I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 789: Willows Set Without Thought Grow into Shade

Seeing Jie Ming’s reaction, Viola blinked. “What is it?”

There was something odd in Jie Ming’s expression. “Senior Sister, your mental energy—rose by thirty percent?”

“That is right. Oh, that energy of yours can indeed be used to strengthen the body, but I thought that was too much of a waste. I only tried a little of that, and put all the rest into strengthening my mental energy.”

“Is there a problem?”

Jie Ming fell silent.

A problem?

Yes. Very much so. And a large one at that!

Jie Ming stood at the experiment bench, his brows drawing together bit by bit.

He rapidly re-ran the data he had recorded earlier through his spiritual sea.

By his extensive experiments on the Blood Sacrifice Method, once a recipient’s aptitude reached the ceiling of his current level, the surplus power from a same-level sacrifice did not vanish, but converted according to the recipient’s own cultivation.

By his experimental records, a same-level sacrifice converted to roughly half a percent to three percent of cultivation improvement for the recipient.

Applied to the wizard system, that naturally meant raising mental energy and physical strength.

There was nothing wrong with that. The problem was that the increase was far too large.

Calculating from the baseline of Viola’s mental energy fluctuations as he had sensed them earlier, each of those three sacrifices should have raised her mental energy by around one percent.

And the mental energy Viola had just gained—was exactly thirty percent.

Which meant that the entire yield of sacrificing three sixth-level clones had converted into mental energy, with no gain in aptitude whatsoever.

Jie Ming let out a slow breath. “Damn—”

Only in that moment did he finally understand where the vague unease he had felt after his own experiment had come from.

The crux was the aptitude of high-level wizards.

It was not only in the cultivation system that those who could cultivate to a high position generally had decent aptitude. The wizard system was the same.

An existence capable of advancing to the high levels on its own strength almost never had an obvious deficiency left in its aptitude.

Elemental affinity, soul strength, rate of mental growth—all the metrics that determine potential get topped up continuously with resources while one is still at the low levels.

If a genuine defect existed, one would never reach the high levels at all.

Like that Wizard Mars he had met when he first enrolled: his third-level talent should have made advancing to formal wizard impossible, but he made up the deficiency with resources gained on the battlefield and finally managed it. (Author’s Note: chapter 5.)

But that meant that his original plan of using the Blood Sacrifice Method to raise high-level wizards’ aptitude and thereby earn vast military merits—

Had been wrong from the very beginning!

High-level wizards had no need whatsoever to raise their talent.

At that thought, Jie Ming could not help a headache coming on.

However, when his gaze fell on Viola’s face, he paused slightly.

His senior sister’s eyes were all but shining, and the delight on her face could not be hidden at all.

However he looked at it—she did not seem to think the technique was useless.

Jie Ming ventured, “Senior Sister, how does it feel to you? If it went to market, how would you rate its commercial prospects?”

At that, Viola blinked as though she had heard an incredible question. “Commercial prospects?”

She thought about it briefly, then suddenly turned serious. “Let me confirm something first. Besides the technical cost of the array itself, is the main consumable only clones at the same level as the recipient?”

“Correct.” Jie Ming nodded.

“And does inscribing the array need any special materials? Or do the clones themselves have any special requirements?”

“No special materials or requirements. In extreme cases the array can be constructed purely out of mental energy, and the clones need neither knowledge nor combat ability. They only need to reach the required life level.”

“Then does your technique have any limit on raising mental energy? Something like it stops working at the eighth level?”

Jie Ming scratched his head. “There should not be a limit like that. I have not tested it, but going by the principle, the most that happens is the effect is poorer on an eighth-level wizard, since most eighth-level wizards have absurd accumulations already—”

Before he had finished, Viola strode forward and brought both hands down hard on his shoulders.

Bang!

She was so excited that she used rather too much force, and the puppet’s shoulder even gave off a faint sound of grinding metal.

“Of course it has prospects!” Her eyes were bright and her speech had quickened considerably. “Enormous prospects!”

“Never mind sixth or seventh-level wizards. Even the great figures who have only just advanced to the eighth would scramble for this technique of yours!”

Jie Ming was startled. “Eighth-level wizards need more mental energy too?”

“Of course.”

Viola nodded as if it were obvious.

“Do you know what an eighth-level wizard lacks most after advancing? Not law, and not knowledge. Mental energy!”

Jie Ming looked puzzled. “But I have heard that once an eighth-level wizard has fixed his law, he can operate at zero mental energy cost.” Viola did not contradict him. “That is true, but you are describing combat conditions.”

“Outside combat, an eighth-level wizard who wants to improve has to keep refining his own law fixation. Every deduction, every experiment, every deployment of his domain in that process requires vast mental energy to sustain.”

“And mental energy is not like elemental energy, which you can raise however you please. Especially for existences at the eighth level, where the overwhelming majority of mental energy potions have stopped working. Apart from slow accumulation day by day, there is essentially no other way.”

“Plenty of seventh and eighth-level wizards spend several thousand years to raise their mental energy a little.”

At that she could not help glancing at the pods beside them, where the three clones, now ashes, had been.

“But this technique of yours—raised my mental energy thirty percent in one go! And if I am not mistaken, with your technique, as long as there are enough clones, the amount of mental energy gained can rise dramatically too, correct?”

Jie Ming nodded without thinking.

Viola said, “Do you know what that means?”

Jie Ming fell silent.

Viola only grew more excited as she spoke. “You know the Soul Sublimation Potion I drank when I broke through from the third level to the sixth?”

“Of course.”

“That one bottle.” Viola held up a finger. “Left me in debt for over a thousand years. I nearly worked myself to death paying off those merits!”

At that she could not help laughing at herself.

“And besides—the Soul Sublimation Potion only works below the sixth level. Past the sixth, drinking it is sugar water.”

“But your technique is different.” She looked at him in earnest. “It still works on high-level wizards, even eighth-level ones.”

“Do you understand what that means? What you are holding is not an ordinary technique. It is a production line that converts directly into high-level military merits!”

The laboratory abruptly went quiet, but Jie Ming showed no excitement. If anything his expression was rather odd.

Viola noticed the mood he was in, and the smile slowly withdrew from her face.

“What? Is there still a problem?”

Jie Ming coughed lightly. “Actually—raising mental energy is only a byproduct of this technique.”

Viola blinked. “A byproduct?”

And then Viola grew even more excited. If the byproduct was already this impressive, the main effect had to be through the roof!

Jie Ming then gave her a rough explanation of what the Blood Sacrifice Method genuinely did.

“Er—this main effect of yours—that is it?” Viola tilted her head.

Jie Ming’s face darkened. “Yes!”

Viola folded her arms and lowered her head in thought. It was quite a while before she nodded slowly.

“I see. Then I have essentially understood it.”

She raised her head and looked at him. “If it is as you say, then the aptitude enhancement part—really does not mean much to high-level wizards.”

She thought a moment and added, “In fact, even for fourth and fifth-level wizards, it does not mean as much as you imagine.”

Jie Ming was surprised. “Why?”

But as soon as the words left his mouth, he worked it out himself.

“Because what wizards genuinely rely on has never been talent.” Viola smiled.

“At the same level, elemental beings have higher elemental affinity than wizards, and spirit beings have greater soul strength than wizards.

So why are they still experimental material?”

Jie Ming was silent, and Viola supplied the answer for him. “Because what wizards rely on is intelligence and knowledge.”

“Talent only determines whether you can step through the door. Once you are inside, its importance drops lower and lower.”

Jie Ming could not help sighing. “A pity—genuinely valuable intelligence is the one thing that cannot be permanently raised.”

That was true in the cultivation world, and true in the wizard civilization.

Comprehension, logic, patterns of thought are themselves part of the core of a personality, after all.

Changing them permanently would be less a matter of raising intelligence than of killing the original self and swapping in a new soul.

Even the cultivation system can only raise comprehension briefly, by means of the Dao Integration state.

And in the wizard civilization, the closest thing to that ability he had yet seen was the Entropy Brain.

Beyond that, there was no other way.

At that thought, Jie Ming could not help leaning back in his chair.

“It seems this technique can only end up as a cultivation accelerator after all.”

But Viola suddenly laughed out loud. “You really do tie yourself in knots.”

Jie Ming raised his head. “Meaning?”

Viola held up two pale fingers. “Very simple. Split one technique into two products.”

“The first keeps only the aptitude enhancement. The target customers are mortals and low-level wizards, and it offers a talent enhancement service. Your cloning costs are low enough that you can crush every other talent enhancement technique on price alone.”

“The second provides a mental energy enhancement service specifically. Target customers are high-level wizards.”

“As for the low-level wizards who happen to have money—” She blinked. “They can perfectly well buy the package.”

“Raise aptitude first, then raise mental energy. No side effects, and an effect stronger than the Soul Sublimation Potion.”

Jie Ming’s eyes lit up at once. It really was a good line of thinking.

But he soon frowned again. “Then how should the price be set?”

Viola shrugged. “Is that not simple? Go ask Mentor. The old man has only been seventh level a few centuries, so he is exactly when mental energy is scarcest.”

“Have him experience it himself. His opinion should be quite worth referring to.”

Jie Ming nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”