Chapter 157: Amy’s Wonderful Experience and the Elemental Squeezing Method

For the final attempt, he restored the environment to normal and raised his Magic Power input to one hundred.

The Water-Fire Ball condensed just above his palm. Bright golden and deep blue light flashed alternately, with fine golden electrical arcs surging along its edges.

The sphere stabilized! Chen Shang thrust it forward, sending the Water-Fire Ball crashing into the test target. Following an intense display of Witchcraft, the numbers on the instrument flickered: 2010.

An Attack Power of two thousand degrees!

His Magic Power input had only increased by twenty points, but through the leveraging effect of the Water-Fire Heaven Extremes model, his final output had jumped from sixteen hundred to two thousand—an increase of four hundred degrees!

This level of Attack Power was enough to rival a Third Level Apprentice!

Satisfied, Chen Shang leaned against the wall, panting heavily. Sweat dripped onto the floor, pooling into a small puddle.

After pushing himself to this extreme limit, his Manipulation Power briefly sustained an input of one hundred Magic Power. Though it would drop back down once this window closed, he would still retain a slight, permanent increase overall. It would likely rise from eighty to somewhere between eighty-three and eighty-five.

Regardless, continuous practice guaranteed steady growth, and Chen Shang loved the positive feedback of tangible rewards.

He shut off the console and left the room, tearing off his severely scorched sleeve. After lightly applying some Healing Potion, he hurried back to the laboratory.

Two months later.

Chen Shang wrote an observation report on a Crystal Plate.

“The Tracking and Prediction of Annihilation Particles.”

Over the past two months, his Magic Power input had steadily climbed to one hundred. With this progress, he had begun using the Eye of Truth to observe annihilation particles.

Today, he had attempted to track the generation patterns of the annihilation particles, conducting a total of seventy-five experiments. The Water-Fire Heaven Extremes model maintained a stable input of one hundred degrees of Magic Power, with his Eye of Truth remaining fully activated throughout the process.

However, the results were far from optimistic. The location, timing, and quantity of the particles’ appearances were entirely random. Sometimes they appeared on the surface of the sphere, sometimes inside it. Sometimes they materialized at the center of the explosion, and other times at its very edges. As for their numbers, there would occasionally be a single cluster, sometimes three to five clusters, and sometimes none at all.

During the seventeenth explosion, he had clearly witnessed a cluster of chaos-colored light emerge from within the sphere, swimming through the explosive flames for exactly one twenty-fourth of a second. It was his clearest observation yet.

The light swam through the gaps within the sphere like a fish trapped inside a glass bottle. It was the minuscule tail of some kind of particle slipping through the crevices of real time. He thought he had finally grasped the pattern, but during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth attempts, the light never reappeared.

After concluding his observations, Chen Shang leaned back in his chair, casually twirling the rune pen between his fingers.

The Eye of Truth could see the annihilation particles, but it always seemed to be one step too late. The very moment he perceived a particle, it had already annihilated. It was like quantum fluctuation—an observer could never simultaneously know both its position and momentum. He needed a new theory to research it any further.

Still, it was nothing to be disappointed about. This was a subject only an Official Wizard was truly qualified to study anyway. Chen Shang considered himself lucky to have observed it at all using the Eye of Truth. He firmly believed that as his research deepened, he would one day unravel the secrets of the annihilation particles.

A few days later.

Amy’s test results were released. Just as Chen Shang had predicted, she placed first in the assessment.

There had indeed been controversy within the review board. Some argued for a score reduction due to her loss of control, while others advocated for a high score based on her extraordinary results. Both sides had remained at a stalemate for days until they faced an unavoidable question: if they gave her a low score, what would happen to all the apprentices she had single-handedly eliminated? Would their scores have to be adjusted as well?

On the day the results were announced, Amy sprinted back from the Teleportation Hall. She pushed open the laboratory door, panting heavily, her face flushed red as she clutched a Crystal Plate in her hand.

“Senior, I passed… I got first place!”

Chen Shang looked up from the Recording Platform. “Naturally.”

Amy blinked in surprise. “You already knew?”

“Of course.” Chen Shang set down his rune pen, stood up, and patted her head. “After all, wizards are nothing if not pragmatic. Congratulations, you’re a First Level Apprentice now!”

Amy giggled happily. Placing first in the assessment came with extra rewards. She was hoping for a Space Device, which would make it much easier to store her Plague Bottles. Suddenly remembering something, she turned to Chen Shang with a request. “Senior, I’d like to move somewhere near the laboratory. It would make it much easier to come to you for guidance.”

“No problem,” Chen Shang agreed readily.

Amy nodded vigorously, then turned and skipped out of the room.

From that day on, Amy became a regular at Chen Shang’s laboratory. She helped him organize Materials, classify samples, and record data, occasionally lending a hand whenever he was overwhelmed with work.

In return, Chen Shang allowed her to observe whenever he was engraving Zhong Kui. He would take the time to explain the flow of the Runes, the selection of nodes, and the optimization of Energy pathways.

Several months later.

Chen Shang’s Magic Power input for the Water-Fire Heaven Extremes stabilized at one hundred and ten degrees. Although the leverage multiplier remained at twenty times, his Attack Power had now broken past twenty-two hundred.

His cultivation of the Repulsive and Attractive Dual Force was also advancing steadily. He could now execute the Micro-Repulsive Guidance and Micro-Attractor without a single mistake, and his Dual Force Anchoring duration had extended from a mere few breaths to a half quarter-hour.

One day, a new notice was issued by the laboratory.

It announced that in the Starfall Laboratory’s grand exam six years from now, their Elite Apprentices would compete against those from other laboratories. At stake would be the qualifications to attend the exchange conference on the Truth Continent. Therefore, in the six years leading up to the grand exam, the laboratory would screen its personnel through a series of three minor exams held every two years.

The final selection would consist of twenty First Level Apprentices, thirty Second Level Apprentices, fifty Third Level Apprentices, and a number of Official Wizards.

The first of these minor exams was scheduled to take place in one month.

Chen Shang read through the entire notice carefully, realizing that the Truth Continent exchange conference must be incredibly important. It was his first time seeing the typically loosely managed laboratory enforce such a rigorous, collective assessment and training program.

He looked up the specific rules for the Second Level Apprentice group’s minor exam. It consisted of three parts.

Part one: A foundational theory test.

This involved essay questions designed to test the depth and breadth of an apprentice’s understanding in their own research field. There wasn’t much to say about this section; it was essentially a standard written exam.