Three days later, in the early morning, the bitter aroma of Silver-Leaf Grass tea filled the reception room on the first floor of the stone building.
Ethan and the two wizards slowly sipped their tea in silence.
The quiet lasted for about ten minutes before Convict set down his teacup. “It is about time. You wouldn't be able to hear a public lecture of this caliber at our Blood Bone Tower.”
Secret Eagle placed her teacup on the low table. “The main speaker is Wizard Gloom-Bright of Jingyuan Academy. He specializes in multi-elemental composite theory and is considered an authority on the subject in District 77. I've read an article of his regarding a water-fire dual-attribute fusion model, and his approach was highly innovative.”
Ethan set down his teacup. “Wizard Gloom-Bright?”
“Yes,” Secret Eagle said, straightening up. “Because his research focuses precisely on forcing two opposing attributes to fuse together—light and darkness, fire and ice, life and death. The very things others find contradictory, he insists on piecing together. It is said that in his early years, to verify a theoretical model, he blew off his own left arm over three hundred times, using Flesh Regeneration to grow it back every time just to keep blowing it up.”
Convict walked to the doorway of the teleportation room. “Let's go. If we are late, we will have to stand in the corner to listen.”
The three stepped into the teleportation room, and pale gold array patterns lit up beneath their feet.
When the light dissipated, Ethan found himself standing at the edge of an astonishingly spacious plaza.
The ground of the plaza was paved with massive, individual slabs of dark silver crystal plates, with dense networks of pale gold runic lines embedded inside them.
Those runes slowly drifted inside the crystal plates like living creatures, shifting colors every time they traveled a certain distance—from pale gold to deep blue, from deep blue to dark silver, repeating in a continuous cycle.
Right in the center of the plaza stood a massive circular building.
The building was constructed entirely from a translucent, pale blue-green crystal. Its outer walls had no seams whatsoever, appearing as if a single giant crystal had grown straight out of the ground.
The building was at least three kilometers in diameter and over two hundred meters tall, with a hemispherical dome. Billions of energy light bands of various colors flowed across its surface.
Directly above the dome floated three rotating runic circles.
The outermost was pale gold, the middle layer was deep blue, and the innermost was dark silver.
The three circles rotated slowly at different speeds, each rotation sending a visible wave of energy ripples through the air.
A dense, dark mass of people had already gathered on the plaza.
Ethan's gaze swept over the crowd.
By a rough estimate, there were at least sixty to seventy thousand people.
They gathered in groups of twos and threes; some were walking toward the circular building, while others stood chatting at the edge of the plaza.
Standing by Ethan's side, Convict swept his gaze over the sea of people. “Almost every First-Tier and Second-Tier Wizard—and even Tier 3 Wizards—from all the Three Rings academies in District 77 who has even the slightest interest in composite elements has come.”
Secret Eagle chimed in, “Wizard Gloom-Bright usually conducts research in Jingyuan Academy's private experimental space and might not come out once in decades. His willingness to come out and lecture on basic theory this time is likely out of respect for the District 77 Grand Tournament. But though it is called basic theory, his system is incredibly profound. A First-Tier Wizard would be doing well to understand even ten percent of it.”
The three of them walked along the main path of the plaza toward the circular building.
Wizards from other academies constantly passed by them. Some walked in a hurry, while others chatted in groups of three to five, with occasional snatches of discussion about composite elements drifting over.
“I've been researching the stability of the water-fire dual-attribute composite model for seven years, and I'm still stuck on the thirty-seventh node...”
“Your approach is wrong. The node arrangement should use a spiral structure, not a mesh structure...”
Ethan took in all of these conversations.
The entrance to the circular building was a row of towering archways, each thirty meters high, with pale gold energy patterns embedded along the edges of the frames.
Hovering above the archways was a line of massive words: Composite Elemental Spell Basic Theory Exchange.
Standing on both sides of the archways were rows of humanoid constructs made entirely of translucent crystal, the core crystals in their chests emitting a soft, pale blue glow.
The three of them walked through the archway.
The space inside the building was far larger than it appeared from the outside.
Circular tiered seating extended all the way from the ground floor to the dome, numbering at least over a hundred thousand seats.
The aisles between the seats were wide enough for four people to walk abreast, and a translucent, dark gray crystal display was embedded in front of each row of seats, with extremely faint runic lines flowing across it.
Directly beneath the dome was a circular lecture platform over a hundred meters in diameter.
The platform was polished from a single block of pale gold crystal, its surface as smooth as a mirror, with its edges carved with a dense runic array.
Hovering above the platform was a circular light screen, with billions of energy light bands of various colors flowing inside it, echoing the energy dome outside.
Quite a few people were already seated.
Convict looked up at the circular tiers. “Follow me, I found a good spot.”
The three of them stopped at the thirty-seventh row and squeezed into their seats.
Secret Eagle sat down beside him.
Ethan sat on the other side of Convict, his gaze sweeping over their surroundings.
Three seats to their left sat a slender female wizard wearing a deep purple robe embroidered with dark silver star-trail patterns.
She was looking down, flipping through a thick book bound in some kind of dark gray leather. Her finger slid rapidly across the pages, and her lips moved slightly.
To their right and slightly ahead, two male wizards in dark green short robes leaned in close, discussing something in low voices. One of them held a thumb-sized knowledge crystal in his hand, with emerald green light patterns flowing inside it.
The other rapidly swiped his finger across the crystal display in front of him, rows of dense runic formulas appearing on the screen.
About fifteen minutes later, the energy light bands on the dome began to change.
The light bands retracted from the edges toward the center, their colors transitioning from pale gold to deep blue, from deep blue to dark silver, and finally converging at the center of the dome into a massive runic array over fifty meters in diameter.
The runic array rotated slowly, each rotation sending a visible wave of energy ripples through the air.
The pale gold crystal on the lecture platform suddenly lit up.
A figure emerged silently from the center of the platform.
It was a man of average build. His hair stood up in a messy, disheveled state, his cheekbones protruded sharply, and his eyes were deeply sunken, making him look chronically malnourished.
Granted, most research-oriented talents were rather unkempt, but this one... was simply taking it too far.
You are a Fourth-Tier Wizard, for goodness' sake!!!
Rate on N.U.
