The array that slipped from his fingertips and flew out like two interlocking circles, blazing golden, one side was the abstract lunar phase of the Numelin Elves intersecting, resembling a cracked dark smile; the other side was the Sun revered by Xinsas, radiating bristles.

This is the oldest meaning of alchemy, balance—the principle that everything in the world does not depart from it, the laws of matter and energy flow always adhere to this law—where there is increase, there is decrease. Thus, transmutation became the mainstream of alchemy, continuing from the Numelin Era to this day, using magic power to exchange for elements, and elements to exchange for magic power.

In Eteliria, elements are matter, and crystals are the medium.

The basic principle of equivalent exchange arises from this.

Humans cannot perceive the vastness of the Ether Sea, they close their eyes and cannot see the gentle flow of magic power underground, in the wind. Yet, as early as fifteen hundred years before the birth of Colin Ishurian, the Numelin Elves had already imprinted the Dragon's Mark into their bloodline.

Seven centuries further back in history, Xinsas also had a mature magic theory.

But at this moment, Cui Yu had an indescribable feeling. Through that interlocking array, he seemed to catch a glimpse of the pulse of the Ether Sea. A stream of magic was drawn from the void, coming from within the main crystal of the Magic Guided Reactor, rendered variegated due to the elemental impurities of the crystal itself.

But the moment it passed through the array, the variegated ether returned to its origin. Cui Yu also, at that moment, experienced the feeling the Numelin Elves had a thousand years prior.

An expansive world was slowly opening its doors to him.

But this does not mean he had thus become a magic species. The inspiration only lasted for a moment, retreating like the tide.

This momentary negligence almost caused him to miss the opportunity. When he came to his senses, he realized something was wrong and hurriedly raised his hand—the purified magic power became a dazzling starlight within the Artisan System.

It passed through each structural point, finally cooling and solidifying, after the transmutation between magic power and elements was complete, it emerged as stellar brilliance in material form. Of course, in the eyes of outsiders, it was nothing more than a cooling Skycyan Stone—the main core of the Swift Burst plugin.

Except for a few people.

Below the stage, Fang Hong let out a breath, a smile appearing on his face.

Dill also let out a slight sigh of relief.

Mulan noticed the unusual behavior of the two and curiously asked, "What secret do you three have?"

Dill shook his head, saying nothing.

Mulan then looked towards Fang Hong.

Fang Hong smiled and said, "I can't tell Miss Mulan, secrets lose their value once they're revealed."

"Tch, playing at mystery." By saying this, Mulan instead thought he was being deliberately mysterious.

Seeing that he had achieved his goal, Fang Hong also let out a breath.

Cui Yu put down the work in his hand, raised his head, and looked towards the judges, indicating that he had finished. He also glanced at Evan beside him, the latter still with his head down, seemingly immersed in his own world.

Cui Yu looked at Evan's intricate work and couldn't help but admire it. Such a craftsman, even if slightly less gifted, would certainly achieve extraordinary success in the end.

He looked again at his own hands, still finding the earlier feeling somewhat incredible.

He wondered if he counted as taking advantage of the situation?

But this was not a trial, it was a competition. Competitions are such by nature, and strategy is one of its elements; he had not violated any rules after all—no one could say there was anything wrong with sharpening the knives before a battle.

Moreover, the effect of sharpening the knives was something he still felt a bit uneasy about.

The square was noisy.

For most people, what is there to check? Without talking about anything else, just in terms of time used, Evan was already the clear winner—whether or not time was the main scoring point of this competition, taking more than twice the normal time seemed enough to indicate the skill level of the competitors.

What's more, from the appearance of Cui Yu's work, it didn't seem to have any advantage over Evan's.

But soon the crowd started to stir—

Coming up from the stage to check was not an ordinary review personnel, but an advanced craftsman in a gray coat; accompanied by several staff members, he walked over from the direction of the VIP stands and personally inspected the works of the two.

He first looked at Evan's work, nodded gently to him with a gentle gaze, and then set it down. Moving to Cui Yu, he looked at the plugin with some apprehension in his eyes and placed his hand on it.

He wore a peculiar glove, and there was a bulky looking ring-shaped copper base on his arm, on which a sphere surrounded by layers of copper rings floated, resembling an orrery. When he placed the glove on the plugin, the sphere began to glow faintly, and the rings outside started to rotate swiftly.

One, two, three, each orbit had different scales; the natives used a special method to calculate the precision and attribute values of the Magic Guided Conductor, soon the rotating orbits came to a stop.

Even Cui Yu recognized this instrument and at that moment read out the numbers displayed on it:

100.

He was stunned for a moment, nearly thinking he had seen it wrong.

The man frowned slightly, pressing his left hand on the copper base of his right hand's glove, turning it a quarter to the right, and once again placing his hand on the plugin. Repeating this three times, he finally obtained the final reading:

97.3

The staff member recording in the notebook scribbled something down, then leaned over and whispered: "Tier three, ninety-seven point three."

Only then did the man lift his head, gazing at him deeply, and spoke: "Which batch?"

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