Chapter 569 - 402: Ten Years (Part 1)

Chapter 569: Chapter 402: Ten Years (Part 1)

"Rest assured. I’ll have it ready for you as soon as possible. It should only take a few days," Isaac said confidently.

The truth was, Isaac still faced many hurdles with the Magic Potion. He hadn’t even collected all the necessary materials, and his panel showed a mere thirteen percent success rate. But that didn’t stop him from putting on an incredibly confident front!

Seeing Isaac’s immense confidence, Angel fell silent. She didn’t know him very well, but looking at him now, her Witch’s intuition told her he had barely researched it at all!

’The only reason he’s this confident is that he’s probably planning to use the Fruit of Time!’

The Fruit of Time was divided into flesh and a pit. Eating the flesh granted ten years of blank time, while planting the pit would grow a Future Tree, whose power could alter the future three times within a certain range.

For Isaac, using these two powers in tandem would practically guarantee the completion of three research projects.

Its effects were simply heaven-defying!

And she was right. Isaac hadn’t used the Fruit of Time before because he hadn’t been sure what to research with it. The flesh only granted ten years, and the pit could only alter the future three times. Was it powerful?

Without a doubt, it was very powerful.

But it wasn’t powerful *enough*. For research at Isaac’s level—projects that would take an Ordinary Wizard decades to even have a chance at completing—how could there be only three difficulties or dead ends along the way?

Even for someone like Isaac, its effects were merely stunning. Research on projects suspected of being Great Creations was out of the question—he definitely couldn’t complete those. Even the next tier down, the Heroic undertakings, would be a long shot.

This was because, for the current Isaac, research into both Great Creations and Heroic undertakings was based on one or more hypotheses, with no guarantee that any of them were correct.

Moreover, the ten years of blank time were uninterruptible. In other words, if he ran out of materials or used the wrong ones midway through, there was a very high probability the research would come to a complete standstill.

Therefore, those ten years were best used to complete research already in its final stages, requiring only a few validation experiments. Alternatively, they could be used for projects like the Witch’s Secret Medicine, which had a relatively complete research framework. Only then would the effect be maximized.

This was the decision Isaac had made after carefully studying the Fruit of Time and confirming its effects could not be replicated through rituals. Since high-difficulty experiments were prone to getting stuck, he might as well use it differently. If it could just save him some time, that would be a pretty good outcome in itself.

After their brief exchange, Angel let the slacking Isaac off the hook. The main reason, however, was that she now knew he was preparing to use the Fruit of Time, which meant the Witch’s Secret Medicine would be completed soon. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have let him off so easily!

After all, she had already given Isaac his payment—the Fruit of Time—in advance!

She had also helped him pass the Witch Country’s review so he could conduct the relevant research. She was the client *and* the Sponsor!

That gave her every right to be assertive!

After his talk with Angel, Isaac paused. Instead of returning to his research on soul structure, he began organizing the projects he intended to complete over the next ten years. First and foremost was the Witch’s Secret Medicine. This project wasn’t just about fulfilling his deal with Angel; it was also linked to his research as a Bloodline Mage and was expected to unlock some prerequisite technologies.

After all, a Witch’s power was derived from her bloodline. But this was no bloodline in the conventional sense; it wasn’t passed down by heredity. A Witch’s child had the same chance of awakening Magic to become a Witch as the child of an Ordinary person.

This special, almost [Concept]-like bloodline, was exactly what Isaac needed for his research as a Bloodline Mage.

At the same time, successfully researching the Witch’s Secret Medicine would be a great help in fostering further cooperation with the Witch Country. The potential profit was secondary; what was most important was that Isaac could significantly improve his relationship with the Witch Country. This would allow him to obtain a large volume of research data related to Witches, as well as higher clearance for his own research on them.

In comparison, his deal with Angel was actually the least important part of the equation.

Therefore, the research on the Witch’s Secret Medicine had to succeed. As for the other projects...

Isaac’s brow furrowed as he mentally sifted through projects that could either be completed or yield significant results within ten years—ideally, ones he could finish on his own.

After some thought, Isaac added the Divine Code to his list. The Truth Association had already finished its communication with the Deity, and the relevant data had been sent over. Research on this part could begin, along with the [Code] for the Virtual Deity.

Then...

With a sigh of resignation, Isaac added a comparative analysis of the soul structure data of Legendary Mages, Arcanists, and Mad Witches...

He wouldn’t have realized it if he hadn’t organized his thoughts, but the Fruit of Time’s greatest asset to him was actually the ten years of blank time, not the ability to anchor the future.

After all, Isaac’s current experiments involved a massive amount of data comparison. This foundational work was tedious but inescapable. And that was even after he had already offloaded a huge chunk of it to the Arcanists for processing.

Otherwise, there would be even more!

’It can’t be helped,’ he thought. ’The early stages of research are always like this.’

He wasn’t an Arcanist who could recruit a legion of grunts to shoulder his workload. Besides, most of it couldn’t be delegated anyway. Just look at Moens—wasn’t he also working like a dog?

Shaking his head, Isaac sighed. After a moment’s thought, he added the Inference of Soul Structure to the list. The Witch’s Secret Medicine would probably only require him to anchor the future once. The rest of his projects were mostly data analysis, which meant he would still have two future anchors left over. Using them on this other research felt like a waste.