Inside the Soul Library, the *Book of Stars and Elements* turned page by page. Lucian translated the ancient Sylvanas Magic Empire characters he had grasped today one by one in the margins.
"I can make out the meaning now…" After completing his translation for the day, Lucian found that many sentences were either already complete or missing only unimportant fragments — enough that it didn't hinder interpretation.
As for many of the specialized arcane terms, Lucian had already reverse-engineered them earlier by cross-referencing the Witch's notes against the apprentice-level content. With that foundation, he began to carefully read through the ancient arcane book.
The *Book of Stars and Elements* offered several higher-level Meditation techniques, but Lucian had learned from the Witch's caution and didn't attempt them. After all, his strength lay in knowledge, not spiritual power.
"During Meditation, by directly constructing a spell model within the soul using the four great elements — earth, fire, water, and wind — one can bypass casting materials and incantations for direct spellcasting?" Lucian skipped past the Meditation techniques and turned to the section on advancing to formal mage. It explained in detail how to construct spell models, and it also gave direction to a question that had long puzzled him.
Ever since he began studying Arcane Magic, one matter had left him perpetually confused: if changes in the vibration frequency of spiritual power could explain the principle of incantation-free casting, then what explained the elimination of materials after constructing a spell model?
Every spell required different materials or "elements." For instance, "Acid Splash" was cast using sulfur — so if materials were eliminated, where would the constituent elements of the acid come from?
The explanations Lucian could think of were few. Either the air contained all the elements, allowing them to be directly summoned for construction, or something more fundamental could be converted — such as arcane energy. But after reading this passage in the *Book of Stars and Elements*, Lucian formed a more refined hypothesis.
"It seems the ancient mages had their reasons for classifying earth, fire, water, and wind as the four fundamental elements. They appear capable of constructing all forms of magic — and this perfectly corroborates my hypothesis that earth, fire, water, and wind are the four fundamental forces. Whether elemental properties or physical properties, they are all different manifestations of these four fundamental forces. Using them, one could certainly construct all magic, which would explain why material-free casting becomes possible."
"If this hypothesis is correct, does that mean the microscopic level of this world is similar to Earth's? Could there also be different particles? Perhaps they are what the ancient mages referred to as 'magic sprites'?"
"But can forces also be directly mastered and utilized? Like the gravitational pull of the 'Ring of Control'?"
Without the conditions or the ability to experiment, Lucian could only make bold hypotheses now and verify them carefully later.
After re-reading the section on constructing spell models within the soul several times over, Lucian turned to browsing the specific spells.
The *Book of Stars and Elements* was the legacy of a legendary mage from the ancient Sylvanas Magic Empire — the Witch's ancestor had been his student — and so the arcane book recorded most of the spells from the first to the ninth circle of the Astrology and Elemental schools, along with the basic spells of the first five circles in the other schools.
In the ancient Sylvanas Magic Empire, spells were divided into two categories: basic and unique. Basic spells were standardized by the Empire, with identical constructs and identical effects. Unique spells were the crystallized wisdom of each powerful mage — one-of-a-kind, different from anyone else's. In the *Book of Stars and Elements*, for instance, starting from the third circle, each circle contained two or three unique spells.
Turning to the second-to-last chapter of the arcane book, Lucian was startled to see a striking title: "Advancement Methods for Two Legendary Professions."
This sent a jolt of excitement through him — legendary represented the absolute pinnacle of power in this world. But the further Lucian flipped, the more dizzy he became. Not only were the words rendered in an unusual variant of the Magic Empire's script, abstruse and difficult to parse, but those two models of extreme complexity seemed to drain Lucian's spiritual power, leaving him fatigued and disoriented.
Forcing himself to pull his mind free and flip past the chapter, Lucian only then recovered somewhat.
From the text he could decipher, Lucian learned that these two legendary professions were the Elemental school's "Element Dominator" and the Astrology school's "Seer."
"Just hearing the names gives the impression they're tremendously powerful," Lucian murmured as he slowly recovered his spiritual power. "And to advance to the legendary tier, one apparently needs to prepare an extraordinary number of rare materials, then set up a massive arcane ritual. It also appears that each school of magic has more than one legendary profession."
The final chapter of the *Book of Stars and Elements* contained formulas for various arcane potions.
After finishing the arcane book, Lucian began choosing which spell to construct for his advancement to formal mage.
Without question, his choice matched the Witch's — both defensive in nature. However, the Witch had attempted to decode "Mage Armor," while Lucian chose "Starlight Shield."
After copying the spell's translation and model into his Magic Notes, Lucian began attempting to decode it, basing his analysis on the hypothesis he had formed earlier.
However, once he had fully decoded and mastered this spell, he planned to select and copy other first-circle spells as well. A formal mage was not limited to a single model in the soul — it merely required an interval between each construction.
Compared to apprentice-level spells, first-circle spells had shifted from flat, two-dimensional constructs to three-dimensional ones, with their complexity greatly increased. Moreover, Lucian was working from his own hypothesis as the foundation, so his decoding progressed extremely slowly. It wasn't until the midnight bells rang that he had only just begun to grasp the thread.
Rubbing his face, Lucian rose from his reclining chair and felt the extreme weakness and exhaustion in his soul — the result of consuming too much spiritual power while reading the arcane book and decoding spells.
Leaving the sitting room and returning to the master bedroom, he lay beneath the soft velvet covers. Yet because he was so exhausted that his mind couldn't relax, Lucian found himself unable to fall asleep for the longest time. Even the sleeping spell seemed to have little effect.