Chapter 860: Subconscious Commands, Forced Spellcasting

Since returning from the 【Projection Plane: Underdark】 and having experienced the contamination of others' memories and thoughts, Meditation has now become an essential daily task for him, one he makes time for no matter how busy he is.

Beyond the functions of sorting memories, organizing consciousness, backing up his Personality, and achieving an Integrated Subconscious and Conscious, Meditation can also slowly raise the upper and lower limits of his Focus, thereby increasing the stability of Spellcasting.

Generally speaking, there is no need for specialized Focus Training after becoming an Arcanist, as daily Spellcasting is a form of exercise in itself; from Arcanist to Great Arcanist, some people never reach that point in their entire lives, so there is no need to worry about the stability of Spellcasting—it is something to be honed slowly.

But for someone like Xia Duo whose leveling speed is extremely rapid, besides constantly performing Spellcasting Training to ensure the proficiency and stability of spells, specialized Focus Training is also a good choice.

And now, the fact that Xia Duo can utilize his Subconscious relatively directly and effectively is due not only to the brand-new Soul State obtained after his most recent Bloodline Awakening, but also to the role played by Meditation.

……

——Mage Angelin, everyone, I am beginning!

The speed of thought, especially the speed of the Subconscious, is extremely swift. After integrating the Perception information from each High Mage, he immediately issued a reminder via Mind Link.

Subsequently, he issued the command.

This command was sent to everyone in the form of shared Subconscious Information; to those who could not directly access specific Subconscious Information, it simply felt like a sudden intuition or inspiration.

The 【Mind Link】 spell was itself integrated and modified from the Judgment Spell of the Projected Plane Arcane Empire; it inevitably possesses the ability to influence the Subconscious, or even directly and forcibly distort the Conscious Mind.

It is just that in 【Mind Link】, Xia Duo did not add the function of forcibly distorting the Conscious Mind, or any other coercive effects.

Otherwise, this would not be a question of whether cooperation is possible, but a question of directly offending a group of people.

But even with only a faint influence on the Subconscious, there were still those who could not accept it.

"Snap!"

One High Mage who had been actively sharing Perception information immediately chose to disconnect from the Mind Link, leaving only five who were still actively sharing.

However, Xia Duo had anticipated this long ago; rather than having problems during battle, it was better to deal with it early—this could also be considered part of the united front work.

Only by handling internal problems well can one better deal with external enemies.

Or, this could also be called "traveling light."

……

With one person fewer, Xia Duo did not care; in any case, it was still just the trial stage, or rather, the demonstration stage where he showed everyone the effects of 【Mind Link】.

Based on the remaining five people, Xia Duo adjusted the command in time. Within the Mind Link, communication was incredibly swift, and it was reflected in reality.

The five people in the Mind Link state fully executed Xia Duo's command, each manipulating the Magic Net String to weave the same spell at the same Spell Source Point, nearly achieving true Joint Casting.

It is just that the Mind Link state is not a Resonance state and cannot possess the "same-frequency" error tolerance; such Spellcasting was almost forcibly piled up through extraordinary collaborative ability.

The loss of one person caused the Spell Source Point of the spell woven by this extremely delicate 【Pseudo-Joint Casting】 to collapse instantly.

But with Xia Duo commanding from the center, he promptly filled in the missing Spell Elements and transmitted the subsequent, re-planned operational commands into the Subconscious of the others.

The others were perhaps truly willing to accept this method and gave Xia Duo their full trust; when the Subconscious intuition and inspiration arrived, they chose to execute them without hesitation.

This greatly gratified Xia Duo. In fact, he himself did not mind sharing part of his Perception information, as long as it did not involve certain information concerning personal privacy.

Sharing merely thought information, the thinking process, or rather, sharing in terms of ideas, is something many people from Earth are very happy to do; some even consider having others accept their own ideas a joy or even a lifelong pursuit.

Xia Duo's hometown has always had the saying of the "three immortalities": "establishing virtue, establishing merit, and establishing words." Among these, "establishing virtue" and "establishing words" are the sharing and dissemination of ideas.

Even in the West of his hometown, there have been centuries of ideological disputes, and what they strive for is naturally the sharing and dissemination of their own ideas.

These five High Mages—to a certain extent, Xia Duo is willing to call them comrades.

……

As the operational commands were continuously issued, 【Protection-2-14】, which originally required the use of a Spellbook to cast, was actually realized by the six of them in this nearly impossible way.

In the process of layer upon layer of countless miniature Diamond Protective Fields being continuously generated, a series of surprised voices also came from the surroundings.

Everyone here is a High Mage; how could they not tell whether or not Joint Casting was being assisted by a Resonance Spellbook!

So what were they seeing now—

Six strangers who had only undergone ten days of joint drills beforehand were actually able to perform Joint Casting! And it was forced Spellcasting while not in a Resonance state!

"How is this possible!"

"Could it really be the effect of 【Mind Link】?"

……

Hearing the exclamations of the crowd and the voices already incessantly asking Angelin and the others, even as calm as Xia Duo usually is, he could not help but feel a sense of pride.

However, such forced Joint Casting is very difficult to pull off when actually deployed, not to mention the psychological state of each person during battle and whether they can adapt to this act of dancing on a tightrope.

The stability of the spell itself is very difficult to guarantee; a slight disturbance could lead to the failure of the spell, which in turn would backfire on the Spellcaster.

Furthermore, since there is already the easier Resonance Spellbook method, isn't using this just asking for trouble?

What he originally intended was simply to use this unified scheduling and command to have multiple squads deal with Elf Mages simultaneously; by having more against fewer and maintaining high tacit understanding, it would be easy to seal off all the opponent's escape routes and completely annihilate them.

To truly fulfill the strategic expectation of eliminating the war potential of the Cormanthor Kingdom and even the Elf race as a whole.

"Now that everyone has seen the effect of 【Mind Link】, although there are minor drawbacks, if we want to achieve true victory, this is the price, isn't it?"

The vast majority of Netherese Mages believe that everything has a price, and they all uphold the principle of equivalent exchange (whether relatively reasonable or merely what they believe to be so).

If 【Mind Link】 truly had no hidden dangers, that might be the most troublesome thing; unless Xia Duo disclosed all the details of the spell and had someone who has studied mind spells endorse it, he could not make others believe him.

But now, by stating frankly that there are slight hidden dangers, while Xia Duo also indeed explained the basic Principles of this spell multiple times—people always have an arrogant side, especially when it comes to Spellcasters.

First they relax their vigilance, then they think they understand, and finally they speak of equivalent exchange; everyone began to think seriously about whether doing this is worth it.

And once they consider the feasibility, they have actually already nearly accepted it.

Especially since even a genius Arcanist from Gustav Tower like Angelin has accepted it, what reason do the others have to refuse!

"Mage Xia Duo, can you tell us more about this 【Mind Link】?"

"Of course!"

Seeing this situation, Xia Duo knew that the other party was tempted. After all, in the current situation, the Elves have already shown a trend of uniting; if their own side does not unite, they can only be defeated one by one.

And if their own side unites, what could be better than the plan Xia Duo proposed? What could be better than following Angelin?