Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
In this world, paper was very expensive. Normal people couldn’t even afford a notebook even if they went several months without eating and drinking.
The Magic Tower provided lodging and food, and a stipend, however little, could be saved for three to four months in order to buy a notebook.
Roland drew the model for Spell Puppets on a wooden board and explained a few important precautions.
Just as he was about to ask the mages what they didn’t understand, the world turned black and white and time stopped.
The gaming time was up.
Roland climbed out of the immersive cabin, and after he stretched his body, he immediately felt completely refreshed.
Since Roland went to bed at ten in the evening every day and woke up at six in the morning every day and changed his awful habit of sleeping late at night, he naturally felt more and more energized.
He habitually went on the forums to see what new things idiotic players were talking about, and he found quite an interesting thread.
Can’t Make Glass, and Can’t Make Gunpowder.
The general idea of the thread was about a certain player who, inspired by a certain online novel, took note of the sky-high price of glass in the game and the immense lethality of gunpowder, which could be used as a supporting method.
If one could get their hands on these two things, the problem of money and firepower could both be solved.
However, to his surprise, the recipe for these two things in this world was not the same as in reality.
The silica sand dug out of river channels didn’t turn into glass—when it was burned it would turn into a black mushy paste, and when it cooled down, it would turn into a kind of strange rock.
The recipe for gunpowder wasn’t the one part sulfur, one part charcoal, and three parts saltpeter that people were familiar with. Instead, the thing formed from these ingredients was a bunch of waste products.
In addition, many of the rules of physics, or common phenomena of nature, have been slightly altered.
Such changes were hard for the average person to discover, but they could have a huge impact on many things. For example, some chemical formulas in the real world could no longer be used here.
In short, anyone hoping to climb the tree of technology in this world might be disappointed.
Logically, it was supposed to work, as long as one could thoroughly understand the physical and chemical laws of this world, but… How many of the gamers were real researchers?
Those who had the ability to research were in their own institutes conducting research every second; they couldn’t possibly find the time to play games.
Below, there were many players’ replies.
“It’s unreasonable that an NPC can create glass and we can’t.”
“I clearly saw dwarf firearms.”
“It might be that magical elements are interfering with some basic laws of physics. After all, this is a world of magic.”
After reading the posts on the forum, Roland was about to go to the saber arts club for breakfast when he found out that one of the whitelist members of the forums sent him a message.
Roland turned off the function of adding friends and private messages because too many people wanted to add him as a friend and @ him too often. Only someone on the whitelist could send him a message.
Once he clicked it open, he saw that it was the mighty deputy director at the data center.
This person’s current online alias was O’Neal.
“Roland, I’ve already read the data you sent me. Yesterday, through four hours of repeated derivation, I confirmed that there’s nothing wrong with your data.”
“If there’s nothing wrong, then why do I feel like a node is missing?” Roland felt somewhat perplexed.
“I also can’t find out the specific cause. However, I have a vague idea.”
“Please do tell.”
“Do you think it’s possible… the magic model of Language Proficiency itself is lacking one node? I’m not talented at magic in the game, so it’s hard for me to feel what a complete magic model is like.”
Pa!
Roland abruptly clapped in realization. That’s right, there is this possibility. Perhaps the Language Proficiency that players received was an incomplete version to begin with.
He truly was a venerable person. His suspicions and conceptual ability was much stronger than that of a normal person like Roland—he immediately found the blind spot.
Roland would have loved to test the idea right away, but unfortunately, there was no way to do so now that the game’s server was shut down.
“Thank you, I’ll try again once when I enter the game at night.”
“You’re welcome. Oh right, are you interested in joining our Mages Communications Group? Everyone here is wholeheartedly determined to play mages. If you join, others would be very welcome.”
Roland only considered for about three seconds and agreed immediately.
Even the venerable man was in that group, so presumably, the discussions of magic must be quite frequent.
Roland was then pulled into a penguin chat group called “Pursuit of Arcane Magic.”
The number of group members was a little over eight hundred; most of them were online.
After Roland joined, he immediately sent out a message: “Newcomer fresh off the boat, seeking protection and guidance.”
“The same old rules, newcomers have to send a photo of themselves in a female dress, or else you’ll be treated as an invisible person (NosePick).”
“Yes, yes, newcomers must show a photo first.”
“Don’t listen to them, new friend. I’ve got you… just send the photo of you in a female dress privately to me first (Shhh)”
At first, it was the classical “hazing” from the old group members, but then a member sent a message saying:
“Don’t you guys look at the online alias? The newcomer is Roland.”
After a short moment of silence, messages flooded the group.
“Oh s**t, it’s really Roland. Mighty group administrator finally dragged in our gang leader.”
“Haha, this group finally feels legitimate.”
“Our reliance is finally here. Gang leader, I have so many questions to ask you. Although group admin’s math is very impressive, he’s actually a magic idiot in the game—his ability to sense magical elements is much worse than the majority of us!”
“Roland, my skin is pretty, and I know how to flirt and pull out a large weapon. Please take me as a mistress!”
Roland’s mouth twitched—why was there an idiotic crossdresser everywhere that he went.
Group administrator has kicked netizen White-Skin Cute Suckling Pig from the group.
Upon seeing this system notification, Roland sighed in relief.
The enthusiasm of the group members was quite high. They threw out many questions regarding magic. Most of them were simple, problems that Roland had encountered not long after he had learned magic two or three months ago.
For example: How to effectively mobilize magical elements?
Roland answered: “If all attribute points are added to intellect, at level three, you can clearly sense the freely drifting magical elements in the air and the amount of magical elements within your own body. At that time, you don’t need the system interface at all to clearly know how much MP value you have left. You can easily mobilize the magical elements at this time, but before that, it’ll be a little difficult and not very efficient.”
“I always feel that the word ‘difficult’ in the eyes of the experts is not the same word in the eyes of the novices.”
“Agreed, +1”
“It’s not difficult for us to mobilize the magical elements, it’s very difficult. It takes complete concentration, without any other distracting thoughts, to barely be able to circulate the magical elements as we wish in the nodes.”
Is it that difficult!? Roland frowned.
Then, Roland suddenly recalled the specialty Magic Power Control.
Could it be this specialty at work?
It should be—the specialty’s name alone reveals what its effects are.
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