From a certain standpoint, Harloys's teaching method was indeed quite effective. Not only did she teach me knowledge from books, but she also taught me practical and practical combat experience. This was basically cheating.
On the other hand, this method of learning was far too dangerous.
Apart from obvious physical characteristics, the difference between an individual and another individual would be their internal nature. And this so-called internal nature was nothing more than a person's memories and soul. Personality was the product of both memories and soul. Since memories could be transplanted, wouldn't personality be transplanted as well? And Harloys gave me a definite answer. She had previously mass-produced low-level mages who were exactly the same.
In that case, this was a philosophical question. When a person's memories were replaced by an outsider's memories, would that person be the original person or the outsider? Their physical body would be the original person, but their personality and memories would be someone else's.
"Am I me because my physical body is me? Is it because my soul is me? Is it because my memories are me? In that case, is it because my memories are me? In that case, if my physical body is cloned and my memories are poured into it, is it also me …?"
Cough, not only was such a question a tongue twister or a word game, there was no answer at all, so it was best not to take it too seriously. It was just that when someone else's memories were poured into one's mind, and the past events in the soul books were like your own personal experiences, it was quite easy for a person with a weak soul and ego to lose themselves. In the end, they would become vassals of memories and knowledge, becoming the physical body of the memories in the soul books.
Harloys didn't tell me what the consequences of mass-producing mages would be like. Just thinking about it would be like shooting yourself in the foot. She had personally harvested all these soul books. Once the souls that had lost themselves were revived, they would naturally seek out the "culprit" for revenge. Just thinking about having a bunch of mages who hated their very bones would make me shudder.
Even though Harloys had done her best to strip away all her daily memories and knowledge that had nothing to do with magic, the secrets of the soul and memories were still hidden in a dense fog. After reading several soul books in a row, I began to feel confused about my own existence, so I hurriedly shouted for her to stop.
My soul had already been cleansed by the River Styx, so there was no need to mention how strong I was. If even I had such a problem, any ordinary mage who tried to read these books would likely be directly brainwashed. If they read several books in a row, they would likely suffer from schizophrenia. However, seeing how Harloys casually flipped through these soul books without any side effects, it could only be said that everyone had their own strengths … I could faintly understand why Harloys was able to split herself into so many clones. She must have been schizophrenic from the very start.
"Even if you're split into countless pieces, every piece will still be Heloise. What a powerful sense of self … You're a natural Slime. If you plant one Heloise in spring, you'll be able to harvest a dozen in autumn … Damn it, don't bite me!"
The silly cat had been quite happy at first, but she accidentally said the last sentence, which caused a row of teeth marks to appear on her face.
However, I had another rather reliable inference. Perhaps the truth was that Harloys had gotten used to reading soul books, which would cause her self-awareness to become chaotic. That was why she had such a clear sense of self. Due to the River Styx's cleansing, I had ridiculously high resistance against mental magic. Meanwhile, Harloys was probably almost completely immune to mental magic.
As for me, even though I wasn't able to read soul books very quickly, my growth rate was still astonishing. During the day, I would hunt for ice magic to accumulate mana, and at night, I would eat one or two archmages' magical knowledge. My magic level would improve at an astonishing rate. It would be no exaggeration to say that I would be able to learn ten years in just one day.
It was a pity that there was still a gap between learning magical engineering knowledge that had been forced onto me and actually learning it. It would be no problem for me to learn it, but it would still take more time to improve it. What a joke.
The tremendous amount of new knowledge that I had obtained helped me to restart my research on my ice element Myth-ranked weapon design. Perhaps the reason why I hadn't made any progress before was because I didn't have enough accumulated knowledge. But, the real battle on the second day gave me the opportunity to train in actual combat. It had been many years since I had such a meaningful feeling. Being able to feel like I was growing stronger every day was far too precious to me and the other ancient artifacts.
I could faintly sense that the moment I broke through that final line, my future path would be limitless.
Although I hadn't completely reworked my Myth-ranked weapon design concept, it was only natural that it would be greatly improved as I became more and more skilled in theory. Also, my mastery of a tremendous number of magic spell formulas finally allowed me to break free from the habit of being a second-rate archmage who "accumulated mana and threw it". I was now able to do new things on the battlefield.
Meanwhile, the elemental war was only becoming more and more intense. The battlefield was just like a meat grinder. Every day, it would be possible to see ice elemental creatures and fire elemental creatures fighting against each other.
The Great Snow Mountain Magical Realm had also created an elemental node here. A tremendous amount of ice power was pouring out from it. On one side, there were mountains of ice and seas of snow, while on the other side, there were volcanoes and magma. Both sides were fighting ever more viciously, but no top-level elemental creatures had appeared on the battlefield yet. It seemed that it still wasn't the time for "high-level communication" yet.
Of course, from a certain standpoint, this was a good thing as well. At the very least, it would allow me, a hunter who was only at the edge of the battlefield, to obtain more benefits. I wouldn't need to get involved in the battles between Ice Elemental Lords. Even for the current me, that would be incredibly dangerous.
And so, the famous Ice Armor Harvester appeared at the edge of the battlefield.
As I stood there, icy winds invaded the entire battlefield. Large amounts of low-level fire elemental creatures were instantly extinguished before they could even get close to me … Although this seemed rather familiar, there was actually a foundational difference …
"Mom doesn't have to worry about my butt freezing to the toilet bowl anymore. I'm no Meow King, nor am I Kil 'jaeden …"
Actually, only now did I realize how foolish I had been. Not only had I experienced the Ice Throne incident, my previous ice armor created by "Coldest Ice" had also caused me to get frostbite time and time again. Actually, other ice mages also used ice as their defense, but they hadn't encountered such an indescribable problem. In the past, I had thought that they were just stubbornly resisting the cold, but it turned out that I had been skipping class or sleeping in class and hadn't heard the important part.
Maintaining an appropriate layer of water beneath my ice armor would not only create a natural insulation layer, it would also make my ice armor more agile. It could be said that water magic cultivation was incredibly important in order to be a good ice mage. Yet, I had only learned this today.
And so, I no longer needed to cultivate my own cold resistance. Previously, I had truly believed that everyone else would be able to resist the cold together … A mysterious sadness caused tears to well up in my eyes, but they instantly froze into ice crystals.
"… If someone like you can become a SemiGod ice mage, then the other ice mages should be crying."
Let's not talk about such trivial matters. At the very least, I was having a great time killing monsters here. Unfortunately, some people couldn't stand me being so idle, and new trouble had come looking for me.
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