Devising a method for Millie’s use was important. Alec wanted to help her. But there were two problems. He didn’t know her affinity, and he didn’t know where to begin. Not yet, at least.

That was why he set that aside for the moment and let it spin in the back of his mind while he focused on what he had in front of him.

He was going to figure out a way to prevent monsterification. To do that, he needed a better understanding of monsterification.

He knew what happened. But he did not yet know how or why it worked like it did.

But he could find out by studying the process up close. Fortunately, he had someone who was already a monster and who didn’t have a choice. Old George had resigned his free will the moment he willingly sold out the orphans in his neighborhood for material wealth.

Abusing Millie set his fate in stone.

Thanks to a glaring awareness of [Wrath], the Poem’s glassy clarity, and one part of his split mind constantly telling him to stay calm, he had managed to hold himself back from tearing Old George apart.

But his fingers itched.

So, after putting Millie to bed, Alec didn’t waste time. He went to Old George’s cell and put him on Mute. He did not want to hear Old George’s groaning and whining. But he unfortunately did need to see his reactions in case he was successful.

Alec then had one part of his mind continously use Mystic Scan while the other part pushed pure mana onto George’s hand.

Since monsterification happened spontaneously upon contact with Aether, Alec figured that he could increase the odds of that happening by massively increasing the contact between Old George and Aether, even if it was Aether in a refined form. By concentrating it on his hand, he could also see if there was a way to control the transformation or limit it somehow.

He was just curious about what would happen. It also drained less mana if he focused on one small area instead of dousing all of big Old George.

Nothing happened for a long while, and he took a break to recover some mana while the other part of his mind worked on a method for Aether condensation for Millie.

With his current knowledge of magic, Aether, and runes, there should be a way to condense magic circles that didn’t need two minds or that put the heart in danger.

Alec breezed through the spell formations he knew in search of inspiration.

Suddenly, he stiffened.

Unfortunately, it was not for Millie’s sake. It was possibly a way on how to make Old George more miserable.

Due to certain reasons, Alec was never able to see the entirety of the spell formation engraved into the floor of the Hall of Achivements. But he had gotten the Core and parts of the Frame and Regulator sections, at least in terms of modern spell formation patterns.

It didn’t quite follow the same formula from what Alec had seen. But it was close enough that Alec knew what to look for. And he found something useful.

The reason why the ruin had denser Aether in the air than the land outside it was because the spell formation drew it in. Slowly, slowly, more and more Aether accumulated within the ruin, thanks to the spell formation.

That was why monsters sought out the ruins and probably why it was still in such good condition after all these years, even taking Bjerion material and craftsmanship into account.

What Alec needed were the runes to target and draw in Aether. For this specific experiment, he didn’t need to know how to accumulate it and keep it in the area.

For that, he would need to do a lot of testing since it seemed most of what he missed dealt with that. Considering how much he had missed, it seemed keeping Aether in one place was harder than attracting it there to begin with.

Alec sunk into the world of his thoughts as he theory crafted a spell formation to engrave on Old George’s hand.

Engraved spell formations were different from projected ones since they needed to be self-supplying, especially if they were to last for a long time. Projected ones relied on the caster’s mana.

That meant engraved spell formations were either very weak with drawn-out effects or engineered to use the Aether in the air around them.

Ordinary spell formations that used the Aether used it as almost a side-effect of casting magic.

The Bjerion spell formation for gathering Aether attracted Aether and then used a portion of the attracted Aether to continously reboot itself, attracting Aether again and then using a portion of that batch of gathered Aether.

Different mechanics with different results.

It took a while for Alec to figure both out and learn how to use them.

In the meantime, he had another idea. Couldn’t he use a mana- or Aether-rich medium to draw the spell formation?

Naturally, he had to try it out.

“Sorry about this, Lizzy.”

The lizard hissed as Alec borrowed some of its blood. He would have taken the cat’s since the cat was third-stage, but he didn’t want to lose his fingers nor waste mana putting it to sleep.

“Wait.”

It was only after he turned around with the vial of blood that Alec realized the lizard hissed before he drew the blood.

“Lizzy?”

The lizard hissed angrily.

“Is it the name?” Alec tilted his head.

Was he communicating with the lizard? Did the lizard understand him? Did it sense him calling it Lizzy?

More importantly, did it not like the name that Alec had thought long and hard for several seconds to think of?

It didn’t answer, but Alec agreed.

“Alright, I’ll come up with something better.”

He could think about whether that was a coincidence later.

Right now, he was going to draw a spell formation using the lizard’s blood and hope that the Aether in the blood fueled the spell formation.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep