A fourth-grade wizard scroll — regardless of its inherent value, merely activating it could drain a gaseous-phase Wizard of all his Spiritual Power.
Of course, having expended so much of Leylin's energy, the Construct Animation Spell was far from ordinary.
A ring of crystalline starlight enveloped the entire wizard tower in an instant. The countless runes flickered in unison, as though they had developed lives of their own, all breathing to a shared rhythm.
And before Leylin, an illusory blue shadow gradually took shape.
"Master! The Tower Spirit awaits your command!"
Having absorbed Leylin's Spiritual Power, this Tower Spirit had been branded with his mark from the moment of its birth.
Moreover, it was one with the entire wizard tower, capable of helping Leylin perceive countless minute details he would never have discovered on his own.
"Good! My first command — accept and integrate it!"
A blue seed emerged from the space between Leylin's brows and swiftly merged into the blue phantom of the Tower Spirit.
Vast streams of data cascaded through the Tower Spirit's eyes. The enormous and complex information destabilised the newly formed phantom until it ultimately collapsed into a pure sphere of light.
Once everything had stabilised, the mechanical voice of the Chip issued from the blue sphere of light: "Digitisation complete! Chip subsystem is at your service! Please select a form!"
"Great Tree Sprite!" Leylin had never been fond of humanoid forms for his administrators.
The blue sphere of light trembled, and ultimately resolved into a blue sprite about the size of a human head, with a pair of wings composed of starlight on its back.
"From now on, I'll call you Number One!" Leylin nodded, thoroughly satisfied with the entity's form.
"As you command! Number One greets the Master!" The blue sprite bowed, though its expression remained utterly mechanical.
"Initiate network connection!" That mechanical expression was precisely what satisfied Leylin — what he needed was an utterly rational administrator, and emotional subroutines had never been part of the design from the start.
Upon the command, a Spiritual Power data interface instantly linked Leylin's Chip with the sprite.
"Data synchronisation beginning. Purging in progress!"
The Chip spoke.
"Three instances of discordant Spiritual Power fluctuations detected. Purging now!"
"Tower Spirit integration complete! Anti-detection Wizard Array at full power!"
Prompt after prompt popped up, and the smile at the corners of Leylin's lips grew ever wider.
An ordinary Tower Spirit would never possess the Chip's terrifying computational power, and its scope of management would be limited to the interior of the wizard tower.
But through his modifications, Leylin could not only remotely control everything inside the wizard tower, but also thoroughly eliminate all the hidden dangers that had been lurking within.
After integrating the sub-programs copied by the Chip, the Tower Spirit's intelligence had improved dramatically. It could now autonomously discover vulnerabilities and patch them, while many of its original flaws had been erased entirely.
It could be said that even if Duke Gilbert had tampered with the fourth-grade scrolls in some way, it would all be pointless now.
Because Leylin had already reformatted the original Tower Spirit and replaced it with his own systems.
"Haa…"
Leylin exhaled deeply.
Now that the Wizard Tower was built — and especially after both the positive and negative energy reaction pools had been completed — the concentration of elemental particles inside the tower was more than ten times that of the outside world!
The energy particles were so dense they were almost visible to the naked eye, and for a Wizard the sensation was even more pronounced. Leylin felt as though he were submerged in an ocean of elements.
The Central Continent's ambient particle environment was already extremely favorable, but the particle concentration inside the Wizard Tower far surpassed it.
It could be said that in this kind of environment, Leylin wouldn't need any potions at all — the progress of his Meditation Method would still be remarkably fast. Even more terrifying was the fact that even waste apprentices with first-grade or second-grade soul aptitude could, if they studied and meditated under these conditions, potentially break through their limits and advance to become official Wizards!
Upon realizing this, Leylin immediately decided that from now on, unless something truly important came up, he would make the Wizard Tower his permanent home.
Outside the Wizard Tower.
Pike and the others couldn't perceive the effect as acutely as Leylin, but when the entire Wizard Tower began to hum and emit a soft, radiant glow, they let out a wave of cheers. Tears even glistened in the corners of Gubler's eyes.
A Wizard Tower — on the Central Continent, it was the ultimate symbol of power!
With the support of a Wizard Tower, especially one as heavily fortified as Leylin's, even an ordinary Crystallised Wizard would not dare to lightly trespass upon this territory. Moreover, thanks to the Tower's wide-area surveillance capabilities, the crime rate and other problems within the domain would drop significantly!
This also meant that Leylin's authority here had been thoroughly cemented — in both the mortal world and the world of Wizards.
That was why these vassals who depended on Leylin were so deeply moved.
*Boom!* At that moment, with the sound of a mechanism engaging, the Wizard Tower's grand doors swung open, revealing Leylin's silhouette.
"It's finally done. Come in and take a look around!"
"Thank you, Master!" The several Warlocks immediately bowed. For them, the construction of this Wizard Tower had been partly their achievement as well, and naturally they wished to see more of it.