I Became a Progenitor Vampire - Chapter 32

Chapter 32: Mage’s Hand, Overhauled Edition

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation

Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Reed had not stepped out of the mage tower for three consecutive days. The improvement to Mage’s Hand was beyond his expectations, but the progress was very slow.

The 30 magic nodes made up a standard magic model obtained after experimentations by countless powerful mages, and the difficulty of improving it could be imagined.

Despite that, Reed was a person who would not admit defeat, and the difficulty of improving the Mage’s Hand spell inspired him to fight on.

The vampires only need two solhours of rest to regain their energy, and Reed had devoted all of his energy outside of the rest period to his improvement experimentation.

He did not even care about the news that Laurent had used the gold Pykes to exchange a large amount of grain from The Alex Consortium and moved them into the warehouses of the Goldwheat Guild for the past few days.

The improvement experimentation that had originally reached a dead-end met a turning point after Reed went home to Earth for a meal on the third day.

He made a mathematical model of all magic nodes according to their corresponding format and used the mathematical model to eliminate a large number of useless node combinations.

In the end, his progress soared rapidly, and the probability of issues dropped by a large margin.

The fifth day after returning from The Alex Consortium.

The seventh floor of the Vermillion Tower.

A sudden burst of laughter rang out, and the apprentice mages who were reading downstairs were shocked.

Was that Master Reed’s laughter?

Recalling the usually cold-faced Master Reed in the past, they could hardly believe it at all.

“Viena, go and see if Master Reed had discovered something new?”

“Perhaps Master Reed had a breakthrough?”

“Viena…”

Viena, as Reed’s servant, was naturally the best choice to go up and check what was going on. Under everyone’s urging, the girl picked up her blue mage robe and quickly got up.

Knock, knock, knock~

“Come in.”

Viena pushed over the door on the seventh floor with curiosity in her heart.

There was not much change to the room, and the various magic materials were placed on their respective storage shelves. The room was also very neat and tidy, with the only difference being Master Reed seemed to be quite happy.

Seeing Reed’s joyful face, the young girl curiously asked, “Master Reed, have you made a new discovery?”

She had never seen Reed with a happy expression before, and even a smile was rare in the past.

Reed calmed the joy in his heart and smiled. “Look at this.”

Snap.

After snapping his fingers, a giant translucent hand appeared in the room.

First Circle spell, Mage’s Hand.

Viena looked at the Mage’s Hand before her with a slightly befuddled look, and could not see any changes.

“Master Reed, this is a Mage’s Hand… why are you…”

Reed burst out laughing and snapped his fingers again. Then in Viena’s bewilderment, the Mage’s Hand before her dramatically changed.

The original giant hand had directly transformed into a translucent shield in the air.

Snap.

After snapping his fingers, the translucent shield in the air transformed into a long sword.

Snap.

A Kriegmesser.

Snap.

A mace.

Snap.

Ultraman.

Viena was completely stunned in place, she could clearly feel that this was the mana signature of the First Circle spell, Mage’s Hand.

But why, why could it keep changing?

This scene had simply shattered Viena’s entire worldview.

In the common sense of a mage, once a spell has been cast, its shape and nature could no longer be changed.

For example, a Fireball spell, once cast, could only be a fireball and could not transform into a flaming sword or a flaming shield.

This was the fixed structure of a magic model. It could not be changed.

Yet, what was going on with the constantly changing Mage’s Hand?

Why could the Mage’s Hand change form?

“Master Reed, is this the result of your research? Goddess of Magic above, you really are a genius. The mages of Grimm will sing your name, and the bards will sing of your greatness.”

Little stars appeared in Viena’s eyes.

The girl’s undisguised admiration made Reed feel even better.

For the past five days, aside from the daily two solhour breaks, he had almost no rest.

In his magic model improvement experimentation, the number of failures was at least two thousand.

After the initial failure, the magic backlash was severe, and every failure felt like a needle was being driven into his head.

So, he dared not go in rashly.

But later on, he worked out a way to reduce the backlash.

Controlling the mana output.

A magic model needed a sufficient amount of mana to activate, and if it did not reach the minimum amount required, it would cause a casting failure. In serious cases, a magic backlash would occur.

However, Reed had already discovered that at the beginning, continuously reducing the mana input could keep the magic model running.

A magic model with reduced mana input could not be released, but what he wanted to study was the relationship between the nodes, and did not care whether the spell could be cast or not.

Then, in order to reduce the backlash, he kept trying to input a more precise amount of mana to operate the model.

From the first input of nine mana, then reducing to, 8, 7, 3 points, and he even reached the current extreme-end of accurate operation at 2 mana.

He only needed to input 2 mana to keep the magic model running at a bare minimum while the magic model that lacked mana would require a very high degree of mental control to maintain stability.

The bloodline of the Progenitor Vampire gave him a terrifying magical affinity, and Reed’s control of magic was almost as natural as breathing.

It was normal during the day, but at night, he could control even the most minute of mana naturally.

So, after he worked out the ways to minimize backlash on the magic model, he went on a total gungho experimentation journey.

The collapse of a magic model would cause a backlash against the mage. A lighter backlash would see the collapse of their spiritual sea and the decline of their strength, while a more serious backlash could straight up turn a person into an idiot.

That was why even a Transcendent Mage dare not wantonly experiment and improve magic, which was also the reason why there were rarely any changes to the magic model… It was too dangerous, with a risk of being turned into a total idiot with just a small twitch. This was a risk few could afford.

So, mages were full of awe and respect for the magic model and thought that it was a power given by the Goddess of Magic. Anyone who intruded upon the majesty of the goddess would suffer divine retribution.

Even so, Reed’s magical affinity allowed him to directly bring a mage’s fear of magic backlash down to sub-zero.

So he started to make all kinds of changes to the magic nodes.

Five days, and two thousand failures later, he had established two mathematical models for his experimental data statistics.

It was only towards the end he had managed to develop a Mage’s Hand that could transform.

The Mage’s Hand, a First Circle spell with 30 nodes, had grown to 90 nodes.

The addition of the 60 new magic nodes was the key to the transformation.

Reed seemed to have changed the spell inside out, and its effect was very obvious.

The originally rigid Mage’s Hand, upon improvement, could be changed in accordance with the will of the mage, and its form could be changed any time even after the spell was cast.

Its power had increased dramatically too, with the power of the Mage’s Hand rising from 150 pounds to 800 pounds, a fivefold increase.

So he could imagine during combat, a mage cast a Mage’s Hand, and when he was about to be attacked it transformed into a shield, and into a long sword on the attack. The enemy would be shocked by the sudden change they’d probably be cursing out loud.

Of course, this did not come without a price. The mana required to cast the spell had increased from 10 to 15, a 50% increase in mana consumption.

But he could not change the fact that Mage’s Hand was just a First Circle spell.

Even if its power was comparable to an ordinary Second Circle spell, but for Reed, it was of little use.

During combat, Fireball would still be a better spell to use than Mage’s Hand.

The significance of improving the Mage’s Hand was that Reed had found the right direction.

Before there was a way to learn more advanced magic, he could increase the strength of his current spells by at least two levels.

By then, the similar Fireball by his enemy was only comparable to a one-kilogram gas canister, while he instantly cast one that was stronger than a tank shell. The gap between them would instantly be pulled apart.