#824 - Ethereal Armor

After the intense Chamber of Secrets battle, Hogwarts fell into a joyous and peaceful atmosphere.

Gryffindor House received reward points, while the rest celebrated the appointment of a new instructor.

This book is first published on the entire network by 𝕥𝕨𝕜𝕒𝕟.𝕔𝕠𝕞

Due to Hogg's willful behavior, Anduin kicked him out of the school's instructors and arranged for Xiatia to take over his job.

The students were incredibly welcoming to the sweet-looking, teenage vampire lady, Xiatia.

Although Xiatia might be even more wicked than Hogg in personality, she wouldn't display it as blatantly as Hogg did.

Therefore, when Xiatia officially became an instructor and led everyone in morning exercises, she gained a large following of male fans.

Compared to Hogg, Xiatia was almost like an angel in everyone's eyes. The instructor was beautiful and had a sweet voice, making even receiving her punishment feel wonderful.

At the same time, having witnessed Hogg's Body Strengthening Art, everyone's curiosity about this special magic grew day by day.

So, in the following two months, the young wizards successively exchanged for the [Body Strengthening Art].

However, after truly starting to learn it, everyone discovered the difference between the [Body Strengthening Art] and ordinary spells. Its principle is to use one's own magic power to infuse into the body through special methods and achieve the strengthening of the body.

To do this, the wizard first needs to have a strong physical fitness, otherwise, they simply cannot withstand the fusion of magic power and the body.

At the same time, the wizard needs to have strong magic power control to mobilize magic power to operate the [Body Strengthening Art].

Therefore, learning the [Body Strengthening Art] has high requirements for all the wizard's attributes, not just physical fitness, which makes the difficulty of practice skyrocket.

So, after exchanging for the [Body Strengthening Art], many people found that this is not a magic that everyone can learn, which directly screened out a large number of young wizards.

However, this made the young wizards who met the learning standards of the [Body Strengthening Art] cherish this opportunity even more, and they squeezed out more time to learn this magic.

But when they truly got started, everyone realized that this was just the beginning. The [Body Strengthening Art] turned out to be a series of magic, and the part they mastered was only the foundation of this series. There were still a large number of combat skills to learn later.

For them, it was like building a house. The part they learned was just the foundation of the [Body Strengthening Art]. If they wanted to make this magic more powerful, they had to build more rooms on it, which are the corresponding combat skills.

Otherwise, the basic version of the Body Strengthening Art, in addition to slightly strengthening the wizard's physical fitness, has no other extra effects.

But this is a big project. The young wizards found that this Body Strengthening Art is like a complete but different wizarding system from them.

Everyone has only learned how to use a wand to chant spells, and those combat skills are the corresponding spells, but the two are different after all.

Learning spells only requires mastering gestures and incantations, but practicing Body Strengthening Art is much harder than chanting spells.

So, this weeded out another group of young wizards who wanted to learn the Body Strengthening Art. In the end, only a small group of people in Hogwarts were still persisting.

While the school was filled with a joyous atmosphere of anti-Hogg and a craze for learning the Body Strengthening Art, Anduin was still holed up in the laboratory, doing his research.

After more than half a year of testing, the research on the Deathly Hallows was finally coming to an end.

The entire rune array centered on the three Hallows has been completely repaired, and after fine-tuning in recent days, the experimental subject has achieved the ability to maintain the [Ethereal] state stably for a long time.

And now, it's finally time for further testing.

In the pasture laboratory, Hogg, who has taken over from Xiatia as the experimental assistant, is wearing a white coat and meticulously fiddling with several experimental instruments.

"Master, the equipment is debugged, and the ethereal armor is in normal condition!" After checking off the items on the memo one by one, Hogg turned around and shouted to Anduin.

"Okay, now prepare for the first live test and make experimental records."

Anduin's voice came from the center of the laboratory. At this time, he was wearing nothing but a tight-fitting suit.

In front of him was a set of simple-looking full body armor similar to Iron Man's armor. At the same time, there were two large and small grooves on the front of this armor, and there were two buckles on the shoulders.

After Anduin shouted to Hogg, he came to the back of the armor, gently pressed a certain position on the back of his heart, and then the entire metal armor instantly cracked, revealing the internal space. He took the opportunity to walk in and complete the armor.

After successfully putting on the armor, Anduin first stretched his limbs to test the armor's flexibility and coordination.

Then he picked up the Deathly Hallows placed on the shelf next to him, placed the Resurrection Stone and the Elder Wand into the grooves left on the front of the armor, and draped the Invisibility Cloak over it, and fixed it with the buckles on his shoulders.

"Note, I'm going to start releasing magic power. Don't miss any details, and be careful yourself. If there is any accident, don't hesitate to use the teleportation talisman to escape directly. Don't worry about my safety."

Anduin's muffled voice came from inside the armor, and then he slowly stood in the center of the circular experimental platform.

"Yes, Master." Hogg replied loudly, and then joked, "But Master, you don't have to worry so much. We have checked the rune array on the armor many times. It shouldn't be a problem."

"It's always good to be careful." Anduin replied casually, "Stop talking nonsense, I'm going to start."

After saying that, Anduin mobilized his magic power and concentrated it into his navel, which is the location of the Resurrection Stone on the armor.

With the injection of magic power, the armor immediately began the transformation they were very familiar with, from a solid state to an ethereal state similar to a ghost.

It's just that Anduin used to view this transformation from a third-person perspective, but experiencing it personally is another different feeling.

This feeling is really hard to describe. Anduin only felt that the part of his body that was transformed into an ethereal state was as if the skin, muscles, and bones had been removed, leaving only sensitive nerves exposed to the air.

This made the body originally in the abdomen, like the most sensitive finger, clearly feel even the weakest airflow and the discrete magic power contained in the space.

As the ethereal state gradually spread throughout the body, this feeling became more and more intense.

When Anduin was completely transformed into an ethereal form, he only felt as if he had finally shed the burden on his body and came into contact with the most real world.

"Master, can you hear me?"

Hogg's voice seemed to be amplified a hundred times in Anduin's ears, as if someone was roaring next to him with a loudspeaker.

But the magical thing is that such a loud noise, although exceptionally clear, does not make Anduin feel particularly uncomfortable, as if his ability to withstand it has also been amplified a hundred times.

"Yes, the sound is very clear. Next, start the test normally!" Anduin calmly felt the magic of his body, and quickly came back to his senses and replied to Hogg.

"Received!" Hogg nodded, and then wrote on the record board, 'Hearing is normal in the ethereal state, and it can also speak normally.'

"Then, let's start with the five senses test first. The constant sound has been confirmed to be normal. Next, try low-frequency and high-frequency sound waves."

After Hogg said that, he fiddled with the instruments next to him, and then one of the devices released sound waves of various frequencies from low to high.

During each change of sound segment, Hogg would stop and ask Anduin how he felt and record it in detail.

After testing the sound, the two began the visual and olfactory tests. Hogg displayed various colors and light sources of different brightness, as well as items and foods with different smells, to Anduin one by one, and then recorded Anduin's feelings.

After a series of tests, Anduin discovered that in the ethereal state, his physical senses had increased several times, and his hearing, vision, and smell had become extremely sensitive.

But when it came to testing the sense of touch, it was very embarrassing, because Anduin found that he was completely physically immune in the ethereal state, which meant that he couldn't even do simple things like touching objects.

"The five senses test is complete!" Hogg looked through the experimental results and repeated, "According to the test, in the ethereal state, hearing ability increases by 530%-560%, naked eye vision increases by 400%, visual sensitivity increases by 370%, olfactory sensitivity increases by 360%, and tactile sense decreases to 0."

"Since there is no tactile ability at all, then all subsequent physical tests will be canceled. Next, directly enter the magic test." Hogg muttered and tore off one of the pages from the record board.

Then Hogg pressed a button on the experimental platform, and then a humanoid target with extremely high quality rose from the ground.

"Let's try casting spells first, Master, but since you weren't equipped with a wand when entering the ethereal state, you can only use wandless casting now."

"No problem." Anduin nodded, and then pointed his finger at the humanoid target from a distance, "Record, the first spell is the basic impact spell, level 4, consuming 2 marks of magic power. The power of wandless casting in normal state is 50 points."

"Bang!"

As soon as Anduin finished speaking, an impact spell shot out from his finger and hit the humanoid target directly.

"Beep beep beep!"

After a brief pause, a string of eye-catching numbers was displayed on the humanoid target: 60.

"Can it actually reach 60 points?" Hogg was slightly surprised, "Are you sure you only used 2 marks of magic power?"

"That's right, the ethereal state has no impact on my magic power control. The energy consumption is accurate." Anduin seemed very surprised by this number, but he still replied calmly.

"Your impact spell has level 4, and the magic power conversion rate is close to 8. Now the value is 20% higher than normal, which means that the magic power conversion rate is infinitely close to 1. Is there no loss when casting spells in the ethereal state? Hogg observed the numbers and couldn't help but murmured.

You must know that no matter how powerful a wizard is, there will be some loss when casting spells. Under the same magic power output, the closer the magic power conversion rate is to 1, the greater the power of the spell.

Generally speaking, reaching a conversion rate of 6 is considered very proficient in the spell, reaching 8 is considered proficient, and reaching 9 or more can be called a level 5 spell.

Of course, this is the performance in the normal state without emotional and will bonuses, but Anduin is emotionally stable at this time, so the increase in the value must be unrelated to this.

"Master, try a level 5 spell and see if it is a fixed intensity blessing or simply strengthening the magic power conversion rate." Hogg suggested to Anduin after pondering for a moment.

"Okay, then next try [Wild Thunder], the magic power output is 5 marks. My Wild Thunder magic power conversion rate reaches 97. I remember that the last time I tested in the normal state, the power of casting spells with a wand was 160, and the power of wandless casting was around 150."

After saying that, Anduin used the same trick and shot a bolt of lightning from his finger.

Beep beep, 162!

Looking at the numbers on the humanoid target, Anduin and Hogg fell into silence.

Obviously, judging from the results obtained from the actual test, the impact of the ethereal state on casting spells is not a simple power bonus, but directly eliminates the magic power conversion rate.

No matter what level of spell is cast, whether a wand is used when casting the spell, the magic power conversion rate when casting the spell is infinitely close to 1!

This result is quite terrifying, because it means that in the ethereal state, there will be no loss when casting spells!

"Master, do you think this effect is effective for everyone?" Hogg swallowed nervously.

"Probably." Anduin muttered, staring at the numbers on the humanoid target.

He knew why Hogg would ask this, because if the wizards in the ethereal state could achieve the same effect.

It means that no matter who it is, as long as they enter the ethereal state, without considering the sublimation of spells, every spell they use can reach the power of a level 5 spell!

"Then Master, you have to be careful. Don't let those kids learn how to enter the ethereal state in the future, otherwise they might create a bunch of terrorists with explosive power..."

Hogg couldn't help but shudder when he thought of those low-grade kids suddenly transforming into super wizards with strength comparable to Dumbledore after entering the ethereal state, and every spell could explode with exaggerated power.

"It's not that simple." Anduin was very clear about this, "The power of a spell is not only determined by the magic power conversion rate. Sometimes the blessing of emotions and will is greater than magic power."

"But this is also very terrifying, okay..." Hogg rolled his eyes speechlessly, "If this ethereal state becomes popular, who will practice spells in the future? As long as you enter the ethereal state, everyone is a spell master."

"It's not that simple. The runes that make up the ethereal state are not something that ordinary people can learn, and the Deathly Hallows are also needed as a medium to cast the ethereal state. Let me successfully find or make replacements for them first."