Chapter 3132: Iolum's Research Results

Before today, it was not that he had never come into contact with Psionic Artifacts, but those Psionic Artifacts all had the weight of normal matter.

Even in the memories of Mohawi and Aokesi, a Focusing Artifact as light as this was extremely rare; at the very least, those two had almost never heard of one, nor did they have any deep impression of such a thing.

Xia Duo had searched through more of Mohawi's memories and less of Aokesi's, but judging from the memory content he had already reviewed, neither of them had ever heard of anyone whose Focusing Artifact was like this.

It was possible that it existed in the memories he had not yet searched, but that did not prevent Xia Duo from making the judgment that this kind of Focusing Artifact was indeed rare.

He tried gently waving the Focusing Blade in his hand, feeling almost no resistance; the weight was almost entirely concentrated at the hilt, and more importantly—

With his keen Perception, he could not hear the sound of the blade cutting through the air.

Xia Duo, somewhat unconvinced, used a bit more force, but still failed to hear the sound of the blade cutting through the air; even when he tilted the angle of the blade's swing, he could not feel a single shred of air resistance.

"Could it be that this sword has been imbued with an extraordinary ability to pierce the air?"

However, Xia Duo had previously seen artifacts that truly possessed air-piercing effects; although they were artifacts manufactured by Arcane Magic, avoiding air resistance inevitably involved changing reality. While Psionic interference with reality did not require knowing the Principles in advance, shouldn't Psionic effects, when manifested in reality, also yield to the laws of reality?

The reality is that there are only so many ways to eliminate air resistance: either Banishment of the air, or assimilation with the air; there are basically only those two paths.

Of course, if one considers the practicality of piercing the air, one cannot make oneself intangible, but if that were the case, whether it pierces the air or not would be meaningless, and intangibility itself already involves interference with reality.

The existence of that thing was like it had intruded into visual Perception out of thin air; he traced the Subconscious Information of his visual Perception deep into his memory, yet failed to discover the slightest abnormality.

"Even if what Kalishi said is all true, the great nations are also afraid that the spread of Psionics will threaten their status. A Psionic Mage is not something that can be fully controlled by a mere Artifact, and a Psionic Artifact is also almost impossible to be perfectly controlled by an Arcane Mage."

But after testing, his doubts grew even more; among his senses, only his vision could see the nearly transparent blade, while his other senses could not perceive it at all, and detection at the level of Elemental Energy also yielded almost no reaction.

To this, Aokesimu's answer was—

"I guess others might be more inclined to find some Psionic Mages to assist them in their research, or let some Netherese Mages attempt Awakening Psionics, so you don't have to worry about others in the Council supporting Kalishi's Artifact Project."

"Not at all."

"Don't worry, Teacher, I am just conducting a simple test."

"Even the various Elf nations need not be overly worried. Small nations might indeed want to use Psionics to catch up to the great nations, but the great nations themselves have already gained an advantage; maintaining current stability is the top priority, and it is impossible to take such a huge risk to build an Artifact."

Besides, this was Aokesimu's collection, and it wouldn't be right for him to play with or study it casually, but since Aokesimu mentioned the blade, Xia Duo did not stand on ceremony and went straight for it.

"Establishing mutual trust is actually a very difficult and also very costly matter, especially since you mentioned that the Psionic Mage from Zhamu Dasi invaded the Alliance Computing Power Pool three days ago; under such circumstances, how could the Alliance easily trust a Kalishi who defected from Arcane Magic to Psionic Magic!"

But something unexpected happened again—

A sword-shaped Focusing Artifact can usually also be used as a melee weapon for attacks; since it is a melee attack, if it cannot reach the enemy, wouldn't that be very useless?

Speaking of this, Aokesimu revealed a self-deprecating bitter smile, "So these years I have basically stopped research related to Psionics; in reality, I have given up on using Psionics to expand the boundaries of Arcane Magic."

"So the news I brought this time has once again ignited Teacher's hope for Psionics?"

But the blade could clearly be seen!

Could this weightless blade (sword body) actually be a mass of nothingness?

Although he already knew beforehand that this sword was very light, and the weight was almost all concentrated at the hilt, he never expected that he had touched it several times and yet failed to touch the blade!

Regarding the first Focusing Artifact he had touched, even if it was in Aokesimu's secret Laboratory, and even if Aokesimu had just said the Psionic Mage who created it was already dead, Xia Duo was still somewhat cautious.

After thinking for a moment, Xia Duo returned the Focusing Artifact to Aokesimu and then asked about the progress of research into Psionic Magic. Since Aokesimu had brought him into this secret Research Lab and even showed him a collection related to Psionics, he must have wanted to reveal some information to him.

It was just that this kind of existence seemed unable to interact with the human body, at least it could not be touched directly by hand, which was also different from the Focusing Artifacts Xia Duo had learned about from the memories of Yiaole and Mohawi.

"Then Teacher's meaning is—"

"The blade?"

After pondering for a moment, Xia Duo asked Aokesimu, "May I perform some further attempts?"

Although it was very close to being completely transparent, the outline of the blade could still be clearly seen; with his current understanding of Magic, as long as it could be seen, it must have had an interaction with light.

"You were right to come to me first; recently, some people have indeed been a bit impatient. But based solely on the one-sided words of a Psionic Mage, it is impossible for Netheril to immediately turn toward the path of Arcane and Psionic fusion; after all, the conceptual differences between the two sides are truly too great."

Seeing Xia Duo in a thoughtful state, Aokesimu smiled and gave a hint, "Try touching its blade!"

After testing, Xia Duo even overturned his previous judgment; the transparent blade of this sword did not actually interact with light, because direct light detection also came up completely blank.

This really was something that violated common sense and exceeded cognition!

Speaking of this, Aokesimu could not help but let out a long sigh, then continued to prompt Xia Duo, "Even if Kalishi now demonstrates some advantageous phenomena of Psionics, without more and clearer evidence, the Seventon Council cannot easily make major changes.

"This is a rare, one-of-a-kind item; once damaged, it may never be repairable. Be careful when you test it; do not cause irreversible damage to it."

"Psionics is too illusory. I have researched it for nearly a hundred years, and I have always been completely clueless about what kind of existence Psionics actually is, or even how to Awakening Psionics. The only result might be finding some methods to counter Psionic Techniques, but those methods were later proven to have long since ceased to be secrets in the south; as long as one pays a slight price, they can be easily obtained from Kaitemier."

If it can interact with light, it must be a physical existence.

Next, Xia Duo indeed, as he had said, only conducted some simple tests on the blade of this Focusing Artifact, simple to the point that it did not require borrowing any instruments or equipment, and could be completed directly with his bare hands.

Aokesimu shook his head and told Xia Duo, "Psionics is a very special existence. I believe it is possible for it to play a very powerful role in promoting the development of Arcane Magic, but you must be careful of Psionic Mages; they are not on the same path as us! Even what you saw at Kalishi's place before may not be true."

Clearly, the Focusing Artifact that Aokesimu collected had other tricks.