Translator: AnubisTL
After years of gradual modifications, the training ground had long since shed its original rudimentary state.
The interior space had been expanded, more than doubling its original size.
The walls and floor were constructed from a special material capable of absorbing and dissipating energy, ensuring that wizardry experiments wouldn't affect the outside world.
The ordinary targets in the center of the room had been replaced with various standard testing targets and simulated environment devices. The walls now featured energy emitters for testing defensive capabilities and three-dimensional obstacles for assessing speed and maneuverability.
In the corners of the room, there were even controllable elemental energy release points, capable of simulating different concentrations of environmental elements.
Jieming first picked up the prototype of the offensive rune-imbued magical artifact.
"First... initiate testing!"
The offensive rune-imbued magical artifact took the form of a palm-sized metal disc, its surface intricately engraved with glowing talisman seals.
He held it in his palm and infused it with a faint, almost imperceptible strand of mental power.
The offensive talisman seal instantly activated, causing the runes on the disc's surface to glow with a soft crimson light.
Immediately afterward, the light converged sharply, and a fist-sized fireball materialized in front of the disc.
"Activation successful. Commencing attack test..."
Whoosh!
The fireball shot forth like an arrow from a bow, hurtling toward a thick metal target at the center of the training ground.
Boom!
With a muffled roar, the fireball struck the target with pinpoint accuracy.
Though merely a fireball spell at the wizard apprentice level, this fireball—instantly cast by the rune-imbued magical artifact and fueled by ambient fire elemental energy—exhibited significantly greater power and speed than fireballs cast by wizard apprentices of the same tier.
The metal target was left with a deep dent, its surface scorched black and still emitting wisps of blue smoke.
A flicker of satisfaction crossed Jieming's eyes.
Instant casting! Low energy consumption! Sufficient power!
"Control test..."
He reactivated the attack talisman seal. This time, as the fireball coalesced, he channeled a more refined strand of mental power into the seal, attempting to manipulate its trajectory.
The fireball trembled slightly as it launched, veering from its straight path to trace an elegant arc through the air. It bypassed an obstacle beside the target, then curved back to strike the target's opposite side with precision.
He continued experimenting, attempting to split the fireball into two smaller flames mid-flight or to instantly expand its size before impact, increasing the blast radius...
While each precise manipulation required additional mental power, overall, the rune-imbued magical artifact proved far more versatile than ordinary wizardry artifacts.
Next came the defensive rune-imbued magical artifact.
This was a metal ring resembling a bracelet. Jieming fastened it to his wrist and activated it by channeling mental power into it.
A semi-transparent energy shield instantly materialized around him, radiating a faint milky-white glow that enveloped his entire body.
Jieming approached an elemental energy release point in the corner of the training ground and began drawing in a massive influx of earth element.
As the earth element surged inward, the shield's glow intensified, transforming into a brownish crystalline structure of extraordinary solidity.
With a wave of his hand, several energy projectiles of varying sizes materialized across the training ground.
"Let's start with second-tier wizard apprentice-level wizardry!"
After a moment's consideration, the smallest energy projectile vanished. Immediately afterward, an egg-sized energy projectile hurtled toward Jieming's shield.
Pfft!
The energy projectile dissipated upon contact with the shield, leaving barely a ripple in its wake.
"Next level: third-tier wizard apprentice."
The second-largest energy projectile hurtled toward him.
Boom!
The shield emitted a deep rumble, slightly denting but holding firm against the attack.
The shield's solid, reliable feel filled Jieming with immense satisfaction.
He then channeled wind element, causing the shield to glow cyan.
Jieming instructed the training ground to continue firing energy projectiles. The cyan shield didn't simply withstand the impacts; as the projectiles struck, runes on its surface swirled, generating a faint repulsive force that deflected some projectiles, causing them to graze the shield's edge and veer off course.
Finally, he tested the fire element...
Jieming ran through a series of tests, each yielding flawless results.
After a moment's thought, he removed the bracelet and placed it on the target. Maintaining its activation, he commanded the training ground to unleash an energy projectile at the level of a first-tier official wizard.
BOOM!!!
A deafening explosion shook the area, and the surrounding protective field immediately lit up, absorbing the overflowing energy.
Standing behind the protective field, Jieming watched the surging, chaotic energy currents with wide-eyed awe.
Despite the seemingly small gap between a third-tier wizard apprentice and a first-tier official wizard, the actual difference in power was unimaginable.
If a third-tier wizard apprentice could barely destroy a small three- or four-story building with all their might, a first-tier wizard could effortlessly obliterate an entire street. The two were simply on different scales of existence.
As the explosion dissipated, the target at the center of the attack was revealed.
The target, which should have been reduced to ashes, was now merely twisted and warped. For a brief moment after the shockwave subsided, its surface flickered with the fading glow of an energy shield.
Only after a series of unstable flashes, like a flickering signal, did the crumbling shield finally shatter.
Crackle... Boom!
With a crisp sound, blue smoke billowed from the protective rune-imbued magical artifact installed on the target, signaling its destruction.
Seeing this, Jieming was surprisingly pleased.
Under normal circumstances, a third-tier wizard apprentice's shield would never withstand an attack from a first-tier wizard, even after Jieming's modifications.
The bracelet's ability to barely withstand the attack relied entirely on the rune-imbued magical artifact's most fundamental capability—the primary focus of Jieming's research—continuous spellcasting.
There were limits to layering shields. Wizardry energies would inevitably clash, and the more layers of the same type of enhancement spell were applied, the more pronounced the conflict became.
A typical low-level wizard could only layer two or three shields at most, and these shields had to be of different types of defensive spells. The defensive power of these spells would also diminish due to interference between their energies.
In contrast, spells that manipulated physical matter for defense had no such limitations.
This rune-imbued magical artifact, for example, could deploy three shields with different elemental properties simultaneously. However, due to energy conflicts between them, the actual defensive effectiveness was only about equivalent to two shields.
The principle behind how this artifact blocked the previous attack was simple: as soon as one shield broke, a new one was immediately deployed. Theoretically, if the shield deployment speed was fast enough, even the weakest shield could block an attack from a high-level wizard.
Of course, in practice, almost no one could achieve this. Most wizards simply layered as many shields as possible, creating a turtle-like shell around themselves.
Yet this rune-imbued magical artifact had accomplished it, albeit at the cost of its own destruction. Still, the result was more than satisfactory.
"This reminds me," Jieming quickly noted mentally, "just in case, I should produce several backup rune-imbued magical artifacts of each type before participating in the trials."
(End of the Chapter)