Free Web NovelChapter 25: Chapter 25: Rabbit and Witchcraft
After submitting his second research proposal through the Guiding Ring, the academy’s feedback was much slower than he had anticipated.
Mo Ning wasn’t in a hurry, though.
He knew well that research in the Spiritual Domain was different from improving a Sub-zero Level Trick.
The former involved more obscure Divination Formulas and a more complex derivation process, so the reviewing Wizards and Apprentices naturally needed more time to chew it over.
Besides, this theoretical framework was a masterpiece "produced" by the Eye of Truth.
Its logic was so tight and its structure so orderly that anyone with expertise would have to take a second look.
Most Second Level Apprentices would probably have difficulty creating such a framework.
So, a longer review time was perfectly normal.
「Evening.」
Mo Ning sat in his "exclusive" seat in the cafeteria, unhurriedly tackling the seemingly unchanging menu of chickpea soup and rye bread.
Today, there was a new dish—charcoal-grilled Unicorn Rabbit.
Unicorn Rabbits looked much like the rabbits from his previous life.
But they had a short, black horn on their foreheads.
Right after he transmigrated, he had seen a group of Unicorn Rabbits kept in an iron cage in his family’s backyard.
The "previous owner" of this body was the youngest son of a fur merchant’s family, which was considered quite wealthy.
The family’s hired cook would go to the market every few days to buy a dozen or so Unicorn Rabbits, raising them in the backyard and slaughtering them as needed.
He had watched as the restless Unicorn Rabbits butted each other with their black horns inside the cage.
The little things squeaked chaotically, their fur flying everywhere, looking just like a troupe of miniature fighters.
He had once thought that Unicorn Rabbits were ill-tempered creatures and that their horns were weapons for fighting.
During the half-year he spent holed up in the Royal Library, he had come across a book titled Taming and Evolution.
One Chapter in the book was dedicated to the two-hundred-year evolutionary history of the Unicorn Rabbit.
The author was a Wizard and an extremely patient observer.
According to the book, Unicorn Rabbits were burrowing creatures that remained extremely quiet while in their dens.
Their horns were not weapons for combat either.
They contained a unique internal structure that could amplify vibrations from the outside world—be it distant footsteps or slight tremors in the ground, the horn would capture them and transmit the information to their sensory organs.
With the perception granted by their horns, Unicorn Rabbits could clearly sense every movement around their dens.
These little creatures even possessed a rather impressive ability—they could distinguish between subtle vibration frequencies to determine what kind of creature was near their den.
If it was a natural predator capable of entering their burrows, the Unicorn Rabbits would flee their dens at top speed.
Only then did Mo Ning realize that his initial assessment of Unicorn Rabbits was completely and utterly wrong.
The book also mentioned that over two hundred years ago, humans began to farm Unicorn Rabbits on a large scale.
They were dragged out of their burrows by humans, crammed into small cages, and deprived of their solitary space.
Removed from their familiar environment, the Unicorn Rabbits’ hormones began to change, and their temperaments grew irritable and restless.
They began to use the horns originally meant for perceiving the world to butt one another.
This was, in essence, a stress response.
After two hundred years of domestication, the Wizard author discovered that the horns of Unicorn Rabbits were trending toward becoming shorter and shorter.
The author believed this was a case of artificial selection affecting natural evolution.
The reasoning was simple: people who raised Unicorn Rabbits would intentionally cull individuals with horns that were too long.
This was because they inflicted more harm on their peers during fights, which could easily lead to death and, consequently, economic losses.
The author predicted in the book that in a few more centuries, domesticated Unicorn Rabbits might evolve into a new, hornless species.
Beyond that,
the Wizard had done something else quite interesting—he researched the principles behind the Unicorn Rabbit’s perception of external vibrations, dissected the internal structure of the horn, and analyzed the mechanism for amplifying those vibrations.
In the end, the author created a Level Zero Witchcraft called the Horn Vibration Perception Technique.
This book left an unusually deep impression on Mo Ning, and he firmly committed the author’s name to memory: First Level Wizard, Hisa.
It wasn’t because the Witchcraft was particularly powerful, but because, reading between the lines, he saw the true nature of a Wizard.
They were a group of people who truly possessed a scientific spirit.
They weren’t satisfied with merely observing phenomena; they had to investigate the principles behind them. They weren’t content to just exploit nature; they sought to imitate and even surpass it.
Mo Ning had once had an idea—to draw upon the field of bionics from his other world and study the creatures of the Wizard World. He figured that with the help of his Eye of Truth, he could create a vast number of new Witchcraft spells.
But as it turned out, the clever Wizards had already started down this path long ago.
At that moment, he completely let go of the arrogance he held as a Transmigrator.
At that moment, Mo Ning reached for a roasted rabbit leg and took a bite, his brow furrowing slightly.
The rabbit leg was tough and stringy. Despite being sprinkled with several types of spices, there was still an undeniable gamey taste.
He couldn’t help but complain inwardly, ’This isn’t even as good as what the cook back home used to make!’
He truly missed that chubby-cheeked, ever-smiling cook—Auntie Betty.
The buzzing chatter of the new apprentices came from all directions.
"The Wind Chime Garden is such an enchanting place."
"I heard the Blue Ribbon Wind Chimes in the garden were trained by Wizards. Their playing is almost as good as a real musician’s."
"I prefer the scenery at Bright Mirror Lake. The surface is like a mirror. When you stand beside it, you can barely tell the sky from the ground."
Mo Ning found it hard to understand.
’Did you guys really spend the whole day sightseeing in the three newly opened "maps"?’
He shook his head almost imperceptibly, feeling a sense of pity for his peers who were so recklessly wasting their time.
Just then, a familiar coolness finally spread from his Guiding Ring, pulling his thoughts back to the present.
A stream of information followed, pouring into his mind:
[Notice: Serial Number 7-118-256, Mo Ning.]
[The Rose Council, a research evaluation body under the academy, has completed its review of your submitted "Proposal for the Improvement of the Spiritual Secret Technique ’High Mountain Breathing Technique.’"]
Mo Ning’s chewing paused for a moment.
’The Rose Council again!’
[Review Findings: The proposal’s concept is somewhat novel and holds a measure of value. The theoretical derivation is rigorous, the theoretical framework is comprehensive, and it possesses a high degree of feasibility.]
Reading this, a hint of a smile flashed in his eyes.
Compared to the feedback for his first research proposal, this one had two additional phrases.
One was "holds a measure of value."
He knew the weight of this phrase better than anyone.
During his half-year spent in the Royal Library, he had read through nearly every book on the academy’s operational mechanics.
Among them was a manual dedicated to interpreting review terminology, which provided a detailed analysis of the meaning behind every comment.
The meaning of that phrase was: the academy believes the project has a degree of practical application value.
To be more specific: this Breathing Technique could help the academy train more Apprentices, and the reviewing Wizard considered it a valuable project.
In contrast, his research proposal on the Sub-zero Level Trick, Flash, had not received this evaluation.
After all, it was just an optimization of a basic Trick that slightly increased its brightness and reduced its Magic Power consumption, nothing more.
This wasn’t to say that the project had no value at all, but rather that its value was so low the reviewing Wizard didn’t feel it was necessary to mention it specifically.
The other phrase was "the theoretical framework is comprehensive."
This evaluation brought even more joy to Mo Ning’s heart.
It meant that the reviewing Wizard acknowledged the value of his theoretical framework in the field of Divination research.
Wizards placed extreme importance on Divination research, so the weight of this evaluation even surpassed that of the phrase "holds a measure of value."
As far as he knew, most research projects submitted by Apprentices failed to receive this evaluation.
They could often propose decent concepts and were capable of designing viable experiments, but they rarely reached a theoretical level that would earn the approval of a reviewing Wizard.
But his framework—a theoretical system based on the Gallai Spiritual Flow Change Equation, integrated with data analysis from the Eye of Truth, and repeatedly deduced using the Divination Calculator—had succeeded.
At this moment, Mo Ning felt that the half-hour he had spent writing on over twenty sheets of scale pattern paper had paid off as it should.
He was almost certain that based on these two evaluations alone, the resources allocated for this research proposal would not be discounted.
