Chapter 564 - 399: Mad Witch Wholesale

"Hmm?" At this thought, Isaac paused, stroking his chin pensively. He seemed to have realized something.

The Mad Witch's transaction rituals were categorized by tiers, but that didn't mean a Tier One ritual was *only* Tier One!

This was because, in the Ritualism of Legendary Mages, there was an important branch known as ancient rituals. Their most significant characteristic was the lack of a specific Level; the power and efficacy of such a ritual depended entirely on its scale.

Perhaps the transaction ritual was, in essence, a type of ancient ritual. Its inherent conceptual rank was quite high; it was only categorized into different tiers because its scale had been reduced.

And verifying this theory would be simple enough: just have them try a few ancient rituals.

The matter was simple.

The conclusion was reached quickly: the problem truly lay in the fundamental nature of the transaction ritual!

The transaction ritual was a type of ancient ritual with a very high conceptual rank. That was why it had such miraculous effects, allowing a mere Tier One mortal to seize the power of an Outer God, so long as they followed the correct rules.

But for this very reason, Arcanists were unable to use the transaction ritual and could not become Mad Witches.

This was because a critical prerequisite for activating an ancient ritual was Conceptual Resonance—a form of identity authentication within Ritualism, akin to a password. If the password was incorrect, the ritual naturally couldn't be initiated.

This also explained why True Gods couldn't be targeted by the transaction ritual: both True Gods and Outer Gods had their own "passwords." Only with the correct "password" could the transaction ritual be activated.

But even having figured this out, Isaac's brow remained furrowed. This meant the problem he needed to solve had just gotten much bigger.

He would need to design a new "password" for the transaction ritual—no, two new "passwords"—to allow both True Gods and Arcanists to participate.

This was incredibly difficult!

It was no exaggeration to say that this was, at the very least, another Heroic Level research project…

Isaac even felt it might be bordering on the level of a Great Creation…

"Hmph." At that thought, Isaac couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath, a headache already forming.

Sometimes, he wasn't sure if he was lucky or cursed. A typical Wizard might spend years, even decades, searching for a single Heroic Level project. For him, however, they just kept coming, one after another…

This wasn't necessarily a good thing for Isaac, however. His original plan had been to work on smaller things, to build up his technical foundation to tackle the *previous* Heroic Level projects he had…

And now, he'd stumbled into yet another Heroic Level project…

It was simply endless!

At this thought, Isaac rubbed his throbbing temples. Since things had come to this, he could only accept this "blessed curse." Looking on the bright side, if he could solve the "password" problem, the conversion ritual for the Authority Crystal would likely be resolved as a natural consequence.

He could complete two Heroic projects at once and ascend directly to the peak of Tier Four!

Then he could return directly to the Main World and prepare his advancement to Tier Five!

Clinging to this hope for a bright future, Isaac dismissed the anxious Arcanists. The root of the problem had been identified, which meant they were of no use to him for the time being—at least, not until he had figured out the "password" for Arcanists.

However, this didn't mean the experiments were over. Isaac hadn't forgotten the fundamental purpose of this entire endeavor: to understand what, exactly, a Mad Witch was.

The "password" issue explained the nature of the transaction ritual, but it didn't explain what a Mad Witch was. As things stood, if the "password" problem were solved, it still seemed possible for Arcanists to become Mad Witches.

Therefore, the next step was to proceed with the authentic Mad Witch experiment.

However, the circumstances for Legendary Mages were quite different from those of Arcanists. For a Legendary Mage, the only time they truly needed to risk everything was during their advancement to Tier Three. All other promotion hurdles could be overcome simply by biding their time, and modern Wizards had plenty of life-extending methods at their disposal.

As a result, it was truly difficult to find candidates willing to walk the path of a Mad Witch.

Without a deep-seated grudge or some kind of mental instability, who would willingly become a Mad Witch?

Thus, even the Flesh Sect had to expend considerable effort to find just a handful of volunteers. Combined with Isaac's own, they had only twelve in total—barely enough to form a control group.

This was a completely different situation from the Arcanists, for whom he could have held an entire selection tournament.

Fortunately, they had managed to gather enough people. And unlike the Arcanists who proceeded directly to setting up the ritual, the Legendary Mages had one extra step: a medical examination.

Isaac needed to compare their data from before and after the ritual to analyze the true cause of their transformation into Mad Witches.

To this end, Isaac activated his Authority Magic: Eye of Omniscience, pushing his Analysis Authority to the absolute limit of Tier Six.

A short while later, with the examinations complete, everyone took a deep breath, clutched the Magic Stones in their hands, and officially began to set up the ritual.

Since the existence of the "password" had been discovered during the experiment with the Arcanists, Isaac temporarily canceled the test for the Legendary Mages to transact with Virtual Deities, because they too lacked a "password."

The Magic Stones in their hands were a magical version of the Emperor's Decree, specially prepared by the Truth Association. Each stone was inscribed with a Tier Six Protective Magic spell, capable of providing its holder with all-encompassing protection.

Forget ritual backlash; even if an Outer God arrived in the flesh, it would take considerable effort for it to harm them.

In truth, Isaac had originally requested offensive magic. That way, if any of the Outer Gods made a move, he could hit them with a spell, directly emulating the Emperor.

Unfortunately, the Truth Association was a peace-loving organization. They avoided conflict whenever possible, which is why he received defensive Magic Stones instead.

The ritual began under Isaac's regretful gaze.

Just in case, Isaac first had a nearby Analysis Golem observe the ritual's progress. Only after confirming that there wouldn't be any problems did he shift the gaze of the Eye of Omniscience onto the ritual itself.

And even then, Isaac didn't connect to the Eye of Omniscience to receive the raw data himself. Instead, he had Maxu Kant, who was a Deity, receive the data first and then relay it to him.

This made the several Outer Gods on the other side of the ritual let out a collective sigh…

'He actually managed to resist…'

'Aren't Wizards who possess the Analysis Authority supposed to be the nosiest of all?'

'Just who is this impossibly cautious Wizard?'