In thaumaturgy, there was a particularly dangerous type of research called "Forbidden Knowledge."
Accompanying forbidden knowledge was another sinister thing: Warp.
Whenever someone acquired forbidden knowledge, their "Warp" would increase substantially. The higher the warp, the more likely bizarre and dangerous phenomena would occur around them.
On the lighter side, thick, cursed, contaminated dirty water might suddenly appear at one's feet, or one's eyes might suddenly dim and become unable to see clearly, or one might become extremely hungry, wanting to devour everything in sight but never feeling satisfied.
More serious cases would experience various terrifying hallucinations. Sometimes these hallucinations would manifest as countless small spiders crawling out from the void, viciously attacking the person experiencing the hallucination.
It should be noted that even though only the affected person could see these hallucinations, if one allowed those 'hallucination spiders' to bite and tear at them, they could genuinely die. So if you saw a thaumaturge fighting with empty air, don't find it strange. They were just protecting themselves from invisible threats.
Besides hallucinations, some people might suddenly feel feverish and spontaneously combust, or curses might appear on their bodies, causing continuous health loss.
Actually, those effects that only affected oneself were relatively manageable. Some warp phenomena could turn the warped person into a source of contamination, where all life touched would also be contaminated...
However, besides bad phenomena, sometimes neutral phenomena occurred, such as a memorable warp effect: "Death Gaze." This phenomenon usually only appeared on people whose warp had reached absolutely hopeless levels.
People with Death Gaze would have very narrow vision, unable to see distant things clearly. But any creature seen by someone with Death Gaze would gradually wither physically until death.
Just as its name suggested, Death Gaze. Whoever they looked at would die. But it wouldn't harm the possessor themselves and sometimes could even serve as a devastating attack method.
All these and more. The bizarre phenomena brought by forbidden knowledge were numerous, and their harassment of thaumaturges was impossible to prevent, potentially occurring at any time.
Moreover, most of these phenomena couldn't be cleared by milk and could only be endured with gritted teeth.
Worth mentioning was that some of these phenomena were simply confusion of consciousness and thought caused by researching forbidden knowledge.
Others were because such research disturbed certain beings from the outer realms.
They noticed the forbidden researchers and tried to send their minions or exert malevolent influence from the void.
When thaumaturgical researchers touched upon the forbidden, the forbidden would also seek them out.
However.
From when he officially began research until now, Levi felt his warp had accumulated to a considerable degree. His vision had dimmed several times to the point of seeing nothing clearly.
But he had never seen more serious phenomena occur.
Especially those obviously involving direct interference from outer beings.
They seemed to be blocked by something powerful, unable to penetrate their malevolent power here.
All influences exerted by outer beings were nowhere to be found. Only those warps originating from the researcher himself remained effective.
They couldn't interfere here.
"Doesn't that mean I can research forbidden knowledge freely?"
Thank the Creator.
Although most warp effects didn't pose much threat to Levi, the occasional harassment was still quite annoying.
Especially those effects that could affect others.
Although something called "Purifying Soap" could remove warp from the body, it could only remove temporary, non-permanent warps. Truly deep-rooted permanent warps would still take effect.
The influences caused by permanent warp basically all had shadows of certain malevolent beings.
Levi had been somewhat worried about this before.
Now it was fine. This world's creator had withstood everything for him.
Obviously, those things from the outer realms had far lower status than Arda's Creator God. They couldn't influence this place.
Assessment: Not even as exciting as Sauron.
Days and nights passed, and several days went by in a flash.
On this day, Levi walked out from the tower, embracing the warm light the sun cast down, feeling that his warp had been reduced considerably.
During this time, he had unlocked all chapters and sections of thaumaturgy, except for Eldritch studies, which was research leading to the outer void.
Opening Eldritch studies required something called the "Crimson Rites," usually only carried by dangerous cultists.
Obviously, there were no cultists in Middle-earth.
At least not yet.
But it didn't matter much. The things revealed by Eldritch studies weren't absolutely necessary either. Being a proper thaumaturge was quite good too.
Now, all research was ready.
The most urgent task was to begin the first setup, which would run through the entire thaumaturgical research career: the Infusion Altar.
This device could infuse magical aspects into mundane objects or fuse multiple objects containing different aspects into one, combining them into some extraordinary item.
This was "Alchemy."
Unlike a crafting table, the Infusion Altar was a multi-block structure requiring certain building space. Since the tower's first floor was already planned, Levi directly opened up the second floor, dedicating it to infusion and various magical crafts.
Thus, the magical aspects stored in ordinary wooden wands were consumed completely, and materials needed for building the Infusion Altar were fully prepared.
Pop!
As 25 points of various aspects stored in a Gold Capped Ordinary Wood Wand were completely consumed, a square runic matrix slowly rose, with arcane stone blocks at the four corners impossibly transforming into cylindrical shapes, guarding the runic matrix.
This was the core of the Infusion Altar. It could perform calculation and execution functions and also had a certain aspect of storage capacity, equivalent to a simple magical computer.
After completing the Infusion Altar core, Levi placed a bunch of pedestals around it.
Thus the altar's prototype was completed.
But it wasn't finished yet. Magical research always carried risks. When using the Infusion Altar to create some advanced magical items, it could make mistakes. The way to reduce error probability was to place large amounts of magic-containing objects around it.
Thus, the rotten flesh dropped by orcs long ago came in handy.
This rotten flesh could be refined into magical tallow in cauldrons. Magical tallow could be made into tallow candles, a relatively low-cost and aesthetically pleasing magic-containing decoration.
Levi took time to return to Roadside Fort, pulling out several stacks of rotten flesh from chests placed long ago.
Little Pink curiously came over to sniff.
Little Pink walked away in disgust.
Though Little Pink was disgusted, Levi wasn't.
"Let us thank the orcs. They made indelible contributions to thaumaturgical development."
Moments later, exactly 169 tallow candles were placed at the bottom of the Infusion Altar, providing it with stability.
After completing the fully equipped Infusion Altar, Levi opened the Thaumonomicon again, creating other essential facilities one by one and placing them on the tower's second floor.
After finishing these, he had to solve another problem: Elemental Shards.
This was something thaumaturgical development couldn't do without. They usually required mining to obtain, but Middle-earth had no such ores, nor did the Nether generate them.
Thaumaturgy without elemental shards was like trying to play without essential resources, impossible to progress.
But fortunately, the Thaumonomicon revealed another method of obtaining elemental shards: throwing quartz fragments into cauldrons containing basic elements could refine corresponding elemental shards.
Thus, this major basic resource problem was also solved.
With all conditions met, Levi eagerly began experimenting with bottles and jars, using aspect distillers to separate needed aspects from various materials, and immediately created a Quartz Wand.
This type of wand had three times the magical aspect storage capacity of wooden wands: 75 points. Switching to this was like upgrading weapons from wooden sword to iron sword, a major upgrade.
75 points was a threshold. More powerful than this was the Silverwood Wand, which could store 100 points of magic, while a tier lower was the Greatwood Wand with 50 points storage capacity.
But this world had neither silverwood nor greatwood trees.
However, trees containing magical aspects like silverwood seemed to exist on this continent too.
Levi's thoughts drifted from inside the tower to the Golden Wood east of the Misty Mountains, the territory where Lady Galadriel lived: Lothlórien.
There, mallorn trees with silver-white trunks and golden leaves grew everywhere.
Those trees weren't native species of Middle-earth but originated from the holy land where the western Valar lived.
Valinor.