At this moment, it was merely a natural response, prompting everyone to start packing up to leave.

Odin cast one last glance at the wall embedded with countless, varied wooden doors, exchanged a glance with Leiya, and only then did he lead everyone away.

Lady Douding quietly watched them disappear into the darkness, and the square fell silent again, leaving her alone. Yet she wasn't afraid, only faintly concerned about the Stargate matter, standing motionlessly with the Great Shield.

...

The world behind the door—

Fang Hong gazed in wonder as the red gold plates in his hand each flew away, thin as sheets of paper, twisting and folding, overlapping with each other to form a winding spiral staircase leading up to the ceiling.

Until the last red gold plate closed at the end of the staircase, like a gust of wind blowing through the window at the end of the corridor, sending papers flying and lifting his hair.

The giant book flapped its pages, finally closing along with its heavy cover, quietly and without sound, leaving only dust rising.

At this moment, the door above his head gave a slight sound, as if a key was inserted into the keyhole, the small click of the mechanism springing open, yet in this quiet room, it was particularly clear. The door opened—Fang Hong took out a pocket watch from his chest, flicked open the case, and started timing a quarter of an hour (it was an Earthlings' pocket watch, so naturally using Earth's time unit).

He couldn't help but pause; it was a simple calculation, even without considering the increased difficulty of the room later, calculating with this time, wouldn't it mean it would take him as long as half a year to get out of this Hall of Thousand Doors?

Feeling slightly embarrassed, Fang Hong scratched his head.

He realized he had forgotten to ask a crucial question, Odin said he needed to stay in the world behind the door for a long time, but he forgot to ask, how long is that long? If it's more than half a year, won't the flowers have wilted by then?

May I leave early?

However, Odin did mention he had to attend the Continental League, which will be held in four months, presumably it shouldn't be later than that, or did it take him much longer than the average person, thus causing the other party's misestimate?

Still, looking around, Fang Hong thought no one could answer his question, thinking for a moment, he decided to step onto the spiral staircase, climbing it steadily.

The second door.

Behind the door was also a huge room, but this room's space was very different from the first one, the first room was long and vertical, while this room's space extended upwards, with an even more distant ceiling than the first room.

Nearly impossible to see the end at a glance.

The room was filled with various crystals, but mainly purple crystals.

Upon seeing these crystals, Fang Hong understood the test of this level—the extraction of Ether.

This is also one of the essential courses for an Alchemists Apprentice, Ether Theory is the foundational theory of all Alchemy, even Magic; whether it's the Alchemist, Magic Guided Conductor, or Elementalist, even the Natural Historian, the first lesson they must learn is Ether Knowledge.

But what the Spellcasters learn is what is Ether, while the Alchemist learns how to acquire and manipulate Ether, making its magic power obey the commands of the runes.

Extraction is the first beginner lesson.

He picked up a crystal...

And as he guessed, this stage isn't easy, back when Fang Hong was an apprentice under Kapuka, he wasn't particularly good at extraction work, just passable, but being just passable put him in serious trouble in this stage.

The Ether extracted from the crystal forms a bridge of magic power, but the length of the bridge depends on the amount of magic power extracted from the crystal. Despite trying everything, he could only let the bridge extend a considerable distance short of the endpoint.

Fang Hong was left somewhat dumbfounded by this scene.

Thinking to himself he surely can't get stuck on the second level, that would be too humiliating, so he gathered up the crystals again, re-extracted them, extending the bridge by about two or three meters again.

Still short by two meters.

Fang Hong measured, it was impossible for him to leap two meters high, grab the door and open it—let alone the door wasn't even open.

So he began a third extraction, and this time, there was finally an effect—not because he had some epiphany in extraction and suddenly achieved enlightenment—but because he discovered he had originally missed a crate of crystals.

Fang Hong nearly blacked out, and almost struck his head against the wall. The result was, this box of crystals wasn't even fully used; he only used less than a third, and he had already gotten out of that room.

Half an hour—

The third door, was material purification.

This time Fang Hong learned from his mistakes, didn't repeat them, smoothly advancing to the next level.

Regarding material purification, it's quite different from extraction work; as the saying goes, each field has its specialization, and he was rather confident in this area. After all, back in the Morning Dawn Star, he was actually responsible for this work, recovering Magic Guided Conductors involved obtaining materials.

He only took seven and a half minutes this time and had completed it successfully.

The fourth door, was once again an engraved array.

Here the room setup was similar to the first room, except this time it was no longer a single array, the dense illustrations in the giant book were ring arrays—which are another term for double-layer composite arrays.

The emergence of composite arrays symbolized a leap in the history of the Alchemist, and the more complex, larger Alchemy Array that appeared later were nothing but variations of composite arrays, whether they were three-layer, four-layer, or even structures with ten layers or more.

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