Chapter 261: Shattered

Three months later, Ace successfully appeared in the Reflection World through a Shadow Raven inside his shadow, confirming the success of the Reverse Summoning Magic Array.

He opened the Book of Coordinates and recorded the corresponding coordinates. These coordinates were the exact inverse of Ace’s coordinates on the inner side of the world. From the coordinates, one could also judge that the Reflection World was a complete reflection of the Prime Material Plane.

Ace did not stay in the Reflection World for long. Keeping his Mana Crystal protective membrane active at all times, he used the Spell Hand to collect some air and soil from the Reflection World. Then, he activated the Reverse Summoning Array, swapped places with the Shadow Raven, and returned to the West Tower.

A few days later, Ace confirmed that the air and soil of the Reflection World contained immense, lethal toxicity.

“Thanks to my caution. If I had been directly exposed to the Reflection World, I probably would have been poisoned, if not killed.”

Ace spoke in a deep voice. He temporarily suspended his research on the Reflection World and turned to deeply research summoning and reverse summoning.

Through multiple attempts with the Shadow Raven, as long as he placed a Shadow Raven marked with his spatial coordinates in a certain location, Ace could reach that location through reverse summoning.

“The Summoning Magic Array is cumbersome to set up and has a long guidance time, making it unsuitable for actual combat. It must be optimized into a directly usable 1-Ring Spell to have strong practical combat value!”

Ace’s gaze was piercing, as if he could see himself waving his hand to disperse a flock of ravens into shadows to hide everywhere, while he appeared and disappeared at will using reverse summoning and summoning.

“If I want to be able to flash anywhere within a certain range at will using the flock of ravens in actual combat, I must solve two problems. First is telepathy with the flock of ravens. Second is optimizing summoning and reverse summoning into a single 1-Ring Spell.

“The Familiar Contract can achieve this effect. An Advanced Wizard Apprentice can only contract one familiar. Now that I have promoted to a Formal Wizard, let’s see if I can contract more familiars.”

In the following time, Ace threw himself into research on improving the Familiar Contract. About two months later, Ace reached a conclusion.

“It turns out that all magic is connected. The Familiar Contract is actually a way of applying the True Spirit! It appears to be a Familiar Contract, but it is actually a True Spirit Contract. Under the effect of the contract, the one-dimensional projection of the True Spirit forms a double helix structure between the two parties, which is why telepathy is possible.

“Not only that, but life created by Activation Spells also has an entanglement phenomenon with the one-dimensional projection of the creator’s True Spirit. This is the source of telepathy, or the ‘whispers.’

“The Demons of the Larr Mountains are extremely powerful and can manifest at least a hundred thousand or even a million one-dimensional projections, thus influencing the creatures of the entire Larr Mountains.

“As for why the Familiar Contract can only contract one familiar, it is actually because the power of the contract can only forcibly extract one one-dimensional projection of the True Spirit. The biggest difference here lies in whether one has beheld the True Spirit!”

Ace recorded the conclusion in his Magic Book.

He invited multiple Intermediate Wizard Apprentices and Advanced Wizard Apprentices to conduct numerous comparative experiments. It was verified that Advanced Wizard Apprentices and Intermediate Wizard Apprentices who had not beheld the True Spirit could not autonomously project a one-dimensional True Spirit shadow line.

Beholding the True Spirit seemed incredibly simple to Ace, but it was completely incomprehensible to other Advanced Wizard Apprentices. Even following the contract, they could not find the location of their own True Spirit.

As for Intermediate Wizard Apprentices, others could find their True Spirits, but they themselves could not discover them at all.

Regarding the experiments with Life Activation Spells, although they could create some telepathic life forms under the spell’s effect, this creation and one-dimensional True Spirit projection were unconscious and non-autonomous. They were completely unaware of it, let alone able to control it autonomously.

“There must be a situation I don’t know about that distinguishes me from other apprentices. What exactly is this situation?”

Ace thought for a long time but couldn’t figure it out. Finally, he temporarily gave up thinking about this problem and turned to researching specific applications.

Creating a one-dimensional True Spirit shadow line was actually very simple; it was just a further projection of the Shadow of the True Spirit. Ace’s three True Spirit phantoms could autonomously project twenty-one one-dimensional True Spirit shadow lines. In other words, he could autonomously contract up to twenty-one Shadow Ravens.

Ace kept one line to establish a more intimate Familiar Contract with the Spirit of the Book, and prepared to use the remaining twenty one-dimensional True Spirit shadow lines to contract twenty Shadow Ravens.

Ace hadn’t explored the Reflection World deeply. In the reflection area corresponding to the valley, the most common Shadow Creature was the Shadow Raven. They had many clans, and their strength varied.

After observation, Ace found that the raven flocks in the valley’s reflection were both strong and weak. Shadow Ravens at the Level 1 Life stage were the natural leaders among the ravens, possessing blood-red eyes. Ace called them Shadow Raven Commanders.

Although Ace really wanted to capture a Shadow Raven at the Level 1 Life stage, unfortunately, he had just reached the level of a 1-Ring Wizard and couldn’t even survive in the Reflection World for long. It was almost impossible to deal with a Shadow Raven Commander leading a flock of hundreds or thousands of Shadow Ravens in the Reflection World.

Ace’s method was very pragmatic. He contracted twenty Shadow Ravens at the level of powerful low-level Monsters to conduct corresponding magic research.

About half a year later, in January of the Magic Calendar Year 10.

This year was a warm winter. The entire High Tower Territory wasn’t cold. Tracing up the Run-guang River, a shadow passed through the majestic dam, accompanied by the faint cawing of a flock of ravens.

Near the jungle upstream of the Luminous Light River, the pitch-black shadow suddenly stood up, then squirmed and transformed into a figure wearing a black robe. A 1-Ring six-pointed star badge was pinned to his chest, shining in the deep night.

This person was none other than the only 1-Ring Wizard of the High Tower Territory, Ace.

In the past half-year, with the assistance of the Spirit of the Book and his Rational Clone, Ace had successfully researched a new 1-Ring Spell, the Shadow Transformation Spell.

This spell used the Shadow Rune discovered from the shadow transformation of the powerful low-level Monster Shadow Raven as its core. It also absorbed the characteristics of other Shadow Creatures and incorporated shadow transformation-related Runes recorded from Alexius to construct a 1-Ring Spell.

After casting this spell, one would turn into a shadow, possessing capabilities like swift Shadow Leap, Shadow Strike (attacking both soul and body simultaneously), Shadow Shaping, and Shadow Immunity.

Casting this spell would turn one into a Shadow Creature for a short time, entering the Shadow Plane attached to the world. One could not be attacked by enemies not on the Shadow Plane, but simultaneously, one could not attack others either.

Once one attacked others, they would exit the Shadow Plane, appear in reality, and become vulnerable to attacks.

After transforming into a Shadow Creature, one would also possess the ability to survive in the Reflection World for a long time.

Besides the Shadow Transformation Spell, Ace also integrated summoning and reverse summoning into a single 1-Ring Spell, the Shadow Raven Blink.

This spell was composed of two parts: internal and external.

The internal part was the 1-Ring Spell Model within Ace’s Soul Sanctuary, centered on the Random Coordinate Rune, Positioning Rune, Summoning Rune, Teleportation Rune, and Contract Imprint.

The internal Spell Model could locate the Shadow Raven flock that had True Spirit entanglement and telepathy with Ace based on the Contract Imprint. Externally, Ace had replicated a 1-Ring Spell, the Summoning Teleportation Spell, inside the body of every Shadow Raven.

This internal-external combination spell could achieve rapid summoning and reverse summoning. Simply put, Ace could swap positions with any Shadow Raven the moment he activated the Spell Model via this spell.

Unlike the Summoning Magic Array—which, given a complete setup and sufficient sacrifice, could achieve even cross-planar teleportation—this 1-Ring Spell required that the distance between the two parties swapping positions not exceed 500 meters.

This was a spell with extreme practical combat effectiveness. With it, the Shadow Transformation Spell, and the Time-Limited Mirror Image, Ace would become extremely difficult to kill.

“That’s about it. After another practical combat drill, I should leave the territory to find new opportunities.”

Under Ace’s command, the flock of Shadow Ravens moved rapidly under the cover of the night. Ace activated the Shadow Raven Blink Spell Model within his Soul Sanctuary.

With the activation of the Spell Model, an invisible Contract Chain locked onto a position, and the spatial barrier was instantly breached. Ace felt a wave of slight nausea. ‘This is the inevitable effect of spatial conversion,’ Ace thought.

Just then, the bag at his waist experienced irregular disturbances, seeming unable to endure something. Like glass shattering, the expanded space within the Bag of Holding shattered along with the spatial conversion.

The positioning was interrupted, and the coordinates were lost. The effect of spatial conversion had already triggered. Amidst the spinning of the world, Ace’s vision went black, and he lost consciousness.

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