Chapter 136: A Perilous Situation

Three months later.

When Greem awakened once more from his long meditation, a shadow of worry crossed his face.

"Chip, what was the efficiency of this meditation session?"

"Data processing... Mental strength increased by 0.007. At the current rate, it is estimated to take 139 days to reach the peak of 20 points."

The muscles at the corner of Greem's mouth twitched.

He was now a being of flame, and he had utilized his high-tower access to create a residence dense with fire elements. His daily diet consisted entirely of magical sustenance beneficial to both his physical body and his mind. Coupled with a fire-diamond pillow and Deep Sea Flowers (which aided meditation), his daily progress was still a mere 0.007 points. This felt incredibly inadequate to Greem, who had previously been accustomed to meditation effects reaching 0.05 points.

Ever since becoming an adept, Greem had discovered that basic meditation and spell study were no longer significantly effective for increasing mental strength. Even with his chip assisting him, he could only detect the minute increments in his mental strength daily. How did those adepts without such means survive this agonizing and difficult period?

Greem closed his eyes and reflected, suddenly realizing something.

It seemed that few adepts stayed cooped up in their residences meditating bitterly; most were constantly on the move, striving to hone themselves through trials and missions. Greem had previously assumed they did this for resources, but it now appeared they were driven by the slow growth of their mental strength, seeking to stimulate significant gains by wandering on the edge of life and death.

This was certainly a viable approach!

"Chip, you have been analyzing for so long, have you identified the reason for the slow growth of mental strength?"

"Beep. Task model complete. Analysis indicates that the primary goal for human apprentices is to increase the concentration of elemental energy within the body, aiming for a quantitative change that leads to a qualitative leap, thereby becoming a magical creature—a wizard.

Upon reaching the adept stage, mental strength growth slows because the accumulation of elemental energy is approaching a bottleneck. Due to the lack of a necessary core to anchor it, the previously accumulated energy, owing to its elemental properties, creates unpredictable interference for any new influx. This is what leads to the drastically reduced efficiency of energy accumulation in the later stages."

Elemental attraction and repulsion?

These were basic theories of elemental magic already summarized by senior wizards. Simply put, among all elemental particles, those of the same attribute tend to aggregate, creating homogenization within a spatial region. Wizards call this phenomenon "homogenous attraction."

However, this aggregation has its limits. Once a certain concentration threshold is reached or exceeded, wizards find that further aggregation of elemental particles of the same attribute becomes extremely difficult. It is as if a great repulsive force exists between these particles, preventing them from coming too close. Thus, some wizards refer to this as "homogenous repulsion."

Elemental particles exhibit both attraction and repulsion; the key lies in the local concentration. Below the threshold, they display attraction, and above it, they display repulsion. Wizards have yet to reach a definitive conclusion on the underlying reasons, or perhaps they have, but such arcane knowledge is not yet accessible to Greem.

"Chip, is there any feasible way to solve this current dilemma?"

"Beep. Data analysis complete. There are two feasible schemes:

Scheme One: Crystal Transplantation.
Wizard apprentices have scattered mental strength and lack the constraint of a necessary core. One can implant a fire-type crystal into the brain to reduce the repulsive nature of fire elemental particles.
Pros: Resolves the slow growth of mental strength and increases the success rate of the wizard promotion ritual.
Cons: An externally implanted fire crystal cannot compare to an internally condensed elemental core and will limit future potential.

Scheme Two: Mental Stimulation.
Bypass the weak stimulation of the mental space through elemental accumulation and instead seek direct methods to stimulate the mental body, sacrificing the resilience of the mind itself to raise the mental cap."

Greem frowned deeply.

Ugh, limited by the knowledge the chip possessed, Greem did not like either of the proposed schemes. Scheme One was like sacrificing the root for the branch—a self-destructive method useful only to those with no hope of advancement. Scheme Two was equally unreliable. He didn't know if this method could produce a wizard, but it would certainly produce a lunatic.

Since the shortcuts were unappealing, Greem had to focus his attention back on the fundamentals of wizardry.

Mental strength!

The reason human wizards set 21 points as the threshold to break through human limits and become a wizard was likely because 20 points was the physical limit a human could reach!

Crossing this threshold, a human wizard becomes fundamentally different from a normal human, resembling a magical creature. This is why the gap in power between a wizard with 21 points of mental strength and an adept with 20 points is so vast—the base data of their physical templates has completely changed!

With the aid of so many advantages, Greem could still achieve a daily increase of 0.007 points without life-or-death trials. If other adepts knew this, they would surely be green with envy. But for Greem, it was still far too slow!

Because... because the recent changes in the vile insect Entic gave him palpitations!

He had originally thought his progress was far ahead of everyone else, and that catching up to and surpassing Entic was only a matter of time. But after a chance encounter with Entic in the tower recently, Greem’s confidence wavered!

The vile insect Entic seemed to change every single day, and his immense mental pressure became increasingly obvious. According to the chip's scan, it was highly probable that Entic’s mental strength had already exceeded the halfway mark, reaching over 20.50 points. And he had only been an adept for a mere half a year!

This meant Entic’s progress was in no way inferior to his own.

Of course, this might be related to Entic visiting the fifth floor of the Swamp Tower every two or three days. Based on the chip’s scan, it was highly likely that the wizard Anderson was conducting bloodline fusion experiments on Entic. The chip had detected a familiar scent of blood on him.

Although the scent was extremely faint, the chip’s cell-level genetic detection手段 ferreted it out with absolute clarity. What angered Greem even more was that the source of this bloodline factor likely pointed to Mary.

This meant that the blood sample Mary submitted to Wizard Anderson had been applied to the vile insect Entic. With two bloodlines battling inside Entic’s body day and night, it was no wonder he was constantly on the edge of life and death, which explained his rapid daily growth in mental strength.

Reconciliation with Entic was impossible. But what worried Greem most was that if Entic reached the peak of the adept stage before him, something he dreaded might occur.

According to public data from magic books, the success rate for advancement in the Sandy Tallinn region was not high. If two or three out of ten adepts successfully promoted, it was already a stroke of divine fortune. During the promotion ritual, while innate talent played a significant role, luck was the more dominant factor.

Talented adepts did indeed have a higher success rate, but it was by no means guaranteed. Some gifted individuals with heaven-sent talent could still fail, while those with inferior potential might, through sheer luck, leap to become masters of this world—wizards!

Thus, on the Wizard Continent, every adept approached the promotion ritual with trepidation, fearing a single misstep that would render them a failure for life. After all, once a promotion ritual fails, the mental strength cap of an adept suffers a significant decline, and the chance of the next attempt plummets by 50%.

Therefore, apart from the favored offspring of great families, no wizard family was willing to invest in an adept who had already failed once.

This was exactly what Greem feared most!

If... if Entic reached the peak first and told the wizards in charge of the ritual that devouring Mary would guarantee a 100% success rate, what would happen?

One was an adept bound by a family contract, the other by a service contract; one promised a 100% success rate, while the other held the same unknown odds...

If Wizard Anderson were to intervene, Mary’s life would truly be in danger!

Greem had not told Mary about this. Without a way to break the deadlock, telling the impulsive Mary would be of no help. Unless Greem could catch eight or ten wizard-level monsters for Mary to feed on, he would have to rely on himself to break the situation.

Greem looked down at his right hand, where two black beetle fragments lay in his open palm. Through his powerful elemental vision, he could barely make out the shifting Master-runes on the fragments. One fragment bore the words "Save me," and the other, "Devour Mary."

These two fragments had not appeared at the same time. The first had crawled in through the window a month ago while Greem was meditating. A black beetle the size of a fingernail had self-destructed upon reaching his wooden desk, leaving behind this eerie inscribed shell. The second had appeared just a week ago.

Greem had deduced Entic’s intent to devour Mary from these inscriptions; otherwise, even with his sharp mind, he could never have guessed such an absurd reality.