Wizarding Era

The application of chips

After handing in his task, Tony rushed back to his lodgings, eager for a good sleep. Every inspection left him mentally exhausted due to the constant tension. Meanwhile, Grim hesitated for a moment before heading towards the library.

At noon, the library was relatively empty of apprentices.

Inside the modest stone room, against the walls stood over a dozen yellow wooden bookshelves, densely packed with various materials and styles of wizardry books. The keeper of these books was an intermediate wizard apprentice in his fifties.

Such apprentices, who had barely reached the intermediate level through sheer passage of time, were not highly regarded by the wizard tower. They had lost their ambitions, unwilling to undertake perilous tasks or return to a mundane life, making them a unique group among wizard apprentices.

Working as a librarian yielded just one knowledge point every seven days, but it was safe and hazard-free, hence occupied by these seasoned intermediate apprentices. Those like Grim, without support and alone, could only take on the most dangerous missions.

Unlike usual, Grim did not head straight to the innermost shelves but leisurely browsed through each shelf, occasionally picking up a book to glance at. The wizardry books in the library were shielded by a veil of black mist that concealed their contents except for the title page. This mist was set by the tower's master, the fearsome Wizard Anderson. Without special wizardry array processing, no apprentice could access the content, not even a single word. Those attempting to bypass this protection would trigger hidden arrays, drawing Anderson’s wrath and punishment.

Despite the strict security, Grim still wished to test if his biochip could find a loophole to exploit. Acquiring knowledge points was too challenging, and he had only managed to gather seven so far, insufficient for his further studies.

He pulled out a book titled "History of Wizards" and pretended to read intently. Deep within his mind, a covert command was already sent to the biochip.

"Scan this book and see if you can access its contents without triggering the protective array!"

"Command received... Starting deep scan..."

Grim lowered his head. During the scanning process, his eyes would subtly glow red, so he needed to disguise this anomaly to avoid detection.

"Unknown defensive field detected... Analyzing... Warning! Field undergoing unknown changes... Scan terminated..."

Grim quickly closed his eyes and shut the book. His attempt to sneakily gain knowledge failed; even with minimal external stimuli triggering the book's protective arrays. He realized he must continue to acquire knowledge honestly with knowledge points.

However, there was no regret. With the biochip, he no longer needed to manually copy texts as before. Any book he borrowed once would be completely replicated into the chip's storage area for future reference. Even if he couldn't immediately grasp all information, it could be stored and organized by the chip for later comprehension. This feature alone had been a great help!

Reluctantly setting aside "History of Wizards," Grim wandered to another shelf filled with fire element-related books, which matched his elemental affinity and were his frequent haunts.

Titles such as "On the Properties of Fire Element Particles," "Fire Element Control Techniques," "The Burning Hand," and "How to Form a Large Fireball" ranged from theoretical discussions to simple casting insights, and formal elemental spell models and techniques. Spellbooks allowed him to master necessary wizardry to enhance his combat capabilities, though they didn't increase his knowledge reserve much. Only theoretical wizardry books could potentially boost his mental strength.

Thus, how to wisely use knowledge points to expand his wizardry while preserving his life and striving towards becoming a full wizard was a daunting challenge!

Faced with rows of tempting books, Grim fell into deep thought again. Every power system has a profound theoretical foundation, and a wizard's strength is rooted in the wizardry system.

What does wizardry represent then?

Without hesitation, Grim assigned the chip an almost impossible long-term task:

"Chip, collect all basic wizardry data, trace back to the source of wizardry, and find the most suitable advanced path for my future development!"

"Command accepted... Establishing long-term observation project: Origin of Wizardry... Currently lacking data, unable to establish complete model... Establishing short-term evaluation project: Subject's Path to Wizardry... Currently lacking data, unable to establish complete model..."

A series of alert beeps made Grim's head hurt. The newly awakened biochip had almost no data. If he didn't collect some basic wizardry books, the chip couldn't deduce real results based on mere speculation.

Fortunately, during his six years, he had transcribed some materials which he planned to input into the chip to avoid constantly being hindered by a lack of data.

Exiting the library, Grim first headed to the public dining hall to fill his stomach before returning to his residence.

Upon entering, he glanced at the floor near the door. There was a very faint fluctuation of fire elements—a trap he had set using fire element particles. It wasn't particularly useful but could detect if anyone had entered his room by altering the arrangement of the particles. In this unpredictable community, having no self-preservation awareness meant a short lifespan.

After securing the door, Grim eagerly brought out the wizardry notes he had laboriously transcribed over the years. He now possessed five complete wizardy books.

The first was "Encyclopedia of All Things," the** book for all wizard apprentices.

Sitting properly at his wooden desk, Grim meticulously read through "Encyclopedia of All Things." Although most of its content had become his memory, many details were inevitably forgotten.

Now, not only was he silently reading, but the biochip also recorded all the knowledge through his eyes, categorizing and storing it.

Eventually, Grim stopped thinking and reading, transforming himself into a human photocopier, rapidly replicating every word, character, magical line, and diagram in the transcribed books.

In less than fifteen minutes, a whole "Encyclopedia of All Things" was stored!

Grim couldn't help but marvel. The book, as an introductory text for wizard apprentices, contained nearly ten thousand different races and categories of strange creatures found on the Wizard Continent, along with common plants, animals, minerals, and special wizardry materials—totaling about thirty thousand entries.

Even when he first learned it, it took him seventeen months to fully read through it, but now it was stored in less than fifteen minutes.

While marveling at the chip's power, Grim closed the book and slowly recalled the content he had just memorized. Whenever he thought of any species or plant, the chip automatically retrieved relevant data and projected it into his mind, saving him much time looking up information.

Satisfied with this efficiency, Grim didn't need to worry about the obscurity of wizardry knowledge anymore.

Excited, Grim ignored the slight headache and eagerly took out the second book to replicate in the same manner.

"Origin of Spiritual Power," a serious theoretical wizardry book mainly discussing the essence and application principles of the most commonly used spiritual power among wizards, along with some simple methods for training spiritual power.

After finishing the second book, Grim gently rubbed his throbbing temples, feeling dizzy and nauseous, nearly vomiting.

This seemed to be a sign of spiritual power exhaustion! As a wizard apprentice, he was familiar with such symptoms. When he first learned the Burning Hand, he often depleted his limited spiritual power due to improper control of mana output.

Later, as he became more proficient in casting the Burning Hand, he instinctively mastered part of the spiritual power usage. As a wielder of wizardry, one's spiritual power and soul strength are directly proportional. The stronger the soul, the more abundant the spiritual power, allowing for more wizardry to be cast.

For instance, Grim's spiritual attribute was 8 points, meaning his magic or spiritual attribute was ten times that, at 80 points. Of course, some wizards preferred to call this magical force mana.

And those 80 points were the extent of Grim's current spiritual strength capacity.