Chapter 111: Research on Innate Talents

Leaving the restaurant, Lando headed back to his dormitory and switched on his communicator. He had kept it off while traveling to the Crystal World, and upon checking it now, he found there were not many missed messages.

To his surprise, there was a message from Hannah.

"Senior Lando! I have successfully joined the Silver Tower Academy! Hehe, please look after me from now on!"

"Senior, are you very busy? Why can't I connect to your communicator?"

"Sorry, Senior, I heard you went on a journey to a special native world. I thought you were ignoring me!"

"Wow, Senior, news about your time in that world has spread everywhere! You're so amazing! When will I ever be as excellent as you?"

"Senior, I’ve accepted a mission to help develop my home world. I’m setting off with Mr. Toru’s merchant guild, and I’ll even get double the rewards!"

"..." Lando silently closed the messages. After a moment of thought, he sent a message to Toru’s guild, the gist of which was to ask them to take care of Hannah.

Since they were in different worlds, the message would be relayed through the guild to Toru.

In the Four Kings World.

Due to the unique nature of this world, Toru had been pouring almost all his energy into it lately, hoping to lay a solid foundation early on to reap rich rewards in the future.

Just as he was reviewing documents, his personal communicator buzzed with a notification. Configured to only receive important messages, he immediately set his work aside to check it.

"It’s a message from Lando?" Toru fell into a brief contemplation after reading it.

Arcanists were not people to be judged by conventional standards. While Toru envied Lando's luck, he always adhered to his own personal code of conduct when dealing with him. He was well aware of Lando’s exceptional performance in the Crystal World, which caused his estimation of Lando to rise several notches higher.

Hannah, a native of the Four Kings World—through their interactions, Toru had also come to think highly of this spirited girl. Though he didn't know the exact nature of her relationship with Lando, since Lando had personally spoken up, he decided to provide her with even better care and put an end to his previous little schemes.

Of course, those "schemes" were merely minor efforts to recruit her, such as secretly arranging for promising young men to be near her to see if they could win her favor. He would still continue to cultivate her, but he would simply swap in promising young women instead.

As for Lando, unaware that a casual message had altered the social dynamics around Hannah, he had already returned to his long-absent dormitory and fallen into a deep slumber.

...

The next day, feeling refreshed!

After waking up, freshening up, and having a simple breakfast, Lando headed straight to the laboratory.

Upon arriving, he only saw his mentor, Ordo, reading a book. Lando asked curiously, "Where are Alice and Leia? Haven't they arrived yet?"

Ordo replied casually, "They mentioned yesterday that they were going on a journey together. They’ve probably already set off."

Hmph, women!

"Mentor, are there any new study plans for this period?"

"Since you asked, you must have a new research plan in mind. Go ahead; if you run into anything you don't understand, come back and ask me."

"Yes, Mentor!"

Leaving Mentor Ordo, Lando went to his room in the lab. He needed to conduct more in-depth research into the several new talents he had acquired.

The four talents from the [Crystal Winged Dragon (Purple)] were [Swift Shadow Agility (Purple)], [Crystal Skin (Blue)], [Wind-Riding (Blue)], and [Wind Element Manipulation (Blue)].

The [Wind-Riding (Blue)] and [Wind Element Manipulation (Blue)] talents were of little research value. If studied in depth, [Wind-Riding (Blue)] might yield something unique, such as establishing a normalized baseline or increasing its maximum capacity, but that held little significance for Lando.

[Swift Shadow Agility (Purple)] was interesting. After constant use during his time in the Crystal World, Lando discovered that this talent involved not only the control and utilization of wind elements but also an enhancement of his own neural network. It was worth digging deeper into if he had the time.

What interested Lando most, however, was the blue talent [Crystal Skin (Blue)]. As the most common talent in the Crystal World, he had seen it many times, both in green and blue grades. He was certain that a purple [Crystal Skin] talent must exist; he simply hadn't encountered it yet.

He had a theory: if he could study the differences between the green and blue versions, could he push it further to reach [Crystal Skin (Purple)]?

To this end, Lando had long since preserved several souls possessing the green and blue [Crystal Skin] talents.

However, the research hit a bottleneck as soon as it began. These talents were inherent to the soul armaments. Although Lando could adjust and improve them, once he stopped, the talents would slowly revert to their original state. Unless he solved this, the research would be futile.

This bottleneck didn't trap Lando for long. In a flash of inspiration, he injected soul essence into the soul after modifying the talent, and to his surprise, it stabilized. This discovery gave him a strong premonition: the soul armament system within him originally possessed the function to modify talents, but it was currently inaccessible due to damage. For now, he could only complete these adjustments manually using this method.

Although his soul essence had been depleted significantly after completing [Soul: Purple (100%)] before going to sleep yesterday, fortunately, the soul essence required to stabilize the modified soul was not as much as he had imagined. Furthermore, he only needed to stabilize it when the structure achieved a significant upgrade, so the research costs remained within a manageable range.

During his study of the [Crystal Skin] talent, Lando also discovered an inexplicable connection to the [Crystal Body (Purple)] talent he had obtained from the [Giant Crystal Scorpion (Purple)]. By studying them together, the progress of both accelerated significantly.

After two months of tireless research—during which he frequently consulted Mentor Ordo and, under his guidance, heavily supplemented his knowledge of structural science—Lando finally achieved a relatively satisfactory interim result.

Though [Crystal Skin (Blue)] remained a blue talent, its overall strength had increased by about 30%. Lando felt it had reached the absolute limit of what a blue talent could achieve, but it lacked a key component to ascend to purple.

Regarding [Crystal Body (Purple)], he had developed two sets of structures. One significantly enhanced physical and elemental resistance but offered almost no improvement to energy storage and circulation efficiency. The other was the exact opposite: physical and elemental resistance increased by about 10%, while energy storage efficiency rose by 30% and circulation efficiency by 20%. Lando didn't need to deliberate; he naturally chose the latter.