**Chapter 76: I Want This!**
This treasure was too powerful!
Its unmatched speed was its greatest asset, a true trump card for desperate escapes.
But at his current cultivation, the immense energy cost, the post-escape weakness and stiffness, and the inability to control his landing made it a “one-time” skill usable only in dire situations.
Using it once left him nearly defenseless, entrusting his life to luck—either the enemy couldn’t catch up, or he wouldn’t be attacked before recovering.
The Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror, as the Great Dao Book Pavilion described, was indeed a tool for life-or-death escapes, not to be used lightly!
But for Jie Ming, these drawbacks were acceptable.
As he’d considered before, if he ever needed to use this treasure, it would mean he was cornered with no hope of fighting back.
Taking a gamble to escape with his life was better than awaiting death.
Moreover, this was only the treasure’s initial form.The Great Dao Book Pavilion had noted that the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror had near-limitless growth potential.
As his cultivation advanced and he integrated stronger, more profound light concepts, the treasure’s speed, duration, control, and even additional effects would continue to improve.
The current high cost was due to both the treasure and his cultivation being insufficient to perfectly harness and transform the concepts.
In the future, with higher cultivation, purer true essence and divine sense, and deeper understanding of the concepts, these issues would diminish.
Struggling to his feet, his true essence slowly recovering, Jie Ming’s heart burned with an even fiercer flame despite his battered state.
“I want… to study this!”
Wizards excelled at integrating foreign systems into their own, the primary reason they waged wars across planes.
All wizardry, at its core, was the final product of simplified experimental principles or phenomena.
If one could understand a phenomenon’s principles, they could find ways to replicate it.
The next step was relentless research to streamline unnecessary processes, condensing all things into a single spell.
Alchemy Technique was like this, Fireball was like this, and Jie Ming’s runic artifacts followed the same principle.
Now, the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror’s astounding effects gave him a new target to emulate.
Of course, it was too early to say.
He sank the mirror back into his dantian, slowly restoring his true essence and divine sense while continuing to nurture the treasure with his recovering energy.
It was time to return to the academy.
…
…
After testing the initial might of the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror, Jie Ming found himself with no pressing tasks.
Developing the mirror’s spirituality, researching its light escape ability, or improving his runic artifacts were not things that could yield results quickly.
Moreover, aside from the runic artifacts, the rest required the mirror to advance further before they were suitable for study.
For a moment, Jie Ming found himself “idle.”
Of course, calling it “idle” was an exaggeration—more accurately, he was “less busy.”
But this sudden lack of busyness left him slightly unaccustomed.
“Tch! What a workaholic, getting restless with a bit of free time,” he muttered.
Even so, Jie Ming instinctively began planning his next steps.
With new students enrolled and only five years until he’d head to the front lines, his focus shifted to his next challenge—advancing to a First-Level Wizard and the Foundation Establishment stage.
Advancing from a wizard apprentice to a First-Level Wizard required meeting three stringent conditions:
First, sufficient mental energy reserves.
This was the most fundamental condition, heavily influenced by natural talent.
Each person’s talent varied, and after reaching the Third-Level Wizard Apprentice stage, the natural limit of mental energy storage differed.
Generally, only apprentices with a talent level of five or above could naturally accumulate enough mental energy to meet the minimum requirement for advancement, which was why those with such talent were called “geniuses.”
Apprentices with talent below level five needed additional mental sea expansion potions to increase their mental energy cap.
However, such potions often damaged the wizard’s body, sometimes at the cost of reduced lifespan or vitality.
Level-four talent apprentices typically needed one to three such potions to barely meet the advancement threshold.
Level-three talent apprentices required over five potions.
But due to the severe damage these potions caused to the body and lifespan, an ordinary apprentice’s body could withstand, at most, four such potions’ side effects.
Thus, theoretically, level-three talent apprentices could not advance to First-Level Wizards.
Of course, there were exceptions.
If a level-three talent apprentice could obtain high-grade, low-side-effect potions or use rare treasures to enhance their physique, extend lifespan, or boost vitality to offset the potions’ negative effects, they could theoretically continue advancing.
However, such advanced potions or treasures often required military merits or vast points to acquire, and they were exceedingly rare.
This was why countless wizard apprentices risked their lives fighting in endless planes—not only to accumulate merits but also to seek treasures in new planes to enhance their vitality.
Some extreme apprentices even modified their bodies to gain stronger physiques and vitality.
The second requirement for advancing to a First-Level Wizard was the use of an advancement potion.
This core elixir stimulated a wizard’s latent potential, enabling a leap in life essence, and was essential for becoming a First-Level Wizard.
Naturally, its damage to the body far exceeded that of mental sea expansion potions.
While reviewing these conditions, Jie Ming compared the differences and similarities between his cultivation system and the wizard system.
Since reaching the seventh layer of Qi Refinement, he had clearly noticed that a seventh-layer cultivator’s power was roughly equivalent to a Third-Level Wizard Apprentice.
Even someone like Berta Vera Augusta, a level-nine talent he’d encountered, with fully accumulated mental energy as a Third-Level Wizard Apprentice, only matched a peak seventh-layer cultivator in mental energy quantity and quality.
Jie Ming was also certain that a First-Level Wizard was on the same level as a Foundation Establishment cultivator, even surpassing them in certain aspects.