Chapter 244: Forum…

Chapter 244: Forum…

He shook his head, trying to dispel the lingering image of a cute girl from his mind. That was just wishful thinking; reality was nothing like that. How could an Evil God possibly take the form of a cute girl… Wait!

Zheng Yichen suddenly had a terrifyingly bold idea. If the Evil God really looked like a cute girl, wouldn’t cults in the Otherworld skyrocket in size? If this method actually worked, the Otherworld was doomed!

Even though he had this frighteningly bold idea, thinking about the chaotic and disordered rune patterns of an Evil God Ritual, the resulting Evil God would be lucky to be anything but an ugly, tentacled monstrosity. A cute girl? Fat chance.

An indescribably terrifying cute girl… The more he thought about it, the more intriguing it seemed?

Zheng Yichen muttered to himself. He summoned the Magic Weapon Forging spell, and a crowbar materialized in his hand. He hefted it, spun it deftly a few times, and then directly recorded it into the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, classifying it under Basic Magic Weapons. As for its strength…

Since Zheng Yichen’s Mana Quality had improved significantly and his mastery of Magic Weapon Forging had increased tremendously compared to before, this crowbar’s strength wasn’t much worse than those enhanced magic weapon s. It wouldn’t be overlooked due to lack of power. Then came the low-level magic weapons with attributes—still a crowbar…

The update to the Magic Weapon Summoning Book was immediately noticed by many Magic Weapon Summoners. However, upon seeing the update content, they were met with a wave of negative feedback. Damn it! Why waste time updating Basic Magic Weapons and Low-level Magic Weapons? What they wanted were Intermediate Magic Weapons with the widest applicability! And what the heck was this bizarre weapon this time?

It wasn’t quite a rod or a hammer. Calling it a short stick didn’t fit either, since its head was crooked, though the handle was sharpened to a fine edge, making it look quite lethal. Many Warriors admitted they had never seen such a novel weapon before… But it felt pretty good to use.

It could stab, smash, and even serve as a throwing weapon. And since it was a Basic and Low-level Magic Weapon, using it as a throwing weapon was probably its best purpose. After all, Basic Magic Weapons had no summoning conditions. With a little effort, one could even summon and use many different types of Low-level Magic Weapons.

The appearance of the new magic weapon caused only a small stir in the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, as it wasn’t an important or special weapon—just a minor update to enrich the types of magic weapons available… Still, some people speculated: Basic Magic Weapons were often linked to subsequent Low-level, Intermediate, and High-Level Magic Soldiers.

With this new addition, wouldn’t there likely be more of these bizarre-type magic weapons in the future? Whatever. Since it worked well as a throwing weapon, they might as well practice with it in their spare time. After all, it was a Basic Magic Weapon, so summoning it wasn’t a big demand!

If you threw one, you could summon a new one with minimal cost. If you were confident enough, had ample mana, and had sufficiently high proficiency with all magic weapons, you could even summon them all, essentially creating an Otherworld version of Unlimited Blade Works.

“Hmm… Now that I think about it, could I add a comment function to the Magic Weapon Summoning Book?” Zheng Yichen rubbed his chin, muttering to himself. The reason he wasn’t thinking about the Evil God Ritual was to change his train of thought and clear his mind. After seeing so much mentally polluting stuff, continuing to dwell on it would only make him uncomfortable, even if it didn’t affect him directly.

He might even have nightmares tonight… Ahem. Since developing the Dreamscape, Zheng Yichen realized he hardly dreamed anymore. When he slept, he either closed his eyes and opened them to daylight or directly appeared in the Dreamscape. Clearing his mind was a good idea. Looking at the Magic Weapon Summoning Book in his hand, Zheng Yichen mumbled, “Hmph!”

Thinking about it, adding a comment function seemed highly beneficial. Want to post a comment? Sure, but it definitely wouldn’t be for free. Posting would require consuming one’s own mana. This way, aside from adding more text to the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, he could also gain a considerable amount of extra mana revenue.

It seemed like a win-win… After all, each page of the Magic Weapon Summoning Book recorded only one magic weapon, leaving the back blank. Zheng Yichen had considered recording additional magic weapons on the back, but he felt that would diminish the book’s prestige. He had always wondered how to make use of the blank backs. Initially, he thought about adding illustrations corresponding to the magic weapons, like depictions of Magic Armor… But after implementing the use of Magic Armor, that became unnecessary.

Magic Armor had to account for gender differences. Even if compatibility issues were resolved later, allowing both men and women to use it, how many pages would be needed to display all the Magic Armor options?

Rather than creating flashy but impractical additions, it was better to focus on harvesting more mana. Right! That settled it: add a comment function to the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. Oh, and it needed some refinement—preferably something similar to a forum or message board. Zheng Yichen quickly pondered the idea in his mind.

As for information exchange, that was no problem at all. Others used only projections of the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. Text written on a projection would be reflected on the main book and then displayed on all other projections, essentially enabling instant communication.

As for the text itself? Simple—just characters maintained by mana. How much mana would it take to maintain some text? From every angle, Zheng Yichen stood to gain immensely.

But how should he design it? Zheng Yichen pinched his chin, feeling a bit conflicted. Although he had considered adding many new features when initially designing and creating the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, it wasn’t something he could implement just by wanting to. It required certain magic techniques and… knowledge related to Alchemy. Zheng Yichen didn’t need assistance with the Alchemy aspect anymore. Initially, he succeeded with Loris’s help. Now? What he lacked was magic-related techniques.

“Hmm… Besides magic-related techniques, Alchemy crafting carries even greater weight.” Strictly speaking, the Magic Weapon Summoning Book fell under Alchemy—specifically, the crafting branch, which mainly involved creating small items like accessories. As for larger items like weapons and armor, that was the domain of Blacksmiths.

Zheng Yichen flipped through the notes he had transcribed from Irene. The notes alone took up a large pile in his Personal Space. He remembered that these notes contained the information he needed, which wasn’t extensive but should be sufficient for his purposes. As he labeled and annotated the books, he searched through them, finally finding the records he needed after some time.

“Huh, solving it from this angle feels so simple…” Indeed, a master’s notes were different. Problems that ordinary people found troublesome and took a long time to solve could be resolved by a master with just a glance or a few words—effortlessly simple.

The issue of text retention had long troubled Zheng Yichen. According to the method described in the magic notes, it could be solved with just an Image Retention Spell. The notes explained this spell in great detail, likely because Irene had recorded the entire experiment process. After reading through it once, even though he didn’t have deep mastery of the spell, Zheng Yichen gained a thorough understanding…

The Image Retention Spell wasn’t just for preserving scenes or personal images from specific locations. With some modifications to the Magic Rune Array, one could create related text or images directly from personal thoughts without needing to observe a specific location—extremely convenient. With minor adjustments, these images could attach to a carrier.

As for modifications to the Magic Rune Array, the notes contained several versions: some were compatibility-focused, while others were tailored specifically for Irene. The choice was obvious. Compatibility-focused versions were for broader applicability, usable by many, but they inevitably reduced certain strengths. Personalized versions were undoubtedly the best…

Of course, Zheng Yichen chose the best option. Others couldn’t use it; to obtain it, they’d need Irene to personally create it. But Zheng Yichen could use it directly. By ignoring the personalization requirement, once he solidified this spell into the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, it would function like using a Magic Artifact, eliminating usage conditions.

Simply put, it was like renting: you consumed mana to use the spell through an external item. “Hmm, afterwards, I’ll adjust the mana cost issue to increase mana extraction…”

While muttering to himself, Zheng Yichen didn’t forget to cast an isolating Magic Barrier around himself. He had paid extra attention to this in Irene’s notes, as isolating Magic Barriers were quite important. With this barrier, the magical fluctuations generated by his actions inside would be concealed.

As for the accumulated magical fluctuations leaking out after the barrier was removed? That didn’t matter. By then, everything would be done, and even if discovered, others wouldn’t know what he had accomplished.

He retrieved some additional materials from his Personal Space. These materials appeared bulky but were actually consumables—they wouldn’t increase the Magic Weapon Summoning Book’s volume; they were only used to add new features to the book.

“How much mana should it cost? Three times the amount for the Image Retention Spell? No, no… Five times sounds better. After all, those wanting to leave comments wouldn’t mind this small cost. Communication Magic costs much more… Hmm, come to think of it, ten times might be more appropriate? Never mind, eight times it is.” Zheng Yichen muttered to himself, settling on what he felt was a suitable extra mana cost before getting to work.

Adding this feature wasn’t a major modification, so once the text solution was in place, progress was swift. During the process, Zheng Yichen discovered something extra interesting. It seemed that this comment function for the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, because it didn’t require observing a specific scene and could work with just a thought, also required a certain amount of Mental Energy during activation. After all, thoughts needed a medium to carry them, and Mental Energy was the best medium.

Originally, the mana cost made this Mental Energy expenditure barely noticeable. But with an eightfold increase in mana cost, the simultaneous Mental Energy consumption became more apparent, allowing Zheng Yichen to notice it directly.

Should he lower the multiplier a bit? Glancing at the remaining materials, Zheng Yichen shrugged dismissively. Whatever, redoing it would be too troublesome. Let it be. At worst, users would just have to say a few fewer words. Besides, although the mana accumulated in the Magic Weapon Summoning Book had been skyrocketing, the increase in Spiritual Power was somewhat slow, with most of it coming from those who recklessly probed the book.

Now, with a new channel to harvest Spiritual Power, Zheng Yichen felt he was being generous by not increasing the mana cost of the comment function. Wanting to lower the cost? As if…

And that was that!

After refining some minor details, by the time Zheng Yichen completed the modifications, it was already bright outside. Even though the modification wasn’t complicated… it still took several hours to finish. Relaxing mentally and stretching, which moved his Bionic Alchemical Avatar, Zheng Yichen looked at the “refreshed” Magic Weapon Summoning Book and nodded slightly before posting the first comment.

Well, aside from comments on magic weapon pages, Zheng Yichen had reserved the first page of the Magic Weapon Summoning Book specifically as the main comment page. If all went well, this page would likely become the most active area in the future. Since he was adding this function, he might as well make it as good as possible.

Making it better wouldn’t hurt him either.

—Hello, everyone. Fellow Magic Weapon Summoners are free to post comments here. Please keep it civil. Arguments are fine, but try to avoid insults.

After all, this was a product of Magic. Searching and creating separate threads were possible, but there was no muting function. He couldn’t even use asterisks to censor sensitive words. However, since it was an Image Retention Spell, Zheng Yichen could freely delete comments. Of course, under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t do so—he’d only target troublemakers.

As for arguments… the more, the merrier! Arguments meant prolonged engagements, and prolonged engagements meant what? Plenty of comments, of course! That meant more mana and Spiritual Power revenue. Why not encourage it?

As for using the Magic Weapon Summoning Book for intelligence exchanges… Zheng Yichen just wanted to say, are you all stupid!?

Shortly after this comment appeared, Magic Weapon Summoners erupted. When the crowbar appeared, they had speculated about new related High-Level Magic Soldiers, but they never expected such a function to appear next!

And this function made them eager to try it out immediately. Mana consumption? It was much lower than Communication Magic—no big deal… And so, the “Forum” exploded right from the start…