Chapter 0005: The Application of the Chip

As soon as Tony completed his assignment, he hurried back to his quarters, eager for a good sleep. After all, every patrol left his nerves so taut that it drained him mentally. Grimm, however, hesitated for a moment before turning toward the library.

It was just midday, and there were few apprentices in the library. In the modest stone chamber, a dozen or so yellowwood bookshelves leaned against the walls, densely packed with all sorts of witchcraft tomes in various materials and styles. Presiding over them was a middle-aged wizard apprentice, an intermediate one at that.

Apprentices like him, who had struggled into the intermediate rank merely with the passage of time, were not prospects the Wizard Tower would invest in. They had long lost their former ambition, unwilling to risk themselves on perilous missions but also unwilling to return to a mortal life, making them a rather unique group among apprentices.

Serving as a librarian only accrued one knowledge point every seven days, but the position was safe and comfortable, so these senior intermediates had long since claimed it. Apprentices like Grimm, who had no patron and stood alone, could only take on the most dangerous tasks.

Instead of heading straight for the deepest shelves as he usually did, Grimm wandered leisurely from shelf to shelf, occasionally picking up a book to leaf through. The tomes in the library, unless checked out, had their pages shrouded in a floating black mist, revealing nothing beyond the introductory summary at the front.

Grimm dared not underestimate this seemingly ordinary mist—it was, after all, set personally by the tower’s master, the fearsome Wizard Anderson. Without going through a special arcane array, no apprentice could hope to read a single word within. Those who tried to break the seal with their own means invariably triggered the hidden wards and incurred the wizard’s wrath and punishment.

Still, Grimm wanted to see if his bio-assist chip could find any loophole. After all, accumulating knowledge points was painfully slow; to date, he only had seven, far from enough to support his further studies.

He pulled out a copy of “A History of Wizardry,” feigning interest while, deep within, he secretly issued a command to the bio-chip.

“Scan this book. See if you can extract any content without triggering the ward.”

“Beep. Task established… Initiating deep scan…”

Grimm lowered his head. When the chip scanned, a faint red glow would flicker in his eyes, so he had to shield them to avoid detection.

“Unknown protective field detected… Analyzing… Beep, danger warning… Field is undergoing unknown changes… Scan aborted…”

Grimm quickly shut his eyes and closed the book.

As expected, it was impossible. The faintest external interference triggered the wards, so his attempt at subterfuge had failed. If he wanted knowledge, he would have to trade knowledge points for it honestly.

But there was little to regret. Now, with the bio-chip, he no longer had to memorize knowledge through primitive copying. Any book he borrowed could be perfectly duplicated into the chip’s storage, ready for recall at any time.

Even if he couldn’t grasp it immediately, he could store it, let the chip organize and summarize, and take time to comprehend it later. For this alone, the chip was already a tremendous help!

Setting aside “A History of Wizardry,” Grimm wandered over to another bookshelf, this one mainly dedicated to the study of fire elements—perfectly suited to his elemental affinity and a place he often visited.

“The Properties of Fire Element Particles”

“Techniques for Manipulating Fire Elements”

“The Burning Hand”

“How to Conjure a Giant Fireball”

…
…
Some books were purely theoretical discussions on witchcraft, some were simple spellcasting insights, and others were formal models and techniques for elemental spells. Spellcasting manuals could grant him essential witchcraft and bolster his combat power, but did little to expand his knowledge base. Only the theoretical works could truly enhance his mental strength.

Thus, how best to use his knowledge points—whether to expand his repertoire and ensure survival, or to increase his reserves and progress toward becoming a true wizard—was a challenging dilemma.

Faced with rows of tantalizing books, Grimm fell into deep contemplation.

Every system of power must have a profound theoretical foundation, and the strength of wizards was rooted in the architecture of witchcraft itself.

But what, in the end, did witchcraft truly represent?

Without hesitation, Grimm gave the chip an almost impossible long-term directive.

“Chip, collect all fundamental data on witchcraft, trace its origins, and search for the most suitable path for my advancement.”

“Beep. Main task accepted… Establishing long-term observation project: Origin of Witchcraft… Insufficient data, unable to build comprehensive model… Establishing short-term evaluation project: Subject’s Wizard Path… Insufficient data, unable to build comprehensive model…”

A series of sharp beeps made Grimm’s head throb. The chip had only just awakened and its database was nearly empty. If he didn’t gather some foundational texts, he could hardly expect to deduce real answers out of thin air.

Fortunately, in the past six years, he had copied some materials. He would find a way to input them into the chip, perhaps breaking this cycle of perpetual lack.

Leaving the library, Grimm first filled his stomach at the common dining hall before returning to his quarters.

He entered and immediately glanced at the floor by the door. There, an extremely faint fluctuation of fire elemental energy lingered.

He had deliberately arranged these fire element particles at his doorstep. They served little purpose except to betray any intruder by the rearrangement of their pattern—anyone passing through, even unwittingly, would disturb them. Thus, Grimm could tell if anyone else had entered his room.

In this treacherous community, one needed a sense of self-preservation to survive.

After securing the door, Grimm eagerly fetched the stack of witchcraft notes he had painstakingly compiled over the years. By now, he essentially possessed five complete witchcraft books.

The first, of course, was “The Study of All Things,” the primer for every apprentice wizard.

He sat upright at his wooden desk, meticulously rereading the volume. Though most of its content was already committed to memory, many details had inevitably faded over time.

Now, not only was he silently reciting it, but the bio-chip, using his eyes as a conduit, was recording all the knowledge into its memory banks, sorting and storing it accordingly.

Eventually, Grimm abandoned conscious reading altogether, transforming himself into a human copier. His eyes flickered as he rapidly scanned each word, symbol, magical line, and diagram from his handwritten notes.

In less than a quarter hour, “The Study of All Things” was fully stored!

Grimm couldn’t help but marvel in silence.

This book, the standard primer for wizard apprentices, cataloged nearly ten thousand strange creatures of various races and types discovered on the continent, along with most common plants, animals, minerals, and special alchemical materials—a total of some thirty thousand entries.

Back in the day, it had taken him seventeen months to read it through once; now, it was stored in less than fifteen minutes.

Amazed by the chip’s power, Grimm closed the book and began slowly recalling the contents just memorized. For any species, plant, or animal, a single thought would prompt the chip to instantly retrieve and project all related information into his mind. This saved him countless hours of research.

Good, this was indeed effective; he’d never again be troubled by the opacity of witchcraft knowledge.

Excited, he ignored the dull ache rising in his head and reached for the second book, ready to repeat the process.

“The Origin of Spiritual Power,” a serious work of witchcraft theory, explained the essence and applications of the mental force most commonly used by wizards, as well as methods to strengthen it.

After recording the second book, Grimm pressed his hand to his throbbing forehead, suddenly overcome by nausea and dizziness, his chest so tight he nearly vomited.

This… this must be the sign of spiritual exhaustion!

As a wizard apprentice, he knew the feeling all too well. Back when he’d first learned Burning Hand, he’d often depleted his meager spiritual reserves by failing to control the output of his power.

Only with practice did he master the technique and learn to manage his spiritual energy. For a practitioner of witchcraft, one’s mental strength was directly proportional to the strength of the soul—the more powerful the soul, the greater the total spiritual energy, and the more spells one could cast.

Take Grimm, for example: his mental attribute was eight points, so his magical power—sometimes called witch-power—was ten times that, totaling eighty points.

That was the current limit of his spiritual strength.