Otherworld Advance Team
Chapter 694 - 687: The Essence of Magic

Chapter 694: Chapter 687: The Essence of Magic

About ten days had passed since the return from their previous mission. During these ten days, the advance team had not been dispatched for outside tasks. Instead, they stayed back at the airboat headquarters to rest and assist in the development of the research department.

Since being denied by Luo’er last time, Dr. An Liang didn’t give up and had come several times, requesting to take Feng for his study, even if it was just to gather some samples. But Luo’er was not so easily swayed. He was amiable at general times, but when his own interests were at stake, his stand was firmer than anyone else’s.

Even if, in theory, he agreed, Dr. An Liang still couldn’t get past Tangmo. At this point, Tangmo was keeping a close eye on Feng, as if afraid that someone might snatch him away from her. The deeper she went into the study of Feng, the more she felt herself slowly approaching the essence of magic.

Magic was neither, as stated by the Church Court, a divinely gifted power, nor as proclaimed by the idealists, the result of consciousness influencing reality. Magic was an objectively existing universal natural law. Though such a law only existed in Otherworld, it had a startling consistency with the natural laws of Earth.

The most typical example among them was the principle of energy conservation. Magical power would not appear or disappear out of nowhere. Every time a mage used magic, they were essentially altering the nature of magical power. In a specific natural environment, the nature of the magic power would cycle back to its original state.

In fact, within the Church Court, very few people believed that magic was the projection of divine power. They were more inclined to believe that magic was a natural law. Ironically, among the Church Court, archmages with in-depth research on magic were almost invariably staunch materialists.

Although the Church Court’s research on magic was relatively stagnant, they still made achievements that Earthlings could not match in thirty years after a thousand years of research.

For instance, archmages from the Church Court discovered that the expenditure produced when magical energy was converted was minuscule. Almost a hundred points of magical power could be converted into over ninety percent of energy. This was something existing Earth technology could not compete with.

Earthlings had been tinkering with controlled nuclear fusion for half a century, but it was still only feasible in laboratories and not scalable for commercial use. Therefore, they were particularly interested in magic energy in the Otherworld and hoped to find inspiration from it to discover a replacement for nuclear fusion on Earth.

During their rest, Tangmo began to test the boundaries of Feng’s current level. From her point of view, the storage of magical power was too low at this stage. A medium-sized battle could easily drain all of the magic power stored within her body, a situation she as a logistic support could not accept.

Although Feng was a swordsman, magic was her main method of attack. So, if she were to run out of magic power and get trapped in enemy territory, the consequences would be unthinkable. Feng was now the biggest trump card in the advance team; she didn’t want this trump card to be a one-time use only.

Apparently, the Prophet did not fully understand Feng’s cultivation method. According to Feng, her magic power capacity had stopped growing since the age of ten and continued to be at the same level until now.

Although her combat power was off the charts in the eyes of the advance team, upon closer examination, Tangmo found that Feng’s magic power supply was significantly weak.

The first time the advance team encountered Feng, he used his skills to pave a way for them, killing the obstructing corpse demons. Just these few battles had nearly depleted most of Feng’s stored magical power. This led to Feng desperately replenishing her magic power after returning to the Prophet’s residence.

Regrettably, by the time they all evacuated the tower, she hadn’t been able to fully replenish her magic power. The spell she cast exhausted all of her stored magical power.

During the battle, Tangmo had once injected Feng’s body with a concentration of magical power high enough to kill a mage. She discovered that Feng nearly instantly revived. It was at this moment that Tangmo realized Feng’s uniqueness.

The advance team was going to face a lot more troublesome battles in the future, possibly one fight after another. Therefore, Feng’s current condition was far from enough to meet the demand for continuous battle.

Although Tangmo has contingency measures in place, she is well aware that frequent use of the prerequisite spells for Light Singularity could result in a severe case of magic power erosion. Her body is not like Feng’s; she cannot withstand the onset of magic power erosion. If she succumbed to it, her career as a mage would be over for good.

Based on the cultivation method illustrated, the best way to increase the magic power reserve in the Dantian is by intensifying the infusion. The previous time, Tangmo forcibly increased Feng’s reserves using a prerequisite spell for Light Singularity. Now she plans to enhance Feng’s magic power reserve through replenishing magic array.

As per Tangmo’s limited understanding, continuous magic power infusion would render Feng’s Dantian in an overflow state for an extended period. During this state, a breakthrough phase initiates. If successful, she can raise her magic power limit.

However, Tangmo is uncertain about the consequences of failure. Even though Feng doesn’t have capillaries throughout her body, internal injuries would still be troubling. In the worst-case scenario, a spread of major internal bleeding could end everything.

Given the unknown risks, Tangmo is cautious. She modified the magic array Feng uses for replenishing magic power, adding several new circuits to connect to the magic crystals. She then tried to push Feng’s limit by continuously adding high-concentration magic crystals.

It started with three, then escalated to four, and then progressed to five. Each injection of magic power from the high-concentration number 10 magic crystals put Feng’s body through a series of challenges. Excessive magic power could rupture the veins within her body, being part of the cultivation process. Repeatedly damaging her veins and allowing them to heal would increase the amount of magic power they could release.

Before encountering Feng, researchers on Earth and in the Otherworld believed that a mage’s magic power output was primarily influenced by their magic affinity. Those with a higher affinity could release more magic power in a given time and vice versa.

The conclusion was drawn mainly because the body structure of the Otherworld’s mages is generally equipped with an extensive vein framework, unlike Feng whose major veins only numbered in the teens.

Due to the extensive body vein architecture, increasing vein strength and width becomes inconsequential and could even trigger magic power erosion. Thus, hardly any mage has dared to break through in this respect.

Of course, the amount of magic power a mage could release in a certain period also depends on their magic resistance. Magic resistance, similar to the principle of electrical resistance, the lower, the better.

If a mage’s magic resistance is around ten percent, they can absorb one hundred percent of the magic power and can release nearly ninety percent of it through circulation in the body. The remaining ten percent will suffer from depletion in the veins.

It is worth noting that the drain of magic power inside a mage’s veins can cause damage to their magic power. Therefore, based on the Otherworld mage’s research, people from Earth have established magic formula grades. Depending on the output of magic power required, they are divided into five grades. The lowest is a first-grade spell, and the highest is a Forbidden Curse.

The spell that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Earth’s armies at the First Line Gorge last year was of the Forbidden Curse level.

The higher the level of magic, the more magic power the mage needs to circulate and release, and the more severe the damage caused. The highest-level Forbidden Curse spell inflicts almost fatal damage, and it is considered very lucky if a Forbidden Curse mage can release two Forbidden Curse spells in their lifetime.

The damage caused by the circulation of magic power can harm the human body, causing different types of harm to the mage’s body, but these injuries invariably turn into magic power erosion.

For the Otherworlders, magic power erosion is their terminal illness, the equivalent to the cancer of the Otherworld.

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