Darkness.
Boundless.
Time passed unknown.
\
In meditation, Richard's consciousness gradually awakened.
Opening his mind's eyes, he found himself amidst a vast sea of stars, radiant in every direction.
Having studied "Loren's Human Skin Notes" for days and entering this meditative state not for the first time, Richard quickly realized that the stellar bodies around him were mere manifestations of roaming elemental energies.
Red, ochre, black, cyan... Various types of elemental energies...
Observing these star-like energies, Richard keenly felt a difference in this meditation compared to previous ones—not completely isolated from external existence but vaguely aware of his bodily state.
This sensation was peculiar, akin to lying in bed while distinctly sensing another person's body next to him, realizing it's his own.
Richard pondered.
It seemed his efforts following the discharge of the Leyden jar, as recorded in the notes, were not in vain.
His body was now truly in an "activated state" capable of "opening a source of magic."
So, becoming a wizard, overcoming the second challenge of casting spells, seemed somewhat accomplished.
Of course, premature joy was out of place.
Truly conquering this challenge required successfully opening the "magic source."
Richard contemplated, recalling the records in the "Human Skin Notes" related to the "magic source."
According to the notes, the magic source is a special structure within the body that stores roaming external elemental energies.
Only by successfully opening the magic source during meditation can one store energy and prepare to cast spells.
Opening the magic source is no easy task, requiring the mobilization of all mental strength to construct it.
There are two specific methods:
The first is the wiping method, which involves imagining a large brush within the body, mobilizing all mental strength to move this brush.
The goal is to repeatedly wipe a part of the body, eventually forming a cocoon-shaped or irregular magic source.
The second is the construction method, which requires imagining various building materials within different parts of the body.
And then, mobilizing all mental strength, one constructs these materials in fixed positions, gradually forming a structured building to open a regular-shaped magic source.
Overall, constructing a magic source is arduous, time-consuming, and requires continuous effort to succeed.
Moreover, the larger the magic source, the more difficult and time-consuming it becomes, but the corresponding reserve of elemental energies (the capacity) will increase.
Once opened, the magic source exhibits semi-physical properties—no volume, no mass, but with high-energy manifestations.
While immune to physical damage, it can be damaged by energy, thereby harming the body.
Therefore, it's preferable to avoid opening the magic source near vital organs such as the heart and brain.
After digesting these memories, Richard gradually acted.
He decided to use the construction method to open his first magic source.
First, he determined the location for the magic source, then imagined the so-called building materials throughout his body, and finally mobilized all mental strength to construct it.
Piece by piece.
Soon, Richard discovered that this method simply solidified mental strength through imagined building materials.
The essence of opening a magic source was indeed mobilizing the entire body's mental strength to solidify into form.
Understanding this, Richard skipped the step of imagining building materials throughout his body and straightforwardly shaped his mental strength into blocks and stones, constructing them in the selected location.
Time passed slowly.
Opening a magic source clearly was a lengthy process, not something to be completed in a day or even several days.
For the following long period, Richard devoted much time to this endeavor, living a reclusive life, seldom even entering the laboratory.
This left Lucy, the maid responsible for maintaining the laboratory, both surprised and somewhat resentful.
\
Blinking, the entire summer slipped away, and autumn arrived when the grass and trees in the wilderness turned yellow.
Cool winds blew from the north, clearing the skies of clouds and making the entire sky as clear as a sapphire.
On such a day, Richard finally completed the opening of the magic source.
After countless days and nights of effort, a regular cuboid magic source officially formed slightly left of his chest.
If visible to the naked eye, this magic source would resemble a miniature pyramid from any angle, exquisitely crafted.
However, Richard's choice of this shape was not merely for aesthetics but primarily to reduce workload and difficulty.
Otherwise, constructing a cubic or spherical magic source might have taken several more months to complete.
With the magic source constructed, having successfully overcome two of the three challenges to becoming a wizard, Richard did not pause.
Instead, he immediately immersed himself in tackling the third challenge—melting elemental energies.
This was the third and final challenge.
During the long process of opening the magic source, Richard had developed a highly mature and precise conjecture about how to tackle this challenge.
The method was quite simple: magnetic fields.
The third challenge involved melting stored elemental energies within the magic source to purify them into pure elemental energies for spellcasting.
This process required a state of activation similar yet not identical to that during the opening of the magic source.
Richard thought of magnetic fields.
Electricity could easily flow throughout the body, whereas magnetic fields could effortlessly envelop the entire body.
Moreover, magnetic fields had numerous applications: influencing compass needles, affecting various objects.
Richard remembered that in modern Earth science research on controlled nuclear fusion, there were ideas about using magnetic fields to control high-energy particles.
In a sense, elemental energies could be considered a type of high-energy particle, one not yet discovered on modern Earth.
Utilizing magnetic fields could easily influence them, prompting some form of transformation, hence the so-called melting.
Melting!
Once this approach was established, the rest became much simpler.
After all, magnetic energy generates electricity, and electricity can generate magnetism. Solving either could easily solve the other.
Therefore, after resolving the issue of electricity, Richard easily tackled the magnetic field problem.
The melting process officially began!