I Build a Floating City in the Apocalypse – Chapter 75

Chapter 75

“First, the Projection Spell.”

Fang Bai cautiously channeled elemental power, gathering it on the first layer of the rough scroll paper.

Each layer of the scroll paper needed to be inscribed with the Projection Spell.

Actually, according to Fang Bai’s thinking, only after completing this step could the scroll paper be considered a truly finished product.

Because then, one could directly start drawing spell scrolls.

However, since he was making the scroll paper himself, Fang Bai wasn’t so particular.

Normally, once the gathered elemental power was released from the constraints of Mental Power, it would dissipate and re-diffuse into the environment.

But within materials that also possessed elemental power, this diffusion would be blocked. In Fang Bai’s view, it should be that, as similar substances, elemental materials could effectively block the manifestation of elemental power.

And because the elements within ordinary elemental materials were stable, they wouldn’t be lost and were difficult to utilize. Unlike ordinary free elements, they wouldn’t be interfered with by the elemental materials on the scroll when activating spell models.

This was the basic principle of using elemental materials to create spell scrolls, and also the fundamental reason why scroll paper didn’t have any requirements for the elemental attributes of the elemental materials.

Not picky, as long as it was an elemental material, it would do.

Fang Bai meticulously used elemental power to outline the nodes and elemental channels of the Projection Spell on the scroll paper, one by one. Suddenly, a stray thought caused Fang Bai’s control to waver, and the placement of an elemental node went awry.

Failure.

Seeing this, Fang Bai slightly adjusted his thoughts and once again inscribed the Projection Spell on this piece of scroll paper.

It had failed before, so he just moved to a different spot; it didn’t matter, it was just practice.

Fang Bai practiced continuously. As time passed and the scroll paper was gradually filled, Fang Bai became more and more focused, and the fluency and success rate of his inscription also increased.

It’s worth mentioning that during this period, Fang Bai glanced at the analysis of the Projection Spell in the manuscript and saw a description on it.

“No. 957 Projection Spell Model.”

“There’s even a serial number?”

“Could it be that, besides this one, there are at least 957 other kinds of Projection Spells?”

“Surely no one would be so bored as to create or modify so many Projection Spells, right?”

Fang Bai just muttered to himself; this didn’t affect him continuing to inscribe the Projection Spell.

Soon, Fang Bai was finally able to stably inscribe the Projection Spell. This progress made Fang Bai very satisfied, although the price he paid was that the scroll paper in front of him was now completely disfigured and unusable.

Fang Bai put the scroll paper aside, took out the finished scroll paper from between the two steel plates, and then put another piece in for pressing.

Five layers of scroll paper, five Projection Spells!

Fang Bai completed this step very smoothly, and then it was time for the main event: the Fireball Spell.

One spell node… two spell nodes… three spell nodes…

The first layer was inscribed. Fang Bai moved to the second layer, which only had one spell node. Fang Bai easily completed it as well. Then came the third layer, which had greater pressure with five spell nodes, two of which were core nodes. Fang Bai was very cautious when inscribing, however…

The more you fear something, the more likely it is to happen. Just a single stray thought caused Fang Bai’s Mental Power to make a wrong stroke on the scroll paper.

Inscription failed.

“Calm down, calm down, calm down. Empty your mind, no distractions.”

Fang Bai once again deeply realized that the most important thing for a mage was calmness, absolute calmness.

For warriors and archers, appropriate emotions and hormones could even enhance their on-the-spot performance, allowing them to exert 120% of their combat power and create miracles.

But for mages, emotions could exist, but they must be suppressed. They absolutely could not interfere with the brain or hormone secretion, otherwise, forget about 120% combat power, it would be good if they could exert even 20% of their combat power, leading to bizarre outcomes.

In fact, not only in combat, but also during usual meditation or, like now, when inscribing spell models, calmness and a lack of distractions were essential. Mages must be able to quickly enter this state and not be easily disturbed; this was part of the fundamentals.

Fortunately, this wasn’t too difficult for Fang Bai.

Perhaps it was talent, but before the apocalypse, Fang Bai could always concentrate on studying or doing something at any time.

Concentration was inherently a process of calmness and eliminating distractions.

So, although the extreme calmness required by mages still needed practice for Fang Bai, it wasn’t too difficult.

Fang Bai continued to practice inscribing the Fireball Spell model on the blank space of the second piece of scroll paper.

Although the remaining blank area was no longer enough to fix a complete Fireball Spell model, it was still no problem for practice; it was just practice, after all.

When this piece of scroll paper was also filled, Fang Bai took out the next one.

The Fireball Spell model needed to be distributed across five layers because it was a compressed spell model. Compressing from three dimensions to two dimensions, issues such as how to compress the relationships between spell nodes, how to compress the elemental channels between spell nodes, and whether they would interfere with each other all needed to be considered.

Although there was a set of algorithms for compression in the spell scroll creation method, Fang Bai found that it was far from as simple as the calculations suggested when it came to actual practice.

In addition to calculation problems, there were also coordination problems between spell nodes on different layers and cross-layer elemental channel architecture problems. On this latter point, the inferior scroll paper that Fang Bai had made himself had a serious impact, directly leading to his failure.

The gaps left between the layers were irregular, sometimes thin and sometimes thick, directly causing Fang Bai’s inscription to fail.

However, this was solved after Fang Bai made minor adjustments to his scroll paper production technique.

Attempt after attempt, the pile of discarded drafts beside Fang Bai grew taller and taller.

Three sheets, six sheets, nine sheets, thirteen sheets…

It couldn’t be said that failure was the norm; it could only be said that Fang Bai hadn’t succeeded even once. After so many attempts at fixing the spell, even Fang Bai’s Mental Power was somewhat exhausted.

Inscribing spell scrolls was very mentally draining! Fang Bai couldn’t hold on any longer.

Fang Bai finally broke away from his inscription state and went out to bring in the food that had been placed outside the door.

The food was already cold. Fang Bai scanned it with his Mental Power to make sure there were no problems before he started eating.

Fang Bai was eating from a communal pot. This meal had been delivered to his door long ago, and now, after several hours, it was completely cold.

However, so far, no one had been poisoned, and no one had shown any symptoms. Under the scan of his Mental Power, he hadn’t found any signs of drugs being added afterward, so the possibility of the food being problematic should be small.

This thought popped into Fang Bai’s mind, and he couldn’t help but shake his head.

“Damn apocalypse!”

“Sigh.”

“If there are any, hurry up and give me a spell to create food, d*mn it.”

After the meal, Fang Bai placed the plate outside the door and entered a meditative state.

Until four hours later…