This chapter is broken. Please report this on discord.
Editor's notes: Apologies to our patreons. It seems we missed chapters 135-139. We're fixing that immediately!
After giving Yu Yetian a brief tour of my current lab, I got straight back to work.
Honestly, there wasn’t much to see. I’d only just finished scrubbing the place down, and the only thing worth showing off was the damaged Spell Book from yesterday. I’d already stripped it down, its internal components splayed out across the workbench in a full structural expansion.
The spatial stabilization spell Ji Niang had cast yesterday was still holding. She’d even granted me partial admin access to the matrix, which was a huge help.
Since this was where I’d be running my live tests, having control over the containment field meant I could safely observe the spells after they were cast and tweak the parameters in real-time.
Today’s goal: continue modding the Fireball spell. I needed to bypass a few restricted structures, which wasn't actually that dangerous.
Usually, the only parts that cause trouble are the power supply and the output limiters—the usual suspects.
"Um… can I ask what you’re doing?"
Yetian had been wandering around the room, but the novelty had clearly worn off. Let’s be real: there isn't much to do in a lab if you aren't the one doing the research.
I was deep in yesterday's logs, surrounded by several floating Earthvein HUDs. To her, it probably looked like a scene straight out of a sci-fi movie.
Despite being a Light-worshipping ascetic, she was still just a teenager at heart, and the glowing displays clearly fascinated her.
"Experimenting," I said with a slight note of apology. "Trying to find new possibilities. Sorry, I’ve been ignoring you, but I did tell you this place was a bit boring."
"No, don't say that!" Her eyes were glued to the shimmering holographic panels. "Is this… some kind of projection?"
"The Earthvein OS? Something like that."
"Wait, this whole system is called Earthvein?"
"Basically. Think of it like a computer," I said with a shrug. "Though it’s not for gaming. At least, I haven't found a way to download anything fun on it yet."
She didn't seem to care about the lack of games; she was just mesmerized by the technology itself. Seeing that look in her eyes, I opened a blank, temporary screen for her to follow along with.
It was funny how easily satisfied she was. Not long ago, just talking to her felt like a high-pressure interrogation, but now she was playing with the floating screen like a child.
I, on the other hand, had moved past the "cool" phase.
As the Class Prez, I had to know more than everyone else—which meant maintaining a certain level of professional detachment.
Besides, I’d spent enough time staring at these data streams to know they were more likely to give you a headache than a sense of wonder.
Modding a Spell Book isn't something you can just wing. You need simulations, structural re-mapping, and a solid design. If you just make it up as you go, you’ll run out of time—and Spell Books—pretty fast.
I stepped over to the spatial field, habitually hooked up the power feed, and initialized the stabilized spell. The prep work was done. Now it was time to test the theory I’d been working on last night.
Without hesitating, I reached out with my mental focus and began dismantling the Spell Book’s outer casing to modify the internal ritual.
If this works, I thought, the Fireball spell will never be the same again.
As I channeled mana into the Spell Book, the device hummed to life. The raw energy began its transformation into the fire element, and a ritual array for Fireball shimmered into existence before me. However, the patterns etched into this particular array were subtly different from the standard model.
This was my first attempt at a multi-partition ritual modification. Previously, I’d only tweaked one small variable at a time to see the results. This time, I had overhauled several sections at once.
How would this version of Fireball manifest? Would the modifications stack into a complex, multi-layered effect, or would the internal logic conflict and cause the spell to collapse entirely?
In my mind, it was a toss-up. It was a lot like running experimental code; if you change too many lines at once, you usually don’t get a better program—you get a system crash.
But as two distinct spheres of flame flickered into life in front of me, I realized I’d actually pulled it off.
Dual Fireballs. They were compact, the heat was tightly contained, and they were spinning rapidly. All four experimental traits had been retained without any obvious conflicts.
In a way, this was both a success and a failure. In research, a lack of problems is often the biggest problem of all.
Maybe I should have tried to force a conflict between two opposing traits just to see what happened. After all, you only find the "bottom line" by crossing it. You have to know what the system can’t do to understand what it can truly do.
Of course, the risks involved in that kind of stress-testing were massive.
I carefully guided the two fireballs into the stabilization field and pulled up my logs to begin data collection. I needed to know if the two spheres interfered with each other’s rotation, how long the heat containment would hold, and what the blast radius looked like for a Fireball of this reduced size.
Later, I’d cross-reference this data with my previous solo-trait tests to look for discrepancies.
Even if I couldn't solve every mystery myself, having the right questions was enough. I could always take them to Ji Niang. If she didn't have the answer, she’d go hunting for it.
I had total confidence in the collective knowledge of the Witch World. If even they didn't have an answer... well, that would be a serious discovery. It would mean I’d stumbled into a "no-man's land" of research that no one had mapped out yet. If that happened, I was sure Ji Niang would be the first to start drafting a thesis to fill that void.
"Was that... magic just now?" Yu Yetian asked from the sidelines. She kept a respectful distance; the searing heat radiating from the mana-to-element conversion made her instinctively wary.
She was still a normal human, after all. A natural fear of getting hurt was only logical.
"Close enough," I replied. "Though we usually call them 'spells' here. I’m using a Spell Book—it makes the whole process much more efficient."
"Spells? A Spell Book?"
She looked genuinely confused. It was clear she didn't have the background for this yet.
"Don't worry about it. You'll get the full breakdown in your future classes," I said, trying to be reassuring.
Honestly, I wasn't in the mood to give a lecture. I had too much on my plate, and explaining the basics to a layman was a quick way to lose my train of thought.
Besides, I’d seen the curriculum. There was a course called Theoretical Spell Construction; I find it hard to believe they’d teach that without mentioning Spell Books.
Before getting into the School of Transcendence, we’d all taken courses like Spell Theory and Elemental Theory. They were basic, sure, but they provided the necessary foundation.
It’s only once you actually cast a spell that you realize how "dry" those introductory classes were.
They felt like math, physics, and chemistry disguised as magic.
But that was exactly what they were. Even in a world of the supernatural, science existed as a method of observing and summarizing the laws of reality.
Magic didn't make science obsolete; it just gave it a new set of rules.
Otherwise, the efforts of those who study the truths of Transcendence with scientific rigor would be nothing more than a joke, wouldn't they?
Ji Niang was nowhere to be found today. With her gone, my experiments became a lot bolder.
It’s funny how your mindset shifts the moment you realize no one is looking over your shoulder.
Ever since I brought Yu Yetian here that first time, she hasn’t come back. She’s finally started to settle into the atmosphere of Section 14, but because of her unique status as an ascetic—not to mention her specific way of speaking—she doesn't quite mesh with the rest of the class.
While religious freedom is a given in this world, the Saint Angel Sect is "special" enough to draw stares. Most people are indifferent, but there’s no shortage of those who look down on it.
I took advantage of these quiet days to dive deeper into my research. I’ve even started turning my "mad scientist" focus toward another one of my spells: the Energy Shield.
Despite being buried in lab work, I still made an effort to check in on my classmates in our group chat. I couldn’t attend every lecture with them, but I could at least drop some study recommendations.
Of course, Hong Chenyi—the loudest mouth I know—went and leaked the news that I’d already mastered Witch Meditation.
Since the rest of the class just started their meditation units and most of them are just struggling to find the "groove," the group chat has devolved into a strange ritual of "worshipping" me.
Every time I popped in to say hello, I was greeted by a wall of "+1" messages and people acting like I was a good luck charm.
It was like they thought that by basking in the "Class Prez’s Aura," they’d magically pass their finals.
Between that and people catching glimpses of me flying, meditating, or casting high-level spells, my reputation solidified. I was no longer just the Class Prez; I was something untouchable, perched on a pedestal I never asked for.
I wanted to be the "relatable leader," the guy everyone could talk to. Instead, I was being deified.
To a normal freshman, I suppose I was an impossible goal. They barely attended a handful of classes and couldn't cast a single spell, while I was already getting course waivers.
They were still trying to figure out what a mana core even was, and I'd already gotten dozens of them. While they were cramped in lecture halls taking frantic notes, I was in my own private lab conducting independent research.
If I didn't step in to clarify things occasionally, the rumors would probably spiral out of control. Then again, Hong Chenyi wasn't helping; she was basically pouring gasoline on the fire.
Now that the semester was in full swing, things were finally stabilizing. But there was one major event looming on the horizon: The Freshman Class Prez Competition.
By now, most classes had settled on their representatives through "fair competition." This tournament was designed to show the freshmen the gap between themselves and the top tier of their peers.
It was meant to give them a taste of how exciting the world of Transcendence could be—and to give them a goal to chase. After all, your peers were the ones you could actually see and touch; they were the ones you felt you could catch up to if you just worked hard enough.
It was also the perfect stage for the "elites" to prove their worth.