James is still in his lab, research has reached a bottleneck, and there is no hope of a breakthrough.

The academy didn't hold him back in funding, and his problem wasn't in funding, he lacked assistants and research subjects.

As Eliot said, the old batch of apprentices who had the same problems as him unfortunately died, the survivors did not look favorably on him, and the new apprentices did not meet his requirements, with the exception of Adam.

"But a genius of that caliber wouldn't be interested in my research. James thought with a sigh.

He walked in his black laboratory, stopping under the optical projection from time to time, looking at the runes that were not completed or untested after completion.

"I'm over 70 years old. ”

Life span is the sword of Damocles pressing on his head, his talent can be said to be low, the total amount of spiritual power is scarce, these decades because of the continuous experimentation of new runes, his spiritual power has not even been structured according to a set of systematic meditation methods, from this level, he is wasting time.

"Huh. ”

James sat down against the wall and sighed heavily, but he didn't expect the access to the laboratory to suddenly light up at this time: "Apprentice Adam asked to enter." ”

James's eyes suddenly lit up with an astonishing light, and he jumped up from the ground and rushed outside to open the door to the laboratory.

Adam went to James's lab from memory and swiped his identification, he wasn't sure if James was in the lab, but he didn't have a better way to find him and try his luck here.

Bang.

The door to the lab was rudely opened, and James stared at Adam with wide eyes, and asked eagerly, "You agreed to be my assistant, did you?"

Adam took a step back and said, "If the pay satisfies me, yes." ”

James grabbed Adam and dragged him into the lab, saying, "Wait for me!" and rushed inside, and after a while took out a paper contract and handed it to Adam.

Adam looked down and saw that the contract was written on the responsibilities of both parties, precautions, and confidentiality agreements, which were very strict and there were no loopholes, except for the blank on the remuneration.

James said very angrily: "The laboratory has a monthly fund of 2,000 units of energy stones, I need 800 energy stones to maintain daily consumption, and the rest is yours!"

In other words, Adam can get a maximum of 1,200 power stones per month, which is undoubtedly a huge amount of money, much more generous than the reward of less than one unit per day for new apprentices in the mission hall.

However, James immediately changed his tone and said with some embarrassment: "It's just that we need to make a little bit of work in a maximum of three months, otherwise we will be cut." The approval department has lost patience with my experimental project, and three months is the deadline they have given me. ”

Adam nodded, three months meant he would be paid at least three times, and he asked James, "Mr. James, what does a little result mean?"

James replied, "A complete and valuable set of meditation methods that can be carried out among apprentices." James immediately added, "Actually, there are complete results in the lab, but no one can verify it, after all, it is not easy for me to build a rune set. ”

Adam is confident in this, and this kind of project that requires massive computation to prove is exactly what he is good at, and building rune groups only takes up a few more threads.

Adam said to James: "If the study is successful, I can no longer credit the results, but I need to have free access." ”

James nodded busily: "Of course, no problem at all." ”

After Adam got his consent, he wrote this clause into the contract, and then wrote the amount of 1,000 units per month in the remuneration column, and then handed the contract to James, who didn't care about the amount of Adam's reward, accepted the contract with a face full of ecstasy, and then couldn't wait to pull Adam into the black room.

After some manipulation, he said to Adam, "From now on you have free access to the lab, but you can't take the materials out of the lab. ”

......

Half a month passed quickly, during which Adam almost completely disappeared from everyone's sight, only going back and forth between the dormitory and the laboratory every day, and even eating a meal a day in the laboratory.

James is undoubtedly a good person, although Adam is only an assistant and an experiment, he still takes great care of Adam, and in the past half a month, he did not ask Adam to build those unverified unstable runes, but fully guided Adam to build the basic meditation method, according to his words: " This foundational meditation method, created by the True Spirit Archmage of Prometheus, has a stability that far surpasses all variants, and this stability is manifested at this stage in the form of providing protection for the soul of the apprentice from dying due to the repeated shattering of the spiritual power, no matter how much the apprentice tries to experiment with new methods. ”

This is a great help to Adam, compared to doing it alone, James, who has more experience in this regard, has made him take many detours, in less than half a month, the basic meditation method has been preliminarily completed, Adam can feel that his fragile soul is covered with a layer of armor, and the amount of ether that can be neutralized is more.

James was very satisfied, Adam's talent was once again beyond his expectations, knowing that in order to complete the meditation method initially, at least a thousand pieces of armor were needed, and an average apprentice, such as him, could only build three or five pieces a day.

James didn't know that this was not just a gap in the total amount of mental power, but also a gap in computing power. For an ordinary person, only one rune can be built at a time, but Adam has the talent of multitasking, multiple threads work on tasks at the same time to build a single rune, and then only need to combine the threads together.

Half a month later, James determined that Adam could withstand the negative state caused by the shattering of the runes in the spiritual power, he turned on an optical projector and said to Adam: "Now, you try to construct this set of runes, and let it replace the mage's armor, be careful not to force it, if you feel the conflict of mental power or soul fluctuations, stop immediately." ”

Adam set his sights on this new set of runes, which was still composed of nine runes, but the structure of each one was more complex than before, but this complexity did not show harmony, and Adam felt that there was no need to experiment, this set of runes must be a failure.

But empirical evidence cannot rely on feelings, and only by experimenting can we find the problem, so Adam did not hesitate to start building.

James said nervously on the side: "Compared to the initial Mage Armor, this set has added a strengthening of the mental power characteristics on the basis, and if it is successful, the Mage Armor will become aggressive." ”

"Step by step, little by little, the original armor is removed...... Oh my God, what are you doing!"

James was horrified to find that Adam's initial condensed spiritual power collapsed in an instant, and the escaping energy seemed to blow a gust of wind in the laboratory, blowing all the papers into the air!

James didn't have time to take care of the messy laboratory, he felt remorseful in his heart, Adam's calmness confused him, he thought that Adam would slowly figure it out, but now the situation is clearly that Adam shattered the mage's armor at one time, which will cause great mental damage.

He ran towards the door in a panic, wanting to apply for treatment, Adam was already his last hope, and there must be no problem!

At this moment, Adam's casual voice sounded: "As far as a single rune is concerned, it has a higher complexity than the original version, but the rune connections are rough, and there are redundant structures, and they cannot be ......self-consistent after combination."

James's running figure froze, his body did not move, his head turned to Adam a little bit, and he said stiffly: "You, are you okay?"

Adam said calmly, "Don't worry, it's not difficult for me. And this kind of experiment is too inefficient, I can probably do it at the same time......" Adam thought about how to divide the computing power and mental power to get the optimal solution, and then said: "Construct four different meditation methods at the same time. ”

"Four, four, different, untouched meditation method construction?"

"Well, that's right, it's mainly because I'm not familiar with the new runes, otherwise I could have done it faster. Adam confirmed.

James looked at Adam in amazement: "Is this multitasking?" James has reason to marvel, multitasking is a kind of talent, and it is not automatically obtained because of the total amount of mental power or the increase of the mage's level, the first two situations can only make the mage think about one thing faster.

"Yes. Adam said.

This kind of monster is really enviable, and it would be nice if the person with this talent was me. James thought to himself.

Adam has been building rune groups as he speaks, and the problems that come out of a single combination don't necessarily apply to the whole, and it's possible that the problem will be solved automatically when put into the whole.

James silently put the three optical projectors next to Adam again, looking at the serious Adam, he felt unprecedented hope, "Maybe this time it can really succeed!"

......

The experiment was boring, the empirical evidence was a blow to confidence and belief again and again, and in the blink of an eye, two months flew by, Adam and James were crazy, the two did not return to their residence during this period, James had to teach once a week, and Adam became a complete otaku.

However, it is still not possible to attain even a kind of meditation that is harmonious and self-consistent, and universal.

With only ten days left before the three-month deadline, James looked a great deal of age, from his youthful appearance to gray hair at first sight.