Chapter 272: 2-Ring Wizard

Warren felt the palpitation and slowly sensed the faint connection between himself and Ace.

“Take out your Grimore. We have a Covenant; it is also the proof for recognition,” Ace said slowly, looking at the still vigilant Warren.

After confirming Ace’s identity using the Grimore and looking at the message sent by Ace on the last page, Warren’s expression finally settled. He rubbed his face, revealing his true appearance—a man in his twenties with conspicuous freckles still on his face.

Ace established a mental link with Warren through the Mental Imprint. Finally convincing Warren of his identity, they communicated via the mental link.

‘Lord Torch-Bearer, aren’t you in the High Tower Territory? Why did you suddenly come to Milne City? Milne City has been very dangerous recently. An organization called the Torch-Stealers Alliance, which also researches the supernatural field, was defeated by the Punishers.’

Ace replied concisely through the mental message: ‘I came to the North accidentally due to an experiment with summoning magic.’

Warren nodded and continued:

‘According to the information we collected, Nicholas, the Grand Speaker of the Torch-Stealers Alliance, should have escaped. He is ranked eleventh on the Salia Punishers’ penalty sequence and is called the “Mechanical Sin Fox” by the Punishers. Those ranked ahead of him are all Demons and Devils.

‘Additionally, there is a newly promoted Desecrator known as the “Dark Raven Devil,” ranked fifteenth on the penalty sequence.’

As Warren spoke through the mental link, he looked at Ace’s figure and the shadow ravens dancing in the shadows around him.

Ace looked at Warren’s eyes and said indifferently:

‘That should be referring to me. I killed a few Heroes of the Punishers some time ago. I didn’t expect to end up on their penalty list. Has our organization been affected?’

Warren glanced at the circling shadow ravens again and replied: ‘A small number of Wizard Apprentices were exposed, but the majority successfully went underground. The Punishers organization shouldn’t have figured out our situation. Thanks to the Grimore mechanism you created, the exposed ones were executed as die-hard elements.’

Ace remained silent. Although there were constraints from the contract, after several confrontations with Heroes, Ace felt that this constraint was not absolutely fail-safe.

After understanding the general operation of the Milne Magic Council branch, Ace obtained the latest issue of Magic from Warren and began to read, inspiring his own train of thought.

Because Ace’s clone had published a paper on the “Beneficial State Astral Projection Hypothesis,” a large amount of research based on this hypothesis had sprung up like bamboo shoots after rain.

Ace read the latest research of the Advanced Wizard Apprentices with gusto. The thought about the sense of disharmony regarding the composite 2-Ring Spell Model flashed through his mind.

‘Since this Spell Model is a composite Spell Model, how can it lack a meditation method of the same level? A 2-Ring Meditation Method is the final piece of the puzzle for my Spell Model.’

Ace’s Mental Power scale had already reached 30 unit. The effect of the 1-Ring “Bright Moon Meditation Method” had begun to decline, specifically manifesting as a halving of the mental power scale gained from absorbing and transforming the same “amount” of Bright Moon Mana.

‘Meditation methods actually include two processes: absorption and digestion. However, my current 1-Ring Meditation Method actually only includes absorption. Transformation relies entirely on the natural digestion of the Soul Sanctuary or the assistance of the True Spirit.

‘What can be solved currently is the absorption aspect of the meditation method. Create a 2-Ring Meditation Method to absorb more and higher-quality characteristic Mana. As for accelerating transformation, I need to think of another way.’

Ace looked at the various 0-Ring Astral Projection meditation methods developed by the Advanced Apprentices, and his thoughts were greatly inspired.

There was the classic Dawn Meditation Method created by Betty, which could fixedly absorb the power of the dawn. Betty initially wanted to absorb the sun’s power throughout the day, but found that the power of the noon sun was too domineering and difficult to transform, while the power of the setting sun was mixed with a heart-palpitating decline.

Only the power of the dawn was vibrant and most suitable for transformation.

In addition to the Dawn Meditation Method, Advanced Wizard Apprentices also created the Natal Star Meditation Method, choosing a star suitable for their affinity as their Natal Star and directly absorbing its power.

The power absorbed by this method varied in strength, but it won in terms of extreme compatibility. The obtained characteristic Mana was very easy to transform, so this method became the mainstream.

Some Advanced Apprentices believed that all things originated from elements and everything could be expressed by elements, including meditation methods.

Ollie, following this line of thought and based on the Astral Projection Hypothesis, created the Wind Element Meditation Method. She treated the omnipresent wind in nature as an “Astral Body” and absorbed the power of the wind by interacting with active wind elements.

For this purpose, Ollie went to the wind gap in the Larr Mountains to absorb the violent wind elements there, and indeed obtained extremely high-quality Wind Mana.

These were the three main schools of meditation currently: the Sun-Moon Principal Star School, the Natal Star School, and the Elemental School.

Ace felt that the recently emerging astrological divination and Natal Star research were not suitable for him; affinity research was too idealistic. The Elemental School was difficult to unify all elements, and a single element was not Ace’s path.

However, Dawn and the Bright Moon were very complementary. Perhaps that was a good idea.

‘The power of the Dawn is more akin to the Yang power of life and burning, while the power of the Bright Moon is pure Yin power. Perhaps I can combine Dawn and Bright Moon to create a meditation method with more comprehensive characteristic power.’

While thinking, Ace tried to construct a new 1-Ring Spell Model.

A few days later, a spherical Spell Model similar to the “tai chi” shape was successfully constructed— the 1-Ring Light and Dark Meditation Method.

It possessed the characteristics of both Dawn and Bright Moon simultaneously. Through this spherical Tai Chi structure, it achieved harmony and synergy, with an endless cycle of characteristics. Ace considered it for a long time and added runes related to Positive Energy and Negative Energy into it, finally constructing a complex meditation Spell Model possessing both life and death, light and dark.

This meditation method could produce Light and Dark power with quality far higher than the power of the Bright Moon. It could be better transformed and absorbed by the chaos at the top of the Soul Sanctuary, increasing the transformation efficiency by more than double.

But this meditation method was only a 1-Ring Meditation Method. What Ace needed was its advanced form, the 2-Ring Light and Dark Meditation Method.

For this reason, after helping Warren resolve some doubts about magic research and understanding the current status quo, Ace left Milne City.

He observed the trajectory of the alternation between sun and moon, day and night, every day, focusing on observing the characteristics of the Dawn and the Full Moon. Finally, a year later, in the Magic Calendar Year 12, he combined them into a 2-Ring Spell level Light and Dark Meditation Method.

In a small town on the edge of the Norton city-state, Ace lived in seclusion in a common house.

Ace’s Mental Power scale had rapidly grown to 51 unit. The breadth of the entire Soul Sanctuary had expanded by nearly double. Upon breaking through 50 unit, Ace could clearly feel the difference.

His perception, Mana Affinity, and the True Spirit’s control over the Soul Sanctuary had all improved tremendously. The True Spirit phantoms had increased from two and a half to three.

At the same time, the effectiveness of the 1-Ring Light and Dark Meditation Method was almost lost; it was difficult to drive the growth of the Mental Power scale further.

‘Fifty unit is an important watershed for Level 1 Life. The 2-Ring is imperative,’ Ace recorded.

This 2-Ring Meditation Method was a crystal-clear Spell Model, a perfect sphere with a structure where light and dark were distinct yet blended, with life and death, light and dark dynamically transforming and cycling.

Using the meditation method as the base, dreams as the core, soul illusion and simulated supernatural language as the two wings, and the six-element crystal as the crown, Ace constructed a complete and complex 2-Ring Spell Model.

A strange 2-Ring Spell Model that was dreamlike and where virtuality and reality generated each other. No supernatural creature in this world would have such a strange Rune structure. This was the choice of a Wizard, the crystallization of magic, and the foundation of Ace’s path.

Ace carefully replicated the Level 1 Runes related to this composite 2-Ring Spell Model into the Soul Sanctuary, then guided this Spell Model into the Soul Sanctuary.

Just as the Spell Model of virtuality and reality generating each other entered the Soul Sanctuary, the entire space shook violently, and anomalies arose abruptly!

In the vision of the True Spirit giant, Ace’s Soul Sanctuary was an inverted ellipsoidal space, with a vertical diameter of fifty meters and a horizontal diameter of over two hundred meters.

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