I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 629: First Probe

The sturdy male wizard held the salt grains up to his nose for a sniff, then tasted them lightly with his tongue's tip. “It's plain old salt, identical to what's in this jar. Absolutely no irregularities.”

“Ah, so that's the case. I get it now,” came a gentle female voice.

This was the female wizard who had stayed quiet up to this point.

She lingered in the kitchen's shadowy corner, draped in a black cloak. Her hood concealed most of her features, exposing just a pale sliver of chin.

She specialized in curses as a wizard.

“The finger employs genetic material as its medium,” her tone was soft, but each syllable rang crystal clear in everyone's ears. “Through this link, it casts the curse directly at the soul level. The curse's nature… it's likely an ‘exchange between flesh and salt.’”

Approaching the stove, she reached out a pallid finger and softly touched the salt shaker's rim.

“Yet it's no full exchange. A complete one would transform victims into salt heaps right away, making it simple enough. But the curse's creator… or the Strange itself, craves not swift ends. It demands agony.”

“Hence the ‘incomplete exchange.’ A hazy, shaky link forms between the victim's flesh and salt. In life, the swap stays partial and undoable. Kidneys morph into salted meat yet barely keep working. Body fluids grow salty, but blood persists in circulating.”

“Upon death, the exchange flips back. Salt reverts to flesh, flesh to salt. Corpses appear pickled for that reason. The curse isn't ongoing; it's done, leaving mere remnants of the past swap.”

With her words concluded, she lifted her head. Beneath the hood emerged pale gray eyes.

“That's why no anomalies show up. The curse doesn't ride the finger; it clings to the victims' genetic material. The finger serves only as… a signal. And its signal isn't energy—it's a law-based ‘connection.’”

Silence gripped the kitchen briefly while the wizards processed the details swiftly.

The deep blue-robed middle-aged wizard drew a deep breath. “Thus, spotting the finger means its task is over. Via the genetic tie, it inscribed the curse into Hans’s family’s souls. The finger? Merely a doorbell—pressed once, worthless after.”

“Precisely,” the curse witch affirmed with a nod.

The last puzzle piece snapped into Jie Ming’s thoughts.

This explained his and the Fate Subsystem’s failure to sense anomalies in the finger: none existed.

It acted as mere vessel, holder, disposable “key.”

The real horror had infiltrated Hans’s family’s souls prior to their even laying eyes on it.

Glances passed among the wizards. Wordless, mutual comprehension shone in their eyes.

First brush with such a Strange for all, but their vast knowledge let them unravel its mechanics.

Such was high-ranking wizards’ dread power.

Unfamiliar sights might await, yet vast experiences and profound studies enabled rapid deduction of unknowns from the known.

“So the current questio—”

A piercing shriek cut off Jie Ming’s words abruptly.

“Salty! Too salty!”

Carl was the source.

Reeling from the doorway, the youth lurched into the living room's heart, hands clawing at his throat in frenzy. His face flushed a deep purple-red.

Lips quivered wildly, drool spilled from mouth corners without control. Eyes protruded, threatening to pop free.

“So salty! Water… water, please…”

Tottering to the dining table, he snatched Jie Ming’s earlier poured water cup and drained it desperately.

Relief evaded him from the water. His face contorted worse, as though the liquid itself had become brine.

“Curse activation,” the curse witch stated evenly, her pace hastening. “Finger sighted, genetic link fired. Doorbell rung by the finger—door now ajar.”

The deep blue-robed middle-aged wizard moved quickest.

“Soul Protection!”

A deep yell escaped him as hands wove seals. Silver-white light ring burst from his palms, encasing Carl.

Runes thickly etched the ring, whirling fast to purge the youth’s affliction.

The ring held steady, yet Carl’s face betrayed no clear betterment.

Pain forced him to keep dry-heaving, his hands clamped around his throat until nails pierced the flesh.

The young female wizard stepped up next.

Blood oozed from her fingertips without effort. She traced a intricate sorcery array in the air using the blood. The array whirled and soared at Carl, sticking fast to his forehead.

“Dispel Curse.” Her voice held a peculiar rhythm. “Peel off forced bindings and purge unnatural state disruptions.”

Carl's frame convulsed wildly. Gray mist lifted from his forehead—the mark of the curse getting stripped off.

The burly male wizard pitched in too.

His body modification sorcery came in handy right then. Dark green glow enveloped Carl’s form. Muscle strands bulged faintly beneath the glow, while a sturdy film formed over his skin's surface.

He bolstered Carl’s bodily resilience to prevent instant breakdown from the curse's assault.

The rest of the wizards sprang into motion as well.

Some unleashed mind-soothing spells to dull Carl’s terror and agony. Others erected shielding barriers nearby to sever the link between the curse and the finger.

Jie Ming lingered at the farthest perimeter, observing as these sixth-ring wizards unleashed their diverse techniques without haste to intervene.

Even with their spellcasting power capped at third level and the foe’s tactics appearing utterly odd, the wizards effortlessly rescued the boy.

Actually, they chose sequential actions over a mass curse purge on purpose—to weaken their spells' potency and probe key details on the curse.

One coordinated effort let these wizards seize nearly all vital intel on the curse.

Truth be told, Jie Ming lacked real expertise in curse removal… since he excelled more at tanking them directly.

Yet with the others already probing the details, he refused to just spectate idly.

His right hand delved into his storage space, retrieving a fist-sized lump of liquid refined gold.

Through Alchemy Technique, spiritual power seeped into the liquid refined gold, dismantling its core structure down to elemental particles. Next, within his mind, he forged a highly accurate “coating” template.

This mirrored the layer he had once coated himself with during initial gold refinement.

But Jie Ming’s control finesse had soared much higher now. Integration reached Carl’s skin, muscles, and cell membranes on a molecular scale.

Preserving all standard bodily processes, he erected twin defenses across physical and spiritual planes.

Once the others completed their spells, Jie Ming lifted his hand and snapped his finger.

The liquid refined gold morphed into a silver light streak, streaking accurately at Carl. Upon contact with the young man’s skin, it exploded into myriad tiny particles unseen by eyes, blanketing his whole body evenly.

To observers, Carl merely seemed to sport a faint glassy luster on his skin, like after a quick water rinse.

Yet Jie Ming understood this coating had seeped into every cell surface on Carl.

Should the Strange strike anew, this curse would get repelled with ease.

Carl’s form abruptly went rigid.

Struggling ceased from him then.

Blood-veined eyes brimming with torment gradually cleared up. Fingers at his throat eased their grip bit by bit. His chest rose and fell dramatically as he sucked in huge gulps of air.

“I…” His tone rasped, laced with the bewilderment of calamity survived. “I don’t feel salty anymore.”

Within the kitchen, wizards silently noted the fresh data gathered.

After soothing Carl briefly, a sudden realization hit Jie Ming, drawing his gaze to the earlier-open salt shaker.

“Strange. The finger hasn’t reappeared. Didn’t the intelligence say that even if it was destroyed, the finger would continue to appear?”

Jie Ming’s spiritual power scanned the salt shaker too.

Just pure white salt crystals filled the container. No intruder lurked inside.

His spiritual power stretched to encompass the full kitchen and house, yet detected zilch.

Other wizards mirrored his scan.

Soon after, all withdrew their spiritual power.

“No new emotional fluctuations detected,” the young female wizard reported.

“No new life fluctuations either,” the burly male wizard added.

“I scanned the entire town,” the curse witch’s voice emerged from under her hood. “Within a five-hundred-kilometer radius, there is no object matching the finger’s characteristics.”

“Nothing underground either.”

The wizards traded looks.

Nine wizards’ spiritual power combined could scour the region completely.

Should the finger have lingered in any nook of this town, it would never have evaded the united pursuit of nine elite wizards.

But it had merely vanished into thin air.

No—it had never resurfaced at all.

“Did it decide it couldn’t slay the final victim anymore, so it abandoned its quest? Or per the Strange’s rules, did it deem the massacre finished and thus faded away on its own?” pondered the blue-robed wizard.

Jie Ming stepped over to the salt shaker, plunged his hand inside, and lifted a tiny clump of salt crystals.

Those crystals whispered softly in his grip—powdery, parched, and utterly commonplace.

He raised the salt to his nostrils for a whiff, then barely grazed it with his tongue’s tip.

Nothing more than plain table salt.