Ch. 132 - Stripping and Modding the Spell Book (Part Two)
Is It Weird for a Guy to Apply to a Witch School?This chapter is broken. Please report this on discord.
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"Forget that," Ji Niang said, a sharp, excited grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Standard casting isn't even a challenge for you anymore. Let’s try something a bit more... experimental."
Even for a transcendence witch like her, it was clear this was more than just a routine lesson. Her excitement was contagious.
"I'm in," I said, nodding instantly. "What do I need to do, Ma'am?"
"Just follow my lead."
Ji Niang seemed pleased with my enthusiasm. With a casual flick of her wrist, the fireball, still drifting through the spatial ward, snuffed out like a candle.
She moved to a nearby workbench and fired up the Earthvein. A massive holographic display bloomed in front of us, filled with complex schematics.
"You remember the lecture from earlier, right?" she asked, pulling up a specific analysis diagram.
"Most of it, yeah."
"And this? Do you recognize this structure?" she asked, tapping the screen.
I studied the glowing lines for a second, the memory clicking into place. "That’s part of the internal ritual for the Fireball spell. It’s the core logic of the Spell Book."
The Ritual is the heart of any Spell Book. Every transcendence-based structure built around it exists solely to serve that internal ritual. In short, the ritual defines the spell’s effect.
Some Spell Books don't have rituals at all—these are 'minor spells.' They're easier to cast and lighter on mana, but they lack the raw power of a ritual-driven spell.
"This is an Array-Ritual," I noted.
Rituals come in all shapes and sizes—incantations, physical gestures, you name it. This one manifested as that intricate magic circle that appeared in front of my palm.
"Exactly," Ji Niang said. "Now, I’m going to show you how to use a thread of consciousness to dismantle a Spell Book."
"Dismantle it?" I asked, my eyes widening. "Why would I want to take a perfectly good Spell Book apart, Ma'am?"
"Because," she explained, her voice softening into her 'teacher' tone, "you have to crack the outer shell before you can get to the ritual. Once you're inside, you can modify it. That’s how you 'mod' a spell."
She paused, looking at me with that familiar mix of awe and frustration. "Don't take this for granted, Yuehan. You have the kind of raw talent that lets you skip hurdles most people spend their entire lives trying to clear."
She seemed to realize she was gushing again and quickly pivoted back to the lesson.
"Anyway, let’s try to strip it down. We'll use the Fireball I gave you. Don't worry about breaking it—if it crashes, I'll just give you a new one. Don't be afraid to experiment."
She pulled the screen closer, walking me through the steps.
Using my mental energy as a pry bar and my Psi-vision as a real-time diagnostic, I picked it up surprisingly fast. I managed to peel back the energy casing.
The shell was a weird thing. It was the only reason a Spell Book could exist without a physical host, making it feel solid and dangerous. But without that protection, the whole thing was incredibly fragile.
Cracking the shell was the easy part. The real work—the actual modding—was where things were going to get complicated.
"There you go. Easy does it," Ji Niang whispered, her eyes glued to the task. "Keep that pace. I’m going to start the log: Fireball Spell Book, precision casing removal, Experiment One."
The Earthvein OS flickered as it began recording the feed. Whether this ended in a breakthrough or a spectacular blowout, it was a moment for the history books.
A non-Transcendence witch stripping a Spell Book by hand, without a single tool?
If she posted this to a witch’s video-sharing site, it would go viral in seconds. Witches everywhere would be smashing that like button, while simultaneously tagging their rivals in the comments to talk trash.
But Ji Niang didn't have time for that kind of drama.
Technically, Spell Books are Transcendence-level artifacts. That's the theory, anyway.
In reality, being a Transcendence entity wouldn't automatically make you a master craftsman. It was like being a college student—sure, everyone had to write a thesis, but there was a massive gap between the person who wrote a groundbreaking paper and the one who just copied and pasted their way to a passing grade.
The same went for witches. Since the influx of "converted" witches from other races, the average bar for Transcendence had dropped quite a bit.
Not every Transcendence witch actually knew how to forge a Spell Book.
Take Ji Niang, for example. She could craft the minor stuff—the ritual-less utility spells—but if she had to build a heavy-hitter with a core ritual, she’d be buried in technical manuals and experimental case studies for weeks.
Even among the elite, there was a hierarchy.
Still, compared to the "brawn over brains" types who couldn't even follow a manual if their lives depended on it, Ji Niang considered herself a bit of a genius. At least she could do it, right?