socalfunplaces Page 3
Page 3
Everyone has a different understanding and imagination of magic, and a mage's control over magic is based on these understandings and imaginations.
The first few pages of "The Basic Principles of Magic Networks" briefly introduce the concept of magic elements and a basic meditation method.
The so-called basic meditation method is the foundation for most meditation methods, which can be practiced until the level of a beginner mage. As for further improvement, it is necessary to switch to a more advanced meditation method.
In silent meditation, Latis was surprised to find that specks of starlight gradually appeared in the darkness, and magical energy, as dazzling as the Milky Way, extended out and surrounded him.
In this tranquil galaxy of magic energy, his intrusion was like a sudden black hole, with magic energy of different colors and shapes pouring into his body like a tide under his gravity.
"It feels like my stomach has been instantly filled with delicious food. Cultivation is such an enjoyable thing!"
Latis's consciousness continued to rise along the infinitely expanding magic energy until a strange sense of envelopment enveloped his consciousness, at which point he belatedly stopped.
"This feeling is amazing! Is this magic?" Latis was overjoyed, manipulating his consciousness to wander around in a chaotic space. "Could this be the magic network? Why is there nothing here? My signal is too weak?"
He tentatively extended his consciousness outwards, until...
"Friend, wake up! Friend?"
The hooded man's low, husky voice echoed in his ears, causing Latis's consciousness to plummet. He struggled to open his eyes, suddenly feeling a dampness on his face. He wiped the sweat from his face, weakly propped himself up, and said:
"what's the situation……"
The dry voice startled him, but the hooded man pressed against the cage nodded as if he had confirmed something. His hands, bound by wooden shackles, gripped the bars, and he asked in a low voice:
"Friend, you've been sweating profusely since just now, and your breathing is very unstable. Could it be... that you've been infected by the magic net?"
"Don't talk like the Magic Network is some otherworldly god!" Latis thought to himself, but the faint seriousness hidden beneath the half-elf's hood made his heart tighten. He hesitated for a moment, then moved closer to the cage and asked in a low voice:
"I completed a meditation last night, and when it ended, I felt my consciousness rise to a great height. Was that the magic net?"
“That’s right.” The hooded man nodded vigorously, a strand of his messy silver hair peeking out from under the hood. He sighed and said, “So it was you meditating and cultivating. No wonder I suddenly felt a surge of apprentice-level magic power in the middle of the night… What a pity.”
"What's a pity?" Latis asked, puzzled.
"You must have spent a lot of time practicing magic, right?" The hooded man didn't answer directly, but asked instead, "From the beginning of sensing magic elements to connecting with the magic network, it's a very long process. The tedious meditation is very difficult to endure. Some people ultimately chose other professions because they couldn't bear that emptiness."
"Ah, is that so?" Latis responded vaguely, then asked curiously, "Brother, are you a mage? How long did it take you to connect to the magic network? A day?"
The hooded man paused, then quickly shook his head. Amidst his tossing, disheveled silver hair, his stern voice held a hint of helplessness:
"Friend, stop teasing me. I'm not the legendary mage Orianna. The average connection time for an apprentice is one month. Even with my innate talent for high magic affinity, it still took me half a month."
"Half a month?!" Latis repeated in surprise.
"Yes, that's pretty impressive, isn't it?" The hooded man's words carried a hint of pride and delight.
"So... fast?!" Latis's tone shifted abruptly before he realized what was happening and nodded vigorously, flashing a practiced, formulaic social smile that carried a mixture of pity and worldly wisdom as he spoke:
"Half a month is already quite impressive..."
The hooded man lowered his head, rubbed his hair with his fingers in embarrassment, and then became dejected. "If I had studied magic properly, I wouldn't have... never mind, let's not talk about that. What I wanted to tell you is that after being branded with the blasphemous mark, you can no longer use the magic network, so... it's a pity all your hard work these past few days has been for nothing."
"What?" Latis was stunned.
"It's alright, friend!" the hooded man quickly reassured him. "If you particularly love magic, you can continue your training! Although the path of old-school mages like me is basically extinct, magic warriors are still very popular on the continent of Atlantis!"
The hooded man's voice buzzed in his ears, but Latis could only silently recall the demon warrior's nicknames from the fragments of his memory, such as "even dogs hate him," "troublemaker," and "barbarian," and howl inwardly, on the verge of tears:
What can I do to save you, my path as a mage!
Chapter 5 Breaking Through the Magic Network
"Did you go in?"
"not yet."
"now what?"
"...Don't rush, I'm still warming up."
"Friend, maybe we should just forget about it?"
"No! I have to try again!"
……
The hooded man looked at Latis, who was sitting cross-legged with his palms facing upwards, with a headache, and couldn't help but say again:
"Friend, trying again will only be giving away magic power to the magic network. We blasphemers cannot use the magic network to cast spells."
"I don't believe it!" Latis exerted all his strength to inhale the magic essence drifting from the ether. Suddenly, he raised an eyebrow, and his tightly furrowed face instantly relaxed. "Come on, I can feel it! The magic essence is full, it's about to overflow!"
"Hmph, hmph, hmph..." He closed his eyes tightly and shouted, "Hmph ahhhhhh!"
With the burst of magic, Latis's consciousness was once again launched onto the magic net. In the midst of chaos, he heard the hooded man's helpless voice coming from afar.
“Friend, what’s all that noise about… Never mind, when you project your consciousness onto the Magic Network, you should initially see a blank fog. This is because when an apprentice logs into the Magic Network for the first time, they need to leave their own soul identifier. In other words, the Magic Network needs to recognize you. After leaving the identifier, logging into the Magic Network again will be much easier.”
“In other words, I should register an account first…” Latis murmured to himself. Then, with a thought, the magic energy in his body gradually transformed into characters from another world, which began to dance in his mind.
"What should I call myself..." He hesitated for a moment, then suddenly said with great enthusiasm, "Let's call myself 'My Half-Legend Today'!"
The jumping text gathered together and popped up a line of small text: "This identifier has been taken."
Latis stared in astonishment at this familiar scene, feeling a mix of emotions but unsure where to begin, so he could only scratch his head.
"That...a thirty-year-old great mage?"
"This sign is already in use."
"Uh, the guy who likes smelling salts?"
"This sign is already in use."
"The Pure and Immaculate Third Young Master?"
"This sign is already in use."
"Ah? I love magicians!"
"This sign is already in use."
He was greatly shocked and speechless for a long time. After a while, he managed to stammer out, "The online names of mages on the continent of Atlantis are quite abstract..."
Latis snapped out of his daze and let out a breath.
"Hehe, this magic net is quite mischievous. If it gets taken up again, I'll just call it 'I'm selling my dick in Atlantis'..." He chuckled humorously, just about to think of a more elegant username, when he was horrified to see the characters in his body flying out one by one.
"Yada, da me, yamete!"
Latis stared in despair as the long line of text appeared above his head.
"Friend, what happened? Are you alright?"
The hooded man's confused voice echoed in his ears, and Latis murmured in a daze:
"Brother, I'm hopeless, maybe we should just remake it..."
"what?"
"Oh, I mean, I was thinking about whether the magic network is made up of 0s and 1s..."
“…Alright.” The hooded man subconsciously attributed these beta movements to some human custom. He shook his head, letting his messy hair spread all over the inside of the hood, and continued to instruct:
"Now you can see the spells and other apprentices' messages on the magic network. As a new apprentice, your magical power allows you to use magic tricks a few times. It's a pity my magic book isn't here..."
Following the hooded man's guidance, the fog before Latis's eyes gradually dissipated, revealing countless entries written in different languages, which then vanished at an extremely fast speed.
"Resurrection of the dead? Nuclear explosion? Hypermagic? Wait!...Where did they go? Don't leave me!"
“Those are things only high-ranking mages can learn.” The hooded man couldn’t help but chuckle twice. He cleared his throat and continued, “Right now, all you can see are tricks. Hmm… after being branded with the blasphemy mark, you can only look but not use them…”
"You can only look at it, not use it..." Latis looked at the remaining spell entries, sighed, and still couldn't help but approach the words floating in the air and observe them carefully for a while.
[Trick - Wizard's Hand]
As Latis gazed at one of the entries, the corresponding spell name instantly appeared, followed by a long line of comments below the entry.
[Unknown: A floating ghostly hand appears at a point within your designated casting range. You can control the ghostly hand with actions and perform an action through it. The ghostly hand cannot attack, activate magical items, or carry more than 10 pounds of weight.]
"What is this annotation?" Latis asked in surprise.
“These are the instructions given to mages by the creators of the spells when they shared the magic on the magic network. Many creators of spells did not leave their names or annotations. This is true for most folk spells, making it difficult to judge their danger. Therefore, when using magic network spells, mages generally choose spells with a long history and detailed instructions, or spells uploaded by organizations such as academies or associations.” The hooded man’s low, husky voice, with a hint of jazz, continued to explain:
"Because when magicians use spells from the cloud, they pay an extra amount of magic to the spell's creator, so in order to obtain this windfall, there will always be people who continuously upload those fancy and eye-catching but untested folk spells."
"What millennium internet ecosystem..." Latis shook his head, shaking off the subtle sense of déjà vu, and focused his consciousness on the mage's hand entry.
[Historian: Reporting to the organization! I finally lifted something weighing 10 pounds, or even 9 pounds, today!]
[Norlad Atmosphere Group: Congratulations to the person above!]
[I'm a dog when I'm a warrior: You mages are so weak and powerless, you should really give your mage hands some bicep curls!]
[Unsure what name to use: Warrior upstairs, I remember you changed jobs because you were stuck at the apprentice level for two years, right?]
[Negative Ring Mage: I remember that too, why did the cutting ability start as soon as I changed jobs?]
[His goal is to become a Monster Master: he also left messages on other tricks.]
[Shandria: Go watch it, hahaha...]
A flood of complex chat logs rushed into Latis's mind in an instant. He was stunned for a while before he could figure out where these words came from.
It turns out that when mages use the magic network to cast spells, they can unlock the corresponding communication area, thereby viewing other people's messages and leaving their own. This is a voice recording feature developed by the magic network to facilitate communication and learning among spellcasters, which is a major benefit to spell users.
However, a faint sense of melancholy welled up in Latis's heart:
"They're having so much fun surfing the internet..."
His heart felt like it was being scratched by a cat, and he shed tears of agreement as he stared at the online name that was being ridiculed.
"'If I'm a warrior, I'm a dog,' brother, I understand you, I really understand you! I also want to be a mage. I've been single for thirty years just to learn magic!"
Latis gritted his teeth and made up his mind that he had to try and see if he could cast the spell no matter what!
He stared intently at the spell inscription, his consciousness surging.
The surging magic power from his body collided with the floating incantation. The magic network trembled slightly, about to project the spell into reality according to the existing formula, but the next moment, the blasphemous mark on Latis's body flickered, and the surging magic power instantly dissipated, crashing violently into his soul!
boom!
Latis coughed up a mouthful of blood and collapsed to the ground.
"Hey! Didn't I tell you you can't use magic net spells anymore!" The hooded man gripped the railing anxiously and asked hurriedly, "Friend, friend? Are you alright?"