NOVEL WEB Chapter 39: Joint Research Conference
"Hmm. Why are you all standing here instead of going in?" Kevin, who had just stepped into the Forest of Magic, was surprised to find all the mage apprentices outside.
"Mister Ajaf told us to wait here. He has an announcement to make," Kevin's friend answered.
"Oh," Kevin replied as he stopped talking and stood in the crowd obediently.
There was a buzz of discussion in the great hall. Almost all the people present were discussing the non-toxic mallows and Aileen's announcement the night before, the two hottest issues on the Internet.
"Did you guys see Aileen's announcement?"
"Yes, yes. She's rather smart for not taking the credit. Otherwise, she would have suffered the moment the truth got out in the future!"
"That's right!"
"Even so, Aileen has still benefited greatly from this. You can go and ask around. Everyone knows her name now."
"Aye. I should have written a report then if I knew what I know now!"
"I can only regret!"
"Don't mention it again. My heart hurts!"
"Hey. Have you all seen Mister Ajaf's personal space? 120,000 followers and 13,000 comments. Heavens! He must be at the very top of the Internet. I did some comparison… Even Lord Dandell has merely 10,000 followers!"
"I'm telling you guys. This morning, I turned on the Internet when I went to the bathroom. Oh, over a hundred people wanted to chat with me and many of them were girls. I was so excited as I thought I had gotten lucky. Ah, in the end, they were all asking about Mister Ajaf. Some of them even asked me if Mister Ajaf is still taking in students to learn about wood-spirit magic."
"Damn it! It also happened to me."
"Me too!"
"You guys have no idea. I simply mentioned on the forum that I'm involved in Mister Ajaf's magical experiment and I gained more than 1000 new followers overnight. Many of them are even from other places!"
"What a coincidence. Me too!"
Their similar encounters had made the great hall's mood even more energetic.
Some were jealous and envious of Aileen—
Some were throwing shade at her.
Some were filled with pride when they talked about Mister Ajaf as they were very proud to be working under a great person.
The emergence of the Internet had magnified their social relationships and hence, it also magnified the attention they could receive.
None of them had ever experienced such attention before, so naturally, their young egos were inflated when they suddenly received so much attention!
After some time, the great hall suddenly became silent.
Many mage apprentices who were in the midst of their discussion, lifted their heads up in surprise before they realized that Mister Ajaf had arrived.
All of them quickly stood to attention and stopped fooling around.
"Is everyone present? Please do a check on your teams," Ajaf asked as he stood on the platform in front of the great hall.
"We are all present," all the team leaders replied one by one.
"I have an announcement to make. I am cutting the number of people taking part in this magical experiment to twenty, and all of them would become my assistants. They would be entitled to a salary and the priority of being employed by the school after they graduate.
"Those who are interested, please register your name and we will select from the best! Those who want to stay can enquire more from Aileen."
The huge Forest of Magic descended into a moment of silence after he spoke. Then, a commotion instantly broke out after all of them managed to react!
All the mage apprentices were staring at one another!
Nobody had expected the recognition and pride they had derived from their identities as "participants of Ajaf's experiment" would be taken away right then!
No, it wasn't taken away. It became rarer and more precious in fact.
It wasn't about the entitlement of a salary. Even without a salary, the identity of being "Ajaf's assistant" alone was enough to make them go crazy!
Because Aileen was the best example!
In that instant, a fire lit up in everyone's eyes.
They immediately started to look at one another as competitors.
Selecting twenty mage apprentices out of 374 of them. The competitive pressure was indeed quite intense!
Just as all of them began to get worked up in preparation, Yu Sheng'an left the platform and strode out of the great hall.
That day was the day the Felix Magical Joint Research Conference would be held. All the instructors who were interested in discussing the difficult magical topics were able to take part in the conference if they wished to.
One had to admit that there was a reason why the Queville Empire had been established based on magic.
Yu Sheng'an decided to join that conference.
Because the Internet's "torchlight feature" had left him stumped. He had already mastered the "Inch of Light" but had difficulties incorporating that magic into the Internet.
The reason was very simple. Basically, all forms of magic released their power through magical engravings.
His magical version of the Internet was, in essence, just a virtual screen that was unable to hold onto any magical engravings. Thus, it was naturally very difficult to add on features that were beyond the divinity power.
Speaking of which, his Internet personal terminal was very similar to the Blue Star's concept of "Cloud Phone."
Simply speaking, "Cloud Phone" was just retaining the features of the screen and network, and all the software would be placed onto the cloud server. All the functions of a mobile phone would then be realized through the ultra-high speed internet.
The advantage of the cloud phone was that the personal terminal would no longer have to be changed frequently, and the purchase cost would be lowered.
Of course, the disadvantage was also quite obvious. It needed a massive computing power and an ultra-high speed network as a support.
The magical version of the Internet that Yu Sheng'an had created was based on his divine power. Hence, it didn't have the problems of computing power and network speed.
However, because of that, it was very difficult to add on any other functions apart from the power of divinity.
Even if it was only "Inch of Light," the most basic light-based magic.
Yu Sheng'an had a premonition that this problem would have a monumental meaning.
Once he solved that, it would be easier to add on other functions
…
When Yu Sheng'an arrived at the River of Magic where the conference was being held, he was able to hear the loud sounds of discussion even before he stepped in.
However, when he pushed open the doors and stepped in, the noisy conference hall instantly fell into silence.
All of them were staring at him with flickering gazes, and surprised or bewildered expressions.
If they had been previously annoyed with Yu Sheng'an taking all the wood-spirit mage apprentices, even thinking that he was Lord Dandell's spokesperson and lackey, all the negative feelings for him had ceased immediately after the battle outside of Willis City.
In that country of magic, holding the absolute magical strength meant having the absolute right to speak and status!
Given the power that Yu Sheng'an had displayed, everybody had to give him the appropriate amount of respect!
Moreover, he had even conducted a magical experiment that shocked the Empire?
He had already become the Empire's most important and valuable person. Nobody would be able to touch him, at least not before he released all the results of his crops research.
Hence, when Yu Sheng'an walked in, the majority of the mages were smiling at him to show their goodwill.
Yu Sheng'an returned their smiles in reciprocation.
He still needed those clever brains to help him solve his Internet problem!
The spacious conference hall was round, high on the outside and low on the inside. It was a stepped structure that had been paved with granite, which made it possible to see everyone, regardless of the seats one was sitting in.
It resembled a colosseum.
Of course, it was much smaller in size.
Yu Sheng'an swept a glance across the conference hall, then locked in on Dandell right away and walked over to him.
"What are you doing here?" Dandell asked with a weird expression once he was near.
"Of course, I've come to take part in the conference. I have some questions, so I need to borrow some help from the smartest brains in the Empire!"
"You also have stuff that you don't understand?"
"Not even a deity can truly be omniscient, am I right?"
Dandell stopped talking and began to wait patiently.
As all the sand in the hourglass placed at the center of the conference hall had fallen; it turned over by itself and the conference hall became quiet.
Magical engravings started to light up to prevent the discussions in the conference hall from leaking out.
After a brief moment of silence, a mage quickly stood and asked around about a problem he had encountered recently.
The conference hall slowly began to get lively as a result of his questioning.
Although almost all the mages in the Queville Empire had mastered the Seven Common Systems of Magic and even one special system of magic, most would choose to focus on one system after they became formal mages. There were only a rare few geniuses who would choose to do work with more than one system.
After all, humans had limited energy while magical knowledge was endless.
If they couldn't advance to the higher levels in their fixed lifetime, everything would be too late by the time their lives ended.
Because of this, it was very easy for most of them to encounter areas that they weren't familiar with in the later part of their cultivation journeys, especially if they were cultivating the combination magic that had unpredictable behavior.
That was the original intention of the joint research conference!
Yu Sheng'an listened intently and would take down notes in secret whenever he heard something interesting.
Ordinary mages were not privileged enough to take part in such a high-level brainstorm.
He definitely wasn't going to waste that opportunity since he had been able to get in.
Halfway into their discussion, Stanford, the thunder-based mage instructor, got up and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to add light burst magic into the thunder-based magic. Have any of you done any research about the combination of the thunder-based and light-based magic? Or do you have any suggestions?"