Ch. 131 - Nail a Fireball on the First Try (Part One)

The afternoon was spent back in the trenches of research.

Ji Niang didn't bother pulling the Fireball Spell Book out of my system. In her words, "If I give you a gift, I’m not going to keep taking it back for demonstrations."

So, the book stayed integrated into my core while we dove into a hybrid session of high-level theory and hands-on practice.

According to her, using a Spell Book properly, I mean really using it, required a blend of professional technique and deep cognitive understanding.

I’d already learned that something like my Cleaning Charm was a low-stakes, "brute-force" tool. You just followed the manual, and it worked. That was because its internal architecture had built-in safety caps on both its power output and mana consumption. It was essentially "idiot-proofed."

But those caps were also what made "Overclocking" possible.

In the world of magic, you could push a Spell Book past its intended damage ceiling or its energy intake limits. Sometimes both. But "Overclocking" was a death sentence for the hardware.

If a Spell Book could degrade just by sitting on a shelf, pushing it past its redline was going to burn it out in seconds.

Most witches wouldn't dream of trashing an expensive Spell Book unless their life depended on it.

And it wasn't like just anyone could Overclock. Most people only knew how to plug their mental intent into the standard interface provided by the book's structure.

Even a senior who could manipulate raw mana would struggle to force a Spell Book to do something it wasn't designed for.

It was like an electronic device. If you wanted to force a processor to run faster, you couldn't just dump more voltage into it and hope for the best. Well, you could, but you’d just end up with a very expensive paperweight.

To "reprogram" or "mod" a Spell Book, you had to understand the underlying logic.

As a total rookie, I was basically flying blind when it came to formal theory. I was like a guy trying to hot-wire a sophisticated piece of tech without knowing Ohm's Law or the basics of electromagnetic induction. I didn't know the safety protocols; I didn't even know which wire would kill me if I touched it.

I knew that a "Mana Surge" was fatal, but I had zero idea which specific structural tweak in a Spell Book would turn it into a handheld pipe bomb.

But here was the thing: you didn't always need the theory if you could see the patterns. Humans were using fire and tools long before we wrote down the laws of thermodynamics.

Did a guy who repaired smartphones for a living actually remember his high school physics? Probably not. He just knew which part went where and what happened when you bridge a connection.

That was me. Ji Niang promised she’d walk me through the formal Transcendental Theorems eventually, but she wasn't in a rush. Those laws were guardrails for people who couldn't see the essence of magic—rules to keep them safe while they fumbled in the dark.

But I had Psi-vision. I could see the "code" of reality. I could see the internal architecture, the flow of energy, and the way mana dispersed and concentrated.

I might not know why it worked according to a textbook, but I could see exactly how it was moving.

Observe the phenomenon, summarize the pattern, and apply the rules. That was my workflow.

People who were "blind" had to follow the blueprints and hope the universe played by the rules. I just watched the energy dance and followed its lead.

By the time she finished her lecture, Ji Niang looked exhausted. Back when she was just a substitute, she didn't have to care if the students actually learned anything.

"Did you catch all that structural logic?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.

"Mostly," I said. "But..."

"Good. No 'buts.' Let's move to live testing," she interrupted, not giving me a chance to hedge. "Practical application is the only exam that matters."

Ji Niang’s point was well taken. There were things even she couldn't explain perfectly; some principles only revealed themselves through use.

Language was, in many ways, a low-bandwidth communication tool. It couldn't perfectly convey every nuance of a spell's internal logic, nor could it force one person's cognition to align perfectly with another’s. That was why "barrier-free communication" in the Genesis Dream Realm was so revolutionary—it skipped the words and went straight to the meaning.

But even that had its limits. If that kind of teaching could be scaled up at a low cost, the Witch School wouldn't even exist in the physical world. It would just be a sprawling, digital civilization built entirely within the Dream.

"Wait, we're doing it right now? In here?" I asked, my voice rising with a mix of nerves and pure excitement.

Ever since Senior Tang Yihan had stopped me from testing the offensive spells on my starter kit, I hadn't dared to pull the trigger on anything destructive.

I was terrified that the power would be too much to handle, and I really didn't want to spend the rest of my freshman year paying off a demolished hallway.

I still had no idea how much punch a Fireball actually packed, but the look on Yihan’s face back then had told me it was more than a sparkler.

"Right here," Ji Niang said, picking up on my hesitation and waving a hand toward the walls. "This is a laboratory. The walls are reinforced with defensive wards specifically designed to take a hit. Besides, you have me standing right here. What are you worried about?"

She was right. If I couldn't test a spell in a high-end lab with a Transcendence Witch as my safety net, I’d never be able to do it anywhere.

I took a deep breath and centered myself. I could feel the Fireball Spell Book resting in my core, humming with latent heat.

Through my Psi-vision, the internal circuits of the book looked like a glowing map of veins, all converging on a single output point.

"Alright," I whispered, holding out my hand. "Let's see what this thing can actually do."

I focused on the mental "handshake" Ji Niang had described.

I didn't just want to pull the trigger; I wanted to feel the mana move.

I watched the energy start to circulate, glowing brighter as it prepared to manifest.

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