Nascent Soul Rebirth: Starting as a Wizard

"A grand...and cheap carnival, isn't it?" Keynes's voice, with its usual dismissive and critical tone, rang out through the wind beside him.

He strolled over, his spiritual aura, belonging to a low-level wizard apprentice, still somewhat weak and not yet refined.

It mingled with the burgeoning vitality of the "seed of life" that had just condensed and had not yet fully integrated with the physical body, forming a slightly mixed aura.

"I heard that you rose through the ranks of knights pretty quickly in the countryside using only brute force? A year as a senior knight is something those farmers in a small border town can brag about for a lifetime."

He abruptly changed the subject, raising his chin slightly and casting his gaze toward the boundless, churning sea of ​​clouds ahead of the airship, as if he could already see the sacred land beyond the clouds, his tone carrying a sense of self-assured transcendence.

"But the real temple is there."

The power of flesh and blood will eventually run out, and swords will be broken by sharper ones. Only the knowledge that flows beyond the bloodline and the magic that controls the rules can last forever.

A knight? Ha, nothing more than a shiny but insignificant decorative button adorning the edge of a wizard's robe.

He seemed to have come solely to proclaim his "correct" path and superior choice, throwing his words like daggers without expecting any response or agreement from Solo.

With a satisfied and reserved air, he turned and leisurely walked towards the well-equipped and warm cabin.

Leah arrived a little later. She first gave a barely perceptible shake of her head in the direction Keynes had gone, then turned to Solo, her voice gentle and clear, tinged with apology:

"Solo, please don't take Keynes's words to heart," Leah's voice was gentle, with a hint of reassurance. "Ever since he got to know some of the noble scions in the city, he's been somewhat..."

They became obsessed with the empty fame of knightly competitions and social banquets.

Over the course of the year, their progress in the wizarding path was almost the same as mine, with most of their attention devoted to knightly duels.

Seeing that you had entered the realm of a seasoned knight much earlier than him, it's understandable that he felt somewhat unbalanced, given his personality.

After speaking, her gaze fell upon the city below, which was gradually shrinking in size but revealed a certain chaotic overall structure due to its height, and her voice unconsciously lowered.

He expressed genuine bewilderment and concern, saying, "However, putting Keynes' attitude aside, the situation this year... is indeed strangely unsettling."

The admission standards have suddenly dropped to second-class, and I've even heard that quite a few people with first-class qualifications have gotten in... They're practically accepting everyone, and the number of people who will eventually be able to set foot in the academy will probably be an astronomical number that surpasses any previous record.

The academy's resources did not appear out of thin air—fixed deep meditation rooms, a limited allocation of high-concentration energy pools, the precious time and energy of the instructors, rationed experimental materials, and even basic living and dining space...

If the resources available to each person are diluted to one-tenth or even one-hundredth of what they were in previous years," she paused, her long eyelashes drooping slightly before lifting again.

His eyes deepened with worry. "Then what's the point of recruiting apprentices on such a large scale? Is it merely to...fill that island?"

"Before Catherine left, did she reveal any related rumors or hints?" Solo followed up on her question and asked the key point.

Leah gently shook her head, a strand of light golden hair, blown by the strong winds high above, brushing against her smooth forehead. She raised her hand to tuck it behind her ear, a rare hint of distress in her gesture.

"No, after my sister hurriedly returned to the academy from the mansion that day, she seemed to have been swallowed by the clouds and never showed up again, nor did she send a single word through any regular or secret channels."

Everything... was shrouded in a thick, impenetrable fog, and even someone like her seemed to have chosen silence.

Her tone was a mixture of concern for Catherine and deep unease about the current, unpredictable situation that was beyond her control.

After Leah returned to the cabin with a heavy heart, Solo leaned alone on the railing, letting the cold and pure air currents of the high altitude wash over his face and body, while his thoughts surged and turbulent like the sea of ​​clouds churning beneath his feet.

The anomaly is beyond doubt.

This almost "predatory" or "harvesting" approach to recruitment must be aimed at something far beyond what a normal wizarding academy should do to replenish its student body and cultivate future talent.

Perhaps it is preparation for a taboo large-scale research project that requires massive experimental samples and spares no expense?

Or did the academy's higher-ups foresee a massive crisis that was imminent and required a huge amount of "consumables" to fill the front lines?

Or perhaps the power structure within the academy has undergone a radical change, with the new leaders eager to cultivate their own absolutely loyal grassroots forces?

Regardless of the possibility, they all clearly point to the same conclusion:

Risks and variables will increase exponentially.

Stepping through that gate in the clouds is perhaps equivalent to stepping halfway into the eye of a storm.

However, for Solo, the paths available were equally clear, almost brutally so.

The Emerald City, which remained below, relied on White, a hidden stake that had just been laid and had not yet truly taken root.

Within the mire of worldly affairs and the limited nearshore area, do we slowly search for the scarce resources that may exist, like gold prospectors?

Its upper limit is clearly visible in his calm assessment—given the generally barren spiritual environment and scarce extraordinary resources of this world.

Without a special opportunity that defies fate, reaching the peak of Qi Refining would be the ceiling he could ever reach on his own.

The Foundation Establishment stage—a crucial step in leaping through life levels—and the refining of the Foundation Establishment Pill are a life-or-death hurdle he cannot bypass no matter what.

A person with four spiritual roots who wants to reach the Foundation Establishment stage without a Foundation Establishment Pill is extremely rare, even in the ancient cultivation era of the Xuanhuang Realm.

In the Xuanhuang Realm, even those with Heavenly Spiritual Roots who don't have Foundation Establishment Pills find it difficult to achieve anything in the Foundation Establishment stage.

His soul was imprinted with the complete inherited memories and vast experience of a third-grade alchemist. In his previous life, he was a third-grade alchemist, so the refining technique itself was not a problem; it was an instinct honed through thousands of successes and failures.

The real challenge lies in the reconstruction of materials and pharmacological systems.

The thirteen main ingredients and forty-nine auxiliary ingredients required for the Foundation Building Pill are all rare and precious spiritual essences of heaven and earth that can only be generated in the Xuanhuang Realm through specific blessed lands, spiritual vein nodes, and years of nourishment from the essence of the sun and moon.

It is by no means something that can be found in ordinary steam-powered cities like Emerald City, which are steeped in worldly affairs and teeming with all sorts of people, or in the ordinary seas around them.

More importantly, the two worlds have vastly different material foundations and energy rules, so the medicinal properties they produce will inevitably have fundamental differences.

To treat deep-seated mortal ailments like those of Amy, one can rely on a higher-level understanding of the nature of "vitality" and "death" energies to crudely extract and forcibly harmonize them.

However, the Foundation Building Pill, a top-tier elixir that is related to harmonizing the dragon and tiger and laying the foundation for the Great Dao, requires careful consideration of the combination of the principal, assistant, and adjuvant herbs, the subtle control of the heat, and the resolution and sublimation of the conflicts in the medicinal properties.

It must be based on an understanding of the properties of materials such as magical plants, unique minerals, energy crystals, and even some magical biological tissues in this world.

This requires an almost limitless library of texts, an astonishingly rich collection of physical samples, a highly controllable and energy-stable experimental environment, and possibly special cultivation areas that simulate or concentrate high concentrations of magical energy.

These conditions are precisely what the world below cannot achieve, and a wizarding academy core that gathers the world's top wisdom, resources, and violent methods over thousands of years is most likely to possess, or even monopolize, these conditions.

Risk often goes hand in hand with opportunity.

The explosive growth in the number of personnel will inevitably lead to unavoidable gaps and chaos in management, and the rapid expansion of resource demand will give rise to more unconventional distribution channels and black markets.

In order to maintain this rapidly expanding behemoth, the academy will inevitably need to engage in more aggressive and frequent external exploration, resource plundering, and military operations...

All these potential information spillovers, gray areas of rules, and unconventional opportunities could become the nourishment for his survival and growth as a "catfish" diving into the deep sea.

Just as the decision in his mind was becoming clearer, the silver-gray airship beneath his feet suddenly shuddered!

It wasn't the usual turbulence and jolting, but rather as if I had crashed into an extremely dense, tough, and exclusive "invisible gel."