MMORPG: Rise of the Primordial Godsmith

Chapter 1833: The Second Step

"...Whoop..."

"...Okay... Easy there..."

"..."

"...Haah. Finally home."

Closing the door that led to her apartment, Veradine could not help but let out a wide sigh of relief as she hastily sat down on the couch.

Then, gazing off into the distance, she closed her eyes, deeply sensing the effects of intoxication that still lingered within her body.

Though seeing how intoxicated she was in detail caused an amused smile to appear on her face, she soon took in a deep breath as she willed the ether in her body to move.

"Hoo..."

Feeling the intoxication leave her body bit by bit, the silver-haired woman took in deep breaths from time to time as she continued to focus her attention towards manipulating her ether.

Fortunately, by the time a few minutes had passed, all traces of intoxication had been swept away from her body, finally allowing Veradine to let out yet another sigh of relief.

"I guess I drank a bit too much this time around." Sensing her usual clarity finally returning to her, the woman let out a slight chuckle as she looked down at what she was currently wearing.

Most of the time, Veradine tended to wear what she called her "research clothes", which was a long-sleeved sweater, a pair of jeans, and a white lab coat on top.

Yet, in rare special occasions, such as the year-end event that she had attended earlier, she would spend a bit of effort to dress up.

With that said, her current get-up was composed of a long purple dress, a white silk jacket, and a pair of gold-colored heels.

Combined with her taking the time to arrange both her hair and makeup, it was no surprise that she exuded a different kind of charm in front of her fellow colleagues during the year-end event.

Especially since everyone in the lab knew her more as a strict yet amicable kind of person.

Because of course, the year-end event was held to celebrate the efforts that everyone in the research lab had put in for the past year.

"I should note down the catering service I booked for next year’s year-end event. They make some really good pasta."

While Veradine was still briefly glossing over the events that transpired back at the event, she went ahead and took the opportunity to change into some clothes she usually wore at home before returning to the couch once more.

"The event aside, the lab has really done well this past year."

Thinking about how much headway the lab had made into researching the various Ether Gathering Techniques she had given them during this past year, Veradine had a look of satisfaction on her face as she took out her laptop.

Bringing up the information she had collected on the subject alongside her fellow colleagues on the laptop, her expression, though slightly smiling, became somewhat solemn.

"After publishing the article on the improvements made to the Basic Ether Gathering Technique, we’ve basically perfected the methodology necessary to research other Ether Gathering Techniques in detail."

Scrolling through the data and annotations she and the other Scholars had made on the various documents, Veradine faintly nodded every once in a while as she brushed her knowledge up on the topic.

"Once Group D finishes their preliminary research on the Ether Siphon Art, we’d be more or less half-done with this next article," she muttered as she reached the end of the document.

"And if we can keep up a similar pace this year, then we might be able to squeeze the time we take per article from three down to two years."

Beep!

Just as those words left her mouth, Veradine received a message from her phone all of a sudden.

Taking a look to see what the message said, a light chuckle soon escaped her lips as she returned her attention back to the laptop.

"I did say that Group D should join in on the year-end event, yet they were adamant that they would wrap up their research before doing so."

She faintly shook her head in amusement. "To think that they were able to organize all the necessary information to catch the event in time."

Refreshing the document she brought up to see the changes made, Veradine soon found the additional pieces of information Group D had added to it, which all pertained to the Ether Siphon Art that she had tasked them to research.

Reading through each line to make sure that the group hadn’t made any mistake, a look of understanding soon appeared on her face as she internalized the newly obtained information.

"Unlike the other Ether Gathering Techniques, the Ether Siphon Art focuses on the word ’Siphon’, which is why the first step to learning it involves the creation of what the technique calls ’Siphoning Force’."

"Then again, once someone masters the technique to its limit, it gives them a 175% boost to their ether gathering rate, which is already pretty close to reaching Pseudo-Class B level."

"In any case, now that I’ve finally gathered all the necessary information from the 10 techniques I’ve chosen, it’s finally time for me to move onto the next step."

At those words, a faint tremor soon appeared in her voice.

"To think it had taken four years to get to this point."

After realizing that she had neglected optimizing the Basic Ether Gathering Technique even further just half a year into her becoming a Sage, Veradine had devised a plan that was mainly composed of two parts.

The first part was optimizing the technique to the limits of her ability.

The second part was utilizing this information, as well as information she would gather on other Ether Gathering Techniques to make her own Ether Gathering Technique.

With that, she then made up her mind to allocate at least a month out of the year to push the Basic Ether Gathering Technique a bit further, a bit curious to see where her limits lied.

Fortunately, she found the answer to that question while working on the article that tackled her further improvements to the Basic Ether Gathering Technique.

Though, when she thought about how much time it took for her lab to finally publish the article...

She felt like she could have planned it out better.