Redes's voice kept ringing through the hall as he gave instructions.
Just as Jie Ming had expected, this session by Redes could hardly be called an academic report. Everything he explained was a practical technique distilled from his own experience. But that didn't mean the techniques Redes taught were of poor quality—quite the opposite; Jie Ming felt he benefited greatly.
Looking at the target before him, Jie Ming slowly adjusted the trajectory of his mental energy fluctuations according to the method Redes had just demonstrated. He raised his hand.
Hum!
A nearly transparent wind blade silently took shape, instantly slicing through the air and carving a smooth gash into the distant rune target.
Watching the target rapidly heal, a flicker of surprise appeared in Jie Ming's eyes.
"That's an astonishing effect..."
More importantly, what made this technique truly precious was not the slight boost it provided, but its adaptability. No matter what type of sorcery it was, as long as you recalculated the corresponding mental energy fluctuation frequency, you could use it—it was applicable to nearly all sorcery systems. To an ordinary wizard, this might be nothing more than a neat little trick.
But Jie Ming was different—he had two systems!
At that thought, he was already mentally simulating the possibilities of combining this mental energy fluctuation method with various modified spells. "Or rather than applying it to modified spells, I could use it on new Talisman Imprint Rune Artifacts. It might greatly increase spell-casting efficiency, or further reduce spell formation overload."
When he carefully worked through the calculations, however, Jie Ming found something wrong.
"This... no wonder Lord Redes said he couldn't yet work out the deeper principle."
On the surface, the principle behind this technique sounded simple. It seemed like you just adjusted your mental energy according to how the fluctuations of different runes matched. But if it were truly that simple, this technique wouldn't have remained undiscovered until now.
In reality, after carefully analyzing several different rune combinations, Jie Ming discovered that even the same rune required completely different mental energy fluctuation frequencies in different combinations.
Even worse, when different rune combinations were used together, the frequencies required by some combinations diverged so wildly that no useful pattern could be derived.
"So Lord Redes was only teaching the mental energy frequencies needed for some relatively basic rune combinations... These results really are pure combat experience..."
Jie Ming scratched his head helplessly. "How am I supposed to search when there's no pattern at all? Or is there some deeper principle that hasn't been discovered..."
If that was the case, then in the short term he would indeed have no choice but to build high-tier sorcery on the basis of these rune combinations. Fortunately, this was exactly where logistics wizards excelled, so it wasn't a major problem.
By the time the breakout session ended, Jie Ming still hadn't found a useful pattern. Slowly letting out a breath, he looked at Redes, who was still exchanging insights with other attendees, and a hint of genuine admiration rose in his eyes. "Still, this technique is probably no less valuable than my Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol."
Combat wizards might not be able to derive vast theoretical systems the way logistics wizards could, but they too possessed their own form of wisdom.
This was experience distilled from one life-and-death battle after another, techniques accumulated through countless failures and blood. They might not know the underlying principles, but the techniques were absolutely practical.
Jie Ming was also beginning to understand why the Academic Exchange Committee would specifically invite these combat wizards to the symposium.
Scholarship... had never existed solely in the laboratory.
Nor was it only grand theories that could truly change Wizard Civilization.
Sometimes a seemingly unremarkable little trick, after being practiced and refined by countless generations, was enough to push an entire civilization forward.
After leaving Redes's breakout session, Jie Ming did not pause. He plunged straight into the next several specialized reports on completely different subjects.
Each breakout session had its own unique atmosphere.
Standing amid the crowd, Jie Ming suddenly felt a strange sense of dislocation: the rhythm of academic exchange here was almost no different from the conferences in his previous life's memories.
But as time passed, he could still clearly feel the gap between the Academic Symposium of the Wizard Civilization and those of his previous life.
On Earth, the schedule of an academic conference was more or less fixed: morning presentations, a unified lunch break, afternoon presentations or poster sessions, a tea break in between, and sometimes an evening banquet.
But here, this was the Wizard Civilization.
For wizards whose lifespans stretched into the thousands or tens of thousands of years, and who could go months without sleep without the slightest effect on their mental state, those cumbersome procedures were inherently meaningless.
According to the schedule in the symposium handbook, after the morning breakout sessions ended there was only a tea break of less than half an hour, which also served as free exchange time.
Wizards filed out of the various sessions in twos and threes, casually taking cups of tea from the floating puppets at their side or picking up snacks that radiated faint energy fluctuations.
Chewing, they continued arguing over the details of the reports without pause. When a discussion reached its peak, someone would even unfold a light screen on the spot and re-derive formulas. Before a cup of tea was even finished, the afternoon breakout sessions had already resumed.
The entire symposium barely had a single true pause. For ordinary mortals, such an arrangement was practically exploitation; for wizards, though, it almost seemed too relaxed.
After the brief midday tea break, Jie Ming listened to several more presentations in succession. Although the various techniques mentioned in these reports were hardly earth-shattering breakthroughs, they still gave him plenty to take away.
Time quietly slipped by.
Before he knew it, the setting sun had slanted westward, and evening had arrived.
At that moment, a long, gentle bell resounded among all the buildings.
Dong, dong, dong...
At the same time, a clearly artificial mechanical voice slowly announced: "The first stage of breakout sessions has concluded. Participants, please proceed to the central hall to rest."
Only then did the wizards, still immersed in heated discussion, stand up with lingering reluctance.
Outside the hall, all kinds of tea drinks, desserts, fruits, and high-energy nutritional food materialized out of thin air on tables that slowly rose. Many people, teacup in hand, continued arguing red-faced over the topics just discussed.
There were even two seventh-rank wizards who, caught up in the excitement, snatched up forks at hand and traced rune trajectories in midair, neither willing to concede.
Jie Ming also took a cup of flower tea and stood alone at the edge of the crowd, quietly organizing what he had heard that day.
In his mind, scattered fragments of inspiration were slowly piecing themselves into a new outline through his Entropy Brain Talent.