Diary of a Dead Wizard

Chapter 999: Testing and Improvement

After returning to the Chaos Realm, Saul decided to start with testing the bone monsters.

Keli and Brando had now focused their research direction on enhancing the controllability of bone monsters.

Saul took ten newly manufactured bone monsters and returned to the black desert where there were no people nearby.

Here, he took out the anchor point that had resided in his left hand for a long time from the space created by the Symphony of Fate.

Now as a fourth-rank, when Saul felt the anchor point at close range again, he noticed that inside the anchor point was actually a kind of constantly changing fluctuation. It wasn't static.

But this change also had patterns. Once the pattern was broken, it would cause the pollution inside the anchor point to spread outward.

The pollution fluctuations that spread to the outside world had extremely strong infectivity, or rather, they were very domineering fluctuations that would forcibly change others' fluctuations.

This was also why Firefly Lord Herbert had immediately mutated and died the instant he was touched by the anchor point.

Anchor points came from sixth-rank wizards. Even if just a fragment, they still had fourth-rank level. For it to assimilate a third-rank wizard, it would naturally directly change the third-rank wizard into something even he couldn't recognize.

"If an anchor point assimilates a wizard near the Abyssal Eye, the Abyssal Eye can smoothly absorb this wizard. But the mutated wizard only changes externally—their essence hasn't changed. What the Abyssal Eye wants should be a wizard's essential composition."

To understand essence, analysis of a single quantity was definitely insufficient. So the Abyssal Eye needed to absorb an entire world, then conduct statistical analysis to establish new cognition for its resurrection.

However, this was also very dangerous.

In haste—though for Saul it had actually been hundreds of years—the essence sought was very likely to contain relatively obvious fallacies. And once such fallacies were targeted by someone, it might die again.

"Is this the defensive measure by which the Abyssal Eye sealed the wizard world, preventing the world from producing fifth-rank wizards again?"

"That is to say, the Abyssal Eye is actually also afraid of enemies appearing."

Having confirmed his line of thinking, Saul waved his hand and created a temporary laboratory in the black desert.

The walls, tables, and chairs in the laboratory were all composed of inertized black powder, minimizing the influence of experimental equipment on anchor points and bone monsters.

Then Saul numbered one of the bone monsters as 01, placed it on the newly created experimental table, and picked up the anchor point to approach 01.

Saul's mental power was also constantly extended, while he also extended an invisible fate line around the area to observe whether there were other forces different from pollution fluctuations.

Last time the anchor point had reacted when touching an enemy. This time, under Saul's careful observation, he discovered that as soon as the anchor point appeared in the laboratory, 01 immediately reacted.

This reaction manifested as polluting fluctuations appearing inside the bone monster—the kind that only appeared after entering the wizard world.

The fluctuations were small and didn't scatter outside the body.

Saul continued approaching with the anchor point. When half a meter away from the bone monster, the fluctuations inside the bone monster were drawn outside and produced weak resonance with the anchor point's fluctuations.

Saul waited five minutes without discovering any signs of the resonance strengthening.

So he moved the anchor point closer to the bone monster again, separately observing the bone monster's reactions when the anchor point was 30 centimeters, 20 centimeters, and 10 centimeters away.

As the anchor point continuously approached, the bone monster would continuously strengthen the fluctuations it emitted, but the resonance with the anchor point's pollution fluctuations didn't increase at the same proportion.

"So what the Soul-Fixing arrays truly fix is this resonance ability." Saul nodded, satisfied with the current effects of the Soul-Fixing magical arrays.

The resonance's killing power was extremely strong. If the resonance could be broken, they might be able to directly become immune to anchor point pollution.

But this was extremely difficult—being able to reduce resonance was already quite remarkable.

Although those fifth-rank and above boss wizards from ancient times were no longer in this world, the things they occasionally left behind were still very useful.

After completing the close-range test, Saul directly pressed the anchor point against the bone monster.

With this contact, the bone monster immediately changed color, gradually turning gray from the point of contact, its appearance moving closer to the black tide monsters in the abyss.

But before the bone monster could completely transform into an anchor point's appearance, its entire body collapsed, becoming a pile of unresponsive sand.

Saul continued recording, "From the bone monster's reaction, anchor points are indeed assimilating everything they contact. But most things, during the initial stages of assimilation, directly perish because they can't bear the new fluctuations and their own compositional structure is broken."

The research results were similar to Saul's previous speculations, leaving him in good spirits.

At least it showed that the direction of the path he was currently taking was correct.

"Bone monsters themselves are products after abyss pollution and have certain similarities to anchor points, so they lasted longer than third-rank wizards would. But they're not anchor points after all, and their strength is insufficient, which is why they collapsed before being completely assimilated."

Next, Saul took out a bone monster improved by Brando to enhance strength, numbered 02.

When conducting the anchor point experiment again, Saul discovered that 02's flexibility and strength/hardness were both higher than 01's, but its resistance to anchor points was actually about the same as 01's.

"Brando hasn't contacted anchor points after all, and his understanding of black tide pollution can't catch up to Keli's. So when he conducted modifications, he still referenced characteristics of becoming stronger in the wizard world."

But what good did being stronger do? Could it reach fourth rank?

Alick and the others could also contain anchor points for experiments, but didn't fourth-rank Master Gorsa, after entering the abyss full of anchor points, also nearly get completely polluted?

"The key is still in soul-fixing. The less resonance bone monsters produce, the better. Then the more numerous they are, the longer they can persist in front of anchor points."

Saul took out the remaining 8 bone monsters to experiment with them all, with consistent results.

After completing the experiments, he put away the anchor point, raised his hand to push down the entire temporary laboratory, and buried it deep in the black desert to prevent residual pollution fluctuations from affecting his own people.

Then his figure flashed and he returned to the Great Fissure.

Keli and Brando were busy in the laboratory.

"Completely abandon Brando's improvement plan. Focus all efforts on increasing the number of bone monsters we can control. I'll also continue improving the effects of Soul-Fixing magical arrays. Contact me immediately if you have any progress or discoveries."

Upon hearing this, Brando's mouth twitched slightly, but he could only nod. It's just that his efforts from the past half year had all been wasted, which was somewhat heartbreaking.

But he had no temper even in front of third-rank Saul, let alone fourth-rank.

So he obediently went to assist Keli, first learning how to improve bone monsters using Keli's method.

Meanwhile, Keli ran up to Saul, grabbed his arm and turned him around, "Saul, can you directly contact anchor points?"

Saul looked into Keli's eyes and slowly nodded.

Keli looked up at Saul seriously, her eyes shining, "Can you modify me? Modify me into a body that can contact anchor points?"

(End of Chapter)