After being lightly rapped on his head three times by Yvette, Dugrabi felt a bit anxious and quickly said, “Teacher, please don’t be upset! I’m making a decision right now… I want to learn… I want to learn… I want to learn ready-made spells! The kind I can use directly in battle! I don’t need to study runes and all that—it’s too academic and not suited for me…”

You just want to fish without wanting the fishing rod, huh? Yvette thought, but considering Dugrabi’s performance over the past year, it did align well with his usual style.

However, without magical devices, the spellcasting environment on the Glimmering Continent dictated that spells needed to be kept quite small. Even if she wanted to provide Dugrabi with ready-made spells, she would have to spend time redesigning them.

After giving it some thought, she suddenly found the task somewhat interesting.

It was akin to an author, used to writing a million-word novel, deciding to write a ten-thousand-word short story instead.

…

That evening, she turned on the lights in the trailer and spread some paper on the table. With a feather quill in hand, she dipped it in ink and began simple design drafts.

Having not engaged in such activities for a long time, she couldn’t help but recall events from five centuries ago.

Back then, while studying rune compilation beneath the Abyss Base, she often reveled in her clever little designs, thinking she was a genius compiler. However, during her third entry into the dream world, she attended Agashe University as an auditor, only to realize that her supposedly genius little designs were merely the foundational knowledge that all university students had to master.

It felt like being an illiterate who stumbled upon gravity in a small village only to discover that this knowledge was common in the big city, bringing on a sense of shame.

Now, her attitude toward ultra-small specifications of spells with fewer than 500 runes was entirely different.

On the one hand, her accumulated experience meant she had many ideas worth testing for these incredibly small spell designs. On the other hand, this experience was refreshingly simple and brought new insights.

Nevertheless, she did not believe that designing these small spells was merely for the purpose of teaching a student.

She was quite certain that her future self would also utilize these spells.

After all, she was a long-lived being, and magical terminals were highly advanced and precise devices; the best quality would still develop faults over a century or even a millennium.

For instance, her old terminal, the Black Tower S3, had accumulated numerous hard disk errors over 200 years, with issues in rune caching. During her last entry into the dream world, she specifically swapped it out for a new one, but later confiscated a new ring, which is what she ended up using.

In a few decades or centuries, that ring might also develop problems, and with no stable way to enter dreams, where could she find after-sales service?

Wouldn’t she just have to rely on the small-spell systems that the mages on the Glimmering Continent used?

…

Thus, with the intent of ensuring her future security, in the following month, a grand plan gradually took shape in Yvette’s mind.

Unlike the ordinary inexperienced rune compilers, standing at an advanced level, she always looked far into the future. If asked to design a small spell, she wouldn’t merely consider that one spell.

Instead, she envisioned a series of small spells working together.

In gaming terminology, she hoped that these spells could interact with one another, forming combinations—what could be referred to as a “combo”—that would later evolve into a “system” or “school.”

Should her idea succeed, utilizing the synergistic effects constructed between these small spells, a complete system executed in sequence would present the effect of assembling a puzzle.

The final flourish would surely unleash unimaginably great power.

With this thought in mind, she wrote a few words on the paper—

Water, Fire, Wind, Earth, Thunder.

These were her most proficient elements of magic and the five developmental directions easiest for students to grasp within the courses of the Origin Civilization. The corresponding runes and the effects between them were already relatively clear and reliable.

If she were to weave a magical lexicon, this would certainly begin with these five.

Next, she thought and wrote down five more words below—

Life. Soul. Nature. Force Field. Light and Shadow.

These did not fall under the elemental classification but represented legitimate categories from the rune compilation realm of the Origin Civilization, coming to be through mutual acknowledgment.

In simple terms, these conceptions represented “concepts” within magical engineering.

Any technology aligned with these concepts could fall into these five categories.

Additionally, compared to the five elemental magics, these five concept magic categories were much more advanced, greater in difficulty, and particularly scarce in learning resources. In fact, many rune compilers might never touch upon these five fields in their lifetimes.

Let’s discuss “Life Magic” first.

This was a rune concept that could only be accessed at a very few top-tier universities, with more than 70% of those institutions being associated with Black Tower Medicine or Lin’Te Transformation Biology.

Years ago, if Yvette hadn’t started at the Abyss Base, falling into a variant apprenticeship at Black Tower Medicine, she would never have had the capability to develop spells like “Muscle Limitation” and “Regeneration Pump.” Both of these were closely related to life magic, utilizing runes that were rare specialty runes addressing cutting-edge recognition in rune studies of the Origin Civilization.

Next came “Nature Magic.”

This concept was closely tied to plants and agriculture, and while many universities offered courses on it, they were quite superficial. The truly valuable content that dove into higher-level domains and military applications resided entirely within the universities in the Emerald Continent, all affiliated with Lin’Te Company.

The subsequent area was “Soul Magic.”

This field had two branches: “Undead” and “Mind,” which both used soul runes as their foundation but diverged significantly.

The largest difference probably being the former was illegal; any learning of it or research undertaken could lead to imprisonment if discovered. The latter, however, was a legitimate aspect of mental medicine known as “Mind Magic.” Many prestigious medical universities offered this teaching; in fact, Yvette knew a little about it herself—she had learned it at the Abyss Base over two centuries ago, which had facilitated her first communication with Rosalyn.

Next was “Force Field Magic.”

This was purely a military technology, and Yvette could create “Crimson Armor” based on it, which she had pieced together from recovered military equipment bit by bit. To her knowledge, this technology primarily served three main applications: anti-gravity engines, magical barriers, and pulse spells. Each related to high-end military domains and was exceedingly difficult to access.

Finally, there was “Light and Shadow Magic.” Follow current novels on N()velFire.net

This primarily manifested in the transformation of light and shadow, encompassing the core of technologies related to holographic particles and projection technologies, even down to printing technologies.

Though it sounded ordinary, it was divided into surface and deep realms.

The surface-level light and shadow magic was just commercial technology focused on lighting, decoration, projection, and visualization, which Yvette had a rudimentary understanding of.

The deep-level magic involved high-end civilian and military applications, including holographic camouflage, chip etching, and network transmission.

Just like force field magic, even if she entered dreams again, it would be challenging to learn, as very few universities offered courses on such knowledge, and each strictly forbade outsiders from auditing, regardless of how much money one was willing to spend.

It remained unknown whether the survival of civilizations had any profound techniques related to “Force Field Magic” and “Light and Shadow Magic.”

If there were, she would certainly want to join.

…

Thus, having mapped out her future learning goals and plans for her journeys into dreams, Yvette returned to the draft paper.

Life, Soul, Nature, Force Field, Light and Shadow. These five concept magics, either she didn’t fully grasp or only understood superficially, could not be exclusively designed into a single school. She could only extract parts of them to fuse into the elemental magic disciplines.

For her first school, she planned to start with the Fire element.

She tentatively named it “Tome of Fire Magic”!

Once completed, she would call Dugrabi over to copy it.

As for how the black dragon, lacking hands, would manage to transcribe it with only his claws… well, that wasn’t something she had to concern herself with.

…

Throughout the days spent developing the “Tome of Fire Magic,” peaceful life continued for the next two years.

Due to sacrificing a significant amount of time usually spent reading random books, daydreaming, or taking naps, coupled with the need to maintain her daily meditation practice, her life was no longer as relaxed as it had once been; it seemed slightly more laborious now.

Yet the frequency of disturbances from the Spider Woman hadn’t decreased at all; in fact, it had only increased.

Moreover, it became evident that the Spider Woman was enduring more trouble due to the increasing use of fire magic during her skirmishes. By the second year, she was nearly perpetually engulfed in flames during their encounters.

Interestingly, the Spider Woman’s mood had improved greatly; she even felt a sense of secret delight.

She sensed that the mysterious silver-haired girl, now obsessed with fire magic, had lost some of her original terrifying combat prowess. It was as if she had wandered off onto a crooked path, her abilities diminishing.

In contrast, the Spider Woman was receiving regular “nutrition” rewards from the lord each month, which allowed her to enhance her own strength, gradually turning around her previous disadvantage to be able to contend with the silver-haired girl on almost equal footing—and even slightly gain the upper hand.

It seemed that the days of vengeance were drawing near!