Chapter 539 – Psychic Magic

Mage Psychic Magic was truly easy for Mo Lan to learn.

If she hadn’t wanted to build a solid foundation, understand the underlying principles, and master Psychic Magic thoroughly and completely, she could have progressed even faster.

After all, other mages needed extensive prerequisite knowledge before they could understand, memorize, and construct spell structures. Mo Lan only needed a single glance to memorize them, and with a simple activation of her psychic power, the construction was already complete.

It had been this way with Apprentice-level magic, and now it was the same with Beginner-level magic.

Other mages had to carefully plan out their psychic power—how much to allocate for casting, how much for constructing spell structures.

Even at Peak level, a mage’s active psychic power couldn’t support constructing every spell. They couldn’t simply use whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

Every bit of psychic power had to be budgeted carefully, and every spell had to be chosen with great deliberation.

But Mo Lan had so much active psychic power it was beyond counting—more than enough to learn every single one.

That said, she wasn’t learning every spell from every magic book she read.

It was simply that she didn’t need to worry about psychic power, let alone make difficult choices.

Practical ones, fun ones, ones that Witch Magic couldn’t accomplish—any spell she could think of a use case for, Mo Lan learned.

Mage magic had many variants, and quite a few had highly overlapping effects. For those, Mo Lan simply memorized the spell structures without spending psychic power to construct them.

Of the Apprentice-level magic recorded on the seventh floor, Mo Lan had constructed spell structures and mastered the casting methods for at least sixty percent of them.

Other mages counted their spells one by one. Mo Lan counted hers in percentages.

The mages’ research on psychic power also opened Mo Lan’s eyes.

Previously, Mo Lan had only thought psychic power was related to memory.

After all, the most obvious benefit her vast psychic power had given her was a memory far superior to anyone else’s.

But mages argued that psychic power was energy purely dependent on the soul—they even believed psychic power was the very energy that constituted the soul.

Inactive psychic power formed the soul’s shell. Semi-active psychic power determined the soul’s ability to perceive, understand, and memorize the physical environment. And active psychic power determined the soul’s ability to influence other forms of energy.

Based on this framework, they had classified all things into categories.

Objects without inactive psychic power, possessing only a physical body—such as rocks and soil—were lifeless dead matter.

Only those possessing inactive psychic power qualified as living beings.

Those with inactive psychic power but no physical body were Ghost-type undead creatures.

Those with inactive psychic power and a physical body, but whose physical body possessed neither the power of life nor Death Force, were puppet creatures.

Those with inactive psychic power and a physical body infused with Death Force were Zombie-type and skeleton-type undead creatures.

Those with inactive psychic power and a physical body infused with the power of life were living organisms.

Among living organisms, those connected to a physical body but possessing only semi-active psychic power for understanding and memory were ordinary creatures, such as beasts and plants. Only those with sufficient semi-active psychic power for understanding, memory, and thought—with the potential and actual capacity to give rise to civilization—were intelligent beings.

And only those who possessed active psychic power were mages capable of casting spells with psychic power.

Inactive psychic power, semi-active psychic power, and active psychic power existed in a pyramid relationship.

Inactive psychic power formed the foundation, being the most abundant. Semi-active psychic power was the pillar of the middle tier, second in quantity. Active psychic power was the precious apex of the pyramid, the scarcest of all.

However, due to the influence of the power of life within the physical body, living beings could not perceive or control the inactive and semi-active psychic power within their souls. Only active psychic power could be harnessed while one was still alive.

Meditation could temper inactive psychic power into semi-active psychic power, and semi-active psychic power into active psychic power.

If all psychic power were refined into active psychic power, one could control their own soul to separate from the life-infused physical body, preventing the soul from being tainted by Death Force upon the body’s death.

Mo Lan had even read in one book that some mages had used this method to split off a portion of their soul and house it within an alchemical puppet, thereby achieving immortality.

However, an incomplete soul affected perception, understanding, memory, thought, and even bodily control. The agony of splitting one’s soul would persist for a lifetime, and the side effects were severe.

So eventually, most mages repurposed this technique—splitting other people’s souls instead, using them to create alchemical puppet servants for themselves.

All psychic-type magic had been developed based on this theoretical framework.

Targeting semi-active psychic power, there were series of spells that disrupted the connection between an opponent’s soul and physical body, series that affected an opponent’s perceptive abilities, series that influenced memory, and series that interfered with an opponent’s thought processes.

Targeting active psychic power, there were series of spells that stripped an opponent of their casting ability.

Targeting inactive psychic power, there were series of spells that caused problems with an opponent’s soul itself.

However, all these spells only worked on living beings. Some targeted undead creatures specifically, others targeted living organisms, and still others targeted intelligent beings.

Against non-living matter, psychic-type magic had absolutely no destructive power.

In natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis, a psychic mage was no different from an ordinary person.

But compared to its weaknesses, the advantages of psychic-type magic were equally apparent.

The effects of psychic-type magic were irreplaceable by any other school of magic. It was devastatingly effective against living beings, and in many cases worked wonders against creatures with powerful bodies but weak souls.

Moreover, the damage it inflicted could only be healed by psychic-type magic.

Regardless of which race’s healing magic one looked at, almost all of them targeted only the physical body. Very few could heal damage to the soul.

This was why psychic-type magic was the most feared school of mage magic among other races.

However, exerting influence over another person’s psychic power was an extremely difficult feat.

To manipulate someone else’s psychic power, one typically had to expend several times as much of their own.

If the opponent was a spellcaster, one also had to contend with their magical energy.

As a result, every psychic spell consumed enormous amounts of energy to cast.

Furthermore, lower-level psychic magic could basically only serve a supportive role.

A psychic mage needed to reach at least Advanced or even Peak level before they could use Psychic Magic as their primary combat tool to decide the outcome of battles.

It was entirely a late-game school of magic.

Mo Lan had now learned quite a few Apprentice-level and Beginner-level psychic spells.

But most of them were meant to be used on herself.

For example, the Psychic Link spell, which allowed mental-level communication with other mages; the Psychic Fortification spell, which enhanced one’s willpower; and the Psychic Focus spell, which improved one’s resistance to distractions.

The Library Floor was getting busier and busier these days, filled with all manner of smells and sounds—the reading environment was honestly quite poor. But after Mo Lan used Psychic Focus, none of that bothered her anymore.