"Nothing much, just wanted to say hello and ask you a few questions." Richard looked at the Witch Demon Elder, calmly saying.
"Asking questions? Hmph!" The Witch Demon Elder was very angry after hearing Richard’s words, "Now you need me! When you didn’t need me just now, you threw me into the iron box, my anger hasn’t dissipated yet."
Pausing for a moment, looking at Richard’s expression, the Witch Demon Elder became even more dissatisfied, almost jumping with anger, "What do you mean by that look on your face?"
"I just wanted to say that throwing you into the iron box was already three days ago." Richard said.
"Three days... ago, has it really been that long?" The Witch Demon Elder was slightly stunned for a moment, then continued to shout unaffected, "I don’t care! Anyway, you have to apologize to me! And you need to promise me to resurrect me unconditionally. Only then might I consider helping you."
"Are you sure?" Richard looked at the Witch Demon Elder and asked, seriously saying, "What I want to ask you about isn’t very difficult. I think, for you, it might be just a gesture. In comparison, your resurrection, even you can’t guarantee the success rate, there’s a huge gap between the two, right? This doesn’t meet the principle of equivalent exchange."
"No, in my eyes, it very much meets the principle of equivalent exchange." The Witch Demon Elder said loudly, "Only if you help me resurrect, will I help you, otherwise I won’t provide you with any knowledge. After all, I’m not stupid, what if you extract all my knowledge bit by bit and then abandon me, I’d be a big fool."
"So, you choose to let me abandon you now?" Richard said with interest.
"If you abandon me now, you won’t get knowledge anyway, as long as I’m not losing out." The Witch Demon Elder said, "So, think it over, when you’ve thought it over and decided to resurrect me, then call me. By the way, remember, next time don’t throw any bugs, just knock on the Life Box lightly a few times and I’ll sense it, after all, I’m no longer asleep, understand!"
Having thrown down such a statement, the Witch Demon Elder turned back into the Life Box, the black smoke quickly dissipating.
"It seems you didn’t even hear a word about what I wanted to ask." Richard said looking at the Life Box in his hand. He shook his head a bit helplessly, placing the Life Box to the side, his gaze turning to Ford’s corpse.
After a few glances, he turned his head to look at the Taboo Wizard Book—"Vaisya Secrets" placed on a nearby iron shelf.
"Alright, I’ll try it myself again." Richard said, stepping to the iron shelf, taking down "Vaisya Secrets," and began researching while flipping through it.
Previously, he had said that he wanted to analyze the soul was a bit difficult.
But it was only a bit difficult, not entirely impossible, his confidence lay in this wizard book "Vaisya Secrets."
Once upon a time, this was something that attracted nearly Level 4 Wizard experts, the knowledge recorded inside is truly astonishing. Not only are there attack spells like "Soul Worm" targeting souls, but there are also spells for analyzing soul memories, and more than one.
The reason he sought help from the Witch Demon Elder was mainly that researching the related spells in "Vaisya Secrets" required a lot of time and energy, and it might only be used this once, the cost-effectiveness was too low.
But now that the Witch Demon Elder proposed an almost impossible trade condition, indirectly refusing the trade, he could only choose the low-cost-effectiveness option.
Richard continuously flipped through "Vaisya Secrets," searching for a few spells he had quickly browsed before.
"Rustle, rustle... Hmm, found it." Richard spoke, flipping to several pages near the back of "Vaisya Secrets," seeing three spells for preliminary soul analysis written there:
The first, Soul Listening, can understand some matters of the soul in life through the method of hearing whispers. The advantage is extremely low difficulty, but the downside is... it can’t take effect in many situations.
In Richard’s view, this is more like delayed hearing of a will, better than nothing, pending.
The second, Soul Connection, allows the spellcaster to connect with the target soul, rapidly exchanging information, enabling one to obtain a large amount of information from the target soul in a short time.
The advantage is that it can significantly analyze the soul, understanding the soul’s memory, but the downside is it’s easily affected by the target soul’s memory. In most cases, the target soul’s memory will be treated as its own dream and forgotten after a period. In some cases, the target soul’s memory becomes part of its own memory. Excessive use can easily cause one’s spirit to collapse.
In Richard’s view, it’s like a double-edged sword, with very obvious advantages and disadvantages, so it’s best to choose cautiously.
The third, Soul Echo, the spellcaster releases special energy wave acting on the target’s soul, then feedback receives part of the information. This enables the spellcaster to roughly understand the target soul’s status, but it takes a bit long and has high environmental requirements.
Besides quietness, there shouldn’t be too many soul creatures around (including but not limited to humans), otherwise feedback will be affected, possibly even deviated.
The advantage is there’s no harm, the difficulty is low, easy to get started, but it also has significant limitations.
In Richard’s view, after comprehensive consideration, it might be the most suitable method. Although there are limitations, the environment of Eden can definitely meet it.
Then what are you hesitating for?
Richard lightly breathed out, and seriously began to study the spell "Soul Echo."
A minute, two minutes, three minutes...
An hour, two hours, three hours...
Richard was immersed in research, and in the blink of an eye, more than half a day had passed, even the exact time was temporarily indeterminate.
Richard sat at the desk in the laboratory, not knowing when the corpse on the table had been pushed off onto the floor, at this time the tabletop was covered with a large amount of papyrus, filled with dense numbers and formulas.
Richard continued writing for quite a while, finally stopping, looking at the numerical results on the last sheet of papyrus, taking a deep breath, muttering to himself, "Hmm, if there’s no issue, the mana operation for ’Soul Echo’ is ."
"Then let’s try it." Richard’s eyes fixed, extending his hands, he lifted the corpse from the ground, starting to recite the spells.
While chanting, he controlled the Magic Origin to release multiple strands of free energy elements, operating in order, until a specific state was reached, acting from the palms.
Finally, Richard pressed his hands towards the head of the corpse on the table.
But just halfway through the press, Richard’s body suddenly shuddered, and a repulsive force forcefully bounced his hands off, his body swaying several times before stabilizing.
Richard’s face turned slightly pale, it took a full three seconds to regain color, due to the unknown cause of the spell’s failure, he suffered a backlash.
The spells recorded in "Vaisya Secrets" are, after all, relatively taboo "evil magic," even the ones simpler to get started with, ordinary wizards need ten or more days, or even several months to proficiently master them.
Richard, through his own ability, greatly shortened this time with calculations, yet still found it difficult to succeed on the first try.
After all, he is still human, cannot completely transcend the limitations of rules.
Otherwise, he would have already incubated a nuclear weapon like hatching an egg to solve all troubles, why start from scratch stacking with raw materials step by step.
After being spell-backlashed, Richard’s face became more solemn, lowly saying to himself, "’Soul Echo’ failed to release? So, the calculated mana operation isn’t correct? Hmm, the backlash isn’t very serious, indicating it’s not completely wrong, it’s only partially wrong, which might be caused by negligence in some way. So what aspect could it be? Maybe I need to use a different method of mathematics to recalculate it.
As Richard spoke, he picked up the quill, recalculating on papyrus. After writing a few numbers, he found the corpse on the table was pressing the paper and quite bothersome, almost without a second thought, reached out and pushed it, with a "thud" the corpse fell to the ground, then "rolled" a few times.
Richard didn’t notice anything wrong, just a thought flashed in his mind: Hmm, finally not obstructing.
Then Richard immersed himself in the world of mathematics, continually writing.