Chapter 9: Numbers

Inside the surveillance room at this moment, Liana Dawn was lazily reclining on the sofa, flipping through the test report. In fact, she already had a clear understanding of every data point on it, but she just wanted to look at it again. This was not only an affirmation of the work done by the dozens of mages but also a monitoring of them.

"The abilities are quite average, with no clear weaknesses or specific strengths. Mental strength... hmm, it's passable. The physique proportions are decent; he should look good when he grows up... with many abdominal muscles... very agile, good endurance... anything else? Is that all?" Liana Dawn lifted her head from the report and stared at the Grand Mage, asking.

Under her gaze, the Grand Mage, who had reached the eighteenth-level magic guidance standard, shivered uncontrollably and respectfully said, "This is the most comprehensive test we have conducted so far, with a total cost of 116,000 imperial gold coins. All the test results are here, and no other special talents have been found so far."

As for some of the words Liana Dawn muttered to herself just now, he automatically chose to ignore and forget them. Being able to cultivate to the eighteenth level, the word "genius" was no longer sufficient to describe the wisdom they possessed.

Liana Dawn's eyebrows began to furrow together: "According to his talent, the most he can achieve is to cultivate to the eighteenth level! It's not very useful at all!"

The eighteenth-level "not very useful" mage listened attentively, with a smile on his face that had not changed at all, sincere and humble from start to finish.

"Wait! The Archimonde bloodline power within him is clearly very strong and pure, even stronger than Gavin Warsong's. Hmm, this is somewhat strange... perhaps it's the result of being stimulated by the Silvermoon Elf bloodline. But how could there be no other special talents?" Liana Dawn's two small eyebrows were tightly knitted together.

"The mage said seriously and gently, 'Archimonde belongs to the upper-tier bloodline. If you want to test the bloodline talent, it temporarily exceeds our abilities.'

"That's nonsense!" Liana Dawn scolded, "I clearly remember that there are at least six methods to detect upper-tier bloodline talents! Even the top-tier bloodline can be measured! How important is the upper-tier bloodline? Do I need to remind you again?! What are you all doing? Did I throw my gold coins to the dogs? Since he is likely to have upper-tier bloodline talents, we should test him at all costs without even needing to ask me! Do you understand what I'm saying? At all costs!"

"The cheapest method among them would still require experimental fees exceeding 600,000 imperial gold coins." The mage who understood nodded and reminded her calmly.

"Oh, well, forget it then!"

Gray didn't know about these little interludes behind the scenes. After being brought to his area and enduring a painful day, he immediately fell into a dream.

In the dream, he returned to the village of Ruthlan, carrying a heavy breadfruit on his back and heading home. The warm little building was already in sight, and his mother was waiting for him at the door. The distant smell of baked pies indicated that this evening he could finally escape the bland breadfruit. Gray happily ran forward, only to see his mother smile at him and turn to enter the little building. In the blink of an eye, flames erupted from every window!

Gray suddenly sat up, screaming and wanting to rush forward. It took some effort for him to see his surroundings clearly, and then sweat instantly poured out, soaking his pajamas. He was breathing heavily, with a chest as heavy as if pressed with a lead block, almost suffocating. Gray slowly lifted his head and saw that he was lying on a magnificent large bed. The bed was incredibly large, enough for at least five or six people to sleep on simultaneously. The bedroom was also very large. Gray just glanced at it, and his gaze immediately provided precise data. It was a massive space of 20x15 meters, plus a ceiling that was six meters high from the ground. Lying here, Gray felt like he was a lonely boat floating in the ocean. The bedroom area was already larger than the village head's home, and Gray couldn't imagine why such a large space would be used only for one person to sleep.

After a moment of contemplation, he climbed out of bed and began to observe everything in the bedroom. It had been a month since the great fire, and Gray had been forcing himself to forget everything that happened that day. His idea was somewhat naive, thinking that if he just forgot, his mother would come back one day. But once this thought surfaced, he immediately forced himself to believe it, and now he even regarded it as a belief.

The furnishings in the bedroom were equally luxurious, with decorations that combined the styles of both magicians and great nobles. Gray discovered that as long as he looked at something intently, he would receive numerous data points about that object, precise to two decimal places. This was the "Truth" talent he had obtained from his enlightenment. He didn't know what happened during the test, but it had somehow stimulated its growth to the second level: "Precision". And after "Precision" emerged, Gray vaguely sensed its third and fourth levels, which were "Perspective", the ability to analyze the internal structure of objects, and "Identification", the ability to analyze materials. However, he didn't know when he would be able to develop these higher-level abilities.

Gray still didn't understand what use "Truth" was, but he first found himself immediately overwhelmed by numbers!

Everything he looked at would bring forth countless data points, thousands of numbers flooding in simultaneously, even giving him a certain illusion. For example, a chair was composed of 111 data points, describing its length, width, height, the curvature of its surface, and so on. Of course, if Gray wanted, these numbers could increase by thousands of times. For instance, the satin of the chair back was composed of countless fibers. And the soft leather on the armrest actually had many tiny, invisible scales on its surface, tight and tough, seemingly the skin of some dragon-like creature.

However, living in a world constituted by numbers was definitely not pleasant. Gray felt that his head was almost exploding from the endless data. Fortunately, his enhanced intelligence seemed to have taken effect simultaneously, allowing Gray to quickly sort and classify the countless data, thereby filtering out most of the useless data and retaining only the most important and necessary numbers.

All night long, Gray battled with countless data, striving to reduce their number while ensuring that truly important things were not neglected. Unconsciously, the sky brightened.

This was Gray's first day as Liyana Morninglight's official student.

The first day of study mainly involved leading Gray to familiarize himself with the entire Deep Blue, where his area was, where the public facilities could be used, which places were restricted areas, how to apply for various materials, who to approach when needed, as well as some general precautions. What surprised Gray most was his designated area.

Yes, the word "area" was very accurate, perfectly fitting his "Precision" talent.

Besides the huge bedroom, he also had an independent group of magic laboratories, consisting of one main general-purpose laboratory and six specialized laboratories. In addition, the living area was composed of eleven rooms for different purposes. For example, there was a room specifically for placing clothing and hats, which Gray found very hard to understand. All his current clothes could fit into a small box, and most of his clothes were specially prepared for him by Gavin Warsong. Truly speaking, among his personal belongings, besides a necklace left by his mother, everything else, including the magic books that accompanied him through his childhood, had turned into ashes in the fierce fire. The flames fueled by the life of a high-ranking priest had destructive power comparable to the breath of a dragon.

Next was the equally sized dedicated storage area, also divided into several rooms. Standing in the vast warehouse among the towering shelves, Gray looked confused. He couldn't imagine how it was possible to fill such a huge warehouse. Such a large space would be enough to store the food for the whole village to get through the winter.

Leading Gray on the tour was a female apprentice mage with a sweet voice and appearance. During the tour and explanation, she mentioned her name more than once and hinted, intentionally or unintentionally, that Gray could approach her for any needs in the future. She emphasized the word "any", and when she said it, her beautiful eyes slightly squinted, as cute as crescent moons. Gray wouldn't understand it now, but he would understand it later. That would be when the evaluation Gray received changed from "quickly usable" to "usable", and his "outstanding potential" began to manifest.

During the tour, they would encounter mages hurrying back and forth. Most of them would make way for Gray, and some even saluted him. Gray's "Truth" talent came into play again, naturally perceiving that the focus of these mages' gaze was on the pattern at the collar of his new mage's robe. That was an identifier representing his status as Liyana Morninglight's personal disciple. From this, Gray knew that his position in Deep Blue was definitely not low.

The next day, formal and systematic magic studies began.

When Grey received the lengthy list of courses, he felt dizzy again. Dark Blue broke the norms of the magical world. Just the basic magic course was subdivided into various disciplines such as Magic Philosophy, World Systems, Planar Biology, Planar Geography, Mathematics, Principles of the World, Composition Studies, Material Science, Planar Geometry, Spatial Geometry, Racial History, Alien Life Analysis, and so on. And as knowledge deepened, it would continue to be refined, with the learning process spanning the entire magical career.

In Dark Blue's magical system, Magic Philosophy occupies a very important position, and it was also the beginning of Grey's real studies.