NOVEL NEXT Chapter 108. Bottleneck And World-Changing Discovery
For the next hundred years, Lacius utilized his tricks to collect Level 3 earth element blessed as his experimental subject.
He continuously sent people to the southern islands or northern mountain ranges before secretly kidnapping some of them. He also had the Temple instigate wars between factions or even kingdoms, before abducting the Level 3 blessed who led the armies.
Along the way, many forces grew suspicious or tried to disseminate the Level 3 training method without the Temple's approval. But all of them were destroyed by the Temple.
At the same time, under Lacius's manipulation, the Temple also used the chaos caused by the wars to 'adopt' talented earth blessed affected by the conflict.
With the help of the talent detector, although not all children detected with earth element talent awakened as earth blessed, most of them still did.
Even those who didn't awaken as earth blessed often awakened with another element, with only a few failing to awaken their blessing at all.
After some time, the war had grown so massive that when Cedric found out, he immediately warned Lacius to stop it.
When he received Cedric's warning, Lacius immediately stopped because he had already achieved most of his goal.
With the help of the war, within the span of a hundred years, the number of Level 3 earth element blessed Lacius had already reached dozens.
If the amount of Level 3 earth element blessed trained with most of the temple's resources is included, it has almost reached thirty.
Even so, inside the secret room below the Temple's headquarters, Lacius can only scratch his head while looking at the result he has gathered from dissecting more than thirty Level 3 blessed.
Sitting on a stone chair that's surrounded by magical ores that contain a lot of mana, Lacius tapped his finger while looking at a book placed on a table in front of him.
"I've created a training method suitable for me, and it's theoretically plausible to use this method to advance. But why can't I advance to Level 4 at all?"
Unwilling to give up, he tried circulating the energy in his body once more. The energy did successfully circulate and absorb the mana from the surrounding magic ores. But it didn't cause his Life Level to increase at all.
"What should I do now? Without advancing my life level, my lifespan will be slowly consumed."
For the first time since he took on the role of the god of alchemy, Lacius felt dejected. All he could do was try every method at his disposal to find a way out.
***
In the Divine Space, Cedric paused his attempt to create a mermaid. Instead, he looked at Lacius, who'd been stuck at the last step for the past decade, and recalled his conversation with the System ten years ago.
At that time, Cedric was also in the midst of creating a mermaid when he decided to check the world and discovered that Lacius had devised a training method for humans with the earth element to reach Level 4.
The method was definitely feasible, but when Cedric saw Lacius try it, he kept failing to break through. Even after more than a dozen attempts, all of them were for naught.
That's why Cedric asked the System, "Why can't he advance to Level 4? Although the method he created hasn't reached the level of the method Elisa comprehended from her talent, it should've been enough to let him advance."
[There are two reasons for it to happen.]
"Two? Can you explain? Also, do I need to pay any GP? If so, how much?" Cedric immediately asked the System. After all, since he reached world Level 2, the System seemed intent on draining his GP by putting a price on every question he asked.
[No worries, this one is basic free knowledge. All gods except you already know about it. After all, the other gods are beings who reached Level 16 step by step from Level 0.]
Cedric somehow felt the sarcasm from the System. But he just shrugged it. 'I'll just assume the System is getting sour for giving free information.'
[Tsk, tsk, tsk. You're getting older and are no longer fun to annoy. I miss my young Cedric, who would get angry easily.]
Cedric could feel his vein bulge. Luckily, the System immediately sent him the information he requested.
[Anyway, first, Lacius can't advance because of his potential. Potential doesn't only dictate the level limit a creature can achieve, it also shows the amount of talent a creature has related to special energy.]
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[For every life level that a creature has achieved that's beyond their dictated potential, they're basically breaking their own limit.]
Cedric nodded, then shook his head. "But Lacius reached Level 3 without any problem, even though his potential is only Level 1."
[That's related to the second reason. Breaking through from Level 0 to Level 3 is only a matter of gathering enough energy. But from Level 4 onward, there are additional requirements besides energy. Those with enough potential, like Elisa, can ignore them. But for someone breaking their limit like Lacius, it's necessary to meet those requirements - or at least use an alternative method to make up for them.]
"Then, what's the requirement to advance from Level 3 to Level 4?"
[This one is paid content. Do you wish to spend GP to receive the answer?]
"No." Cedric mulled over it before shaking his head. Then, he asked another question, "Then, can you tell me the alternative method you mentioned?"
[Most of the alternative methods are paid content, but I can tell you a few common ones for free.]
[For the first method. Do you remember those cultivation and Martial arts techniques in xianxia, wuxia, or murim stories that you read?]
Cedric felt a bit speechless at the System's ability to jump between topics. Even so, he still nodded.
[Then, you should know there are many cultivation methods and martial arts methods in those stories, with different methods having different qualities.]
Cedric guessed what the System was implying, "Do you mean there's a better training method that could help someone advance from Level 3 to Level 4?"
[Indeed. The training method you created and shared isn't among the worst. But it can't be said to be the best either.]
"Then, should I go to another world and steal a good method that can help Lacius?"
[Please note that even in worlds that both use mana, the properties of mana differ from one world to another. This means it'll take time to adjust any technique you steal. Furthermore, good techniques are hard to find, and they'll definitely be encrypted by the gods who own that world. You'd need to pay quite a lot of GP to obtain those techniques.]
'Darn, those gods sound like a money grubber just like the System.' Cedric cursed.
[Thank you for the praise. Anyway, except for that method, the other common method is to buy Divine Items that can increase someone's potential or a Divine Item that can forcefully advance someone's level.]
Cedric checked the shop for those items before closing it with a frightened expression. 'They're frickin expensive!'
Recalling the price he saw was enough to snap Cedric out of his reminiscence.
Shaking his head to forget the amount of GP he saw ten years ago, Cedric continued to check Lacius.
After he saw the amount of GP needed to help Lacius a decade ago, Cedric decided to give Lacius the cold shoulder and let him pioneer a path on his own.
Honestly, he had been quite dissatisfied with Lacius ever since he caused a worldwide war between kingdoms just to kidnap a few Level 3 blessed.
It definitely wasn't because he was scared of the amount of GP he needed to spend.
Cedric took another look at Lacius before continuing to design a mermaid. "I hope he succeeds soon."
"Until he does, I suppose I'll keep a closer eye on him," Cedric muttered, a little worried about what kind of batshit insane thing Lacius might do once anxiety took him over.
***
While Lacius is scratching his head to find a way to advance, the Tempe continued to seek more children with high earth element talent.
One such person is Helion Gadden. He is someone from a scholarly family in one of the six kingdoms.
After his grandfather led the rise of the family a century ago by winning the Temple's alchemy competition, the once inconspicuous Gadden family has been rising at incredible speed.
But since the death of his grandfather, a lot of people have been targeting his family for the sake of the right to the earth element talent detector.
When his grandfather was alive, as a Level 2 blessed, he could easily handle those greedy people. But after his death, the family lost their greatest backer and combat power.
Coupled with the fact that his grandfather's only child, Helion's father, had only barely reached Level 1 and lacked strong backing. Many greedy people began to bare their fangs, leading to the family's downfall.
For the sake of restoring their family's glory as a scholarly household, Helion's father accepted the Temple's request to adopt Helion, who had just awakened as an earth element blessed at fifteen and was found to possess remarkable talent. In exchange, the Temple will accept Helion's brothers and sister to the temple's school to obtain the scholarly qualification. At the same time, they will receive the temple's backing to keep their family's right over the talent detector.
It's a lie if Helion said he doesn't despise his family's decision, which basically sold him to the temple. But he slowly came to terms with it. Especially after he received the Temple's endless resources and access to the Temple's library, known as mankind's greatest knowledge repository.
Except for training by absorbing mana from magic ores, Helion spent most of his time reading books in the library or doing alchemical research.
He was especially fascinated by the study of creating blessed power like effects through alchemy, a field of study pioneered by the Temple's first High Priest, Hars.
By mixing magical and ordinary plants, ores, or beast materials as ingredients, it was possible to produce effects similar to blessed powers, such as conjuring flames or instantly freezing a small area.
Although the effects were still extremely weak, Helion felt there was great potential in this field of study.
Building on the knowledge of his predecessors, he continued to make progress. At the same time, his strength as a blessed also increased rapidly.
By the time he reached his mid-twenties, Helion had become a Level 1 blessed. He also became a Level 2 blessed after he turned forty, a pretty amazing feat even among the talented people that the Temple had collected.
At fifty years old, he achieved a breakthrough in his research.
Using the knowledge from his grandfather's talent-detecting tools, Helion created two important inventions.
The first was a method to process materials into catalysts, which he learned from a part of the talent-detecting tool. Specifically, the part that created a magic ore capable of forcefully injecting earth-element mana into the testee's body.
The second was a method to sense and trigger the mana within said processed magical materials, which he realized thanks to the talent detector's ability to measure the amount of mana flowing into the testee's body from the processed ore.
Aside from those, he also drew on many other pieces of knowledge as the foundation for his successful research.
And so, a groundbreaking discovery that would change the world was born.