End of the Magic Era

Star Sage Jouyi introduced each of them one by one.

Lin Yun listened attentively and he could feel himself paling. Indeed, Lin Yun did think that the research Star Sage Jouyi was heading definitely wasn’t simple.

But he truly hadn’t thought that it would be to this degree.

Quite shockingly, among the five people he could see, there were three Archmages. The remaining two were 9th Rank High Mages, and one of them was even a Master Alchemist!

This was too frightening.

How many Archmages were there in Andlusa? To have three of them gathered here… If this news spread out, who knew how many people would be scared?

Lin Yun resisted the shock that he felt and greeted the other four powerhouses. But they were busy exchanging knowledge, and Lin Yun’s qualifications were too shallow, so their attitudes were far from enthusiastic. Nodding to Lin Yun out of respect for Jouyi was considered pretty good already.

“Okay, Merlin, you just joined today and I didn’t arrange too much work for you. I heard Solomon say that you are gifted in performing data calculations. How about this, Hogg over there has a few calculations that he has yet to finish. You should work with him for some time.” After introducing everyone, Star Sage Jouyi put the crystal ball in front of a 9th Rank High Mage.

This 9th Rank High Mage was the youngest of the five people. He looked to be still in his forties and was now debating with the Master Alchemist. But those High Mages didn’t seem to be paying attention to Lin Yun’s conversation with Jouyi. It might have been because they were too focused on their work or perhaps because they were arguing too intensely. His hair was dishevelled and his eyes a bit red. When he noticed Jouyi motioning for his attention, he temporarily stopped arguing with the Master Alchemist and stood up.

“Sir Jouyi.”

“Hogg, how is the progress on those magic matrices?”

“Give me ten days and I’ll definitely complete it.”

“Hmm, good…” Jouyi nodded, satisfied with the response. He pointed at Lin Yun within the crystal ball and explained, “Hogg, Merlin joined today and has yet to take on any work. I was thinking of having him work with you, how about it?”

“I am willing to help you, Sir Jouyi.”

“Good, I’ll trouble you.” Jouyi gave a few words of encouragement and then turned over control of the crystal ball to Hogg.

After the meeting, Hogg waved his hand, making the crystal ball float and follow behind this 9th Rank High Mage. He quickly arrived at an independent study room.

Through a glance from the crystal ball, Lin Yun quickly noticed that this was a specialized room for research that involved matrix calculations. There were all kinds of tools used for magic calculations inside this room, complicated magic diagrams were hung on the walls, and a small mountain of discarded pieces of paper was stacked in a corner. Lin Yun could tell that this 9th Rank High Mage had already spent a lot of energy studying the Fanrusen Formula.

After Hogg returned to his study room, he first sorted out the recently completed pieces of data and translated them into Nesser before activating an alchemy array. After inputting the translated data, he made the alchemy array do some computations for him. This was one of the common ways of calculating used by Noscent’s mages.

Although mages had wisdom far beyond that of ordinary people, they would use alchemy arrays of magic tools to deal with these dull and repetitive tasks.

After about ten minutes, the alchemy array finished its calculations and displayed the results on a huge crystal screen. Hogg took out a quill and a piece of paper and copied down those results before starting a new round of calculations.

It felt as if he had forgotten Lin Yun as he did his work.

An hour later, Hogg felt thirsty and got up to pour himself a glass of water. As he drank, he walked up to the crystal ball.

“Mafa Merlin, right?” Hogg nodded at the crystal ball as he explained, “As you have seen, this is the task awaiting you. Not only do you need to be exceptionally knowledgeable, but you also need endless patience. If you feel that you aren’t suited for it, you can tell me now and I’ll help you tell Sir Jouyi so you can smoothly withdraw from this research.”

“There shouldn’t be any problem…” Though Lin Yun said this, he wasn’t a hundred percent certain. To be honest, if that task required a great amount of time and energy, Lin Yun would truly feel that it wasn’t suitable for him.

After all, there were too many matters waiting for him to handle.

Apart from the countless runes he had to digest, he still had to explore the Bone Plane, excavate the prince tomb, and rebuild the Mercury Mercenary Group. All of these matters needed a lot of time and energy. Lin Yun didn’t have a cloning spell, so how could he take a long amount of time to participate in some research?

But fortunately, it was only the Fanrusen Formula.

This wasn’t a big problem for Lin Yun, since he could actually complete it by himself. It would only be a matter of two or three days, which couldn’t be considered wasting time.

“Okay.” But these words made the 9th Rank High Mage frown when he heard them. He let out a stiff word of acknowledgement, but in his heart, his assessment of this young Great Mage had instantly lowered.

Magic itself was incomparably contradictory, dull, and mysterious. Over decades, Hogg had seen who knew how many young geniuses who walked this path because of the mysterious part of magic, but in the end, over ninety percent gave up because of how dull it was to research it.

A mage had to be able to endure loneliness.

‘This Mafa Merlin showed a hesitant expression just by seeing me do my dull work. This is a typical example of someone that is unable to endure loneliness. With this kind of nature, he is bound to be a failure in the future.’

“Now, help me sort out these pieces of data.” Thus, Hogg didn’t plan to say anything else and only took a stack of papers. “Oh, and on the last piece of paper, there are a few formulas and some data I left for you, give them to me after you calculate them.”

“Okay.” Lin Yun nodded and then softly chanted the incantation that Solomon had given him, causing the crystal ball to flicker. The stack of paper quickly flipped over and in a short time, the contents of the stack of paper had been received by the crystal ball. Lin Yun activated an alchemy array on the side, and along with the flickering of the mana circuit, a stack of paper was spit out from the alchemy array.

This was a unique technology from the Cloud Tower. At this moment, only High Mages and Archmages were qualified to use it. Lin Yun could use now it because of Star Sage Jouyi.

“Send it to me once you complete it.” After Hogg said this, he directly shut off the crystal ball’s transmission and threw himself back into his work.

To Hogg, the young Great Mage in the crystal ball was just an insignificant nobody, even though Jouyi had referred to him as a genius.

A 9th Rank High Mage like Hogg was already an existence that was just a step away from the Archmage realm. He had seen many geniuses during his time, but how many eventually still stood out? In the magic world, geniuses that didn’t mature were nothing.

Saying a few sentences to him at the start was already making an exception for him.

And furthermore…

He still had to wait for the genius to grow up so they could chat as equals.

To Hogg, calculating all those spell matrices was the most important task at hand. Because Hogg knew that being able to participate in the Fanrusen Formula’s research was the best opportunity in his life. It was a chance to change his fate, because he would be valued by Star Sage Jouyi as long as he was outstanding enough. At that time, with the resources supplied by the Cloud Tower, becoming an Archmage wouldn’t be impossible.

Moreover, the Fanrusen research made great progress after Star Sage Jouyi obtained those four crucial pieces of data. In one or two years, the results of the Cloud Tower’s research would shock the entire world. His name was bound to be written in history, and he would be looked up to by generations to come.

In a daze, Hogg seemed to be looking at a path filled with flowers as he threw himself amidst countless formulas and pieces of data.

At the same time, Lin Yun took the thick stack of paper in his hands.

‘Looks like this High Mage Hogg is truly in need of an assistant…’ Lin Yun only needed a glance to understand that these papers were filled with completed calculations. All he had to do was sort them out. There was no problem, it was only dull work.

Having thought this far, he looked at the last piece of paper.

Listed on the paper were eight pieces of data and a Quad-Formula. It was one of the spell matrices needed for the Fanrusen Formula.

But Lin Yun frowned after a simple glance.

He could tell that if this information was computed in its current state, he would never obtain the correct result during his lifetime.

‘Isn’t that High Mage Hogg too careless?” Lin Yun didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. There were two mistakes within one of the eight pieces of data, and one of the formulas of the Quad-Formula had to be changed. It was hard to imagine that this kind of mistake would be made by a 9th Rank High Mage.

Lin Yun thought for a bit and decided to help himself. He first modified one of the pieces of data and then changed the offending formula. Once he was done, Lin Yun began calculating. After a few minutes, he wrote the final result on the piece of paper.