Above the mage!

Chapter 536 Astral Fox
The appearance of the Void creatures was a major interlude.

But this hasn't affected Phoenix's main theme, at least not so far.

The void creatures have been dealt with; their corpses were reduced to ashes by the flames of the Durin Fire, leaving only a dozen or so eyeballs whose identities are currently unknown.

This feeling of being suspended in limbo made Gaode very unhappy.

He wasn't without options.

Based on his memory, Gao De copied down the spell formula for the [Appraisal] spell and handed it to Sunafa.

Once she has collected all the necessary materials and concocted the spell potion, mastering a low-level spell will be a piece of cake for her, given her fourth-circle mage level.

As a fourth-circle mage, Sunafa would certainly be able to determine the purpose of these eyeballs.

On the other side, Master Yang, or rather, Dulinhuo, had also left and returned to the Molten Plains.

Although it's unknown whether the next appearance of the sheep family will be good or bad, this matter can be considered to have come to a temporary end.

Gao De began his planned return to Phoenix to begin his secluded training.

Regarding cultivation methods, Gao Dexian temporarily set aside the "Qingmu Longevity Scripture" and focused on the "Zhenbing Secret Transmission".

Even with the consumption of Bone and Blood Thorn Elixir and the assistance of a high-level spiritual land, the progress of cultivating the "Green Wood Longevity Scripture" will not change significantly within one or two months.

At most, it would just add one or two magic runes to the wood magic crystal.

But focusing on "The Secret of Zhenbing", he is fully confident that he can break through to the first level in a short period of time.

Once he breaks through to the first level, the Zhenbing bloodline hidden within him will be fully awakened.

This means that he will no longer need to spend any time on "The Secret of True Ice", and his mage level will automatically and quickly increase under the power of his bloodline.

And it turned out exactly as he had predicted.

With this two-pronged approach, the progress of cultivating "The Secret of Zhenbing" accelerated rapidly.

In just ten days, the progress of his cultivation of "The Secret Transmission of Zhenbing" successfully broke through to the level of a third-grade mage apprentice.

This speed is almost identical to the speed at which Sunafa, a fourth-ring cultivator, progressed during his apprenticeship as a Dharma Master when practicing the "Green Wood Longevity Sutra".

While rapidly improving "True Ice Secrets", Gaode is also working hard to build spell models and continue to expand its spell library.

Before returning to the North, he had already drunk all the prepared magical potions.

Now all that needs to be done is to digest these spells and potions one by one.

This is the culmination of experience at the level of a mage.

On the technical level, namely in the field of rune literature, Gaode has also invested a lot of time.

Because of the existence of the [Heart of the North], he essentially possessed the runic knowledge accumulated by a duchy over a thousand years.

Since joining the Sea Sentinels of the Golden Flower Dynasty, his horizons have broadened. In Gao De's eyes, the Duchy is no longer the behemoth it once was, and it could even be said that it is not as powerful as the Sea Sentinels.

But at least in terms of accumulating basic knowledge of runic writing, there is no problem.

This is exactly what Gao De wanted, as he has no shortage of self-learning ability and has already built a large framework of talisman literature theory, but lacks a basic knowledge system.

The reason he specifically bid on three pieces of runecraft material at the Wrath of the Liberation auction was to create a new runecraft set for himself.

After all, he had already become a second-ring mage, and the previous set of [Winter's Arrival] was no longer sufficient as a first-tier rune construct.

And this time, Gaode has big ambitions.

He planned to follow in the footsteps of his mentor, He Xi, and create a set of Tier 3 rune constructs for himself, thus surpassing his own level.

Under normal circumstances, only third-circle mages can craft third-circle rune constructs, and only third-circle mages can equip them.

The most powerful aspect of rune constructs lies in their ability to miniaturize a large, powerful magic circle into a portable, personal magic circle.

However, the more powerful the magic array, the more powerful the mage needs to handle it.

This is equivalent to power matching.

Forcibly equipping a Tier 3 rune construct on a second-ring mage is like forcibly stuffing a turbocharged engine designed for racing cars into the chassis of an ordinary family car.

It's one thing to be unable to utilize the engine's full potential.

What's truly terrifying is the damage to this car: at best, the transmission system will break due to lack of torque, and at worst, the engine will explode, causing loss of control.

The rune array on the rune structure is just like an engine, with the torrent of energy flowing inside and the interwoven runes like the fuel burning intensely and the pistons spinning at high speed in the engine cylinder.

This requires the mage to possess the corresponding level of magical power and mental strength for precise control.

If the magic power is not up to standard, it's not a big deal; it just means that some of the structural performance cannot be fully utilized.

However, if one's mental strength is insufficient, the consequences will be much more serious.

Just like a race car driver controlling the steering wheel, ensuring the magic array doesn't deviate in the slightest.

If a mage with a lower-level rune construct tries to equip it, their weak mental strength will be unable to control the powerful force of the magic circle. In the end, they will only be devoured by the magic circle. At best, their mental strength will be damaged; at worst, the magic circle will collapse and injure them.

But Gaode's situation is different.

Firstly, as a rune architect, he can create rune constructs for himself, allowing him to sacrifice some performance in the rune construct design to reduce the requirements for mental strength, or even make corresponding adaptive designs, according to his own needs.

Of course, with this design approach, the strength of this Tier 3 rune construct will be significantly weaker than that of a typical Tier 3 rune construct.

Even if its strength is weaker, it is still a Tier 3 rune construct, which is definitely stronger than a Tier 2 rune construct.

Another point is that his mental strength is outstanding, reaching 299.

This is the upper limit of a second-ring mage's mental strength, which is already very close to the 300 mental strength of a third-ring mage.

This allows him to avoid making too many sacrifices or weakening of the performance of rune constructs.

In fact, most rune constructors put their utmost effort into designing and creating each rune construct.

It would be extremely undesirable to spend a lot of materials and effort to manufacture a "defective" structure.

But Gaode creates his own rune constructs, so he doesn't have that burden.

More importantly, He Xi's newly created system of runic literature allowed him to "talk on paper" and use calculations to determine whether a construction design was successful, thus avoiding unnecessary waste of materials.

However, even the tallest building starts from the ground up. Even if you can design a suitable Tier 3 rune construct by "theoretically" using the Six Laws of Hosey, there is no shortcut to the final creation, the practical part.

Still have to practice!
There are over 80,000 recorded basic runes in the world, but only about 3700 are commonly used.

The remaining 70,000 basic runes either have extremely limited uses or can be replaced by one of the 3700 commonly used basic runes.

Even with 3700 commonly used basic runes, it's not necessary to master them all.

This is because there is a boundary effect: 1000 commonly used basic runes can cover 90% of the needs in the rune field, which is the first tier of basic runes.

Learning an additional 1000 commonly used basic runes from the second tier will cover 99% of your needs.

The remaining 1700 commonly used basic runes are in the third tier, which can only make up for the last 1%.

Therefore, the more correct approach is to master 1000 commonly used basic runes in the first tier.

Then, based on the actual needs of the application, learn whatever you lack and gradually deepen your knowledge of runes.

Gaode Maps agrees with this viewpoint.

At Cyrus Academy, under the tutelage of Hosie, he has mastered all 651 commonly used basic runes of level zero in both the first and second tiers, which can be considered as exceeding the goal.

Level 0 basic runes are the most numerous in the entire rune system. They are mainly elemental runes and energy runes, covering a variety of elemental states and energy bases, carrying, directional transmission, simple storage and other common functions, providing energy pathways for higher-level runes.

For example: "Gather Magic (Gather magic power)," "Restrict (The system will only function if and only if magic power passes through all the restriction runes in the system)," "Allow (The system will function as long as magic power passes through any of the allow runes in the system)," and "Connect."
The first-tier commonly used basic runes are mainly variations of the zero-level basic runes, with 217 runes in the first tier and 223 runes in the second tier.

This level of runes is more about enabling the adaptation and conversion of different types of energy and the basic connection between runes.

Common types include: "Fire to Wind" (converting high heat energy into kinetic energy), "Locking (stabilizing the connection between runes)," and "Tenon and Mortise (precisely splicing runes)."
Level 1 basic runes mostly need to be used in conjunction with level 0 basic runes; drawing them alone has no function.

Level 2 basic runes begin to involve the energy conduction logic of runes. The first tier has 145 runes, and the second tier has 141 runes.

Its main responsibility is to ensure the safe management of energy transmission, avoid overload or disorder, and maintain the stability of energy output, such as "fuse (automatically disconnecting the circuit when energy is overloaded)," "voltage stabilization (maintaining stable energy output)," and "early warning (illuminating a warning light when energy is abnormal)."
Runes of this level are often used in large rune arrays and alchemical machines, such as energy supply arrays for airships and protective arrays for workshops.

The number of Tier 3 basic runes has been further reduced, with the first tier having 97 commonly used basic runes and the second tier having 93.

The basic runes at this level are already capable of performing basic energy logic operations, thereby enabling more complex rune array functions.

Although Gaode's life has been very hectic since leaving the Cyrus Academy of Magic.

But in reality, apart from the period before entering the North and arriving in Phoenix, he had no time to continue studying runes; otherwise, he had hardly ever slacked off.

Therefore, he has mastered all 217 of the first-tier commonly used basic runes, and even learned about ten of the second-tier commonly used basic runes.

However, this is definitely far from enough for him to create a level 3 rune construct.

Putting aside everything else, you should at least master all 145 commonly used level 2 basic runes and 97 commonly used level 3 basic runes in the first tier.

Therefore, Gao De honestly began to spend a lot of time learning and practicing drawing the second-tier and third-tier basic runes recorded in [Heart of the North].

This cannot be accomplished in one or two months.

Gaode Maps showed no anxiety or impatience regarding this.

This principle applies to learning in any field.

No matter how talented you are, you still need to lay a solid foundation first.

Just like mathematics, even if you are a genius like Gauss, you will not be able to understand anything if you don't know addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Five days after Sunefa was promoted to a first-class mage apprentice in the Secret of the Ice, Azure Storm, whom Sunefa had placed in Flora Forest, returned to Phoenix with an urgent message.

The urgent message was very concise: the raccoon eggs are about to hatch.

Upon receiving the message, Gaode hurriedly left Phoenix and rushed to Flora Forest, fearing he would miss the hatching moment.

Even if the information is delivered by Azure, the distance between Flora Forest and Phoenix means that any message delivery will be delayed by at least several hours.

This makes Gaode miss the telephone and communication software of its past life.

Not to mention hundreds of kilometers, even between the northernmost and southernmost points of the Earth, messages can be transmitted within a second.

As Gao De hurried along, his thoughts drifted, and in a moment of reminiscing about a certain letter, he vaguely felt a thought flash through his mind.

It's as if I've overlooked something or missed out on some treasure.

However, the matter of the strange fox occupied his main thoughts at the moment, making it impossible for him to grasp this fleeting idea, which was a bit annoying.

When he arrived at Flora Forest, Elder Gain was already waiting at the edge of the forest.

"My king, the commotion is getting bigger. I estimate they'll hatch within the next hour or two," he said as he rushed to greet Gao De upon his arrival.

After giving a slight nod, Gao De quickly headed towards the core of Flora Forest, where Yugathira was located.

Passing through layers of trees, the Yggdrasil, shrouded in the energy of the five-colored astral plane, comes into view.

At this moment, the astral energy that used to evenly swirl around the branches of Yugathira is now flowing into the alien egg that God is fostering among the branches, like a hundred rivers converging.

The eggs of the raccoon do not possess the ability to "snatch food from a tiger's mouth".

The reason for this appearance is that Yoggathila understands that these are the eggs of the raccoon that God has been fostering, and they are very important to God.

Therefore, sensing that it was at a critical moment of hatching, Yogg-Sarah actively channeled astral energy to help it break out of its shell.

The surface of the raccoon eggshell was now completely imbued with astral energy, and the patterns on its surface seemed to move constantly as if they were alive.

Gao De subconsciously activated the Mandora's Eye.

In his demonic vision, he clearly saw the multicolored astral energy flowing into the eggshell at a speed far exceeding that before.

The energy flows were no longer scattered "monochrome threads," but converged into "multicolored rivers," drilling into the interior along the multicolored patterns of the eggshell.

Even more peculiarly, the space around the eggshell rippled with subtle, multicolored waves.

Occasionally, a few strands of multicolored astral energy would disappear into the void, only to emerge from the other side, swirl around the eggshell, and then be injected back into it.

“My king, a day ago, this egg began to show strange behavior. Like breathing, every fifteen minutes it would contract once to absorb the energy of the surrounding colorful astral plane. After each contraction, the colorful patterns on the eggshell would brighten a little more.”

"The moment I discovered the anomaly, I immediately entrusted Canglan to report it to you," Elder Gain explained in detail.

(End of this chapter)