Chapter 289: Red Gold and Graduation
In the office, when Benjamin was secretly shaking his head for his student Anita, a voice with a hint of teasing quietly appeared at the door.
"Hey~ My dear junior, I can smell the fresh scent of 'pain' emanating from you from so far away! So, how does it feel to be a mentor for the first time and be beaten by reality?"
Senior Viola sauntered in uninvited like a shark smelling blood, with an undisguised, gloating smile on her face.
Jie understood her at a glance and said unhappily, "Senior, is your happiness always based on my 'pain'?"
"Of course not entirely. My happiness is built on everyone's suffering!" Viola waved her hands exaggeratedly, and then shared enthusiastically.
"But speaking of this, I think of my two precious students! When they first discovered that Potions wasn't as romantic as they had imagined, but rather involved endless processing of materials, tedious ratio calculations, and the risk of furnace explosions, the desperate expressions on their faces as they had to persevere... Tsk tsk, that really provided me with a source of joy for a long time!"
She changed the subject and looked at Benjamin expectantly. "So, junior, next time you teach that little girl named Anita, you must! You must notify me! I want to find a good seat and savor the pain and confusion emanating from her as she struggles in the boring ocean of knowledge! Just thinking about it makes me happy!"
After she finished speaking, without waiting for Benjamin's agreement, she let out a series of "hehehe" laughs, turned around and left the office contentedly, as if she had come here just to reap a wave of happiness.
As Benjamin watched Viola's departing back, the helplessness on his face gradually faded, and he revealed a gentle smile instead.
"This pervert..." He cursed in a low voice, but his heart felt warm.
He knew very well that Viola was using her own slightly twisted way to express her concern for him and to liven up the atmosphere.
After her interruption, the depression in Benjamin's heart dissipated a lot.
He sat back in his chair, his thoughts clearing.
"That's all. Everyone has their own choices and paths." His thoughts became clearer. "All I can do is fulfill my duties as a mentor and clearly present knowledge to her. As for how much she can absorb and what path she chooses, it's ultimately her own destiny."
With his current knowledge and realm, it is easy for him to guide an apprentice who is not even a formal wizard.
As for the other party's performance, it all depends on her own ability.
After figuring this out, Benjamin's mentality completely calmed down.
In the following years, his life did not change much with the addition of a student.
Apart from going to the academy regularly every week to teach Anita a basic alchemy class, he still devoted most of his energy to his own research.
And Anita's performance did not exceed Benjamin's initial expectations.
In the early stages of alchemy, the large amount of basic theory memorization, the tedious identification of material properties, and the delicate operations that required extreme patience soon made her feel boring and tedious.
Her enthusiasm for learning faded visibly, and she devoted more of her attention and hard-earned points to learning offensive or functional witchcraft that had immediate effects and looked incredibly cool.
Several times, Benjamin saw her happily practicing the newly learned witchcraft with her companions in the academy, or exchanging points for a ready-made witchcraft model, and then practicing the spellcasting skills hard.
He had repeatedly and directly warned in class, "Relying on ready-made witchcraft models without understanding the root of optimization is like walking on a cane made by someone else. It may be easy in the early stages, but you will never truly understand the essence of power, nor will it be easy to advance to a higher level."
Unfortunately, his warning fell on deaf ears.
Anita may have heard it, but she obviously didn't really take it to heart.
In other words, with her current level of "wisdom" and interest orientation, it is indeed too difficult and boring to independently research, understand and construct a witchcraft model that suits her.
"After all, not everyone is a genius like Amy and Victor..." While observing in the dark, Benjamin couldn't help but shake his head again, and a trace of nostalgia for his old friends flashed through his mind.
Even with Amy and Victor's talents, they were considered the best in the academy back then.
In contrast, Jemin's own research progressed exceptionally smoothly.
After completing the third stage of energy transformation in the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, the abundant energy finally allowed him to let go.
The hatching speed of the Black Giants increased significantly, and the population began to grow steadily.
He estimated that by the time he needed to participate in the plane war next time, the number of black giants under his command would be expected to exceed one thousand!
This means that he will have a sizable and powerful corps of heavily armored ground cannon fodder.
At the same time, research on various strange biological samples brought back from the space plane is also progressing as planned.
Through in-depth analysis of their flight structure, energy utilization methods, and spatial adaptability, Benjamin already had a clear design blueprint for the new generation of cannon fodder units in his mind.
However, he currently has a more urgent improvement plan: to refine his own life-saving magic weapon "Five Elements Transformation into Rainbow Mirror" for the second time!
After years of accumulation, most of the rare materials needed for re-refining have been prepared, except for the last and most critical one - red gold.
"Red gold... the refining of this thing is really a slow process." Benjamin's consciousness body sat cross-legged in front of the door of the Dao Book Pavilion deep in the sea of consciousness, holding a book exuding an ancient Taoist charm in his hand, carefully reading the records about the refining of red gold.
According to the classics, red gold is similar to refined gold, both of which are conceptual materials extracted from gold as the basic raw material.
But the core "concepts" distilled by the two are completely different.
Refined gold extracts the concept of "eternity" of gold, focusing on "invariability" and "eternity", thereby giving objects the characteristics of being indestructible.
However, overemphasizing "eternal immutability" can sometimes limit the future growth and change potential of magic weapons.
Red gold, on the other hand, extracts the concept of "immortality" of gold.
Immortality is not simply eternity, it focuses more on "immortality of essence" and "eternal truth".
Even if there are changes in form and nature, its core "existence" and "essence" can still be maintained, and can even be reborn in the change.
For a magical weapon like the "Five Elements Transforming into Rainbow Mirror", which is made of illusory materials that refine various "lights", the concept of "immortality" is far more suitable than "eternity", and can leave ample space for its future evolution and advancement.
The difficulty lies in the "purity" of the extraction.
The initial refining method of red gold is as unexpectedly simple as that of refined gold, and even a cultivator in the Qi training stage can master it.
With Jeming's cultivation in the Golden Core Realm, supplemented by the wizard's alchemy and precise control of energy and matter, it was not difficult for him to complete the rough refining.
The real trouble lies in the subsequent purification.
Because only the pure concept of "immortality" is needed, other concepts mixed in the initially refined red gold, and even most of the material properties of the gold itself, must be eliminated bit by bit through repeated high-intensity quenching.
This is a process that requires a great deal of patience and energy.
According to historical records, at least ten rounds of refining are required to obtain a red gold material that is barely close to pure conception.
"The technical difficulty is not high, it is purely time-consuming and labor-intensive." Benjamin exited his inner vision and returned to the core laboratory of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane.
Looking at the pile of standard gold ingots emitting dazzling golden light in front of him, he made a judgment: "Fortunately, I am not short of time now."
According to historical records, the mass of red gold will continue to shrink during the refining process. In order to ensure that there are sufficient raw materials for the second refining of the magic weapon, Benjamin directly prepared one thousand cubic meters of gold!
After activating the large-scale composite alchemy array that had been set up long ago, Benjamin began the first step of rough refining.
The majestic elixir fire and the energy of the alchemy array intertwined, and a huge amount of gold melted and boiled in the center of the array.
The concept of "immortality" was forcibly extracted and condensed into pieces of dark red, primary red gold with a strange texture.
Then, he merged all the primary red gold and put it into another more complex formation of the immortal cultivation system that focused on "purification" and began the second refining.
The formation was running, the light was flowing, and the primary red gold began to slowly "evaporate" under the impact of energy, and the "impurities" including other unnecessary concepts and material residues were separated and discharged.
The remaining part becomes darker in color and seems to have a purer texture.
He knew that this process would need to be repeated at least ten times.
The later the stage, the more difficult it is to purify, and the spiritual power and time consumed also increase exponentially.
"Fortunately, this thing can run automatically most of the time. I only need to replenish my spiritual power and adjust the formation parameters regularly... It doesn't waste too much of my time."
Jemin set the monitoring alarm and refocused his attention on other research.
…
…
Time flies by quietly like quicksand through fingers.
In the blink of an eye, it was time for the apprentices of Nolen Academy No. 147 to graduate.
The atmosphere in the square was solemn and slightly tense.
Benjamin was hovering on the high platform above the mentors' viewing area, his gaze calmly sweeping over the crowd below, and he easily found the familiar yet unfamiliar figure—Anita Chack.
Ten years of college life did not leave much trace of transformation on her.
On the contrary, because she distracted too much energy to those seemingly cool but actually unstable witchcrafts, she made slow progress in the field of alchemy, which required a solid foundation and rigorous thinking, and even regressed in some aspects.
The result was no surprise.
When Dean Avery Knight read out the list of those who had passed the graduation test and qualified for the elite screening in a calm and majestic tone, Anita's name did not appear.
She stood among the crowd who failed to pass, with her head lowered, her hands tightly clutching the corners of her clothes, her shoulders slightly shaking, as if she could hardly accept this reality.
The wizards standing with her all had the same reaction, and the air around them seemed to be solidified with loss and unwillingness.
According to the rules of the Norn Workshop, apprentices who fail to pass the graduation test will not end their path to becoming wizards.
They still have a chance - to go to the front lines of the plane war, to serve in the military, to find that glimmer of opportunity for a breakthrough in the life and death test of blood and fire, or... to sink and fall.
(End of this chapter)
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