Translator: AnubisTL
This magic artifact is too powerful!
Its unparalleled escape speed is its greatest strength, making it the ultimate trump card for desperate escapes.
However, at his current cultivation level, the immense energy consumption, the post-escape weakness and stiffness, and the complete lack of control over the landing point make it a "one-time use" skill, only viable in dire circumstances.
Using it once almost guarantees the loss of all ability to resist, leaving one's life entirely to chanceโeither the enemy can't catch up, or he won't be attacked before he recovers.
The Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror truly lives up to its reputation, as described in the Great Dao Library Pavilion: a deadly tool for desperate escapes, not to be used lightly!
But for Jieming, these drawbacks were acceptable.
As he had previously reasoned, if he ever needed to use this artifact, it would mean he had no other options left, and any hope of turning the tables would be gone.
Taking a gamble on escaping with his life was still better than quietly awaiting death.
Moreover, this was only the artifact's initial form.
The Great Dao Library Pavilion mentioned that the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror possesses nearly limitless growth potential.
As his cultivation improves and he integrates more powerful concepts of light, the artifact's escape speed, duration, controllability, and even its secondary effects will continuously enhance.
The current high energy consumption stems from the artifact and his own cultivation being insufficient to perfectly contain and transform the concept.
In the future, as his cultivation deepened and his true essence and divine sense grew stronger and more refined, his understanding of concepts would become more profound, gradually alleviating these problems.
Struggling to his feet, Jieming felt his true essence slowly recovering within him.
Though battered and disheveled, a fiercer flame ignited in his heart.
"I must... study this!"
Wizards excelled at integrating elements from other systems into their own, which was a primary reason they often waged Planar Wars.
All wizard spells, at their core, were the final products of experiments or phenomena, stripped of their underlying principles and processes.
Once the principle behind something was understood, wizards could devise countless ways to replicate it.
By continuously refining their research and eliminating unnecessary steps, they could ultimately condense anything and everything into a single spell.
Alchemy operated on this principle, as did the fireball spell, and even Jieming's rune-imbued magical artifacts followed a similar logic.
Now, the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror's formidable power had revealed the next subject he needed to emulate.
Of course, it was still too early to dwell on such matters.
He submerged the mirror back into his dantian and began slowly recovering his true essence and divine sense, using the restored energy to further nurture the magic artifact.
It was time to return to the academy.
Having tested the initial power of the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror, Jieming realized he had no pressing tasks ahead.
Whether it was developing the mirror's spirituality, researching its Light Transformation escape ability, or refining various rune-imbued magical artifacts, none of these endeavors would yield immediate results.
Moreover, apart from the rune-imbued magical artifacts, the remaining research would be more fruitful once the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror advanced further.
For the first time in a while, Jieming found himself with free time.
Of course, calling it "free time" was an exaggeration; a more accurate description would be "less busy."
Yet this sudden lull left Jieming feeling somewhat disoriented.
"Tch! What a glutton for punishment," he muttered. "Can't even handle a little downtime."
Despite his words, Jieming instinctively began planning his next steps.
With the new students having already enrolled and only five years remaining before his deployment to the frontline, his focus shifted to the next challenge: advancing to first-tier official wizard and reaching the foundation establishment realm.
To advance from wizard apprentice to first-tier official wizard, one must meet three rigorous criteria:
First, the apprentice must meet the minimum mental power storage requirement.
This is the most fundamental condition, heavily influenced by innate talent.
Each apprentice possesses different natural talent, resulting in varying maximum mental power storage capacities upon reaching the third-tier wizard apprentice stage.
Generally, only apprentices with fifth-tier talent or higher can naturally accumulate enough mental power to meet the minimum requirement for advancement. This is the primary reason why apprentices with fifth-tier talent or higher are considered "geniuses."
Apprentices with talent below the fifth-tier must use spiritual sea expansion potions to increase their mental power capacity.
However, these potions typically cause significant damage to the wizard's body, often shortening their lifespan and draining their vitality.
Apprentices with fourth-tier talent usually need to consume one to three expansion potions to barely meet the advancement requirements.
Those with third-tier talent require more than five such potions.
Due to the severe damage these potions inflict on the body and lifespan, ordinary wizard apprentices can only withstand the side effects of a maximum of four potions.
Therefore, theoretically, a third-tier talent wizard apprentice could never advance to become a formal wizard.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.
If a third-tier talent wizard apprentice could obtain a higher-grade special potion with fewer side effects, or utilize rare and precious natural treasures that enhance the body, extend lifespan, or increase vitality to counteract the potion's negative effects, they could theoretically continue their advancement.
However, both higher-grade potions and these precious treasures typically require military merit or vast amounts of merit points to acquire, and their availability is extremely limited.
This is why countless wizard apprentices are willing to risk their lives to wage war across the endless planes.
In addition to accumulating military merit, they also hope to discover such treasures in new planes to enhance their vitality.
Naturally, some more extreme wizard apprentices might even choose to undergo physical modifications to achieve a stronger physique and greater vitality.
The second requirement for advancing to a formal wizard was the use of the Ascension Potion.
This core magic potion was designed to stimulate a wizard's latent potential, enabling a qualitative leap in their life's essence. It was an indispensable component of the ascension process.
Naturally, the potion's physical toll far surpassed that of the spiritual sea expansion potion.
As Jieming reviewed these ascension criteria, he compared the similarities and differences between his own cultivation system and the wizard system.
Since reaching the seventh layer of qi refining, Jieming had clearly observed that a cultivator at this stage possessed power roughly equivalent to a third-tier wizard apprentice.
Even Berta Vera Augusta, the young lady with a ninth-tier innate talent whom he had previously encountered, only achieved mental power levels and quality comparable to a peak seventh-layer qi refining cultivator after fully accumulating her mental power as a third-tier wizard apprentice.
Jieming was also certain that a first-tier official wizard's capabilities were on par with a foundation establishment cultivator, and in some aspects, even surpassed them.
(End of the Chapter)
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