.

After feeling his self-alienation reach a certain limit, Xia Duo immediately tightened his scattered thoughts and entered a state of high concentration. In this state, he once again found the feeling of spellcasting he had experienced in the Projection Plane.

If the duration of this state could be measured in hours, Xia Duo could actually create a Mythallar directly, but he himself was not sure if he would still have the desire to use the previous Personality backup after more than an hour.

—【Xilin Saint Form Avatar】!

Without thinking about those extraneous matters, Xia Duo created the avatar according to his original plan. Although this spellcasting was still slightly different from that in the Projection Plane, it was still far stronger than his human body.

He had originally prepared to fail a few times, just to serve as a negative example for Niya, but he hadn't expected to succeed on the very first try!

As the spell was completed, a point of light appeared out of thin air beside the body Xia Duo was lying on. The point of light then expanded to become a light-based Elf, and then the light on the surface of the light-based Elf gradually converged, turning into the appearance of a Moon Elf that looked somewhat like Xia Duo's body.

At this moment, the vast majority of Xia Duo's Perception was focused on this avatar. The moment the avatar formed, he felt incomparably awkward.

It was as if he had been suddenly locked into a very narrow cage.

"This Spell Suppression Field is really not friendly to Elven Mages!"

Seeing that Xia Duo seemed to have succeeded, Niya immediately leaned in, looking left and right at Xia Duo's avatar; the way she looked was no different from a human seeing an Elf for the first time.

"Xia Duo, did you succeed?"

"Mostly successful, there's still some finishing work to do, wait for me a moment!"

After saying this, Xia Duo stood motionless on the spot, while his consciousness was already in turmoil; a large amount of Xilin's memories were constantly impacting his currently extremely fragile self-defense line.

If it were just sensory information, that would be nothing; the worst-case scenario would just be to discard it. The truly troublesome part was Xilin's thought patterns.

Even if a treant's mind is simple, it is ultimately a sentient being with a self, and it inevitably possesses various relatively deep and interconnected thought patterns.

These thought patterns themselves did not contain much conscious information, yet they were truly and tangibly affecting Xia Duo's thinking.

If he were to clear Xilin's contamination in his current state of self, he might succeed, but it certainly wouldn't be something he could complete in a short time.

Fortunately, he had made a Personality backup before the experiment. Even if he hadn't just now, his daily morning routine of Meditation Training would save one. Having a backup was equivalent to having a baseline, and the rest was nothing more than a large number of judgments.

Using the backup personality to judge which information could be accepted, which could not, and which was complete garbage was simple and clear.

Coupled with the fact that he had already substituted himself into Xilin's memories once before in the Projection Plane to obtain them, and had successfully cleared all unnecessary influences,

this time he was familiar with the process.

About two hours later, Xia Duo opened his eyes again, just in time to see Niya squatting beside the lounge chair where his body lay, holding one of his body's hands and whispering something.

As for what she was saying, Xia Duo's current Saint Form Avatar had full Perception, even more sensitive than his body, so how could he not hear it!

Not to mention, his body still retained a faint trace of Perception, and with Niya so close, he could hear clearly.

Thinking of how Niya, who was always so strong, was actually showing such vulnerability, Xia Duo felt a genuine pang of heartache, and immediately spoke up to remind her: "Niya, I succeeded!"

"Xia Duo!"

Hearing the sound, Niya raised her head and hurriedly stood up. Looking at Xia Duo's avatar, she asked with a serious expression: "What exactly went wrong?"

"No accidents, just took a slight risk, but everything is under my control!"

Having been a married couple for so long, Niya had long known that although Xia Duo didn't like to lie, he wouldn't say everything that could be said either. Now, hearing such vague words again, she couldn't help but roll her eyes at her husband.

"You just said I would be able to use it in the future, is this the kind of half-finished spell you meant?"

"Of course not, it's just that this spell is very difficult to translate directly into Netheril Magic. I will find a way later, and I must find a way, because this spell leads directly to the highest realm of Elven Magic."

Xia Duo raised his hand, immediately triggering ripples in the Spell Suppression Field within the laboratory, but Niya acted as if she hadn't seen this scene at all, continuing to stare at Xia Duo and saying:

"Don't take such risks next time! If the plan is slow, let it be slow; our Youth is still very long!"

"Mm, I will be careful. But the risks this time were indeed all under my control. I didn't explain it clearly beforehand, causing you to worry."

Of course, what Xia Duo didn't say was that whether there was risk or not was actually a matter of a single thought. His bottom line was his self; as for other things, even his life, if it were truly necessary, it was not impossible to give up once.

Possessing various means of resurrection, he was actually quite eager to verify whether those resurrection means were effective!

……

After soothing Niya, Xia Duo returned to the Blue Crystal Plane. Of course, there was a small episode during this time: the avatar could not share the Mage Tower Permission Level of the body and needed to be re-acquired.

And since Xia Duo's body was still "lying like a corpse," if he wanted convenience, asking Niya for the permission was undoubtedly the fastest method, and this inevitably involved some "sweet talk," which could be considered a bit of fun between a married couple.