My dear witch, please turn evil according to the script!

Chapter 267 What does it mean when war begins?

Time flies by in the blink of an eye.

To be honest, the time Roland spent learning from Russell exceeded his expectations.

Although Roland himself was partly to blame—he often argued with others over the application of runes, causing the teaching progress to fall behind.

But it took him a full two weeks, until the end of January, to complete all the courses and enter the experimental phase, which was indeed beyond his expectations.

Even Russell stated that Roland's learning ability was beyond even being described as genius.

But he still felt it was a bit too slow.

Many people told him to enjoy life and take this opportunity to relax for a while.

But he always had an inexplicable sense of urgency.

Oh, by the way, ever since Kalia pushed the two beds together, forcing Roland to share a bed with her, he hasn't had a dream anymore.

It's also possible that there wasn't time to dream.

After all, the two of them need to have in-depth conversations every night to strengthen their relationship.

It was already past midnight when I finished, so I only got three or four hours of sleep before I had to get up to continue my research.

Even so, despite facing intense study and experiments every day, Roland himself seemed to be in much better spirits.

Clearly, even though Roland's body could shatter into pieces of ice at any moment, it was still quite resilient before it broke.

As January 31st arrived, Roland's studies finally came to a complete end.

As the sun set, Roland planned to leave the laboratory and go back to enjoy dinner.

The learning phase has now completely concluded.

Since Roland's rune inscription was guaranteed to succeed no matter how he tried, the rune experimentation phase, which would normally consume a lot of materials, was skipped.

The effects Roland wanted to achieve also passed the rune certification stage.

Not only is it theoretically feasible, but it also works well in practice.

The only uncertainty is whether these runes will be able to function fully on the circuit.

All that's left is to refine the magic circuit's design and test the circuit's load-bearing limits before attempting to implant it.

The official experiment date is tomorrow.

This is why we finished work so early today—the master needed to adjust the equipment and also let Roland get some rest, meditate, and adjust his state.

But standing at the laboratory entrance, watching the sun about to set on the horizon, Roland felt somewhat dazed.

Before I knew it, I had spent almost a month in this quiet little village!
Sure enough, once you enter a peaceful period and something interesting comes up, time flies by.

It's hard to imagine that I've spent almost the same amount of time in this village as I did in Riskan when I met Kalia and went through that series of strange events.

However, when Roland realized this, he discovered that... he and Kalia had only known each other for two months in total.

When Roland thought about the people he had met and the things he had experienced in the past two months, he felt a sense of unreality.

Previously, there was no time, but now that there is time to calm down and think, Roland truly realizes just how busy he was in December and early January.

In just two months, Roland's strength had increased dramatically.

Although Roland was unable to undergo the Star Ring Law ritual to ascend to the extraordinary realm due to health reasons, his magical accumulation never stopped.

As it turns out, without the system's stat boosts, his own cultivation speed, while already considered incredibly fast compared to a normal person, was still quite fast.

However, compared to the two witches, Kalia and Iluvia, her speed is somewhat negligible.

On the contrary, his mental strength continued to improve.

If the being that used "glue" to stick himself together wasn't extraordinary, and the power that "stuck" him together didn't increase along with Roland's mental strength, Roland would have truly shattered by now.

Clearly, when offering assistance, Elena considered Roland's potential and left ample room for maneuver.

Roland is now able to use his mental power to do things that many beings of the extraordinary level cannot do, and he also possesses the ability to inflict massive damage.

Furthermore, as he delved deeper into alchemy, he seemed to discover a glimpse of the true use of his innate magical technique.

Simply using mental power to cause damage is like holding a fully automatic gun but not firing it, instead preferring to hold the barrel and smash people with the butt.

It's not that the weapon failed to fulfill its purpose; it's just that they completely misunderstood how to use it.

But now... after learning some alchemy, understanding its principles and mysteries, comprehending the commonalities between alchemy and the rules of the world, and understanding why the sole essence of alchemy is "equivalent exchange," Roland seems to understand why his innate technique is called Mental Matter Interference.

Interference is the key to the innate technique.

"Psychic power" is simply the phenomenon of mental power interfering with reality when mental power reaches a certain level and due to the interference characteristics of innate techniques.

Yes, this is not just Roland's conjecture, but a conclusion reached after research and experimentation by the alchemist master Russell.

The part about mental interference in reality has been clarified.

What about the "material" part?

During his month of study, Russell suggested that Roland try some things out.

For example, let him understand the structure of a stone, and then use his mental power to change the "properties" of the stone.

But this attempt failed.

Although Russell's idea was bold, he clearly guessed the wrong usage.

Later, although Russell was also very interested in Roland's innate magic, given that Roland's physical condition was deteriorating day by day, the master decided to first resolve the dangers that Roland needed to face, and therefore did not speculate further.

But she did offer Roland a few guesses.

For example, start with the name of the technique.

Interference between spiritual and material factors.

Because of the existence of "psychic power," Russell initially believed that the spell consisted of three parts: "spirit," "matter," and "interference." However, given the failure of the experiment on the stone, Russell suggested that Roland redo the word segmentation and sentence breaks.

What is certain at present is that the interference effect is a separate and core function.

The problem lies in the four words: spiritual and material.

What is spiritual matter?

Roland was unaware that even in alchemy, the so-called spiritual matter was merely a figment of imagination that existed only under ideal conditions.

Even in a less rigorous way, the process of transforming entities like spirit, soul, and will into "matter" is equivalent to completing the four stages of alchemy, the transformation from black earth to red earth—that is, the creation of the Philosopher's Stone.

If the spiritual substance within one's innate spell is something like the Philosopher's Stone, then it's clear that one won't be able to easily control their true power.

However... regarding the progress in intervention, in these days of experiments, thanks to his and Russell's refinement, a somewhat unbelievable approach has been achieved.

This also directly led Roland to add another rune to the original rune imprinting plan.

If the subsequent experiments are successful, Roland will be able to acquire another incredible skill through intervention.

With bright hopes for the future in mind, Roland returned to his residence just before the brief winter twilight ended.

"You're back? Why are you back so early today?"

"Please sit down for a while, the food will be ready soon."

When Kalia, who was busy in the kitchen, saw Roland return, she was initially surprised, then invited Roland to sit down for a while, and her hands began to move faster.

The Demon King leisurely flew over to Roland's side and teased, "You're learning pretty fast, aren't you? You should be getting close to the circuit implantation stage soon, right?"

"Hmm." Roland nodded, then asked, "You mentioned sensing the prototype's presence and traces many times before. Have you made any new discoveries?"

“No,” the Demon King continued, “Didn’t we also receive news from Isfar before?”

“In the past few days, the prototype has not only appeared in the northern border of the Empire and on the border of Platia, but other countries in the Federation of Nations have also reported sightings.”

“There have been eyewitness reports even outside the city of the Papacy.”

"The Vatican, together with the Society and the Empire, has launched intensive surveillance and control, but after the three parties joined forces again to intensify the search, the prototype has not moved."

"The most recent appearance was in Xita City ten days ago, only thirty kilometers away from us. Two prototypes appeared and fought against the Blood Demon Lord, and then quickly withdrew."

Overall, things are relatively calm.

Roland sighed: "I'm afraid this is just the calm before the storm."

Roland stretched, then leaned back in his chair, tilted his head back, and stared at the ceiling.

These days, Brother Tongzi is like a dead man, not making a sound.

I don't have any extra missions available, except for the mission to destroy the prototype of the Demon King's Hand.

Moreover, the second phase of that mission hasn't started yet, even after I completed the first phase.

At the time, it was said that the outcome would depend on the completion status of certain special side quests.

But even after completing all the triggered side quests, the second phase of the quest still hasn't started.

Obviously, nothing major is likely to happen in the near future.

All I need to do is focus on recovering my health, then return to the Empire to prepare for the extraordinary advancement ceremony, and also complete my first semester of studies in peace.

Alchemy must be learned, and so must magical technology; only then can one be considered complete!
Roland planned to create a set of incredibly awesome weapons and equipment once he had mastered both of his disciplines.

Ideally, it would be able to fully arm itself with a single press, and then I could shout "Transform!"...

Forget it, relying on myself is too much trouble.

There are clearly very useful assistants.

One is Tolan, a teacher who is rich but resentful.

Master Tolanto was able to reconstruct the Moon Spirit Essence Liquid based solely on a verbal description of its approximate function.

One was Paracelsus, who was so poor he was on the verge of starvation and couldn't find anyone to take on students.

And there's also my good senior brother.

I can easily craft a decent set of equipment by doing some work myself.

After dinner, go to bed early, get some rest, and recharge your energy. Then, tomorrow, put in extra effort and try to finish your renovation project within a week.

Just as Roland was enjoying the future, the system was resurrected.

【bite!!!!!】

[World line shift detected... Anomaly detected... System troubleshooting... Troubleshooting successful]

[Interference from high-altitude areas around the world has been ruled out]

[Main Quest - The Silent March Phase Two Begins.]

[Given the host's previous progress in completing side quests, the difficulty of the second phase of the Silent March has increased significantly!]

[Phase Two Goals and Tasks]

Objective 1: Prevent the war between the Federation of Nations and the newly formed Hearst Empire.

[Objective Two: Lift the Demon King's Court from its control over the high-ranking officials of the various federations]

[Objective 3: Assist your trusted demon allies in unifying the demon forces]

Objective 4: Destroy the remaining seven Demon Lord's Hand prototypes and their derivative creations.

[Objective 5: Merge and gather the remnants of the Demon King's soul from the seven prototype machines; choose to destroy or merge them]

[The final stage of the mission depends on the completion of the second stage and the chosen path for different mission outcomes.]

(End of this chapter)