Chapter 120 - 99: Publishing a Paper and the Mutual Multiplication of Water and Fire

Chapter 120: Chapter 99: Publishing a Paper and the Mutual Multiplication of Water and Fire

A sphere expanded from the size of a fist. Its color switched frantically between dark gold and deep blue. Each shift was accompanied by a low hum, resembling the roar of a Barbaric Giant Beast.

Inside the sphere, flames and water light intertwined and collided at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye. With every contact, the sphere’s brightness surged, and its volume compressed a fraction. Chen Shang’s arm began to tremble. The sheer weight of the power pressed through his palm and onto his bones. Gritting his teeth, he desperately held it steady.

The sphere finally stopped at the size of an egg. Its surface ceased changing colors, settling into a stable state of half dark gold and half deep blue. There was no seam at the boundary. Instead, fine golden electric arcs surged, resembling a storm cloud compressed to its absolute limit.

He had already input 80 points of Magic Power. While he still had plenty of Magic Power to spare, his manipulation power had reached its limit. Multiplied by the leverage of the model, this thing was incredibly difficult to control.

Thus, he hurled the Water-Fire Heaven Extremes with all his might. In that instant, all the protective runes in the testing field lit up. Dense patterns of light emerged on the silvery-white walls, spreading to the ceiling and then to the floor. The entire room seemed enveloped in a glowing net.

The air was torn apart. The Water-Fire Heaven Extremes shot forward like a hurled meteor. The moment it struck the target, there was a fleeting pause. A finger-thick circular hole was burned through the center of the target, its edges as smooth as a mirror.

Then, a pillar of dark gold fire erupted from the hole, like a volcano detonating after accumulating pressure for ten thousand years. Simultaneously, deep blue water light spread outward from the hole’s periphery, eroding everything in its path. Ring after ring of metal on the target was devoured by the water light.

The first layer of protective runes shattered, followed by the second, third, and fourth layers. The two layers of power advanced alternately, peeling back the protective runes layer by layer with apparent ease. The protective runes on the walls shifted from bright white to dark red, and from dark red to dark purple. Several runes were extinguished entirely under the violent energy shocks.

Fine cracks began to appear on the walls of the testing field, radiating outward from the bullseye. Then came the final wave of Witchcraft effects. All light and sound exploded in the same instant. Dark gold flames and deep blue water light blasted from the center of the target. A shockwave expanded outward from the crater, pushing the air into a visible ring of transparent ripples. When the ripples crashed against the walls, several more protective runes went out. The entire testing field let out a low groan.

As everything settled, the numbers on the screen flickered rapidly before freezing: 1,620 degrees. Chen Shang stood frozen, his arm still trembling. He stared at the vitrified crater for a long time.

An 80-point Magic Power output, pried open by a twenty-fold leverage multiplier—it had essentially reached the theoretical value. There were two directions for improvement moving forward.

First, strengthen his manipulation power to input more Magic Power. Inputting just one more degree of Magic Power would increase the attack by twenty degrees. This was the fastest method of enhancement.

Second, ranged casting. He hoped to condense the form directly from a distance, allowing the Water-Fire Heaven Extremes to detonate near the target; otherwise, it would be easy to catch himself in the blast. After all, not everywhere had the protective runes of a Witchcraft testing field to confine the power of Witchcraft within a certain range.

He conducted several more tests afterward.

Spiritual Power spread out silently, attempting to condense the Water-Fire Heaven Extremes ten meters in front of him. The energy of the Samadhi True Flame and the One-Element Heavy Water surged from their two respective springs, rushing toward that point along the channel constructed by his Spiritual Power. However, it quickly spiraled out of control. The flames and water diverged, failing to intersect, and individually dissipated into the air.

The second time, he reduced the Magic Power input; the less there was, the easier it was to control. The energy successfully converged ten meters away, but the fusion time was too brief. It dispersed before the sphere could even take shape.

The third time, he changed his strategy. Instead of a complete fusion, he attempted to condense a ball of flames first and then envelop it in water light. The two layered inside the sphere, with water on the outside and fire on the inside. This way, even if the external structure proved unstable, the internal flames wouldn’t dissipate immediately.

The sphere formed. Although it was only the size of a fist, a blazing white light shone through its deep blue shell, looking like a miniature star compressed countless times over. It hovered in the air for less than two seconds before detonating. A storm of high-temperature and high-pressure water and fire ravaged the enclosed testing field. The protective runes had to operate at full capacity just to suppress the energy.

"Hm? Something’s not right."

Chen Shang locked his eyes on the center of the explosion. Within the field of his Eye of True Sight, a cluster of light he had never seen before appeared at the epicenter.

It wasn’t dark gold or deep blue, but a Chaos-colored light bridging gray and white. It existed for an extremely brief duration, vanishing almost in a flash. But in that fleeting moment, it released an astonishing amount of energy. It was as if something had been ignited under the extreme conditions of the water and fire intersecting.

Chen Shang stared in the direction the light had vanished, his heartbeat accelerating.

It was widely known that the four Basic Elements of this world were Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire. Additionally, there were three High Tier elements: light, darkness, and Spirit (Aether). Combinations of these seven single elements would produce countless Composite Elements, such as life, nature, lightning, lava, and metal. However, if the characteristics of a single element were altered even slightly, they could combine to form endless new Composite Elements.

For instance, taking an Ordinary flame versus a Magic Flame to combine with other elements would naturally yield entirely different results. Therefore, he was certain that the anomaly just now was a Composite Element accidentally born from the collision of the Samadhi True Flame and the One-Element Heavy Water under certain conditions.