I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 1000: Return After Death, the Coming of the Decisive Battle, the Goal

Jie Ming strode quickly down the corridor and soon reached the biochemical storage room deep inside the first laboratory.

Unlike the other areas, the walls and floor here had been specially treated, and several layers of isolation arrays divided the interior into separate zones.

The most conspicuous things, naturally, were the large cultivation pods arrayed in the center of the storage room.

Their transparent shells were filled with pale blue nutrient fluid, and fine pipes extended from the bottoms of the pods to connect with the external energy supply system.

Through the translucent liquid, the various biological bodies being cultivated inside could be dimly made out.

Jie Ming had bought all of this equipment specially back when he was researching the blood sacrifice method.

The equipment had been kept afterward, occasionally used to produce biological bodies for experiments, or to store biological samples that had undergone special treatment.

Now, most of the cultivation pods were in a semi-dormant state.

Only the innermost one was lit, which meant that it was this pod’s operation that had triggered the array’s detection.

In the nutrient fluid inside this pod was a familiar figure.

Not long after Jie Ming came in, the person inside the cultivation pod opened her eyes.

They were a familiar pair of eyes.

Before Jie Ming could confirm anything further, the other party had already raised an arm, as though wanting to touch the inner wall of the pod.

The internal detection system immediately assessed the situation and automatically initiated the emergency release procedure.

Click!

The pod’s locking mechanisms opened one after another, and the hatch slid open to either side.

A great deal of nutrient fluid poured down over the edge of the pod, and a female body, losing its support along with it, tumbled out with a splash.

Jie Ming frowned slightly and raised a hand, pointing forward.

Alchemy activated.

The nutrient fluid scattered across the floor had not flowed far before its nature rapidly changed.

The viscous liquid, together with the nutrient fluid still clinging to the woman’s body and her long silver-gray hair, was reshaped, and in the blink of an eye it became a simply cut black robe that covered her still unclothed body.

Jie Ming’s furrowed brow did not relax. “Senior Sister, what happened?”

That was right. The woman who had just tumbled out of the cultivation pod was none other than Viola.

Only, at this moment, Viola did not answer right away.

Her eyes looked at Jie Ming with a trace of dazedness, as though her consciousness had not yet fully recovered from some state.

After a moment, she slowly blinked, and the familiar smile resurfaced on her face.

“Long time no see, Junior Brother.”

Her voice was a little hoarse, but it soon regained its usual lightness. Clearly she had adapted to her body quickly.

“It’s been seven or eight hundred years since the two of us last met, hasn’t it?”

“About that.”

Jie Ming glanced at the cultivation pod, which was still sounding its alarm, then shut it down and, while he was at it, cut off the unnecessary supply of nutrient fluid.

“What’s your situation? Why did you come out of my cultivation pod?”

“Haven’t you already seen?”

Viola lowered her head and straightened the black robe, as though that undignified entrance just now was not worth mentioning at all.

“Nothing special. Just bad luck. I died once, that’s all.”

She said it so lightly that for a moment Jie Ming did not know how to respond.

Viola not only held several Substitute Death Dolls, she had also prepared multiple clone bodies in advance, stored in different areas, so that no single encounter could destroy all of her backups at once.

One of those spare bodies was stored here with Jie Ming.

Once her original body died, the Substitute Death Doll would take effect according to its preset mechanism.

So, just as Viola said, the reason she had appeared here was naturally that she had already died once.

He looked at the senior sister in front of him, and the more he looked, the more something seemed off. “Aren’t you a little too happy right now?”

Normally, a freshly revived Viola ought to be full of complaints.

But right now, her eyes were far too bright.

That expression was not that of someone who had survived a disaster. It was more like someone who had finally obtained an experience long anticipated.

Sure enough, on hearing those words, Viola could no longer hold the corners of her mouth down, and they curved upward.

The smile on her face grew steadily brighter, even taking on a hint of something morbid that was hard to hide:

“Ah~ Yes! Of course I’m happy!”

She took a step forward, her hands lightly clasped, a strange light flickering in her eyes.

“I had thought I was already used to facing the pain others display before death, but only at this moment did I discover that the pain of experiencing one’s own death is something else entirely.”

Viola’s voice grew softer and softer, but her expression grew ever more excited.

“That feeling… consciousness gradually slipping out of control, the body unable to respond to one’s will, even the last trace of strength stripped away. Knowing full well that you are walking toward death, yet unable to do anything, only able to watch helplessly as it all happens.”

She paused for a moment, as if still savoring that experience.

“So the pain of death can be this wonderful too.”

By the end, she could not help giving a shiver, and the smile on her face even looked somewhat twisted.

Jie Ming fell silent.

Then, inwardly, he gave a silent nod.

Still just as much of a deviant. It seemed nothing was wrong with her.

Of course, treating the sensation of death as an experience worth savoring in detail could hardly be called completely normal either.

But considering that Viola was a deviant to begin with, Jie Ming had no need to feel too surprised about it.

“Looks like there’s no need to worry about you.”

“Oh, come on, don’t be so cold!”

Viola immediately reverted to her usual tone and leaned in with a grin.

“I just died once, you know! And it was a special experience that took no small effort to get. Aren’t you even a little curious?”

“No.” Jie Ming answered expressionlessly.

Viola at once laughed even more happily.

“That won’t do! Keeping one’s curiosity is one of the most important qualities of a researcher.”

Jie Ming could not be bothered to argue with her.

After confirming that there was nothing else abnormal about the cultivation pod, he took Viola out of the biochemical storage room and returned to his main laboratory.

Along the way, Viola did not keep harping on the topic of death, and merely observed the equipment they passed with great interest.

For her, seven or eight hundred years without seeing Jie Ming was enough for many once-familiar things to have changed.

Only when the two of them had sat down did Jie Ming return to the matter at hand:

“All right, now it’s time to talk about the specifics. What exactly did you run into, to die so suddenly?”

Viola’s smile finally faded somewhat:

“To be honest, it really can only be blamed on bad luck.”

She raised a hand and opened a light screen, calling up the battlefield images from her memory.

“A while ago, our side was carrying out a routine advance mission. Five eighth-level wizards were in command, with several plane wizards under them and a fair number of high-level combat units. According to the original plan, we had been gradually compressing the enemy’s range of activity. The situation was hardly easy, but it was at least under control.”

Jie Ming looked at the battlefield scene in the projection.

It was a region that had been badly damaged by war. Many planes were no longer intact, and the surroundings were strewn with energy turbulence and drifting continent fragments.

“And then?”

“And then we ran into part of the Behemoth Alliance’s main force.”

Viola sighed, a trace of displeasure in her tone.

“To be precise, it should have been a crippled unit. They had already been through a battle before that. Some of their units were wounded, and the formation wasn’t complete. By any normal judgment, an enemy like that, even with some fighting strength left, shouldn’t have left us with no ability to resist at all.”

She extended a finger and tapped the light screen, and ten conspicuous markers appeared.

Jie Ming looked at the markers with some surprise. “Ten ninth-level creatures?”

“That’s right.” Viola spread her hands.

“We only had five eighth-level wizards to begin with, plus a few plane wizards for support. Even counting the other high-level combat units, there was no way to deal with ten ninth-level creatures suddenly joining the battlefield in a short time.”

“What’s worse, although some of those behemoths had been crippled, ninth-level creatures don’t lose their ability to fight. The moment they appeared, the balance we had been maintaining on the battlefield collapsed completely.”

Jie Ming quickly grasped the situation at the time.

Five eighth-level wizards leading a force on a mission already had to rely on coordination and tactics just to hold the line.

With ten ninth-level creatures suddenly joining in, even with Leap Power to help, eighth-level wizards could hardly make up such a gap in numbers in a short time.

Once the line of defense was broken, the other high-level combat units in the rear would be the first to bear the brunt.

And Viola’s position clearly left her no room to withdraw at leisure.

“So you were routed quickly?”

“More or less.” Viola nodded.

“At first we still tried to reorganize our formation, planning to concentrate our strength to suppress one or two of the behemoths and buy the others time to retreat. But those things coordinated better than expected and gave us no chance at all. By the time the line was completely torn open, the situation was already beyond control.”

At that, she sighed softly.

“A pity. A lot of people probably died this time.”

Jie Ming nodded, and did not say many words of comfort.

It was nothing rare for high-level wizards to meet with such sudden situations in a war.

However, at the sixth level and above, most wizards prepared Substitute Death Dolls, spare bodies, or other life-saving measures in advance.

So even if the death toll on the battlefield looked quite shocking, the number of wizards who had truly and permanently fallen might not be that high.

Of course, those who had only recently advanced to the high levels and had not yet had time to prepare proper backups were often not so lucky.

Jie Ming could not help feeling some regret for those unfortunate wizards, but it went no further than that.

This was war.

Especially in a large-scale war like this one, involving multiple civilizations and lasting for centuries, any unit might run into an enemy far beyond expectations at some unforeseen moment.

Individual caution could certainly reduce the risk, but it could not make every accident disappear.

“So how is the war going for you now?” Jie Ming steered the conversation back to business.

“The Behemoth Alliance’s rate of advance on the various battlefields seems to be getting faster and faster lately.” At the mention of this, Viola could not help shaking her head.

“The number of ninth-level creatures they have is somewhat beyond expectations.”

She called up a new set of battlefield statistics, placing the figures for the Behemoth Alliance alongside those for the Multiracial Alliance.

In terms of overall scale, the Behemoth Alliance clearly could not compare with the Multiracial Alliance.

Behemoths were extremely rare creatures by nature. Often one would not find a single true behemoth across several plane clusters.

Precisely because of this, although they were individually powerful, they could hardly grow in scale quickly through reproduction and organizational expansion the way conventional civilizations did.

So such a race naturally held no advantage in numbers.

The problem was that they tended to possess talent far beyond that of ordinary creatures. They were born with powerful bodies and the ability to control energy, and as they grew they did not need to go through the long and complicated cultivation that ordinary creatures did.

“These behemoths’ innate talent is simply astonishing. The proportion that advance from the eighth level to the ninth is absurdly high.”

Viola pointed to the statistical results on the light screen. “Extrapolating from the battlefield intelligence we currently have, the Behemoth Alliance’s total population may not even match that of a single civilization of one of the more prolific races under the Multiracial Alliance. But the ninth-level creatures they have already number nearly half of the Multiracial Alliance’s.”

Jie Ming looked at the data, was silent for a moment, and finally sighed helplessly.

“There really is nothing to be done about that.”

The gap created by racial talent was not something that could be made up simply by pouring in resources.

Although the wizard civilization could greatly raise the ceiling on individual growth through its cultivation system, law research and technological modification, only nine had truly advanced to the ninth level so far.

The Behemoth Alliance’s overall scale might not be large, but it had a higher proportion of top-level individuals.

And war between civilizations was, at bottom, a contest between high-level combat strengths.

“If they were only ordinary eighth-level behemoths, they’d be easy enough to handle.” Viola leaned back in her chair, looking somewhat resigned. “The trouble is these ninth-level ones. Not only are there many of them, they can also support one another. Sometimes we’ve clearly gained the upper hand on one battlefield, only to be forced to give up what we’d won because another group of ninth-level behemoths suddenly stepped in.”

“Speaking of which, we also have Starfall’s plane wizards to thank. I hear the main battlefield has been won mainly by the tens of millions of plane wizards she cultivated earlier, working together with the eighth-level wizards.”

“And now?” Jie Ming asked. “Still at a stalemate?”

“Yes.”

Viola sighed, then called up another piece of intelligence.

“But I hear the Third Seat’s side has made a bit of progress recently and briefly suppressed part of the Multiracial Alliance’s main force. The specific results haven’t been fully reported back yet, but judging from the current troop movements, they seem to be preparing to pull out more forces and commit them to our side’s battlefield.”

Jie Ming’s gaze stirred slightly.

The Third Seat was one of the ninth-level wizards. His decisions usually meant that the upper echelons had made a new judgment on the situation across the whole battlefield.

If he really was preparing to draw forces from another front, it meant that at least at the current stage, the wizard civilization might have gained a certain degree of strategic initiative.

Of course, it could also mean that an even larger battle was coming.

“It seems the decisive battle can’t be far off.”

“I think so too.” Viola nodded.

“Right now every battlefield is constantly adjusting its forces, and many regions that were previously at a stalemate are starting to see large-scale concentrations of troops. At this rate, in another few hundred years, both sides will probably launch far larger offensives.”

Jie Ming was not surprised by this.

The war had gone on this long, and both sides had already paid an enormous price.

At this stage, simply accumulating advantages through local battles could hardly change the overall situation quickly.

What truly decided victory or defeat would most likely be the next, far larger decisive battle.

Having said all this, Viola had already risen from her chair, raising a hand to gather up her long silver-gray hair and bare her slender neck.

After this stretch of conversation, her mental state seemed to have fully recovered as well, the earlier dazedness vanished without a trace.

“All right, I’ve said everything I needed to say.”

She turned and looked at Jie Ming with a smile. “Thanks for providing the spare body this time. Once the war is over, I’ll thank you properly.”

“Put your own safety first.” Jie Ming reminded her. “No matter how many Substitute Death Dolls you have, it doesn’t mean you can take risks without a care.”

“I know, I know.”

Viola waved a hand, clearly with no intention of discussing the matter further, and turned and left with a smile.

Only when her figure had completely vanished at the end of the corridor did Jie Ming withdraw his gaze. “She really is hopeless.”

He gave that low verdict, then closed the door of the main laboratory.

But as he looked at the empty guest seat, his expression gradually returned to calm.

Although Jie Ming also felt that, given his position, he was unlikely to be sent to the front, since the war had reached this stage, it was still better to make plans in advance, just in case.

That is, to finish what he had originally planned before the true decisive battle arrived.

With that thought, Jie Ming opened a light screen and called up the study plan Felix had drawn up for him.

Densely packed study items were arrayed on the light screen. Most had been completed, and what remained was concentrated in a few key fields.

Jie Ming checked them one by one, then compared his current level of mastery against the plan’s requirements.

“Faster progress than expected. I thought it would take over ten thousand years, but I never imagined I’d reach this standard in a thousand. It seems that as the knowledge I’ve mastered grows, my Dao Integration state is improving too.”

According to this schedule, Jie Ming estimated that as long as his subsequent study and research continued at the current pace, it would take roughly another hundred years to complete the systematic mastery of all the laws.

At this thought, a light flickered in Jie Ming’s eyes. It meant he was already very close to his goal.

What was more, Jie Ming had a feeling that once he truly completed the mastery of all the laws, he should be able to meet the requirement of the dual cultivation of nature and life.

At that point, he could advance to the Great Ascension Realm.

And once the breakthrough succeeded, his strength would take a clear leap forward.

Moreover, advancing to the Great Ascension Realm would not only raise his combat power. His existing Dao Integration state could be expected to grow more stable as well, which in turn would push forward his research and study of the Spiritual Qi