Translator: CinderTL
Tiger Soul Branch Base.
After breakfast, Feng Qi and Lin Ran headed to the Third Technique Laboratory as usual.
Following Lin Ran to the Art Magic Combination Instrument, Feng Qi began observing his operations.
Through their interactions over the past few months, Feng Qi had gained a deeper understanding of art magic research.
He now realized just how terrifying Lin Ran's innate talent in this field truly was.
The known spiritual energy attributes were incredibly diverse.
In addition to the earliest discovered attributes—gold, wood, water, fire, and earth—there were also wind, thunder, dark, light, nature, qi blood, and over two hundred others that had been identified.
Among these, more than twenty spiritual energy attributes remained under investigation and unnamed.
As for undiscovered attributes, their number was simply unknown.
This vast array of spiritual energy attributes was a major reason for the domain world's diverse races, each possessing unique abilities and racial talents.
For example, domain creatures living in water-attribute spiritual energy worlds had gradually mastered water element manipulation through prolonged exposure to and nourishment from water-attribute spiritual energy.
This ability, passed down through generations, had become deeply ingrained in their bloodline. Even newborns possessed an innate talent for manipulating water elements from birth.
Compared to the domain races, humanity's development had been remarkably late. Spiritual energy had only appeared in the human world a little over 500 years ago. While the nourishment from spiritual energy had indeed made each generation of humans stronger than the last, this rapid growth still couldn't bridge the gap with the domain races, who had accumulated eons of accumulated power.
It was at this point that the importance of art magic and cultivation techniques became apparent.
If Cultivation Technique Research delved into the structure and mysteries of the human body, then Art Magic Research explored the properties of heaven and earth spiritual energy.
Neither field held inherent superiority over the other. However, for Human Civilization at its current stage, cultivation techniques that accelerated physical development were clearly more crucial.
As for research difficulty, Art Magic Research was no simpler than Cultivation Technique Research. The core of Art Magic Research lay in arranging and combining different spiritual energy attributes to produce corresponding effects. This process was exceedingly complex.
To create a new art magic, the prerequisite was that the art magic researcher possessed a strong perceptual ability for spiritual energy attributes.
In the field of Art Magic Research, this perception is known as "spiritual affinity."
Art magic researchers lacking spiritual affinity are akin to colorblind individuals among humans, struggling to distinguish between spiritual energy attributes, let alone arrange and combine them.
Only those with strong spiritual affinity can navigate the complex classifications of spiritual energy attributes and combine them to create their desired art magic.
This threshold alone bars countless aspiring talents from entering the field of Art Magic Research.
One of Lin Ran's most terrifying innate talents in Art Magic Research is his near-perfect elemental affinity.
Without needing any instruments, he can clearly discern every element freely floating in the air.
To illustrate with another visual analogy:
If art magic researchers lacking spiritual affinity can be likened to those with color blindness or color weakness, then someone like Lin Ran, with his extraordinary spiritual affinity, can be compared to a person with superhuman vision.
In creative research, innate talent always takes precedence.
While diligent effort can narrow the gap with talent, it can never completely bridge it.
Some individuals possess solid theoretical foundations but fail to pass the spiritual affinity barrier, preventing them from advancing further in Art Magic Research.
Lin Ran possessed an innate advantage in Art Magic Research.
However, this was just one aspect of his talent in the field.
The second major challenge in Art Magic Research was determining how to arrange and combine spiritual energy.
This step was the core key to creating a new art magic.
Different combinations of elemental attributes could produce a wide range of unique properties.
For example, even a simple "water ball technique" required more than just water-attributed spiritual energy; it also needed other types of spiritual energy to assist in its release.
This concept bore some resemblance to the ancient texts' descriptions of the five elements' mutual generation.
When water-attributed spiritual energy fused with its mutually generating attributes, its power could be significantly enhanced.
However, compared to the five elements' mutual generation and restraint, the actual combinations and arrangements in Art Magic Research were far more complex, almost limitless.
In this field, every art magic researcher was a pathfinder.
The knowledge accumulated by predecessors was extremely limited, forcing researchers to rely on their own keen observation and creativity to experiment with various combinations.
Lin Ran possessed exceptional talent in this area as well.
Like an architect, Lin Ran relied on his extraordinary spiritual affinity to clearly perceive the detailed effects of each spiritual energy attribute. Combining this with his creativity, he mixed various elemental attributes together, like constructing a building, to create the art magic he desired.
This talent for creation was closely linked to his insight and creativity.
The power and effectiveness of the created art magic depended entirely on the researcher's own abilities and innate talent.
The third hurdle for art magic researchers was the art magic trajectory.
Consciousness as the needle, weaving through ten thousand arts.
These eight characters encapsulated the core principle of the art magic trajectory.
During the art magic release process, consciousness acted like a needle, constantly weaving through the spiritual energy particles in the air. By arranging and combining them, it linked together all the necessary spiritual energy.
The art magic arrangement and combination achieved in the second stage only completed the overall framework of the art magic.
Perfecting the art magic trajectory was essential for applying the created art magic in practice.
Many art magics that successfully passed the second stage during creation would still fail at the third stage.
Especially those art magics with complex combinations and long casting times were utterly impractical for real combat.
Therefore, the art magic trajectory was just as crucial as the art magic itself.
It determined the smoothness and efficiency of casting.
For the same art magic, two different trajectories could result in casting speeds varying by several times.
It was like all roads leading to Rome.
One path might be a straight line, while the other meandered far out of the way. The difference in arrival time would be glaringly obvious.
For frontline warriors, efficient art magic casting was a matter of survival.
Due to issues with art magic trajectories, humans had discarded at least tens of thousands of developed art magics in their research.
Feng Qi had once heard Lin Ran recount the most absurd case of all: an art magic called "Sole Sovereign."
The researcher who developed it had spent half his life perfecting its power.
During testing, the art magic's destructive force proved unparalleled.
It shattered the previous record on the "Art Magic Lethality Ranking" by more than tenfold.
Despite its power, this art magic was ultimately rejected and now resides only in the cultivation museums of major cities.
The art magic's arrangement and combination aspects were flawless, with no conflicts or issues in its structure.
The problem lay solely in its art magic trajectory.
Drawing the trajectory for this Sole Sovereign art magic required an astonishing eighteen hours.
As one evaluator put it:
"This art magic is like shit in a latrine—stinky, long, and utterly pointless."
While it's normal for large-scale art magics to require extended drawing times, there's still a limit. Frontline warriors rarely engage in Domain Field battles lasting eighteen hours.
By the time the art magic trajectory was completed, the battle would inevitably be over.
More critically, any mistake during the trajectory drawing process would cause the entire pattern to collapse, resulting in complete failure.
For example, if you drew for seventeen hours and then made a mistake on the final step, you'd have to start over and redraw the entire eighteen-hour trajectory.
Such a mistake could lead to catastrophic consequences.
Thus, this immensely powerful art magic was utterly impractical in actual combat.
Its elimination was entirely justified.
(End of the Chapter)
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