Chapter 116: Talent
Having already formed a few suspicions, Hughes gradually calmed down as well and sank his consciousness into his mental sea.
The mental sea was no longer the same as before. The eighteen spiritual runes Hughes had created through meditation had all vanished. Only at the very center did a purple, six-sided diamond-shaped crystal remain, silently floating above his mental sea, its surface covered in rune arrays.
A pale violet radiance continuously emanated from the crystal, filling Hughes’s entire mental sea.
A powerful force spread throughout his body. Looking at the scene within his mental sea, Hughes knew that his advancement to become an official wizard had succeeded.
A smile finally appeared on his face. After so many twists and turns, he had at last successfully advanced to the rank of official wizard and formally embarked upon the path of wizardry.
“Chip! Retrieve everything that happened after I lost consciousness!”
Hughes wanted to know what had happened to him. Why had the chip originally indicated that the fusion of his spiritual runes had failed, only for him to advance successfully afterward?
“Beep! A substantial increase in unidentified energy has been detected within the host’s body!”
“Beep! The host has absorbed a large quantity of natural energy!”
“Beep! An unknown bloodline has manifested within the host. Forced assimilation in progress!”
“Beep! Bloodline assimilation complete. The host’s spiritual power has increased dramatically!”
“Beep! Fusion of the host’s spiritual runes complete. Wizardry template inscription successful. The host has successfully advanced to become an official wizard!”
“Beep! Unidentified information detected. Preliminary analysis commencing. Analysis complete. Bloodline information confirmed: Abyssal One!”
“What does all this mean...?”
Looking at the data displayed by the chip, Hughes suddenly realized that a great many things seemed to have happened while he was unconscious.
“Natural energy? Bloodline...?”
Hughes did not remember possessing anything called natural energy. As for the bloodline, he understood it even less.
“Chip! Display my current status!”
Impatient to find out exactly what had happened to him, Hughes immediately issued the command.
“Beep! Recalculating host data...”
“Beep! Hughes Bruch: Rank-One Wizard. Bloodline: Abyssal One. Strength: 7.12. Agility: 8.91. Constitution: 10.97. Spiritual Power: 32.12. Mana: 32.12. Mana synchronizes with spiritual power. Condition: Healthy!”
The chip soon displayed Hughes’s data in full before his eyes.
“My physical attributes haven’t increased by much, but my spiritual power has multiplied several times over!”
Hughes could sense that, with his current spiritual power, he could cast zero-rank spells almost instantaneously. Their power would undoubtedly be far greater as well.
“Chip! Display my innate wizardries!”
Hughes already had some understanding of the effects of the Elemental Body, but he did not know how much it consumed. Now that he had successfully advanced, he also wanted to see what kind of defensive field an official wizard possessed.
“Beep! Elemental Body: A defensive field forms around the host’s surface and can be activated instantaneously. Physical defense: 27 degrees. Spell resistance: 29 degrees. Consumption: one point of spiritual power and one point of mana every six hours. Trait: Capable of converting a portion of spell attacks into enhanced defense!
“Abyssal Eye: Releases abyssal rays from the eyes to launch a soul attack against the target. Targets with inferior spiritual power may be reduced to a state of annihilation. Consumption: one point of spiritual power and one point of mana!”
“Elemental Body... Abyssal Eye...”
Hughes stared at the chip’s data, utterly stunned. Then he was seized by an overwhelming surge of joy.
“Hahaha... Two innate wizardries!”
Having successfully advanced to become an official wizard, and now possessing two innate wizardries as well, Hughes could no longer suppress his delight.
For wizards, only one wizardry template could be solidified at each rank, and once solidified, it could not be changed. Hughes had never heard of anyone possessing two at once.
A rank-one wizard could solidify one rank-one wizardry template. Only after advancing to rank two could another rank-two wizardry template be inscribed. Yet Hughes, while still only a rank-one wizard, now possessed two wizardry templates, both with the power of rank-one wizardries.
With an additional innate wizardry, Hughes could now look down upon any wizard of the same rank.
The two innate wizardries appeared to be one offensive and one defensive. Both possessed tremendous power while consuming very little, giving him a considerable advantage.
But once his joy faded, concern swiftly followed.
What exactly had happened while he was unconscious? How had these two innate wizardries been formed?
Hughes understood the Elemental Body well. He had had the chip analyze it step by step. Yet the Abyssal Eye was another matter entirely.
Hughes understood the Elemental Body well, since he had repeatedly searched for information and analyzed it piece by piece. He was particularly satisfied now that the chip had calculated its energy consumption.
If the Elemental Body were not an innate wizardry, Hughes felt that activating it even once would require a considerable amount of spiritual power. But now, it required only one point of spiritual power every six hours. That was the advantage of an innate wizardry.
The chip had also told Hughes that by using three points of spiritual power each day, he could maintain the Elemental Body continuously. At last, Hughes understood how the defensive fields of other wizards worked, and why a defensive wizardry had to be chosen when solidifying a wizardry template.
“Abyssal One bloodline... Abyssal Eye...”
Hughes stared at the chip’s data, sinking into thought.
“Chip! What happened to the unidentified energy inside my body?”
Only after a long while did Hughes finally ask the chip.
“Beep! No unidentified energy detected.”
The chip immediately gave him its reply.
“As expected!”
The chip’s answer confirmed Hughes’s suspicions. The unidentified energy in his eyes was the power of the bloodline that had already assimilated with him.
That bloodline power had been released along with his advancement. But Hughes had never heard of the Abyssal One and had no idea what kind of bloodline it was.
“Chip! Aside from the name of the bloodline, what other information was contained among the unidentified data detected earlier?”
“Beep! Analysis in progress. Estimated completion time: forty-three days!”
“If that’s the case, then everything makes sense.”
Hughes had now more or less pieced together the sequence of events.
The only thing he could not understand was where the natural energy had come from. No matter how much he thought about it, he could not find an answer.
“Once the chip finishes analyzing the information, I’ll know exactly what this Abyssal One bloodline is. And judging from all this, have I somehow become a bloodline wizard without even realizing it?”
After muttering to himself for a while, Hughes finally noticed that he was still naked. He hurriedly picked up the clothes he had removed and put them back on one piece at a time.
Now that he had calmed down, Hughes could think of nothing but the bloodline within his body. He even had the chip scan the natural energy.
The result was that no trace of natural energy had been found within his body. Hearing this, Hughes simply stopped worrying about it. His greatest concern now was the bloodline.
Wizards possessing other bloodlines was not particularly rare. Among the information Hughes had collected, quite a few bloodline wizards were recorded. They were also known as sorcerers.
It was not that bloodline wizards were inferior. Rather, they were subject to many limitations. Unless a bloodline wizard family was brought down by a powerful enemy, the reasons for its decline were generally limited bloodline purity or the loss of its meditation method.
Bloodline dilution was a problem every bloodline wizard family feared, yet there was no way to prevent it. For a family to continue developing, reproduction was indispensable. Therefore, the direct descendants of bloodline families were never numerous, allowing them to preserve the concentration of their bloodline as much as possible.
Bloodline wizards were also constrained by the upper limit of their bloodline. If a wizard implanted the bloodline of a high-level rank-two creature, then no matter how talented that wizard was, they might never be able to advance to rank three in their lifetime.
Likewise, every bloodline came with a corresponding meditation method. If that meditation method were lost, the meditation methods used by ordinary wizards would be useless to a bloodline wizard.
Hughes did not know whether the information currently being analyzed by the chip included the meditation method. If it did not, then his path as a wizard would become extremely difficult.
Bloodline wizards did possess certain advantages, however. The first was lifespan. Influenced by their bloodline abilities, many bloodline wizards lived considerably longer than ordinary wizards. Even so, very few wizards chose the bloodline path unless they had no other choice.
Another advantage was that, like Hughes, they could possess two innate wizardries. Hughes suspected that even if he had not previously ordered the chip to prepare the Elemental Body template, he might still have ended up with two innate wizardries.
Normally, as long as the bloodline within a bloodline wizard was sufficiently pure, it could give birth to the wizardry template best suited to that individual. It was even possible for them to possess two innate wizardries.