Close Combat Mage
chapter-237

The Angelic Six-Winged Phoenixes continued to frantically train throughout the entire month. They went out early every morning and came back late, so their strength improved so quickly that the enemy outside the city walls had finally become alerted to it. Throughout their whole lives, they had never seen a person improve at such a speed; it was really too terrifying.

The real reason the Angelic Six-Winged Phoenixes could improve so quickly was firstly because they had been diligently training, and secondly because the Six-Winged Phoenix Heavenly Clothes were Epic ranked equipment sets that could double their cultivation speed of fire and wind battle qi. In addition…with the supplement from the four colored potions, their battle qi was used extremely often. Naturally, the more it was used, the more it would increase.

Meanwhile, Suo Jia wasn’t idling around either. With the help of the Atlantis crown, he was able to subconsciously enter the meditation state as he trained in the Ice and Snow Pact to lower the temperature of his ice elemental magics.

Suo Jia’s advancement speed was something that nobody else could compare to. Putting aside the supplementary effects from the Atlantis equipment set, just the fact that it could keep Suo Jia in the meditation state 24/7 made him far superior to others.

Moreover, the addition of Faerie’s Soul and Frost’s Sigh, which were Legendary ranked equipments, Suo Jia’s training speed could only be described as frightening.

More importantly, with the assistance of the Atlantis glove, Suo Jia’s training in the contract with the ice spirits was several times higher than any other person’s level in it! In addition, he also had the impossibly difficult level of magic power that other users could only dream of!

Of course, while Suo Jia was subconsciously meditating and training, he wasn’t just wasting his time either. He concentrated all his attention in researching the alchemic materials collected from the Atomic Alchemy Labs. Aside from very important matters, Suo Jia never bothered with the battles going on outside.

When a person focused their attention on a single thing, there was no reason for them not to do well. As long as they concentrated and put enough effort into it, they’d definitely be able to achieve their desired results.

Suo Jia was also like this. In the 24 hours of a day, Suo Jia would spend 6 hours absorbing experience from meditation, and the other 18 hours digesting materials from reading. When he was tired, he drank the Endurance Potions, Spirit Potions, and then continued to observe, test, and take notes.

He had obtained many books from the Atomic Alchemy Labs and nearly all of them were one-of-a-kind that couldn’t be found elsewhere. Moreover…how could the books stored in the Atomic Alchemy Labs be average books?

Among the thousands of books, Suo Jia had taken out the most precious one; the alchemy notes written by the mightiest alchemist: Chris. These notes recorded all his knowledge of alchemy from his experiences, and the information that he had grasped. After a simple comparison, Suo Jia discovered that notes taken from all the thousands of books here were recorded in this one volume, combining to form one complete, comprehensive compilation of the subject of alchemy.

Studying day and night, Suo Jia’s improvement speed could only be described as rapid progress when taking his previous foundation into account. That’s why, Suo Jia quickly grew familiar with many core techniques.

Suo Jia’s first job was to add a spirit mark to the Angelic Six-Winged Phoenixes’ amethyst spears. After that, they would be able to use the energy from the spears, and according to the spirit marks, they’d be able to automatically return to their owners.

Of course, the spirit marks alone were definitely not enough. If the amethyst spears were blocked by stones or other solid objects, it wouldn’t be able to automatically return. That’s why…aside from the spirit marks, Suo Jia had also added an Interspatial Channel array on the amethyst spears.

The Interspatial Channel was a summoning type elementary magic. The principle behind it wasn’t very clear, but it could form an interspatial pathway that could call upon life forms or inanimate objects to pass through it, thus bypassing any obstructions.

As the most elementary summoning type magic, the Interspatial Channel didn’t have any power to speak of. It was a magic that all summoning mages had to learn, or else they wouldn’t be able to summon anything at all. In addition…the more powerful the summoning mage was, the larger the diameter of the Interspatial Channel would be. It was said that…peak level summoning mages could create Interspatial Channels over dozens of meters in diameter, and could even summon a Black Dragon King. Of course…this was just a legend.

After these improvements, the amethyst spears were able to automatically return to the Angelic Six-Winged Phoenixes’ waists three seconds after hitting their target. Although the Interspatial Channel arrays could only open passageways that were 5 cm in diameter, it was enough for these amethyst spears to pass through.

That wasn’t all. In order to strengthen its destructive abilities, Suo Jia also carved two other arrays onto the spears. As for which two arrays these were…what else could they be? Obviously these were two of the 5 great auxiliary magics that Suo Jia exclusively used.

Acceleration Drive: thought system magic that used one’s thoughts to increase the magic’s advancement speed and accelerated the rate at which the magic travels through the air!

Berserk Impact: control system magic that used one’s manipulation over the elements to boost the magic’s force of impact. This made the magic attack more explosive, and more destructive to the enemy!

Also, Suo Jia carved the wind elemental archers’ Meteor Arrow array onto the amethyst spears. The Meteor Arrow increased shooting range. Like this, the completed version of the Thousand Feathers finally came into being!

After Suo Jia’s improvements, the spears not only automatically returned to their owners, but even more frighteningly, had doubled in speed thanks to the Acceleration Drive. Their explosiveness and amount of induced force upon impact had also doubled thanks to Berserk Impact. Even the shooting range had been doubled due to the help of the Meteor Arrow.

After obtaining the spears, the 36 Angelic Six-Winged Phoenixes forced all the enemies in front of the city walls back a kilometer as they tried to evade the wild bursts of Thousand Feathers. As the Angelic Six-Winged Phoenixes grew stronger, the addition of the spears’ improvements increased their shooting range to a massive value of 400 meters! With the protection of Dawn’s arrow showers, the Angelic Six-Winged Phoenixes could completely destroy everything within a 700 meter distance outside the city.

Suo Jia was now filled with confidence. Although there were still many alchemy books he hadn’t read, Suo Jia knew that the current him was already not inferior to any other alchemist. He could already achieve things stated in legends.

The next thing Suo Jia needed to do was production. That’s right…quite simply, learning originated from copying, so Suo Jia wanted to replicate the Fire Phoenix equipment set!

Of course, Suo Jia didn’t hope to completely reproduce it. However…as long as he could replicate half of its effects, it would be enough to help the Angelic Six-Winged Phoenixes double their training speed even more, thus also increasing their battle strength by twofold.

Suo Jia retrieved the Fire Phoenix equipment set from Duo Mei, and began to furiously research them. After studying it, Suo Jia finally understood exactly how formidable this Epic ranked equipment set was. It was clearly something that had gone extinct.

The most important part of an Epic ranked equipment set was its materials. For example, all parts of the Fire Phoenix equipment set were made from various parts of an actual Phoenix. Suo Jia didn’t dare try to imagine how these materials were obtained. Unless…Phoenixes really existed in this world?

After considering it for a bit, Suo Jia soon realized that…if even Black Dragons and Great Frost Wyrms existed, how could Phoenixes be rare? However, they seemed to be extinct now.

The Epic ranked equipment set had such powerful effects on training because the materials it was made from all originated from the world’s most powerful creatures. Thus, its effects on magic absorbance and gathering were naturally traits that other materials couldn’t compare to.

Aside from the materials, the Epic ranked equipment set had overlaying magic arrays that were pretty extreme. A single glance was enough to discern that the jewelry were all filled with decorative designs on their surfaces. And if one looked more closely, they’d see that each design combined to form spell arrays so detailed that Suo Jia really couldn’t figure out how they were carved. The veined lines were even thinner than a strand of hair.

In reality, it was all pretty simple. First was the materials, and second was the carvings and overlaying of arrays. These were Suo Jia’s two greatest problems.

Of course, the Epic ranked equipment set wasn’t actually that simple. How were the spell arrays supposed to be compatible with each other? How could he link them together so that they excited each other? These were the greatest questions, as complicated and difficult to understand as the circuitry of electronics. Suo Jia didn’t comprehend these at all. But fortunately, Suo Jia had the Fire Phoenix equipment set to copy off from, so he didn’t need to think too much about it.

The first thing to choose was the materials. Suo Jia knew well that if he wanted to make an equipment set like the Fire Phoenix set and use parts of the Fire Phoenix’s body, it was absolutely impossible. Where was he supposed to go capture 36 Phoenixes?

Besides, he needed to make a batch of copies, so those rare materials weren’t considered. But common materials weren’t really of any use, so exactly what was he supposed to do?

After flipping and searching through the books for many days, Suo Jia found the most suitable materials amidst the sea of books: 10,000 year old Paulownia wood. These were quite uncommon, and also fulfilled Suo Jia’s requirements. The Phoenix lived for very long periods of time, so the 10,000 year old Paulownia wood carried the ambience and the unique traits of the Phoenix. At the very least, it could substitute half a Phoenix!

Suo Jia knew that only one 10,000 year old Paulownia wood existed, and there was no need to go search for it. Actually, it was within Suo Jia’s interspatial ring as one of the hidden, precious materials from the Atomic Alchemy Labs.

Of course, just the Paulownia wood wasn’t enough at all. He also had to fit it with rubies and topaz to actually bring out its use. Fortunately…although these two gemstones were extremely expensive, they weren’t uncommon. As long as one had the money, anyone would be able to purchase them. Most importantly, as common materials, the Atomic Alchemy Labs still had some in its storage.

During the following days, Suo Jia began to concentrate entirely on copying the Fire Phoenix equipment set. He used the 10,000 year old Paulownia as the foundation, and embedded rubies and topaz on it. He also carved out spell arrays on the gemstones and the wood. With that, everything had finished. Reproducing something was never too hard, the difficulty laid in reproducing it well.

Copying didn’t require any further research, nor did he have to comprehend it. Just doing it without understanding was enough. Although he didn’t understand the principles behind it, he could successfully create it. The issue was the differences in abilities.

A month later, Suo Jia handed the 35 Fire Phoenix equipment set replicas to the Angelic Six-Winged Phoenixes. After many tests, they discovered that these replicas had about 60% of the Fire Phoenix completely linked equipment sets’ effects, and could double their training speeds and battle strength! The most shocking part was that even the unique traits and battle skills that the Fire Phoenix equipment set contained were all present; they were just barely amplified, and they couldn’t compare to the real Fire Phoenix equipment sets.