For a moment no one could speak. The Adam before them looked as though a single gust of wind could blow him over, yet through those eyes—eyes that truly blazed with light now—it was plain that he was in excellent condition.
"Adam, your eyes?" James asked softly.
Before Adam could answer, the devil that had been flung away came charging back with a wailing shriek. But it had learned its lesson and did not dare get too close; stopping two paces off, it put on a fake sob: "Master, my dear, great, all-knowing, all-powerful master, I'm so glad you're all right. You have no idea how worried your humble servant has been about you all these days..."
The air abruptly condensed into a hand and slapped the devil viciously off to one side. Adam said mildly, "From now on, you are not allowed to take my shape." The devil let out an exaggerated scream and reverted to its chaotic form, sitting obediently off to the side.
Adam said to James, "After the optimization, the quality of the Psychokinesis Meditation Method has improved enormously. I can't control it perfectly yet, so this state will last a few more days."
The three of them were surging with excitement—so it was true after all. Frank asked anxiously, "How did the optimization turn out?"
Adam handed over an information case. "Once the redundant, useless parts were stripped out, nine of the original nineteen runes remain. The new rune group can hold more spiritual power, but correspondingly, it makes higher demands on both control and total reserves of spiritual power."
One thing Adam did not say: the new rune group demanded not only spiritual power, but still more a test of intelligence and computing power.
Adam had gained a great deal. After coming into contact with geometry, the runes he had once sketched out of pure imagination acquired a more scientific structure.
For the first half month, Adam standardized every line within the runes according to geometric theorems, successfully making the rune architecture more rational.
Over the following half month, Adam began observing the runes as a whole, trying to combine them in different ways, and in doing so discovered a large number of useless parts. Once they were removed, he succeeded in reducing the total number.
Over the next ten days, while combining runes, Adam perceived a hidden overall law running through them. He was astonished to find that a far more efficient construction method was possible—one that broke free of the original game of drawing pictures and stacking blocks.
In the final seven days Adam freed up all his computing power and poured it into studying that overall law, and at last he uncovered the secret: every rune could be treated as an equation, and by computing its "solution" the rune's construction could be completed directly.
In the end, all that was needed was to combine these "solutions" and the construction of the rune group was done.
That was not all. Adam had a strong feeling that although every rune was constructed differently, each contained one unknown—spiritual power. When the day came that he understood spiritual power more thoroughly, he would be able to link these methods into a single system, and then one "solution" would settle everything.
But William and the other two plainly did not possess Adam's level of computing power. To their eyes, the new rune structures were so complex that even memorizing them was hard; to perfectly replicate those crisscrossing lines with spiritual power would demand an astonishing degree of control.
James's eyes went bleak. He realized that if he used the optimized structure, his progress would only slow further—the recovery time after tracing each rune would be enough to drive him to despair. Frank felt the same; his talent was a little stronger, but not strong enough to handle it.
William did a silent calculation and found that switching to the new structure would make a single complete construction take nearly four times as long as before. He smiled bitterly and opened his mouth, but said nothing—the contract spelled it out clearly enough: Adam had no obligation to serve their needs.
Adam was in a good mood, and for once offered guidance unprompted: "Don't treat the runes as mere shapes. Find their patterns, and construct them through calculation."
The three fixed their eyes on him, hoping for further explanation, but Adam found that he could not explain any further. He had to admit he had no gift for teaching: he could take these things and make them his own, but how to make others understand them was beyond him.
Adam left the laboratory and headed for the dining hall.
He had been lost in research for a month and seventeen days, and the food in his personal storage space had run out shortly after the first month. Adam might have a Grand Knight-level physique, but going so long without eating had still left his body close to collapse; right now all he wanted was to sit down and eat a huge meal.
Along the way Adam saw many of the rookies from his own intake. Most of them had gathered in twos and threes, watching everyone else warily, and only then did he recall that the trial was about to begin. But by now Adam no longer took the trial seriously at all; even without constructing any magic, relying on nothing but the upgraded psychokinesis, he was confident he could run rampant among the rookies.
The rookies stared in astonishment at the greatly changed Adam, unable to believe that a legend among the rookies could have ended up in this state. Some even thought maliciously that Adam must have been cursed—otherwise, why else would a ball of gray mist be floating behind him?
Yet no matter what, they could never have guessed that Adam really had been cursed.
Adam had not forgotten the death mark Clark left behind. If Clark had spoken the truth, then somewhere behind him there really was a direct-line, full-fledged Magefoe who would avenge him—and the trial was probably the easiest place for that to succeed.
Only thing is, I still don't know where the trial is actually held.
But Adam had no good solution. He was, after all, only an apprentice; he could not demand that a full-fledged Mage guard him personally. It was not a question of whether he could pay the price—he simply had no equal status.
When he reached the dining hall, Adam ordered a table piled high with fine food and drew energy from it at a pace that looked leisurely but was in fact extremely fast. Halfway through, Elliot turned up out of nowhere, sat down across from Adam as though they were old friends, and said, "Hey, pal, long time no see. You too, Mr. Devil. And going by the look of you, things haven't been going so well?"
The devil turned into a young woman, planted herself beside Elliot, threw him a flirtatious look and said, "Call me Miss Devil."
Elliot went along with it smoothly: "Delighted to meet you, Miss Devil."
Adam ignored the two idiots. He finished every scrap of food, and only after swallowing the last mouthful did he say to Elliot, "You seem to have nothing to do all day long. Don't you need to brew new magic potions?"
Elliot slumped onto the table with a groan. "You think I don't want to? But I can't brew it! Knowledge, knowledge—I have far too little knowledge."
Adam did not echo Elliot's complaint. Speaking of knowledge reminded him of another conjecture of his: in the Mage World, how exactly was the concept of knowledge defined? Once psychokinesis became equations, did it count as knowledge? Or would it only count once he successfully linked every equation into a single system?
If it was the second case—if knowledge took that kind of form—then couldn't the runes of magic also be regarded as equations, and the only reason they could not be constructed through calculation was that Adam could not yet read the equations?
"Maybe I shouldn't narrowly try to understand them all in the form of equations, but as theorems? Or formulas?" Adam could not help murmuring to himself.
Elliot had not caught it. He raised his head blankly from the table and asked, "What did you say?"
Adam shook his head. "Nothing."
Elliot did not press. He was in low spirits today; looking at Adam's withered body, he asked, "How did you get yourself into this state?"
The devil answered sweetly, "My great master was so absorbed in his research that he forgot food and sleep, and nearly starved himself to death."
Elliot was dumbfounded; he really had never heard of such a thing. "That's no good, pal. You haven't forgotten the trial in a few days, have you? In your current state, what if something goes wrong?" Elliot had long since come to think of Adam as a friend, and this came from the heart—he did not want Adam to fall in the trial.
Adam said indifferently, "I'm fine. Better than ever. As for my body—since when does an elemental Mage need to fight with his body?" Then, remembering how well-informed Elliot was, he asked curiously, "Do you know anything about the trial?"
Elliot looked into Adam's eyes, knew he was telling the truth, and relaxed. "I can't say yet, but it won't be long. You'll know in the next few days."
Elliot was quite right. Three days later Adam received orders: every newly promoted apprentice still alive was to assemble in the plaza.
Headmaster Victor's avatar was no different from a year ago—still standing on high in black robes. When the appointed hour came, he said flatly, "I am pleased that you survived your first year. By all sorts of means."
A stir ran through the rookies; some of them showed embarrassment and tension. They were the ones whose strength had improved little, who had not dared go out on missions to gain combat experience, and had simply sat waiting for the end.
"Tomorrow morning you will travel by teleportation formation to the trial site, a demarcated magical beast habitat. Your mission is to eliminate all the magical beasts and survive for one month."
Adam heard a general loosening of breath around him. Clearly the rookies had all realized the mission was not very hard, and that the academy had no intention of making them slaughter one another—this was plainly a cooperative mission.
Adam was somewhat surprised. This task seemed unexpectedly simple. Since the purpose was assessment, the Mages obviously would not place magical beasts of full-fledged Mage energy level inside.
Headmaster Victor continued, "Every magical beast within the trial site has been seeded with a magic potion. You must carry the primer that will be issued to you shortly. Beasts catalyzed by the potion have no reason left in them; they will attack every apprentice carrying a primer."
Headmaster Victor was brief. When he finished speaking he left at once. Adam discovered that the one handing out the primers was none other than Elliot, who gave him a sly wink.