novelraw Chapter 402: Spell Model and Return to Tradition
Chapter 402: Spell Model and Return to Tradition
The laboratory lighting had been adjusted to a soft, cool white, focused precisely on the floating three-dimensional model at the center of the workbench.
Jie Ming stood before the table, his eyes reflecting countless flowing runes and energy trajectories.
His fingertips traced through the air, each gentle touch causing subtle adjustments within the model’s internal structure – not the geometric stacking typical of wizard runes, but something closer to the “meridian growth” style of natural evolution seen in cultivation spells.
There was still one year left before departure to the Reincarnation Plane, and he had finally completed this research project that had consumed nearly a century of his time.
Strictly speaking, the dazzlingly complex three-dimensional framework before him could no longer be simply called a “witchcraft model.”
Its core came from a Spirit Transformation Stage killing spell recorded in the Great Dao Book Pavilion – Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light.
“With the essence of Trigram Fire as foundation, fused with the intent of absolute extinction, transforming into light that travels; wherever it passes, all things return to ruin.”
Those were the original words from the jade slip.
In the cultivation world, this spell was renowned for its concentrated power and extreme speed. At its highest level of mastery, it could even burn through spatial barriers.
But it carried a fatal limitation: it required extremely pure fire-attributed Spiritual Qi to drive it, and placed extraordinarily high demands on the cultivator’s realm and reserves. The transformation process proved far more difficult than anticipated.
First came the replacement of the driving source.
Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light originally relied on the unique “endless regeneration” property within Spiritual Qi to keep its light-flame unextinguished. In contrast, the elemental energy of the wizard world leaned far more toward “explosive release.”
Jie Ming had no choice but to sacrifice the spell’s “continuous incineration” and “dao-rhyme erosion” effects, preserving only the purest attributes of “high temperature” and “annihilation.”
Next was structural adaptation.
Cultivation spells emphasized “intent moves, law follows,” granting the model itself tremendous flexibility.
Witchcraft models, however, pursued “stability and reproducibility,” where the position and connection angle of every rune allowed not the slightest deviation.
It took Jie Ming a full decade to finally find a solution that made the two systems compatible at the level of energy circulation.
And finally, the most critical step: output multiplication reinforcement.
The reason wizards could crush most transcendent systems at the same level lay in their mastery of “elemental multiplication.”
The same clump of fire element could only produce a tiny flame in an apprentice’s hands; in a formal wizard’s, it became a wall of fire; in a high-tier wizard’s, it could even trigger chain reactions, creating flame storms capable of engulfing entire cities.
“…It’s finished.”
He stopped his fingers and let out a long breath.
The model before him had stabilized.
It took the overall form of a spiraling forward light-cone structure, densely packed with three thousand six hundred primary energy nodes and over one hundred thousand secondary patterns—two-thirds wizard runes, one-third cultivation talisman seals.
The interwoven patterns of two entirely different systems somehow produced an eerie sense of harmony.
Jie Ming nodded in satisfaction, then immediately shook his head with a trace of regret.
“The elemental multiplication factor… is still not high enough.”
His advancement to fourth-ring wizard had been too fast.
The price was that his knowledge accumulation fell far short of the average fourth-ring wizard’s level.
“At this multiplication factor, I’ve only barely touched the lower limit of a fourth-ring wizard.” Jie Ming estimated. “If I could settle down for a few more centuries and thoroughly master ‘Elemental Multiplication Overlay Theory’ and ‘High-Order Energy Compression Geometry,’ I could probably raise it another full tier…”
Even so, with the dual stacking of “cultivator system environmental energy mobilization” and “wizard system multiplication reinforcement,” the theoretical destructive power of this modified version of Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light had already surpassed the lower threshold of standard sixth-ring witchcraft.
More importantly, cultivation spells possessed an advantage that wizard witchcraft struggled to match: flexibility.
The base attack speed of Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light was light-speed – something fully preserved in the modification.
And depending on the caster’s intent, it could concentrate all energy into a needle-tip size for ultimate penetration in “point-kill mode,” or spread evenly to cover tens of millions of square kilometers in “carpet-bombing mode.”
It could even dynamically switch between the two modes.
“Time to test it.”
Jie Ming waved his hand to withdraw the model and turned toward the deep testing field of the laboratory.
He activated the control runes. The space within the field began to layer outward – five thousand kilometers, ten thousand kilometers, finally locking at fifty thousand kilometers.
Standing at the edge of the field, he raised his right hand.
No incantation, no complex casting gestures – just a single thought.
The Truth Ring within his body instantly resonated. Vast amounts of mental power surged along the modified spell model at high speed.
Half a second.
Merely half a second of charging, and Jie Ming already felt the surrounding environmental elements begin to riot.
Fire element was forcibly drawn from the walls, from deep within the earth veins, even from space itself, converging before his palm.
Then, light appeared.
A platinum-white beam of pure, heart-shaking radiance, no thicker than a thumb, yet instantly causing the entire testing field’s temperature to skyrocket.
The moment it left Jie Ming’s palm, it reached its limit speed – true light-speed. Within the expanded fifty-thousand-kilometer testing field, it crossed from one end to the other in less than 0.17 seconds.
Jie Ming adjusted the target. Midway through its flight, the beam suddenly expanded, transforming into a fan-shaped curtain of light that evenly covered all target zones within a three-thousand-kilometer diameter ahead.
High temperature.
Annihilation.
All matter disintegrated into fundamental particles the instant it made contact.
“Range and speed test… passed.” He recorded the data and switched modes.
This time, six pre-placed sixth-ring defensive targets – simulating the standard defensive fields of sixth-ring wizards.
Each target surface flowed with multi-layered composite shields, capable of withstanding sustained bombardment from conventional sixth-ring witchcraft.
Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light reconverged into a beam.
The first beam struck the center. The shield flickered violently; the outermost layer immediately overloaded and collapsed.
The second beam followed instantly, piercing the second layer and leaving the third layer severely shaken.
“Penetrates two layers of sixth-ring shields, third layer heavily damaged.” Jie Ming analyzed calmly. “Destructive power is not top-tier among sixth-ring witchcraft, but it excels in extreme concentration and can maintain a very high attack frequency.”
“Against non-wizard native civilizations, this should be sufficient.”
For the final round of testing, Jie Ming adjusted the spell’s coverage to its maximum.
The beam rapidly expanded after leaving his palm, ultimately forming an ocean of light more than eight thousand kilometers in diameter.
Though the destructive power per unit area decreased, the sheer momentum that seemed capable of annihilating an entire continent made even Jie Ming’s heart tremble faintly.
“Far stronger than when I previously used cultivation methods to reinforce witchcraft.” He gazed at the various data flashing across the instruments beside him, constantly comparing. “Back then, I could at most devastate the ecosystem of one continent. Now… it can genuinely sink a continent.”
The test concluded. Jie Ming returned to the workbench and pulled up all the recorded data.
Overall, he considered the transformation of this spell a resounding success.
The advantages of the modified spell model were obvious:
Light-speed attack, nearly impossible to evade.
Highly flexible, suitable for both point-kill and carpet coverage.
Acceptable destructive power.
And environmentally powered, with relatively low personal consumption.
But the disadvantages were equally prominent.
After some thought, Jie Ming began recording on the adjacent instrument:
First, the release mechanism could not achieve “rapid fire.”
The fundamental difference between cultivation spells and wizard witchcraft lay in their “driving logic.”
Witchcraft followed an “encapsulate:trigger” model. As long as the model was stable and energy sufficient, theoretically it could release a dozen in a single second.
Cultivation spells, however, depended heavily on the caster’s “real-time regulation” of energy flow. Each release required a complete cycle of Spiritual Qi guidance and environmental resonance.
Even with the model optimized to its limit, when Jie Ming himself cast Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light, there still needed to be at least 0.3 seconds between casts – and this was already under the condition of possessing both the Truth Ring and Spirit Transformation realm divine sense.
Second, the charging time could not be avoided.
Spirit Transformation Stage spells mobilized far too much external energy.
Even with the support of a fifth-ring large elemental pool within his Inner Cave Heaven, completing the entire process of “drawing environmental elements → compression and conversion → injection into the model → maintaining stability” required a minimum of half a second of charging.
In low-intensity combat, half a second might mean nothing. In same-tier or cross-tier confrontations, it was more than enough time for an opponent to execute a dozen different countermeasures.
“And this drawback cannot be solved even by engraving the spell model into a talisman-sealed wizard artifact.” Jie Ming frowned. “Talisman artifacts only lower the release threshold; they cannot shorten the physical process of energy filling…”
He fell into deep thought.
He needed a method that could pre-store a “fully charged” spell, instantly unleash it when needed, and ideally allow repeated recharging…
Wait…
Jie Ming suddenly froze.
This requirement… why did it sound so familiar?
He slowly raised his head and looked toward the display shelf on the other side of the laboratory.
There sat several high-tier wizard artifacts he had purchased back in his low-tier wizard days – a staff capable of storing “Flame Burst,” a ring that could trigger three “Ice Explosions,” and a pair of boots that could automatically release “Void Shift.”
All of them were traditional wizard artifacts.
The operating principle of traditional wizard artifacts was precisely to pre-store a complete witchcraft model inside the artifact, maintained in a stable state by solidified runes.
The user only needed to inject a tiny amount of mental power to trigger it, and the witchcraft would release along its preset trajectory. Once released, the artifact would automatically draw energy from the environment or charging crystals to prepare for the next activation.
“I…” Jie Ming opened his mouth, then suddenly burst into laughter.
The laughter started deep in his throat, initially tinged with self-mockery, then gradually turning into genuine, unrestrained mirth.
He – Jie Ming, a genius wizard from Noren Academy’s Alchemy Department, who rose to prominence through talisman-sealed wizard artifacts, whose research direction was “dual-system fusion”…
After nearly a millennium of twists and turns, after pouring countless efforts into transforming a cross-system spell, the solution he finally thought of to overcome its flaws was to return to the most basic principles of traditional wizard artifact crafting.
“Haha… truly interesting.”
He wiped away the physiological tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes, but his gaze grew brighter and brighter.
Yes, why wouldn’t it work?
The core advantages of talisman-sealed wizard artifacts were “low entry barrier” and “environmental power supply,” ideal for prolonged battles.
But traditional wizard artifacts still held irreplaceable value in “instant burst” and “specialized function.”
If he were to encapsulate the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light model into a specially crafted wizard artifact the same way one would encapsulate witchcraft…
No, even “the same way” wasn’t necessary.
He could simply make it into a dedicated “Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light emitter.”
Each artifact would pre-store a complete beam, powered by a fifth-ring elemental pool.
Normally kept inside his Inner Cave Heaven for automatic charging, then, when instant overwhelming firepower was needed in battle, he could simply draw it out and unleash a sixth-ring-grade light-speed strike.
And if he went even more extravagant, using the high-purity “Incense Power” produced by the Incense Fire Divine Dao as a catalytic medium, he might even be able to restore the original spell’s “dao-rhyme erosion” effect…
The more Jie Ming thought about it, the more feasible it seemed.
He turned back to the workbench, swept his hand to clear the previous model projection, and opened a brand-new design interface.
On the left side of the interface was the complete spell structure of Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light.
On the right was the classic encapsulation array of traditional wizard artifacts.
What he needed to do was seamlessly fit the contents of the left into the framework of the right.
“One year left – enough time to produce a prototype.” Jie Ming murmured to himself, his fingers already beginning a new round of outlining. “Before heading to the Reincarnation Plane, I should at least bring some new toys.”