"Magic is not chaotic mystery, but the visualized expression of natural laws. Mastering the resonance principles between internal and external magical power is the key to opening the gates of magic."
——Grand Magister Alicia Startrack
Tsk, sure enough these textbooks all like to start with such pretentious famous quotes.
Too bad Lin Jun had never heard of any Grand Magister.
His mycelial tendrils stuck to the page and flipped it to the next one.
...
After finally learning to speak, Lin Jun had originally prepared to show off his skills, but after looking around he was shocked to realize that he actually had no one to communicate with!
Little Black only knew dragon language, and only a tiny bit at that. She couldn't understand human language at all, and all communication relied on the mycelial network.
Norris was being renovated in the mushroom house, while the tree demon had no vocal structures at all, also communicating through the mycelial network.
The vampire was indeed proficient in both human and demon languages as magical material, but having just been frightened, he was currently mining in the cave to calm down, making it unsuitable to bother him again in the short term.
Lin Jun was quite disappointed about this. Some vampire viscount he was—couldn't even handle a puffshroom talking, really...
The yellow book... seemed possible, but communicating with it would tire Lin Jun out.
Don't look at how Lin Jun could casually manipulate it—actually during conversations he had to constantly watch his status panel to avoid being charmed, completely unable to relax.
As for Dylan, who was surviving on a deserted island, the scout body had no vocal structures either.
He couldn't very well have puffshrooms with voice modules go around saying weird things to scare adventurers...
Having no conversation partners immediately dampened most of Lin Jun's enthusiasm for speaking. He'd just wait for Norris to wake up and chat with him.
After thinking it over, Lin Jun decisively started a new project—learning magic!
He wasn't lacking in textbooks. Adventurers occasionally left behind some magic-related books, which Lin Jun had carefully preserved.
Like this current book "Basic Universal Spell Construction," which looked like beginner material.
Chapter One: The Seven Major Magical Node Model of the Human Body?
Very good, skip it.
Puffshrooms, being low-level magical creatures, only had one central magical node even with [Magic Storage] installed, completely lacking reference value.
Opening Chapter Two, it discussed internal magic and environmental magic.
Hmm... internal magic was basically one's own mana pool, while environmental magic was the surrounding active magic that could be manipulated.
The spellcasting process involved using internal magic to construct an effective spell pathway within the body, then drawing in environmental magic to achieve the final casting effect. Puffshrooms could only accomplish this through magic crystals.
The book also mentioned that spell power = internal pathway efficiency × environmental magic concentration.
This explained why that gold-ranked mage in the mist was so strong—purely because the environmental magic was overly concentrated. Any casual manipulation yielded several times the magical power of the outside world.
Similarly, magic crystals generally served to gather surrounding free-floating magic, making the environmental magic denser during spellcasting.
As for internal pathway efficiency, it seemed tied to magic level.
High-tier magic had so-called minimum casting requirements—if pathway efficiency didn't meet standards, you couldn't use the spell even if you learned the model.
Continuing to flip through, there were some basic structural models.
Don't say—this book's opening was actually quite accessible, but as he continued reading, the situation took a sharp downturn.
The initial single-ring structures and double-helix structures, while looking somewhat complex, were still within comprehensible range.
Quickly flipping to the back, he found there were also multi-layered overlay models, triangular linkage models, and similar things. After roughly glancing at them, Lin Jun immediately felt like he was back to learning advanced calculus...
Looking back at the book title: "Basic Universal Spell Construction."
This was supposed to be *basic*?
Lin Jun couldn't believe it. Were all mages in this world honor students?
Closing this book, he opened another one: "Common Fire Magic Models (Tiers 1-3)."
Sure enough, limiting it to within Tier 3, there didn't seem to be any knowledge beyond his level.
Lin Jun selected a second-tier magic spell, Fireball, to study.
Although Lin Jun hadn't used a single spell until now, his [Magic Manipulation] was already at LV5.
This was naturally all thanks to [Greed] and the selfless contributions of the adventurers.
For spellcasting needs, a specially crafted magical puffshroom was generated.
[Magic Storage LV7] + [Magic Manipulation LV5] + [Fire Magic LV5]
The three basic skills needed for spellcasting were complete. He also equipped the puffshroom with a D-rank magic crystal to serve as external casting equipment.
He couldn't expect the puffshroom to automatically cast magic. Even with these skills, the puffshroom lacked knowledge of spell models—everything required Lin Jun's manual control.
Controlling Magic Puffshroom No. 1, using [Magic Manipulation LV5] to trace the second-tier magic model was quite easy.
But since this was his first time casting, Lin Jun still took 10 minutes of fiddling before completing the Fireball spell pathway connection in the magic crystal.
With the final pathway forming a closed loop, under Lin Jun's guidance, magical power indeed began gathering toward the magic crystal in large quantities!
The magic crystal's temperature rapidly increased!
Hm?
Wasn't this supposed to be Fireball? Why was the magic crystal heating up?
Before Lin Jun could figure it out, the magic crystal directly turned into a fireball, burning through the mycelial tendrils and dropping to the ground, continuing to heat up!
A sudden explosion echoed briefly through the mushroom forest, and equally brief was that magical puffshroom, along with 10 square meters of mycelial carpet...
Damn it, the magic crystal got roasted and exploded.
Where did it go wrong? When Lin Jun watched others cast spells, they always formed outside the magic crystal.
Fortunately, the two books were placed far away and weren't damaged.
Another puffshroom ran out from the forest to help Lin Jun flip through the textbook again.
Half an hour later, Lin Jun finally figured it out.
He had only focused on constructing the magic pathway but forgot to connect an exit. Just now the magical power kept circulating within the pathway, eventually exceeding the limit and exploding.
Learning from this lesson, Magic Puffshroom No. 2 finally successfully conjured Lin Jun's first fireball in his mushroom life.
Launch!
The fireball hit a mushroom tree, blowing a hole about two meters in diameter.
!
Successfully casting for the first time, Lin Jun couldn't hide his excitement, controlling Magic Puffshroom No. 2 to repeatedly use Fireball many more times.
His usage became increasingly smooth, from initially taking 10 minutes to construct one Fireball to now conjuring one in mere dozens of seconds.
And Lin Jun was certain this time could continue to shorten with practice!
The mushroom tree serving as target practice in front was already riddled with holes. Thank goodness there was a chubby puffshroom filled with water nearby ready to extinguish fires at any time, or it would have burned down a whole area already.
After casting Fireball once more, Magic Puffshroom No. 2 suddenly died.
Hm?
Checking... out of magic, starved to death...
Unlike humans, who at most got dizzy and fainted when out of magic, puffshrooms—magical creatures that relied on magic to function—simply died when they overused their magical power.
Even [Mycelial Reconstruction] couldn't revive it. Though the corpse looked intact, most of the mycelium inside had starved to death. The damage exceeded repair standards and could only be thrown into the swamp for recycling.
Lin Jun thought about it and figured this problem could be solved by having puffshrooms connect to the mycelial carpet with tendrils, supplementing magic while casting to avoid suddenly running out.
This small incident didn't affect Lin Jun's enthusiasm for spellcasting. Soon Magic Puffshroom No. 3 took over from its predecessor.
...
One day later.
The magical puffshroom wrapped around the magic crystal, surrounding magical power flowed in, and 10 seconds later, a Fireball shot out.
This time's power was even greater than initially, creating an explosion diameter of 3 meters.
However, Lin Jun wasn't very satisfied.
10 seconds—this time was still too long for combat.
You had to know that mushroom cannons only needed less than 2 seconds from aiming to firing.
Other human adventurers in combat generally could conjure spells within 2-3 seconds as well.
After all, when constructing spells, mages couldn't move around for stability. If casting time was too long in battle, you'd just be a sitting duck, purely seeking death.
But the problem was, conjuring Fireball in 2-3 seconds was the result of others' years of practice. Lin Jun had only been playing with magic for one day—10 seconds was already his current limit.
After this, he could only rely on constant practice, grinding out the feel to shorten casting time...
No way, I'm already cheating with [Greed] and I still have to grind problems to improve?
Wasn't there some skill like quick casting?
Thinking about it, he really hadn't seen any such thing.
Then was there any method to quickly trace spell models?
Speaking of which, could he directly draw spell models inside puffshroom bodies for direct casting?
...
...
...
Bang—
Magic Puffshroom... who knows what number, anyway daily wear and tear +1.
Draft puffshrooms ran out from behind mushroom trees to clean up, clearing away the puffshroom fragments scattered all over the ground.
Sure enough, magic wasn't that simple.
The crude method of directly molding spell models inside puffshroom bodies didn't work—either they couldn't be released or magic overload caused explosions.
He didn't know where the problem lay.
Though he had expected this, Lin Jun still couldn't help feeling disappointed.
After all, if every spell required Lin Jun to spend large amounts of time practicing, then spells would have greatly reduced practical value for him.
Far less useful than training skills to high levels.
Looking at the dozen-plus magic-related books on the ground.
Could he only treat it as a hobby, occasionally conjuring for fun...
In his helplessness, the name of one book once again caught Lin Jun's attention.
Formations...?
---
In the employee mushroom house, Norris slowly awakened.
"Where am I?"
His memory still lingered on the hot soup the boss had given him...
"You're awake!"
Blinding bright light forced Norris to shield his eyes.
What was that?
Squinting, Norris saw it was a puffshroom standing in radiance.
No wait, that puffshroom itself *was* light!
"Puffshroom... God?"
Norris didn't know that the puffshroom before him was the crystallization of all Lin Jun's learning—a Light spell puffshroom!
Sitting up somewhat frantically, Norris suddenly felt something stuck in his throat.
"Cough cough!"
[Saliva Arrow LV5]
[Neurotoxin LV4]
Red toxic liquid formed into a water arrow, instantly piercing through the puffshroom in front and even making a hole in the mushroom house...
The light puffshroom flickered twice, its glow extinguished as it collapsed in the mushroom house.
Though puffshrooms weren't afraid of neurotoxin, they couldn't withstand [Saliva Arrow] directly shooting through their bodies.
How did spitting have such power?
Looking at the dead puffshroom, Norris realized this was probably a new variety the boss had created, and he seemed to have caused trouble again.
"Boss... I'm sorry..."
Norris wore a mournful expression, praying this puffshroom wasn't too important and wouldn't mean another stay in the slime room.
"No... problem... Nor... ris..."
The terrifying voice from behind nearly made Norris roll away.
Crawling on hands and feet to the opposite corner of the mushroom house, Norris finally turned back to see clearly what had made the sound—a long, cylindrical puffshroom...
"Boss... what is this now?"
The elongated puffshroom writhed as it spoke: "Voice... box... wear... it."
"Wear it? How?"
Then Norris watched with a bitter face as the puffshroom wrapped around his neck...
Finally accepting the boss's mouth replacement around his neck, Norris asked about his changes.
"Boss, what happened? Why is my... saliva so powerful now?"
Not only did it pierce through the puffshroom, it even made a hole in the mushroom house, with power comparable to an arrow.
Lin Jun explained that he had helped process his body once more, and now he had more powerful skills!
Powerful skills...
[Saliva Arrow] and [Rolling Charge]?
Setting aside these two suspicious skills, the others were indeed very useful.
[Acceleration] and [Dodge] made Norris feel light as a feather. If he encountered those three adventurers from before now, while he might not be completely unharmed, Norris should be able to defeat them single-handedly.
[Sonic Detection] was harder to evaluate. The skill could indeed detect over a wide range, but because the detection range was too large with too much information, each use gave Norris a headache...
Understanding his new body, Norris was happy about becoming stronger again while also lamenting how he was growing further from humanity.
Looking at his lengthened nails, they needed trimming...
However, Lin Jun felt he hadn't experienced all his new skills yet.
"Norris, try that remaining skill too!"
"Let's not do that right now, boss..."
Norris's reluctant attitude pained Lin Jun deeply.
"What kind of talk is that? Skills that haven't been tested—how can we guarantee their practicality?
Norris, you must understand, this is all for your own good!
Try it out so I can improve it for you next time if there are any inconveniences!
What's there to be embarrassed about? In battle, between life and death, would you rather die than be embarrassed?
After this lecture that made Norris deeply ashamed, feeling his awareness was still too low.
Gritting his teeth!
[Rolling Charge LV7]
...
"Hahahaha!"
Amid the boss's inexplicable laughter, Little Black, sitting in her shiny little nest, saw a silver ball rapidly rolling past her mushroom house.
With a "bang."
Little Black, who had been drawn out by the large shiny object, saw Norris curled up in a ball, unconscious and embedded in the rock wall after the crash.
After thinking, Little Black pulled Norris out of the rock wall.
She sent him back to his mushroom house, then happily returned to her nest with over ten beautiful silver scales.
Little Black discovered these silver scales, when stuck to the mushroom house walls, could make her nest much brighter. She hoped to cover her entire nest with them someday!
Lin Jun was also very happy.
Skills really were magical—humans could actually curl up like that!
[Rolling Charge] must have changed some joint structures or muscle flexibility in Norris's body, otherwise this effect would be impossible.
However, with so many skills added, Norris, this blank slate, was nearly at his limit.
The next enhancement would probably be the final round.
Speaking of which, what would happen if a human got [Jet Propulsion]?
Never mind about Norris—next time there were captives, he could try it.
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