Matter and its changes
Bai Luo yawned loudly, and at his mother's urging, he slowly moved towards the city gymnasium.
There were huge crowds of people outside the stadium, and the winding line stretched out like a big snake, as if there was no end in sight.
"Hey, hurry up!" Bai Luo's mother Zhou Qin pulled Bai Luo forward with one hand, urging him, "You're dawdling. Do you know how long the line is? Your Aunt Liu just called me - the test line is already two kilometers long! If you don't hurry up, you won't have time to eat the New Year's Eve dinner!"
"Isn't it just a magic test?" Bai Luo muttered softly: "I can handle it myself at home."
"What are you mumbling about?" Zhou Qin asked loudly.
"...nothing."
Bai Luo silently closed his mouth and followed Zhou Qin. Not long after, Bai Luo's father Bai Bin, who had gone to park the car, also came over. The family of three slowly groped forward in the crowd, and it took a long time to find the end of the line.
"How can this be only two kilometers?" Zhou Qin put her hand on her forehead and looked at the winding line in front of her, saying, "We never had such a long line when we did nucleic acid testing before."
"After all, it's the first day of the test and we're on holiday." Bai Bin said, "Besides, this is a test that involves whether you can practice magic. Who wouldn't be anxious?"
"If someone had told me a month ago that I could learn magic in the future, I would have thought that person was crazy." Zhou Qin sighed, "We really have caught up with an incredible era."
As she spoke, she patted Bai Luo's arm and said, "Didn't our Bai Luo always like to act out characters from cartoons? Maybe he can become a magician in the future."
"If you ask me, it would be better for our son to cultivate immortality." Bai Bin had his own idea: "Why do we Chinese people have to do those things of the foreigners, such as cultivating talismans and swords, aren't they better than magicians?"
"I don't know if learning magic can help him pass the civil service exam." Zhou Qin said, "Xiao Luo will soon be a senior in high school. Will learning magic delay his college entrance exam?"
"I've studied the policy. It says that for students with magical talent, there will be an additional magic assessment in the next two years, which will be calculated into the total score, which is considered as a preferential treatment for them to learn an extra subject." Bai Bin said, "It seems that the official said that in the future, you will also need to take a test to become a magician or a cultivator. If you pass a certain level, you can take the civil service exam to specialize in magic and cultivation, or you can be specially recruited into the army."
"Will it be dangerous?" Zhou Qin was a little worried.
Magic is not something that can be handled easily. Dealing with matters related to magic is like being a firefighter who specializes in magic, isn't it?
When it came to the topic of the child's future, the citizens around who were waiting for testing turned their heads and joined the discussion between Zhou Qin and Bai Bin.
Compared to the middle-aged generation who were worried about their own and their children's future, the young people who came to take the test, especially the minors, were full of excitement. It was not their turn to take the test yet, and according to the data shared online, the number of people who currently had the "magic circuit" was extremely small, but these people still imagined themselves having the "magic circuit" and flying freely.
"I must be a fire attribute! Fire Style - Great Fireball Technique!"
"The wind attribute is the strongest! Look at my Big Ball Rasengan!"
"Ninjutsu is nothing. If you ask me, cultivation is the strongest! Look at my Three Mysterious Changes of Heavenly Fire!"
"You are clearly fighting with your spirit, how can you be called an immortal? Look at my Brahma True Demonic Skill!"
"Magic isn't bad either. You said you can all practice magic, so it's normal to have potions, right? Can I drink potions to level up? I don't want to practice!"
"Do you think that if I take the Hermit Path, the knowledge in the textbooks will automatically pop into my head?"
...
Amidst the laughter, Bai Luo saw a familiar figure.
Du Heng, the computer class representative of their class, stood in the crowd. He scanned the entire room with his mental power while tapping his mobile phone rapidly. No one knew what he was busy with.
Although Du Heng is the student with the lowest presence in Class Nine, his appearance is not ordinary at all. Instead, he looks gentle and refined. When he wears glasses, he looks like a fair-skinned and handsome scholar, attracting the amazed or curious gazes of many young boys and girls.
He doesn't look like a dwarf who drinks like crazy and stays in the smelting room all day swinging a hammer. The only thing that can be considered a dwarf is their height - as a 17-year-old high school student, Du Heng is only 165cm tall, which is not considered tall among the boys who are growing like spring onions during puberty.
It is said that when Du Heng traveled through time, he made a wish that he must work hard to grow taller in this life, and it would be best if he could stand out (in terms of height) among the crowd. Later, as expected, he became a "tall man" that was admired by everyone in his tribe - however, his tribe was made up of dwarves with an average height of about 1.2 meters per person.
To some extent, it perfectly met his wishes.
Apart from the height issue, the reason why Du Heng had such a low presence in Class 9 was mainly because everyone in his class had eye bags before he traveled through time. At that time, there were only three people in the class who were the most silent, Du Heng, Rong Yu, and Yu Zhi. Although Rong Yu was introverted and autistic, he became very noticeable in the class after being brought by Zhou Xun. Although Yu Zhi was a man of few words, she became the only "god" in the class after traveling through time.
In contrast, Du Heng was not a person who liked to show off before and after the time travel. He spent most of his time in Parnaki staying at his base doing research.
Although Du Heng is not a spiritual attribute like Lin Lang, he has strong mental power and a special form of magic, which is to combine magic with "programming". It happens to be the most common and "useless" multi-attribute in Parnaki - just like the pursuit of "single spiritual root" in immortal cultivation, the more complicated the attributes, the easier it is to cause conflicts in the body, thus affecting the practice, and even causing harm to the caster's body. Therefore, in Parnaki, even if the magician himself has excellent talents, once he has multi-element attributes, he will be forbidden to use advanced magic, so as not to let them set themselves on fire.
However, with Du Heng's special way of using magic, multiple attributes actually provided him with convenience. Relying on his strong cultivation talent, he was able to use each attribute freely. Although it was obviously weaker than other students' single attribute magic, these magics, after being "programmed", could often combine to produce terrible destructive power beyond a single attribute.
Du Heng can even directly write other people's "cognition", forcibly reducing other people's cognition or attention on himself, so that he can concentrate on his research without distraction.
Except for class meetings, Du Heng never showed up most of the time, and was content to be a tech geek.
Although his classmates always like to complain about his low presence, Du Heng has a very high status in Class 9. Whether it is the various technologies combined with technology they want, or the customized magic tools, including the "Q treasure" used by students in Parnaki, they are all made by Du Heng.
Like Bai Luo, Du Heng, who was pulled here to participate in the "magic test", naturally did not reveal his identity as a "time traveler" to his parents.
It was just that Bai Luo spoke simply because it was troublesome, but Du Heng spoke because he was embarrassed about his identity as a "dwarf", especially his height.
"Dad, Mom, I saw my classmate. I'll go over and chat with him for a while." Bai Luo greeted his parents and walked straight towards Du Heng.
Without Bai Luo saying anything, Du Heng's mental power had already detected Bai Luo's approach. He pushed up his glasses and looked up at Bai Luo: "What do you want from me?"
"Hey, can't I find you if I have nothing else to do?" Bai Luo leaned towards Du Heng's phone screen: "What are you busy with..."
Bai Luo's mouth twitched. He looked at the cute girl in a pink dress on the screen with a puzzled look in his eyes: "Why are you playing a dress-up game?"
"Zhang Jiajia asked me to help her make a system that combines costume-changing magic, which allows her to put her own clothes into the system, allowing the user to change clothes with one click and gain the ability to wear clothes."
"Oh, it's just like Nuannuan or Erza's magic in Fairy Tail!" Bai Luo said, "Why do you look so sad? Is this magic difficult?"
——The two used magic to cover up their voices while chatting, and they were not worried that others would hear their conversation.
"..." Du Heng pursed his lips and shook his head: "I just don't understand why the suit I put together according to the task requirements and in line with the aesthetics is not as good as others' randomly put together styles? And the NPC complained about my aesthetics instead?"
Bai Luo said excitedly: "Do you need me to help you get the designer over for a live matching competition?"
Du Heng: "...Forget it."
He silently put the phone back into his pocket.
Bai Luo smiled and changed the subject, "How many people in this batch do you think can detect the 'magic circuit'?"
With Bai Luo's ability, it would be easy for him to get the answer. Du Heng also knew that Bai Luo was just chatting casually, so Du Heng did not ignore the question, but answered seriously: "When I entered the gymnasium, a total of 2,427 people had completed the test, 17 of whom had "magic circuits". Currently, there are a total of 3,251 people waiting for the test in the venue, excluding us, and 41 people can pass the test."
"So many?" Bai Luo, who had not carefully observed the testers in the venue, was a little surprised. Compared with the test data seen on the Internet, the number of people with "magic circuits" in City Y was obviously much better than the public data of other cities. Basically, there is one "magic circuit" owner in one or two hundred people. It is not an exaggeration to say that "talents are emerging in large numbers."
"It should be the influence of blood." Du Heng speculated: "After all, we were all born in this city."
The existence of the "magic circuit" is closely related to blood. The smaller the city, the more likely it is to be related to each other. It is not surprising that the city has a "magic circuit" due to the influence of blood.
"So, there must be nearly ten thousand people in our city alone?" Bai Luo said.
"Among the five magic academies currently planned to be established in Province S, one has been confirmed to be in City Y," said Du Heng.
"How do you know?"
"I was dragged over to help." Du Heng looked at Bai Luo helplessly: "You don't care about these things at all."
Bai Luo stuck out his tongue: "Aren't you busy with the "WONDERLAND" thing recently? By the way, who asked you for help?"
"Ye Ziyou."
Bai Luo was stunned.
Ye Ziyou, student number 22, is the student life committee member and water dispenser administrator of Class 9, and sits behind Bai Luo. At the same time, he was Sun Jingshu's former deputy in Parnaki, and now he is stationed at the border of the Beiyuan Desert, suppressing the evil spirits there, and is the "night watchman" of Parnaki.
At first, Ye Ziyou, like Du Heng, was one of the strongest logisticians in Class 9. He could handle all kinds of things with ease, so the classmates in the class liked to ask him for help.
But after the war between demons and monsters, Ye Ziyou, who could have been as brilliant as other students in Parnaki, chose to stay in the dark and snowy border of the northern desert, facing the danger of the demons reappearing at any time. Most of the time, he met other students through class meetings held in the sea of consciousness.
Before they traveled back to Earth, Ye Ziyu had not left the Beiyuan Desert for nearly a hundred years.
After returning to Earth, Ye Ziyu was not busy with his career like other students. Instead, he became the most ordinary student in Class 9. He went to school and went home peacefully, with no intention of causing trouble. How come he suddenly got involved in the construction of the magic school?
And his deskmate was totally unaware of it.
"He even disclosed his identity to the authorities." Du Heng was also a little surprised, but he only understood and supported his classmates' choices and did not delve into the reasons behind them. "And this time, after the school is established, he will be the principal."
Bai Luo: "...some are still struggling with the college entrance examination, while others have already become university presidents."
At this point, Bai Luo's eyes lit up: "So, can't I go through the back door and get a diploma from his school?"
Du Heng: “…”
Sometimes he couldn't really understand Bai Luo. He obviously had the strength and ability and could just do the work, but he always liked to do things that made himself look useless.
"Speaking of which, about February 4th..."
Speaking of this topic, Bai Luo and Du Heng both straightened their faces.
As for why the authorities chose to publicize the existence of magic on the day of the "Spring Equinox", it was actually a helpless move.
There are so many things to consider in this unprecedented new system of "magic". Its danger is tantamount to giving everyone a "hand gun" that can be fired freely. How to ensure that the gun will not be fired, will not harm innocent people, will not be used to endanger society, how to control it, and how to control it so that people will not think that their personal interests are harmed...
Any one of these would be enough for the officials to hold a meeting for ten days or half a month. But the time left for them was too little. Counting the information brought in by the "travelers" in advance, the officials bought nearly three months of time. Until the magic was officially announced, there was only a total of seven months of preparation time.
In just seven months, we have to summarize and decipher magic, compile it into textbooks for popular science, compile relevant laws, arrange corresponding institutions, etc. We also need to deal with the endless stream of mutants, contain and study them, control public opinion, and prevent social unrest... If it weren't for the official efforts of Class 9 that greatly reduced the knowledge of Parnaki and magic, I'm afraid it would take more than seven months just to summarize and summarize magic.
According to the official plan, the disclosure of "magic" should be made public at least after the Chinese New Year, so that the people of the whole country can have a good New Year and not fall into a state of anxiety and uneasiness due to the existence of magic, which would cause social unrest and affect everyone's good mood for the New Year.
But on February 3, something unexpected happened - the barrier between Parnaki and the earth suddenly broke.
This was obviously beyond Class 9's imagination.
Judging from the time it takes to maintain the barrier, it can last at least three years. This is why no one is in a hurry to face the arrival of Parnaki, and all arrangements are only carried out slowly, leaving the world to slowly adapt.
There must be a reason behind the sudden destruction of the barrier. Although Team Nine is still unable to know the reason, due to the destruction of the barrier, the speed at which magic power flows into the earth has increased dozens of times, and the speed at which Team Nine's power recovers has also greatly increased. The day when they know the truth is obviously not far away.
As the barrier was broken, one guess was completely proven - without the barrier, everyone in Class 9 could clearly feel Parnaki approaching. At the current speed, within two months, the space where the two worlds were located would completely overlap, causing a disaster.
Although Team 9 is unable to directly observe the state of Parnaqui with its current strength, it is not difficult to observe the space fluctuations between the Earth and Parnaqui.
There are many masters in Parnaji. Just the few astrologers taught by Shen Qiting in Parnaji are fully capable of detecting the existence of the earth.
Once the fusion of Earth and Parnagi is discovered, Parnagi will not sit idly by. However, no matter how the 9th squad observes, they cannot sense any search or exploration from the Parnagi team in the space where the Earth is located.
This is enough to explain one thing: the "time" of Parnaki has been suspended. But the so-called "pause of time" is nothing more than pausing the operation of all creatures in Parnaki, making them infinitely "prohibited", so no matter how time is suspended, the contact between the two worlds will not be disturbed in any way.
But the pause of "time" will not be permanent. Even without any evidence, everyone has a vague premonition: when the two worlds overlap, the suspended time of Parnaki will start to flow again.
The sensitive date of February 4th once again proved their previous speculation.
——Everyone’s memory of Panaki ends on February 3 at the latest. Something extremely important must have happened in Panaki on this day.
Carrying this heavy burden that only Class Nine knew in their hearts, Bai Luo chatted with Du Heng for a while longer, and the long line in front of them finally came to an end.
"I'll go back first." Bai Luo waved at Du Heng and left the space to him.
Du Heng nodded slightly to Bai Luo, then followed the guiding staff into the specially made tent.
What comes into view is complex large-scale machines, but Du Heng is not unfamiliar with them. One third of the machines here are his work.
As requested by the staff, he stood in front of a machine like an X-ray machine, answering various questions from the staff while allowing special light to scan his whole body.
The questions asked by the staff are very messy, ranging from "1+1 equals how many" to brain teasers and trolley problems. They are not trying to test the character of the citizens, but deliberately use these questions to focus the testers' minds and make their mental power active. If you encounter someone who has magic power but wants to hide it, these questions will interfere with their use of magic or reveal flaws in their actions.
Such little tricks are useless to Du Heng. As a member of Class 9, it is nothing special for Du Heng to use magic. This time, the test on Du Heng is just a formality.
If Du Heng really had a hidden identity and he deliberately wanted to conceal it, no matter how good the machine was, it would not be able to detect it at all - the authorities knew this very well.
There were ten tents for testing, and when Du Heng came out, he just happened to catch up with the others who had finished the test. They had their heads drooped and looked listless, and it was obvious that they had failed the test.
Those who fail the test account for the vast majority of people, but very few of them remain disappointed for a long time. Most people only feel a little regretful for a while and then quickly recover.
This is not because the Chinese people are naturally optimistic, but because the authorities have already made sufficient preparations.
Outside the stadium, information related to the test was played on the big screens inside and outside the stadium. The general idea was: the official plan is to complete the mass production of the "magic circuit" within half a year and promote it to the whole people. Citizens who are temporarily unable to practice magic during this period do not have to worry. They have equipped everyone with books about magic. They can start learning from the language and master the basic knowledge before practicing magic. Or they can go to "WONDERLAND" to learn and practice the use of magic.
The only difference between acquired and innate "magic circuits" is whether one can be cultivated in advance. Talent varies from person to person and has nothing to do with innate or acquired.
In short, no matter if you have talent or not, everyone can do a lot in half a year. And magic is not everything. Even if you don't have talent or interest in magic, you can continue your original work and study. Society can still function without magic, but without the jobs and working people who support the operation and progress of society, the country will be truly paralyzed - in short, life still goes on, and magic is just a seasoning to enrich life.
In the future, a series of magic props will be launched, which can be used even without practicing magic. There is no need to worry about not being able to achieve immortality without practicing magic or cultivating immortality. Scientists are already conducting research on immortality and medicine. Even if you don't practice, citizens can obtain the same lifespan as ordinary practitioners through scientific means that combine magic, etc.... I wrote a lot of words, and the dense text alone is enough to give people a headache. I wish I could explain every point of attention, so that citizens would not have a psychological gap because they did not detect the "magic circuit" for a while, which would cause some bad emotions or make some extreme behaviors.
Under normal circumstances, no one would have the patience to read such a long article carefully. But since it involved the new field of "magic", this time, whether citizens had the habit of reading or not, they all took the time to carefully consider every word and weighed their plans for the future.
Because of this, even if they didn't detect the "magic circuit", everyone was full of expectations for the future - didn't they see that the official had promised to promote the "magic circuit" to the whole people? It was just a wait of half a year, and they were also worried about the unknown of learning magic, so now was a good time to wait and see for a while, and use this time to catch up on the knowledge points.
"Xiaoheng, what are the test results?" Du Heng's parents, who were standing outside the shed waiting, asked hurriedly.
Du Heng nodded: "Passed."
"Wow--"
There were frequent exclamations all around.
——Although they have adjusted their mentality, they are still envious of this probability of less than one percent. Especially after Du Heng's family of three were all found to have "magic circuits".
This scene happened again in Bai Luo's family an hour later.
Unlike Du Heng's family who were relatively calm, Bai Luo's parents seemed much more excited.
As people who have to eat New Year’s Eve dinner with family members every year, they naturally bring this excitement to the dinner.
You wouldn't know unless you asked, but among the dozens of people in the Bai family, more than half were found to have "magic circuits", and all the younger generations had "magic circuits".
"If I had known earlier, I would have ordered a custom banner." Zhou Qin said regretfully.
Bai Luo: “That’s not necessary!”
"It looks like we can even save money on the salute next year." Bai Bin echoed, "All the children in our Bai family can just stand in a row and fire magic into the sky."
This suggestion quickly gained the collective support of the Bai family's parents.
"My girl, you spent the whole afternoon reading the official magic book and memorized a lot of knowledge points, didn't you?" Aunt Bai Luo said, "Why don't you go up and give us a lecture?"
"My son has also recited it. Let him go up and perform a passage for everyone." Bai Luo's second uncle followed closely behind.
The younger generation of the Bai family: "......"
Bai Luo quickly lowered his head and shoveled rice into his mouth silently.
"Eat, eat, eat. How can you be so useless?" Zhou Qin said angrily, "I gave you a book but you didn't even read it. Do I have to tell your uncles to make you swallow a whole pork elbow?"
Bai Luo: "...It's not impossible to eat two."
Zhou Qin: "...Shut up!"
...
The excitement caused by the "Magic Circuit" test lasted until the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, and was only diverted four days after the national census ended as a new topic emerged.
——China’s first magic academy officially opened on the seventh day of the Lunar New Year.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
