Chapter 551 Interesting Analysis
Hearing what Roland wanted, Alfred asked curiously, “You would rather ask for Lesser Benediction than learn about Mystra’s Mansion? You’re very gifted at spatial magic and have already picked up teleportation. You should be interested in that spell.”
“Mystra’s Mansion is too advanced for me to learn. I might as well ask for a spell that I can pick up more easily.” Roland smiled.
Actually, another reason he didn’t ask for Mystra’s Mansion was that he already had it.
Thanks to Schuck, he had obtained it from the Grand Library of Light and saved it by taking photos.
Also, this best escape and survival spell wasn’t of much significance to him.
If he weren’t a player but a local who only had one life, he would’ve been greatly interested in this spell.
However, the players could be resurrected after death. While they would lose a tremendous amount of EXP and even equipment upon dying, they could always get it back after they were revived.
Therefore, he wasn’t so desperately in need of Mystra’s Mansion.
He already had the spell model, but he wasn’t in a hurry to learn it.
Lesser Benediction, on the other hand, was more practical for his level. If he could learn it, he could get a lot of ideas and experience to fill in his database.
“You’re very self-disciplined.” The Great Elder looked at Roland in satisfaction. “I wasn’t half as contained as you when I was your age. The Red Magic Tower does have the model for Lesser Benediction, but few people have ever grasped it… After all, most people here major in evocation, and divination magic is rather challenging for us.”
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He paused for a moment and said, “If you need a teacher, you’ll have to go to Circe, who practices both evoking and divination magic. However, she is unfriendly and hates young men, so it will be hard for her to teach you.”
“Actually, I think I can learn it by myself.” Roland put on a smile. “Young people should be confident.” The Great Elder nodded in approval. “Then you can try it. If you can’t grasp it, don’t be too stubborn and just come to me. I’ll find a way to make Circe teach you.”
“Thank you, Great Elder.”
“You can take a break,” the Great Elder said with a wave of his hand. “I’ll have the magic model sent to your manor soon.”
Roland slightly bowed at the Great Elder and left.
He didn’t find the catgirl playing in the manor. She must’ve gone out for fun again.
Now, everybody in the Red Magic Tower knew that Roland was back, so whoever was interested in the catgirl restrained themselves.
The catgirl, who had a natural instinct for danger, immediately sensed that the environment was safer and began to wander about for fun.
Roland had no problem with that.
Personally, he didn’t really care too much about her. He considered her an acquaintance, but not exactly a good friend.
She was living in his house and was sort of a guest to him. That was about how he felt.
He studied magic for half a day in his manor. Then, a Mage delivered the model to him.
Lesser Benediction was a level-three spell.
But that was just the level for casting. In terms of difficulty in learning, the divination spells were two levels higher than regular spells, which meant that Lesser Benediction was as hard to learn as a level-five spell. It was also the reason why few people in the Red Magic Tower knew Lesser Benediction.
For violent maniacs who preferred to just blow up everything they were dissatisfied with, such a spell was too challenging.
Paving the thick graph of the magic model on the table, Roland felt giddy as he looked at the dense magic nodes on it.
Not only were there plenty of nodes, but a lot of the nodes were also represented in vague shadows.
That was a special symbol indicating that the function of this node was unclear. It was even possible that this node was not needed at all.
“This is rather tricky.”
Although his head was dizzy after the first glance, Roland tried to calm himself down and analyze the nodes on it.
Roland read the model very carefully.
He was completely devoted to the world of data, and time had lost all significance to him. A few hours was only a blink of an eye in such a situation.
Half a day passed quickly. Roland had analyzed all his notes. Then he realized that something was wrong.
Lesser Benediction had a lot of nodes that overlapped with those in Language Proficiency.
He found them more and more familiar.
Searching his memories for a moment, he remembered something and displayed Blossom Acceleration, an elven spell, from the system recorder.
Translating the circular nodes into the nodes on the human spell models, he compared them.
Then, it occurred to Roland that part of the nodes in Lesser Benediction overlapped with Blossom Acceleration, and it was the same part that intersected with Language Proficiency.
To be more precise, all three divination spells had the same central nodes.
Things were getting interesting.
Filling this data into the database, Roland calculated and inferred for almost four hours. Then, he reached a conclusion that he could hardly believe.
All three divination spells were extrapolations of the same “core.”
To put it more simply, they were different plants that had grown out of the same seed.
Even more surprisingly, based on Roland’s calculations, the routes of magic power in the three divination spells didn’t go through these core nodes.
As a result, these core nodes had never been noticed.
Even if people did see them, they would only consider such nodes useless.
Roland didn’t think that many people could’ve found out the secrets of these special nodes as he did.
If he could understand the functions of the core nodes, would he be able to create a new divination spell by adding or compiling other nodes like a programmer? Just the idea of that excited him.
Roland had thought that Lesser Benediction would be hard to learn. After all, Language Proficiency had left too deep an impression on him.
Besides, Blossom Acceleration was very difficult too.
However, at this moment, he found that Lesser Benediction wasn’t too hard, at least not for him.
He had to thank himself for deciphering the spell model of Language Proficiency without asking for anyone’s help. He had also learned how to craft magic swords, which also had to do with divination. Many magic swords were designed on the basis of divination spells.
Also, Roland had obtained a lot of data by learning magic and creating the magic swords. Importing the data into the database, inferring and comparing the data, and then applying it to the model of Lesser Benediction, Roland was soon able to understand the functions of most of the nodes in Lesser Benediction, except for the cores.
Now that he had understood those nodes, Roland could already perform Lesser Benediction.
Then, he did a famous experiment in the circle of Mages.
He slightly closed his hands and activated Lesser Benediction. White light gleamed from his hands.
“I want drinkable water.”
After saying that, Roland instantly unfolded his magic shield.
Then, he waited patiently.
About twenty minutes later, the catgirl suddenly appeared by the window. She squatted and said to Roland excitedly, “Master, look, I’ve got you a cup of fruit tea. It’s very delicious. When I drank it, I thought you should have a taste of this too. I’m really nice to you, Master, aren’t I?” Roland looked at Marilyn as well as the pot in her hand, greatly relieved. Both Grand Benediction and Lesser Benediction had a minor shortcoming, which was that when one’s wish wasn’t clear or detailed enough, it would be fulfilled in the most reasonable way.
For example, when Roland said “I want drinkable water,” a lot of things might have happened, and the catgirl returning with fruit tea was only one of the possibilities.
If Roland had made such a wish in the wild, it was possible that a bison would pass by, pee on him, and then go away.
The urine of the bison was exactly the result of Benediction.
Bovine urine could count as drinkable water too.
After all, the people of a certain country were particularly into that.
They would be lethargic for three days if a day went by without them having any bovine urine, so Benediction did grant the wish.
One had to blame themselves for making too vague a wish.
It was exactly why Roland opened the magic shield just now. He feared that something critical would happen to him.
The correct way of making wishes was to describe the wish in the most unambiguous and straightforward way before Benediction’s effect was over.
For example, “I want a glass of innocuous clean water.”
That would be much better. Although the way the water was delivered would still be uncertain, as least the water would be drinkable and clean.
Another shortcoming of Benediction was that one could not describe how the result should be delivered in the wish, i. e., it was not possible to describe the “cause” but only the “result.”
For example, one couldn’t make a wish like “I want Angel Nia to bring me a glass of clean water for me to drink.”
That was not going to happen. They could only say, “I want someone to give me a glass of clean water for me to drink.”
Even Grand Benediction could not allow anyone to describe “causes.”
Lastly, Benediction usually wouldn’t take effect in real time, because it would take time for magic power to construct and look for suitable “causes.”
For example, if someone was dying of thirst in the desert and wished for clean water, and no water sources were around, Benediction would expand the range and prompt someone or some creature from a long distance away to walk to him with clean water mysteriously. However, the problem remained whether or not the guy could survive until the deliverer of clean water arrived.
Therefore, it was a taboo to make a wish that didn’t suit the environment or was against common sense through either Grand Benediction or Lesser Benediction, because there would be no telling when those wishes would come true. Also, there was a time limit to Benediction. If the target couldn’t be achieved in three months, the spell would automatically disappear due to the dispersion of magic power.
Roland had a cup of the fruit tea that the catgirl brought to him.
He considered how he should conduct his next test.
Soon, he had an idea. He activated Lesser Benediction again and said, “I want to pick up ten gold coins.”
The catgirl looked at Roland, amused but not daring to laugh. Eventually, she said in a weird tone as she tried to hold back her laughter, “Master, have you turned into a fool?”
