A mage's journey begins with a battle mage.

Chapter 35 Troubles

Stormy Sea, on an unnamed deserted island.

Unaware that he had become the "source of trouble," Jiang Shuzhou was looking at the book "Magic and Alchemy" with a satisfied expression.

His innate talent as an "alchemy master" allowed him to learn at a speed far exceeding that of ordinary people. He originally only intended to relax for an hour or two, but unexpectedly, he learned all the basic mixing techniques in just over half an hour.

This made Jiang Shuzhou more and more addicted to learning, and he spent an entire afternoon studying it.

That afternoon, in addition to learning some theoretical knowledge about potion preparation, he also learned a special spell.

That is the modified mage's hand, or you could say the alchemical hand.

When alchemists concoct potions, they must strictly control the combination and changes of elements with the potion. Even the slightest change in any element can lead to the failure of the concoction.

Most spells contain a certain amount of various elements, and the Mage's Hand is no exception. If the Mage's Hand is used directly to assist in the preparation of potions, the potions are likely to be contaminated, leading to an increase in the defect rate or even direct failure in preparation.

In order to improve efficiency, alchemists had to use the Mage's Hand.

After a long and painful period, the alchemists finally managed to create a modified version of the Mage's Hand.

The characteristic of this mage's hand technique is that it solidifies the elements, rendering them inactive and preventing them from seeping into the potion being prepared, thus preventing contamination of the potion.

It sounds simple, but it's not simple at all in practice.

First, the spell level was upgraded from Apprentice to Tier 1. Second, the number of primary runes increased from one to four, and the number of secondary runes increased to a whopping thirty-six.

It can be said that the difficulty of casting the spell is extremely high.

However, this did not stump Jiang Shuzhou; his talent set could be said to be born specifically for mages.

So after two hours of practice, he mastered the revamped Mage's Hand.

This means I've learned another first-tier spell.

"Is it that late?"

Looking at the time on the system, which was already 8 p.m., Jiang Shuzhou felt a sense of disorientation; time had passed far too quickly.

He didn't plan to go to sleep now. Originally, Jiang Shuzhou wasn't in such a hurry to go to the civilized world, but now the situation is different.

The reason for this is that Jiang Shuzhou has already learned many alchemical potion refining methods, and now he urgently needs to put them into practice, turning his knowledge into money through potion refining.

Or to put it another way, the longer he goes to the civilized world, the less money he can make.

I'm thinking of going to the civilized world to make some money. As we all know, alchemy is a very lucrative profession, but it's also a very expensive one.

Now that Jiang Shuzhou has mastered the methods for refining numerous potions, all that's left is to put them into practice. Once he can refine them consistently, then...

He didn't even dare to think about how much money he could make.

As for buying alchemy materials from the trading house? Jiang Shuzhou decided against it for the time being. The prices of everything there were outrageous, and besides, he couldn't afford the alchemy equipment.

A complete set of alchemical artifacts in the trading house would cost at least 1000 million, not to mention the various materials available for practice.

However, while the trading post can be used as a sales channel, selling to those chambers of commerce might result in price gouging. It's better to sell some hard currency like healing potions directly to the trading post, which can also help avoid taxes.

Having made up his mind, Jiang Shuzhou lit a candle and began to study late into the night. No matter what, he had to learn at least two spells tonight.

Jiang Shuzhou plans to finish learning the spells by tomorrow, and then take a break the day after tomorrow, not only in the game but also in reality.

Since the game was launched, Jiang Shuzhou has been immersed in it every day. He is currently relying on nutrient solutions to stay alive and hasn't even stepped out of the house in the past ten days.

I feel like I've really become a vampire, just lying in a coffin and sleeping all day.

In addition, it's almost the 15th of the month, and every month on the 15th, someone comes to visit him to check on his situation.

"Sigh, life is so hard. I wish socializing would be as easy as magic."

With a sigh, Jiang Shuzhou fell silent, picked up the large book, and entered the ocean of knowledge, occasionally stepping out of the cabin to cast spells.

It seems that tonight's task is not a very difficult one for Jiang Shuzhou.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Inside an office of the Countermeasures Bureau.

Professor Wang was in a very bad mood. As the person in charge of the Dharma Master project, he felt very frustrated.

Learning magic is not something that can be accomplished overnight. Although magic is similar to programming, it uses the combination and arrangement of runes to manipulate elemental power.

However, even putting aside the fact that the prerequisite of sensing elements alone has stumped countless people, Professor Wang has about four hundred people under his command, and most of them are stuck here.

Not to mention the ability to absorb elements to gain magic power; to date, only three out of more than four hundred people have successfully absorbed elements.

As for casting spells?

To this day, no one has been able to learn even the simplest spell.

Professor Wang was helpless. Compared to other projects, the mage project was far too difficult, not to mention that he didn't have many resources.

Other projects, such as knights and warriors, were experimented on by selecting martial arts practitioners from the military.

When it came to the mage project, Professor Wang also had something to say: what's the situation with your warrior and knight projects?

They were all tall and strong, clearly the elite of the elite.

When it came to our mage group, let alone elites, half of them were just empty-headed college students. There weren't many students from Tsinghua University among them. Moreover, some of them had strong learning abilities but no elemental affinity at all, so they couldn't cultivate at all.

What kind of team are they? And what kind of team are we?

How am I supposed to carry this? It's impossible.

Looking at the row of game pods below, Professor Wang didn't have much to say. After all, compared to other projects, the mage project was a truly elite project, and ordinary people had almost no influence on its progress.

But true geniuses are hard to find. After all, mages are different from others. Learning ability is only the foundation. Creativity, imagination, and elemental affinity are the fundamentals, but they have no way to test and quantify elemental affinity.

"Perhaps I should apply to higher authorities to find some skilled individuals from the general public to join us."

Professor Wang muttered to himself.

"Clang clang clang".

The knocking on the door interrupted Professor Wang's thoughts.

"Please come in."

"Professor Wang, there are new instructions from above!"

"What instructions?"

Professor Wang asked, looking at the messenger who was rushing over.

"Didn't the game recently update with the Magic Network Mage? The instructions are for you to train a batch of them."

"..."

"professor?"

Professor Wang's silence puzzled the correspondent.

"Okay, I understand."

After answering the correspondent, Professor Wang felt bitter. His carefully prepared project was about to be largely abandoned, and his inner distress was unimaginable.

But as the person in charge of the project, he could neither be confused nor vent his emotions recklessly.

To others, there might not be much difference between a magic-network mage and an ordinary mage, but Professor Wang, who specializes in mages, knows that the difference is enormous.

One is the master of magic, the other is the slave of magic.

The number of times a spell can be cast each day is limited, and spells cannot be modified at will.

Of course, and most importantly, Professor Wang chose to accept the mage program out of a thirst for new knowledge. If he had instead focused on training magic network mages…

"What's the point of me reading so many books about monks?"

Suddenly, Professor Wang froze, realizing what had happened.

He had never personally participated before, but a casual complaint he made just now had a wake-up call.

"Just because these students aren't good enough doesn't mean I'm not good enough."

Yes, although the requirement is that the younger the better, it turns out that a mage's talent has nothing to do with age.

So why don't I give it a try?

Professor Wang looked at himself in the mirror. He was over 50 years old, and his hair, which had not been specially maintained, had turned gray due to long hours of research. He looked like an old man in his sixties or seventies.

"I can do it," Professor Wang encouraged himself.

As for the matter of the Magician?

Let these people switch jobs if they want; let them do as they please.

It's time to train the young man. Anyway, the magic network mage doesn't need to study, and he doesn't need to tutor people every day. When he wants to buy a skill book, he can just submit a report and get it approved.

With the burden lifted from his shoulders, Professor Wang felt much more relaxed. In the past, he had taken on everything himself out of a sense of responsibility, handling every matter personally, completely forgetting that he actually had subordinates, or rather, selectively ignoring the fact that he had subordinates.

The mage program may be canceled, but it's unlikely that it will be canceled altogether.

As the project leader, Professor Wang decided to lead by example. So what if no one supported him? So what if he wasn't given resources?

Why don't I just become a monk?