The Synthesis Wizard

New puppets!

The group was intrigued by the mention of new puppets. Flaming, unable to contain his curiosity, was the first to step forward and open the cabin door.

With a hiss, the metal door slid open, revealing the interior of the cabin.

Inside the spacious hall stood a formation of giant puppets, arranged in neat rows, exuding a rhythmic beauty.

These puppets resembled metallic octopuses, their bulky bodies surrounded by a dozen long, coiling tentacles, each ending in a sharp, blade-like tip that gleamed with a chilling, cold light.

"Octopus-shaped puppets, huh."

Sheman had a sense of realization that was both unexpected and logical.

The Rainbow Sea was home to octopus-like sea monsters, making this shape ideal for underwater operations.

Moreover, the tentacles seemed to promise formidable offensive capabilities.

The octopus form was indeed one of the optimal shapes for combining underwater mobility with attack potential.

"There are five hundred octopus puppets here, each with the power of a first-ring legendary creature. Additionally, there are ten elite octopus puppets with the power of a second-ring legendary."

"The other two Class 2 magic ships have the same number of puppets."

In total, there were fifteen hundred octopus puppets and thirty elite octopus puppets.

Sheman nodded in approval.

For the current stage, this number should suffice.

Once the three artificial islands were completed, they could construct golem factories there and relocate the octopus puppet production line to the islands, enabling mass production of puppets and resolving manpower shortages.

"Since the reinforcements have arrived, there's no time to lose. Let's set out for the artificial islands today."

In the wizard tower's plantation.

Sunan carefully used Mage Hand to manipulate a special liquid made of rare metals and gems, drawing the final line of a pattern on the ground.

As the lines connected to form a closed loop, the entire magic array flashed with a silver brilliance, emanating an indescribable and mysterious aura.

"Done!"

Sunan exhaled a long breath, a smile crossing his face.

The plantation's magic array was complete; all that remained was to plant the magical flora.

In terms of growth environment, the higher energy particle concentration and the presence of the magic array made the wizard tower's plantation superior to Dragon Forest's Zone 2.

The latter's only advantage was its size.

"Rare magical plants can be moved to the plantation, while those of lesser value can remain in Dragon Forest's Zone 2."

Sunan turned and waved to Tia, who was wandering nearby.

"Tia."

Hearing Sunan's call, the elegant and beautiful fairy queen happily flew over.

"Sunan, have you finished your work?"

"Yes, the magic array is set up. Once the magical plants are transplanted, it will be ready."

Sunan gently stroked Tia's delicate face with his fingertip, the girl showing an expression of enjoyment.

"Tia, I'll need you to summon more of your kin."

"No problem," Tia agreed cheerfully. "Many of my kin are eager to come here."

Most fairies dream of managing their own garden, and the plantation perfectly fulfills that desire.

Coupled with Sunan's generosity and ample rewards, the fairies lived happily here, making their kin back home quite envious.

After playing with Tia for a while, Sunan left the plantation and returned to the control center.

"Unit 1, scan the current status of the wizard tower."

[Command received, beginning scan.]

[Scanning... Scan complete.]

A three-dimensional panoramic model instantly appeared before him.

[Wizard Tower: Starlight]

[Level: Small (Construction Progress 37.22%)]

[Current Remaining Energy: 93.82%]

[Intelligent Assistant Life: Tower Spirit Unit 1]

[Facilities: Elemental Pool (Small/Enhanced), Central Crystal Energy Transmission System, Living Area, Storage Area (Construction Progress 76.22%), Experimental Area, Practice Area (Construction Progress 46.91%), Meditation Area, Plantation]

[Servants: Clay Golem ×130]

[Defensive Apparatus: Maze-lock Protective Energy Field (Small)]

[Combat Apparatus: None]

"Progress is quite smooth," Sunan noted with satisfaction.

The maze-lock protective energy field was complete, and he could consider creating more for synthesis.

The Elemental Pool was also at Enhanced +1 and could be further synthesized.

Spatial planning was only half complete, with many areas still needing refinement.

Notably, Sunan had recently created a spell turret.

The first batch served as practice and was equipped on the magic ships.

Future productions would be synthesized before being equipped on the wizard tower.

"Given the current state of the Starlight Continent, there's no way to gather resources for plasma cannons and pulse cannons. Even if they were built, a small Elemental Pool couldn't handle their energy consumption."

Sunan shook his head.

Pulse cannons aside, even the less demanding plasma cannons were major energy consumers.

He estimated that even an Elemental Pool at Enhanced +1 could only fire two plasma cannon shots.

For a small wizard tower, plasma cannons and pulse cannons were too high-level, suitable only for medium and large towers.

The best a small wizard tower could manage was a disintegration cannon.

However, while they couldn't equip plasma or pulse cannons, synthesizing and enhancing the power of the spell turret and disintegration cannon was feasible.

While increased firepower also meant a spike in energy consumption, enhancing the Elemental Pool could address that.

After multiple experiments and firepower tests, Sunan decided to synthesize five spell turrets.

The synthesized spell turret had over seven times the power of the original, nearing eight times.

Sunan had the puppet girl assist with testing, and a single shot severely damaged her.

Without the magic core absorbing much of the blast, she might have ended up a heap of scrap metal.

"This power is nearing that of a disintegration cannon!"

Sunan marveled.

Even a first-level gaseous wizard would face severe injury or death after a few hits from the spell turret.

However, the increased power came at the cost of energy consumption rising to four times the original.

Sunan estimated that only by enhancing the Elemental Pool to near-medium standards could it sustain using the spell turret as a regular weapon.

Fortunately, that was his plan, which was why he limited synthesis to five units.

Further enhancement would boost the spell turret's power but diminish its utility as a regular weapon.

For high-end weaponry, he intended to enhance the disintegration cannon.

"Since this is a new version, let's call it Spell Turret II."

Sunan planned to equip the wizard tower with a hundred Spell Turret IIs, adding more as needed.

This alone would cost over fifteen million gold coins.

But the benefits were clear: the Starlight Wizard Tower's firepower would far exceed most small wizard towers.

If equipped with synthesized and enhanced disintegration cannons, its firepower might rival medium towers.

"Once the spell turrets are done, I'll focus on the disintegration cannon."

"And the golem legion; the issue of high-grade puppets remains unresolved."

Currently, the high-grade puppet designs Sunan possessed were for adamantine golems and secret puppets.

The former could be enhanced to third-ring legendary status, serving as the main force for the wizard tower's golem legion, with no concerns about sourcing magical adamantine.

The issue lay with the latter.

Typically, small wizard towers are equipped with high-grade puppets at the formal wizard level as the final combat line.

In other words, these puppets need at least first-level gaseous wizard combat capability.

The secret puppet girl certainly fit this requirement.

But the problem was the cost.

A single secret puppet cost a whopping 480,000 gold coins, and equipping a hundred would approach fifty million.

Even if Sunan was willing to spend that much, the materials weren't available.

Secret puppet creation required large amounts of mithril, and the Star Alliance's current mithril production was tied up in tower construction. For the next century, there wouldn't be enough for mass-producing secret puppets.

He could wait a century after the tower's completion to accumulate the needed mithril.

But given mithril's broad applications, using it for mass-producing secret puppets seemed wasteful.

Obtaining designs for wizard-level puppets for manual creation would be ideal.

As for materials, he could synthesize or research alternatives, with soul crystals being a non-issue.

"There are a lot of problems to solve," Sunan rubbed his forehead.

Building a wizard tower in an elemental desert under planar lockdown was indeed a daunting task.

But considering the benefits post-completion, these issues were minor.

Leaving the control center, Sunan returned to his study.

Having been engrossed in tower construction for months, he hadn't reviewed recent reports—there seemed to be no major issues with the Star Alliance and the Starlight Empire. However, he was curious about the situation in the Rainbow Sea.

Upon returning to his study, Sunan suddenly sensed a powerful energy wave emanating.

"That direction... it's Starlight Academy!"

Sunan vanished from his spot, reappearing over Starlight Academy.

The students, with their lower power levels, hadn't sensed the energy wave, and the academy remained peaceful as usual.

Soon, the Scepter, Rose, and other mentors, including Facado, joined Sunan.

Since the introductions by the Scepter and Rose, Starlight Academy had recruited three more third-level wizard apprentices as mentors.

With Sheman and Corey accepting mentor positions, the academy now boasted double-digit mentor numbers, alleviating pressure significantly.

"It must be the Traveler," the Scepter said. "He's been in seclusion for years; it's about time he emerged."

Rose added, "Looks like his semi-elemental transformation succeeded."

Sure enough, a figure soon shot into the sky, rapidly approaching them.

It was the long-unseen Traveler.

Compared to before his seclusion, the Traveler's aura was calmer, yet subtly vibrant, like a thriving forest.

As he hovered in mid-air, he seemed to blend into the very world around him.

Signs of successful semi-elementalization.

And from his aura, it was clear he had chosen the wood element.

"Congratulations," Sunan smiled, offering his congratulations.

The others quickly followed suit, extending their felicitations.

The Traveler, beaming, graciously thanked them all.

After a brief exchange, Facado and the others excused themselves, leaving Sunan, Rose, and the Scepter, who were more familiar with the Traveler, to stay.

"How does it feel?" Rose asked, her eyes bright with curiosity.

She intended to pursue semi-elementalization next, and the Traveler's experience could offer valuable insights.

The Traveler, candidly, shared, "It's quite good. My sensitivity and control over plant-based energy particles have noticeably improved. As for the exact lifespan extension, I'm not sure yet, but it's definitely around 40 to 50 years."

Among various semi-elementalization paths, the wood element, due to its nature, offered the greatest lifespan increase.

The choice of semi-elementalization needed to align with one's constitution; mismatched selections had high failure rates. Otherwise, most wizard apprentices might opt for the wood element.

The Traveler was fortunate, his constitution aligning with the wood element.

"However, after semi-elementalization, I vaguely sense a sort of restriction, as if advancing further would touch some boundary," the Traveler said, frowning.

"That's the limitation of the Starlight Continent's environment."

Sunan explained the energy particle concentration limit.

Upon hearing this, the Traveler and the others realized the truth.

"No wonder the wizards left a thousand years ago; staying here indeed feels stifling."

"Not only that, but practicing wizardry here is doubly challenging."

Rose couldn't help but glance at Sunan.

She couldn't discern his power level and had no idea what heights he had reached.

Sunan always seemed enigmatic and unpredictable to her.

Perhaps Sunan had a way to overcome the harsh environment of the Starlight Continent.

After a bit more conversation, Sunan returned to the wizard tower.

With the Traveler's successful semi-elementalization, Rose seemed eager to begin her own transformation.

She'd likely choose the wood element as well.

For wizard apprentices, semi-elementalization had minimal impact compared to Elemental Knights.

After all, wizard apprentices' meditation and absorption weren't restricted by energy particle types.

In contrast, Elemental Knights could only absorb specific energy types to enhance their power, making them more reliant on energy particle concentration limits and more susceptible to the Starlight Continent's ceiling.

This was why Sunan advised Kyi to choose the Bloodline Knight path.

Back in his study, Sunan began reviewing reports.

The Starlight Empire's reports focused on reform implementation progress.

The lack of magic stone veins led Sunan to reject the idea of promoting magic energy technology. However, he later conceived the idea of propagating sub-magic energy technology using secondary magic stones as the energy source.

Magic stones could only be synthesized by Sunan, but secondary magic stones could be produced by second and third-level wizard apprentices.

While the quantity wasn't enough for the entire continent, localized supply was feasible.

He had passed the magic energy technology designs to Starlight Academy, asking them to develop corresponding sub-magic energy technology based on them.

Due to downward compatibility, the research progressed quickly.

Three months ago, a magic engine powered by secondary magic stones was born.

The magic engine was akin to an internal combustion engine but with higher energy efficiency, applicable in various production fields.

However, due to the limited number of secondary magic stones, the magic engine was only promoted within the imperial capital circle.

Nonetheless, it was a promising start.

As Starlight Academy's wizard apprentice numbers grew, secondary magic stone production would increase annually, enabling the gradual spread of sub-magic energy technology, expanding its applications, and spawning more sub-magic energy products.