Chapter 907: The Test-Taker and the Difficulty of New Spells

Returning to the Study, Xia Duo took out his previous Spell Notes and began to focus on researching the Ascension Ring matters for various spells.

However, the deeper the level of the Magic Net involved in a spell, the harder it becomes to achieve Ascension Ring through purely theoretical deduction based solely on the equivalent conversion of Magic Net Strings.

Because at this level, the improvement of a spell is no longer just an increase in energy level, but an improvement in actual performance that also includes stability.

Specifically, this manifests as characteristics such as anti-interference, high penetration, ease of casting, and structural stability.

Of course, some spells can simply have their energy magnitude stacked; for instance, those spells that purely utilize elemental or energy properties, like Fireball—just burning is enough.

But other spells cannot be treated this way, such as 【Flight】.

If one simply stacks energy, there might be an increase in speed, but flight is not just about speed; maneuverability and stability are equally important.

The same applies to 【Teleportation】; if one only considers Ascension Ring from the perspective of increasing the spell energy level, the post-Ascension Ring Teleportation spell would manifest more as an increase in teleportation distance.

This point might be important, but what Xia Duo truly wants is an improvement in teleportation stability and anti-interference capability, so that it is no longer affected by common 【Forbidden Restriction】 or 【Dimensional Anchor】 spells.

This is the direction in which Teleportation should truly be improved, at least for Xia Duo personally.

Additionally, if a spell is improved all the way to a high ring from a low ring level, it will lack certain characteristics compared to other high-ring spells created directly.

This is actually unavoidable; the process of Ascension Ring is essentially taking the core elements of a spell and, after repeating them multiple times, converting them into equivalent high-ring elements.

In essence, it is just increasing the energy level.

Of course, in this process, in order to adapt to such an energy level increase, the spell structure will also undergo certain adjustments, which is a bit like "mending the fold after the sheep is lost."

But—

Everything changes once there is a "but." Xia Duo once mentioned in the book *Principles* that as long as one masters the equivalent conversion of Magic Net Strings, becoming an Archmage is not a problem at all.

And in fact, it is even more than that!

If an ordinary Mage completes the Ascension Ring for every spell themselves, their understanding of spell principles will surely far exceed other Mages, and the probability of becoming an Arcanist will also be greater.

This is just like the "test-takers" in Xia Duo's hometown; compared to those who do not take tests, the probability of getting into university is significantly higher.

Because the conditions for becoming an Arcanist are like the syllabus for a college entrance exam, clearly and plainly laid out there; as long as all are met, one is almost certain to become an Arcanist.

Moreover, becoming an Arcanist is different from the college entrance exam in one way: Arcanists are almost never tested on subjective questions; it is all objective questions—one is one, two is two; as long as one does not make a mistake, one can definitely answer correctly.

This is also an important reason why Xia Duo repeatedly emphasized the 【Ascension Trial】 in the Progress Society.

And at Xia Duo's level, the ordinary Ascension Ring method of stacking energy levels can no longer satisfy his needs.

The reason he still does it himself is merely to verify and familiarize himself with the equivalent conversion of Magic Net Strings during the process of certain spell elements going from the 6th ring to the 7th ring.

What he truly lacks are more high-ring spell samples to use as references, in order to master more spell characteristics or inspire his thinking, with the hope of discovering more essential combination laws of Magic Net Strings.

In fact, from the time Xia Duo started learning Magic at the Tower of Time until now, counting the time in various Projection Planes, it has been seven or eight years in total.

The essence of Magic is the combination of Magic Net Strings, and more essentially, it is the special effect produced by energy circulating in specific circuits.

There is no doubt about this; Xia Duo knew it very early on.

Theoretically, as long as one combines Magic Net Strings at will, it will trigger various Magic Effects, which is equivalent to creating one brand-new spell after another.

But unfortunately, the vast majority of these random spells manifest as Magic Net energy leakage, existing in the form of various elemental and energy turbulence.

Besides the equivalent conversion of Magic Net Strings, predecessors also categorized spells according to specific spell effects and analyzed specific Element Units with similar, progressive, or cyclic relationships within different categories of spells.

Only then did there come more sources of creativity; otherwise, one could only rely on luck.

In the past, Xia Duo also tried to summarize the more essential laws within them, but apart from the laws of Magic Net String conversion already concluded by predecessors, he did not discover much more.

To a large extent, he was still following the path of his predecessors, at most making some integrations based on his own ideas.

Until some time ago, because of his Bloodline Awakening, he gained the ability of Memory Retrospection. By tracing back some memories from before his transmigration, Xia Duo finally understood that with his current abilities, it is almost impossible to discover the more essential laws of spells.

On Earth, there is a discipline called bioengineering, and one of the more interesting fields is the study of protein folding.

The structure of a protein determines its properties, and what scientists want to study is the correspondence between structure and properties, so as to create a certain specific protein they want.

When Xia Duo traced this back, he easily linked protein folding with the combination of Magic Net Strings; both have structure determining properties, and both have structural combinations that are nearly infinite, while useful ones are very few.

A Spellcaster wanting to obtain a new spell with a specific function is just like an Earth biologist wanting to obtain a protein with specific properties.

One needs to find specific Magic Net String combinations. Before thoroughly understanding the combination laws of Magic Net Strings, besides looking for a needle in a haystack and relying on luck, one can only start from the specific Element Units of known spells to integrate them.

And wanting to thoroughly understand the combination laws of Magic Net Strings is almost impossible to achieve in a magical world without supercomputers, let alone Xia Duo researching it clearly by himself in a short time.

From this perspective, it seems that a Great Arcanist is not necessarily much smarter than an ordinary Mage; it is just that they have more Knowledge accumulation and better external conditions, allowing them to make more attempts.

Also because of this, Xia Duo attaches more importance to the popularization of Magic. As long as more people participate, not to mention the Wisdom of the participants themselves, the spell samples they release alone are very worth looking forward to.

Thus, a relatively clear development route appeared—popularization of Magic, more Mages, more exchanges, more samples, and more laws that can be studied.

As for a magical version of a supercomputer, although Xia Duo is looking forward to it, he is also very clear that a supercomputer alone cannot allow him to thoroughly understand the combination laws of Magic Net Strings.

To put it another way, the combination laws of Magic Net Strings are actually the so-called "essence of Magic." Of course, the essence of Magic might also include the properties of the Magic Net Strings themselves and the characteristics of the Magic Net as a grand environment.

But once the combination laws of Magic Net Strings are mastered, one is almost omnipotent; any spell one wants can be derived through the combination laws.

How could such a "God Realm" be reached so easily?

After all, in his planning, a computer is not hard to realize; on the contrary, using limited computing power and Wisdom to pursue infinite laws is what is hard to realize!

Even the Magic Goddess might not be able to do this.

Or rather, Xia Duo does not hope from the bottom of his heart that such an almighty god exists; for a mortal who already understands their own limits, the pressure is simply too great.