Chapter 199 : Chapter 199
Chapter 199. Major Breakthrough
After the magical device came to a stop, Philip excitedly lifted the lid and looked inside.
A pile of miscellaneous materials lay scattered within it. Philip had never seen so many things appear inside a magical device used to refine White Star Sand.
After he quickly sorted the materials into rough categories, his trembling hand finally cast a spell to measure their weight.
“My heavens! It’s actually real—”
Philip nearly jumped up on the spot, but he suppressed the urge, because the other mages were still watching.
Among the gathered mages, Nora watched the excited Philip with a smile on her face. She had already known that Fulan’s device truly worked, since she had seen it used with her own eyes.
Meanwhile, Leo looked at the scene before him with a complicated expression. He had never imagined that Fulan’s use of Spirit-Repelling Copper would actually work, much less prove this useful.
He did not need to think very hard to know that such a high yield would definitely attract the attention of the Alchemy School, and under Fulan’s name, there would now be a paper documenting a major discovery.
“That’s Spirit-Repelling Copper, isn’t it?! How did you think of using that metal?”
Philip had also recognized the outer layer of Spirit-Repelling Copper wrapped around the magical device, and he was curious why Fulan had chosen this metal, and how she had even thought of it.
“Because I sensed a Spirit Form.”
“A Spirit Form?”
Philip asked in shock, as though he had suddenly thought of something.
“That’s right. Because I know spells from the Necromancy School, when I used this magical device, I sensed a Spirit Form.”
“That was when I thought of the essence of alchemy: taking what we need from matter by ‘snatching’ it away. So I thought of using Spirit-Repelling Copper.”
Philip calmed himself a little, then said,
“A very good inference. So it was actually a Spirit Form from the Necromancy School? I really never considered that angle.”
What Philip said was sincere. He truly had never thought in the direction of the Necromancy School’s Spirit Forms.
Even here at the Northern Society, where all schools could freely exchange knowledge, he had only learned useful spells from other schools rather than digging deeply into their underlying principles.
Take this matter, for example. He did know a spell for controlling corpses, which could be considered somewhat related to Spirit Forms, but there was no way he would have thought to use that spell under these circumstances to detect a Spirit Form.
“Does she have some kind of talent for necromantic spells? Is she especially sensitive to Spirit Forms?” That was the only explanation Philip could think of for Fulan.
“Spirit Forms!” Only then did Leo come to a sudden realization and understand why Fulan had added a layer of Spirit-Repelling Copper: it was to block Spirit Forms.
At that moment, all he felt was regret. He was the one from the Necromancy School, yet he had failed to do what Fulan had done and directly identify that feeling as something related to Spirit Forms.
Thinking back on it now, when he had used that magical device, he had also felt a vague sensation in the dark, but he had ignored it, dismissing it as an illusion.
Now that he thought about it, that had absolutely been his perception of a Spirit Form.
Now he regretted it deeply. He regretted not identifying the Spirit Form the way Fulan had. If he had, perhaps the one standing there right now would have been him...
A result like this, even if it belonged to another school, would be enough for him to receive tremendous commendation within a greater society after joining one.
“Excellent. I’ll put your name first. With this result, we will most likely be able to win the Silver Alchemy Award.”
Philip spoke happily. After only one hard day of work, he had practically gained an award for free, and that delighted him.
Although he was the one leading the project, and by rights his name should have come first, he knew better than anyone that if it had merely been him setting the broad direction while Fulan tested it out, then he could have claimed that.
But he also knew better than anyone that Elise, the President of the Northern Society who had introduced Fulan here, was a Fourth-Tier Mage. Under those circumstances, he would never dare place his own name first.
As for the Silver Alchemy Award, it was an internal Alchemy School prize granted for important achievements in alchemy.
The White Star Sand refined by this project was a Second-Tier material used in quite a few Second-Tier spells, so the corresponding award was the Silver Alchemy Award.
He was certain that in terms of merit, this result absolutely qualified for next year’s Silver Alchemy Award.
The only uncertainty was whether the judges would make things difficult because he was from the Northern Society.
No matter what, this was still an extremely important achievement.
When the project had first begun, his plan had only been to raise the output of this magical device a little.
It did not even need to reach the output of Traditional Refining; that alone would already have counted as a good result.
But now, not only had they greatly increased the yield of White Star Sand, they had also produced many byproducts and clearly established that Gray Nether Iron might contain Spirit Forms. All of these were excellent directions for further study.
It could be said that this achievement might very well be the greatest one of Philip’s life.
Fulan smiled, echoed a few polite remarks, and then began discussing with Philip how this result should be written up into a paper.
As a major achievement within the Alchemy School, she was certain that once this paper was published, she would immediately earn enough Points to exchange for a Second-Tier advancement method.
Even the three apprentices under Philip understood how important this result was, and they happily began celebrating.
The project they had been following had produced a major result, though obviously their names had no chance of appearing on the paper.
This was also one of the society’s rules. In the eyes of the Alliance’s great figures, apprentices could sometimes provide good ideas, but until they reached the rank of mage, they were still only ideas. In the end, it still took a mage to perfect them.
Even the other mages cast envious looks their way. They truly had not expected that a mage who had only just arrived here with them could make such a major discovery.
Even Dylan looked at Fulan with admiration. Before coming to this project, he had already heard Elise say that Fulan had created two spells while she was still an apprentice, and that she possessed great talent in spellcraft.
Now it seemed that Fulan truly was talented, especially in researching spells. And that was precisely the kind of talent Dylan lacked. He let out a soft sigh.
He was good enough at repeating the work of those who came before him, and he would rarely make mistakes doing that. But if he was asked to create something new, he truly had no ideas at all.
His fist clenched and then relaxed.
He decided that he would give up on focusing solely on the path of becoming a researcher. He simply did not have the same path as Fulan.
I should talk to my mentor and ask her to recommend me to the Northern Society’s Battle Mage Corps. I’ll train my combat abilities while continuing my spell research on the side.