Black fog

Phoebus clapped her hands, indicating that everyone should focus their attention on her. "We've been thinking about how to decompose the fog or release its energy through external stimulation. What if we add something to change its stable state?"

With so many professors present, it wasn't that no one had thought of what Phoebus proposed. Professor Graef continued: "How much volume does the fog that pervades Misty Town and Midnight Swamp have? At least millions of cubic meters. To add materials to promote its reaction and change its stable state, the cost of materials would be astronomical. Even if that silver dragon is skilled in space jumping, moving between two planes is extremely difficult. He cannot possibly carry a huge amount of material to react with the fog under these circumstances."

Ina recalled her conversation with Austin. When he mentioned triggering the fog, his expression was quite relaxed. It seemed that it was not a difficult thing to do and clearly did not require him to go to great lengths to collect something on the Moro continent. So does the idea of "adding something to make the fog unstable" also not work?

"They spent 300 years continuously creating fog, they must be fully prepared. They would ensure both a very low chance of accidental ignition when the fog is not thick enough, and also ensure a simple method of detonation."

Professor Derick pondered for a moment: "If the fog cannot be detonated out of thin air, then the necessary materials must be very precious. This way, it won't accidentally be detonated by people near Misty Town before they're ready. At the same time, the required dosage of this material must be very small, which would allow the silver dragon to carry it through the spatial barrier between the two planes."

Ina added another piece of information she knew: "The Old God's Ruins are very barren, and hardly any resources are produced there. So this thing is very likely something that the professionals took with them at the time. It must also exist on the Moro continent."

The professors looked at each other and said in unison: "Vistan's Breath!"

Vistan's Breath is a very unscientific substance. Vistan means "infinite" in the common language of the Moro continent. It can react with the vast majority of magical materials, changing their state, but it itself will not be depleted at all.

Because of this characteristic, Vistan's Breath is considered a divine legacy, and its value is self-evident.

"Do we have this thing?" Ina asked, "If not, we can only look for it on Austin, but his storage space is self-created, we can't possibly get anything from it."

The professors present got the answer that had been bothering them for a long time and were eager to verify it. More than one of them had seen Vistan's Breath, but none of them owned it. The only known owner of Vistan's Breath was Azpehisya, a legendary mage who had lived for hundreds of years, but she hadn't appeared in front of people for nearly a hundred years.

Just when everyone was about to be disappointed, Elvys stood up: "I know where Vistan's Breath is. Master Azpehisya entrusted her belongings to me. I think, if it's for the sake of saving the lives and property of hundreds of thousands of civilians in this area, Master Azpehisya will forgive me for using Vistan's Breath without permission."

Elvys returned quickly, and under everyone's expectant gaze, he extended his hand, with a wisp of silver-blue smoke floating in his palm.

Ina walked over curiously and gave it a light poke with her hand. There was no sensation, no chill as she imagined, or the touch of any entity, it was like a pure cloud of smoke. Vistan's Breath can only be captured by a mage's hand; no other means can touch it.

Professor Derick explained: "Living beings will not react with Vistan's Breath."

The professors carefully put Vistan's Breath into the container with the fog using their mage hands, and the color of the white fog deepened quickly, just like the dark clouds before a storm.

After testing the newly formed substance, an expected conclusion was reached. "The nature of the white fog is incredibly stable, while the black fog is the exact opposite. It contains active magic power, it's just like liquefied magic crystal. The black fog can indeed be detonated, and due to the concentration of a large amount of magic power, the power of the explosion would be astonishing."

Ina decisively walked into Austin's room where he was sleeping soundly, confirming that he was indeed drunk. This not-so-intelligent but friendly kinsman turned out to be a terrorist. The originally harmless mist in MistTown now looked more like natural gas or something like that to Ina, which might blow her restaurant into the sky at any time.

Having figured out the reason, the current issue is how to deal with this fog.

The fog, preliminarily estimated to be millions of cubic meters, is firmly entrenched over the entire area of the Mynight Marsh and Misty Town. Even if they can capture this fog, Ina and the others can collect it in containers, but it's impossible to contain so much.

Professor Dunham suggested: "If we transform the white fog into the black fog in batches, keep it within a small range, and then ignite them little by little…"

Elvys shook his head: "That's too slow. We need to be prepared for Austin to wake up within a week."

The reason why the silver dragon slept for so long was not only because he indeed drank a lot of high-concentration tequila, but also because the tequila brewed from the Holy Oak barrel, like the previous Holy Grail wine, had a special effect called "Sleep Well". Ina usually uses it to make cocktails like "Tequila Sunrise", and "Frosty Margarita", or directly adds it into soda water, to make a refreshing "Tequila Bomb", which can effectively improve sleep quality even after dilution, and it won't make you sleep as long as Austin.

The problems are endless, and they have stuck again for a while when suddenly Professor Derick slapped the table: "Then let's simply use Vistan's Breath to transform all the white fog into the black fog!"

Everyone stared at Professor Derick as if he was crazy. Was Derick insane, thinking Austin wasn't fast enough, ready to help him complete the preparatory work? Originally, Austin was just waiting for Vistan's Breath to transform all the white fog into black fog. Now he just had to wake up and simply ignite it.

Facing everyone's questioning eyes, Professor Derick continued, "One of my students, happens to come from Mist Town, she recently came up with a genius invention: it allows spent magic crystal stones to absorb free magic power more efficiently. I think, isn't the black fog we are facing now a highly concentrated pure magic power?"

It's Lilith's solution, Ina thought to herself. Magic crystals, as the universal power source in the magic world, are widely used in various magic circles and magical machines. Spent magic crystal stones are known as blank magic crystal stones, and even these stones will autonomously absorb free magic elements in the air, but the speed is extremely slow, and it may not recover to a full state for thousands of years.

But by simply soaking the blank magic crystal stone in the charging solution, a film will form on the surface of the magic crystal stone, and this film can increase the efficiency of the magic crystal stone's absorption of magic power. This is why the charging solution has lowered the threshold for charging magic crystals from high-level mages to apprentice mages.

For a high-level mage, if his magic output value is 100, 80 is lost during the process of infusing the magic crystal stone, and 20 points are stored, becoming the energy that can be stably accumulated in the magic crystal stone.

And for a mage apprentice, his magic output value is only 5, and if he tries to infuse energy into the magic crystal stone, all will be lost before he can get deep into it, playing no role at all.

The charging solution reduces this loss by tens of times so that even an ordinary mage apprentice will eventually leave 1-2 points of energy to be successfully infused into the magic crystal stone.

Other professors praised this as a great invention after listening to Professor Derick's explanation. One professor asked, "How about the cost of this solution?"

Professor Derick scratched his head in embarrassment: "That's precisely the problem we are facing, other materials are very common, only one important material is Luminous Ore." Not only that, the charging solution can form an effective barrier to absorb magic power, and Luminous Ore plays a decisive role, it cannot be replaced by any material.

The other professors looked disappointed.

But Ina wasn't discouraged, acquiring Luminous Ore was something she and Elvys had been preparing for a long time. They highly valued Lilith's charging solution and planned to test it on a large scale. If the magic crystal mines have been exhausted, the only way is to transform them into new types of magic crystals that can be reused and easily charged before the magic crystals completely disappear.

"Professor, do you mean to transform the stable white fog into active black fog, which contains active magic power, and then lead this black fog into blank magic crystals that have been soaked in the charging solution, so that we can both obtain magic-rich crystals and deal with this fog?"

"Exactly," Professor Derick seemed a bit apprehensive, "It's just an immature idea of mine, perhaps other professors have better suggestions."

Ina and Elvys exchanged a glance: "Your idea is great."

Elvys picked up the conversation: "I need some detailed data about how many tons of magic crystals can be filled with the transformed black fog, the amount of charging solution required, and the amount of Luminous Ore and other materials needed to make this charging solution.

If the distinguished professors here can help me solve these issues, then the rest, just leave it to Ina and me."